worship.

We watched her fade. And it wasn’t for one second what we wanted. Somehow there were reconciled thoughts all around the room though. ‘Till the last is defiance—why must things be as they are? But with it can come some strange acceptance—well, they just are so.

It is a rainy Christmas and we figure, at least it’s still warm enough to rain. No matter cloudy skies and gloom. There are always a few different ways of looking at circumstances. I don’t want the bitter taste any more than you, but I do want to walk away uncrippled. If we lean on each other a little here a little there, we’ll put the crutches out of business and be ready to give a hand to others soon. Theoretically at least.

Asking why is okay. Perhaps even healthy. Our fists were made to shake to the rhythm of what is right. “Let justice roll down like water,”[1] declared the Lord through the ancient prophet. And may it roll down, down, down.

Then again, think how it would sweep us all away. Not one of us would be left standing with stone in hand. Throw first, ye sinless. The world trembles at the thud of all condemnations dropping to the ground.

Just look at the evil here. Evil in us. It’s not so much a wonder bad happens; it’s more a wonder good does.

The best we see to do is take longer to sip the coffee, love deeper each chance we get, praise the Lord for life every dark or well-lit day. Follow His footprints as clear as you can track them. Reconcile thoughts with this—

Hands lift wood to hilltop as stones and water roll down over innocence instead. So come and worship. Come.

---

[1] Amos 5:24

bring lazarus back.

The preacher stood and told us stories about the ones that had fallen away. He told it broken, as he felt. But he did not leave us without an explanation.

“They just couldn’t,” he paused. It was hard. He looked right at our souls, “they couldn’t reconcile their pain with who Jesus is.”*

Neither can we.

The Father turns His face away, and how deep we don’t feel Him. Or His love for us.

We meander out the doors, leaving as soon as it is not obvious that we want to. And it is not that we don’t daily seek Him. It is that in knowing more, we aren’t necessarily awed. Driving through hills and city, there is beauty. We are not blind to it, for we rose when He called, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead.” (Eph. 5:14 AMPC)

Yet we are living as this—“O wretched man that I am!”(Rom. 7:24 NKJV)—a flock of chief sinners who get a lot farther along than a lot of others, but it doesn’t eradicate guilt. And we understand He sacrificed for that. For us. Thanks.

Mostly it is impossible to love Him the height and depth we want to. I won’t admit it if you don’t, but it is for a lot of the classic reasons. Primarily, He could have rescued in places that are now dead. We wail, like Mary, “Lord, if You had been there…” Does He groan for us? Would the Jews say, “See how He loved…” while looking upon His face looking upon our sorrow? Because He isn’t bringing Lazarus back (John 11:32-27 NKJV). And we know it is wrong, but we demand “rights.” Of which we have none. Thanks.

Who are You, Jesus?

The problem is memory—being so happy. If we hadn’t been so happy, we wouldn’t be so miserable now. We should say thanks and mean it, but the prince of the power of the air has some kind of a nasty hold on our thoughts. We want to sleep. Want to stop thinking how happy we were. We are okay and we get things done and then someone mentions something or we view memory, like pictures near unbelievable, and we ache and we cry and we hate once more. We read about gifts, all the things we do not see nor express gratitude for. Would we mean it if we did? We serve the Church again, again, and think, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7 NKJV). But we do not muster cheer, and so we wonder if He does not love us.

Do You love us?

We are sure there is fullness of joy in this life with Him somehow. Or at least in the hope of the life to come. We drink tea and read more and long for purpose. A friend sends a verse: “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” (John 16:24) We have been begging Him—give Lazarus back! But what does it mean to ask in His name? Is it to say, “in the name of Yourself, O mighty Jesus Christ, please… return, restore, rebuild”? He gave so generously and beautifully before—we are sorry not to have thanked more—that all other giving looks sad next to it now.

We want nothing else but what we want. We try to forget that because it sounds and feels and is pathetic. But we remember and we scream, “WHY?” a thousand times in our heads.

How do we ask in Your name? How? Do You hate us yet? We hate ourselves.

We try pretending we just want… in general, and that is why we are lonely. But we dress up for the party and smile and detest everyone there. This is not it. Must be sinful, or sacrilegious, because we feel ashamed to think so, but we question Him ending that which brought Him glory. Because it did, didn’t it? Please, awaken Lazarus.

If what we ask for is wrong [is it?], then what do we ask for in Your name?

He gave salvation. Though, wretches that we are, we don’t deserve it. What else shall we ask for? People say we should know Him more. His word speaks of increasing our knowledge of Him.

But we smell the absent spices, and You must be a God that hates us. We feel the heat of those days and hear the heartbeat we had, and You are a God that toys with our feelings. The lost beautiful speaks up, and You are a God that breaks our hearts.

What should we ask for? Have we not blasphemed Your name yet? Are we doomed to hell?

No. Because we love Him. Still. Most. Lazarus or not. We recognize that He can withhold the rain, He can use sorrow to speak. May we not hear Him say, “Yet they have not returned to Me” (Amos 4:7-8 NKJV). And You are a God that wants us. When we praise, when we do nothing, when we call out among the scoffers. Shame, hear your mocking voice. But grace, hear what saves. It is not, now, 

in the raising of the dead, it is in the making of all things new.

Make all things new? Please. It would reconcile the pain with who You are, wouldn’t it, Jesus?

Questions answer questions. Though comfort isn’t so much in asking, as in having someone to ask. And You are a God that is here.

So we go back to listen to the preacher, knowing the small distance between us and those that have fallen away. As we listen, it is good, because that is what He is, and that is what He will make us.

“It will not, it will never be enough
Just to know about You, Jesus, but never call You my own …

Draw to me, Jesus.
I’ve made my heart a home.”(Home - Bethel Music)

*Matt Rose

all things.

You got going before any of us could say a word. Not a terrible thing, by any means, but a little preparation is usually of some value. If at no other time than when we look back and miss it. Easier to say, “I did all that I could” when we know it is true. But since when is peace in the efforts? Heaven help us if it is.

There was once a woman who had five husbands. Impressive. In the sort of way that we don’t really want to be ourselves. She was thirsty. Sometimes in the getting, we believe we need more, I suppose. He asked her for water and she asked Him who on earth He was. She had heard One would come to tell them all things. He told her, “I who speak to you am He.” There is a knowing that cannot be returned from. And when she went running off without her empty waterpot, she cried, “Come, see a Man who told me all things…” There is a finding that saves us from lostness. What a gift, to be able to trade in empty pots for such saving. Never to thirst again. [1]

You didn’t figure you’d be here now. I know. But it is good. Say it, until you believe it.

The nice thing is that the dawn comes whether we are ready for it or not, and whether it feels nice or not, it just happens, and we can depend on it. Steadfastness, a quality so rarely found in any of us, is all around in the things we don’t control. And there is great gratitude to be had for that.

We cannot tell you, disheartened one, where you will end up. So sorry. But that absence of certainty is your very hope. He who tells all things would have you come. Bring the waterpot if you want—we all know it’s empty—but leave it there when you return. You won’t want it by the end.

If you wrap your arms around yourself it feels a little like someone is holding you. Almost. Not sure if that is nice, or lonely. But it is true. And maybe it is up to us how much comfort we get from it. There is, if we’ll admit it, an ongoing tug-of-war in our minds, and even in our hearts. Who will win? You or you? Losing is okay as well. Just so long as you know the fight is happening, strength needs to be exerted in it, and lessons learned from it. Don’t walk away ignorant.

Run. Knowing that you know someone who knows all things.

---

[1] John 4:1-29

so this is christmas.

“So this is Christmas.”[1] So it is. And we can laugh about the rushing, slide comfortably into the busy. Because.

Lights slapped up all over the places we didn’t even know were dark before—‘tis the season. Season for warm drinks on the inside, warm scarves on the out, and every manner of thought on the in-between. To feel overwhelmed? Or thankful? To feel at all? Yes, please. Even if it has a sour taste in it, feel. How could we not, with magic strung onto trees and love wrapped into gifts and joy to the world? Feel.

“What have you done?”[2] Well, what have you? After another year (always faster than the last). Made friends? Enemies? Accomplished goals? Unavoidable tasks? Lived alive at all, perhaps? Some breathing, some interacting, and a lot of work. Good, good.

So this is Christmas? And little children dance in onesies to rip into tangible love. How we love them, loved being them. Not so very long ago. Rejoice, rejoice. Like angels to shepherds, filling skies with glory and peace.[3] Always a favorite, those watchers of the flock by night. Maybe because they were living, working. The night shift no less. And grace, in the best sort of explosion, just interrupted the mundane. Like that sensation during a fire drill—something out of the ordinary, praise God!—but loads better.

It is forever, you know. The peace. And ‘tis the season to feel all calm, all bright, in remembering it. This is Christmas. It is life too. So it is. May we be merry.

---

[1] Happy Xmas (War is Over), 1971, Yoko Ono & John Lennon

[2] Ibid.

[3] Luke 2:8-15

let it be.

“For the Lord does not cast off forever. Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” –Lamentations 3:31-33

There are not many words. Just a loud sort of silence that hurts to hear. We prefer it to noise, but we still scream things inside. Or we did… how we hated pain and suffering before we faced it. Near defiant anger raged throughout the approaching hours.

But then we saw and felt, and ignorance ran like a rabbit to its hole. We knew then, we are unarmed and will break.

Strength feels more a theory than anything. Weakness, though so unattractively unhelpful on our faces, is what our selfishness needs. Or maybe our bare souls require. To let heart-rain run down from eyes to hands to shame and admit—I won’t be brave here.

And maybe that is okay?

I turn this idea around in my swollen brain. Are we allowed to tremble? Particularly when it is not followed by notable courage? They say we are; “It is okay” is a common theme here. But “okay” is not the “it” before us now. And I falter in every way I hate to. God help me, I want to help. I want to walk away from this with a sliver of dignity, or at least a sense of usefulness. I get neither. Because it is not, especially now, about me… not in any way.

Funny, how in our eagerness to help, to comfort, to be strong for others, we can still be selfish.

Let it be.

That is what the faint voice of Wisdom taught in those moments. And how hard a thing—to just feel and show it. To let tasks and words be. To love simply, truthfully, even in the end, when under pressure to say and do grandiosely.

No, grieving one, let it be.

We love superfluously, it seems, when love threatens to deny us. When it says cruelly, “What you love won’t be here long.” We fling our hearts before it in passions brought on by fear and possessiveness.

Let it be.

Be quiet, instead. And for the sake of He who came before and gave us love, cry. This is the strength, if you can manage to bear it, that you are called to.

“And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom… I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.”[1]

Can we say, “we look heavenward”, rather than, “we are strong”?

Is it us, or Christ, we know best in these seemingly endless minutes of shaking and sobbing? Perhaps our weakness is a way, even if we hate it, to learn His heart more intimately.

I see a Shepherd that cries, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful…”[2] A Man and Lord who walked amongst all those of weakness. Who saw loved ones weeping and “groaned in the spirit and was troubled.”[3] A Savior who cried to His people, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings...!”[4] A God who wept, “saying, ‘If you had known… the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.’”[5]

He is here. In sorrow. With us.

It is His assurance we cling to in this—what is so hard before us—“You will weep and lament… but your sorrow will be turned to joy… I will see you again and your heart will rejoice,” and then, oh grieving ones, “your joy no one will take from you.”[6]

Let it be.

---

[1] 1 Corinthians 2:1&3

[2] Matthew 26:38

[3] John 11:33

[4] Matthew 23:37

[5] Luke 19:41-42

[6] John 16:20&22

"do not go gentle."

“Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

                  -Dylan Thomas

It is time to fight. The little goslings are clearly intimidated by the unknown waters before them, but they venture out upon the lake regardless. I did not want this work, not in the way it came, but I am assigned to the horrid tasks before me anyway. Fainting is not in my blood. So I will be strong to the last.

And they explore new worlds of glories and waves—uncertainty turns into bubbles about them, for they have stepped out. They now know. We can all know, if we are brave. That point when you look down and find—I am no longer afraid as I once was.

When they ask you, “can you climb this?” and, “can you run through that?”, you will think, “no”, but say, “yes.” Don’t worry about succeeding. Focus on trying. We are only as courageous as we are. Well, how much is that?—well, don’t ask, just imagine daring beyond imagination. And when the light dies, you can rage against it.

Blood determines nothing. But tell yourself it does—that you are descended from Scottish Chieftains. It will boil you up for battle. Just remember, battles are often fought in suffocating rooms at keyboards and dish sinks, under instruction and impossible demands. Remember to press on, even when the victory cannot be yours. And when you breathe free air at the end of long days, let your heart go wild with war cries.

The little birds will grow fast and lakes will be but a stop on their journey home.

Rage on.

up on a mountain.

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Photo credit: author.

"It is because they have so much to give and give it so lavishly... that men love the mountains and go back to them again and again." -Francis Younghusband

The mountains get into you. Down in your deepness. Can’t get them out. Got to get out to them. Oh, how big. Oh, how high. There is no resisting. There is only dreaming of days on the heights, and some reality of it, if you are persistent.

There can be adventure anywhere. There can be up-high, epic adventure, only in the mountains. How inexplicable. Yet you know, you ache for it.

There is a smell of pines, there is a taste of freshness, there is a feeling—how glorious it is!—of freedom. And you will run after it, if you are brave, and maybe careless. Once you are there, soak it up for me. Lay in the grass up high, where hundreds of elk run and skies have no man-made picture frame. Look at it, every bit of it, and then look again. You turn and turn and it is all somehow endless. Feel small. It is good for the soul.

That tired-feet, burnt-face sensation is a token of accomplishment. And the downhill will be fine. But now, you are in heaven’s foothills. You will sit and be blown wild by wind, and think how you could never leave. Not if someone dragged you. And you want to dote on an artist, because a maker of this—he must be thanked silly and then some. But you can’t come up with words that are good enough, nor a gift near equal to what you have from him.

Isaac Watts said it in an old hymn—“Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small.”

Far too small. And there is some perspective. Don’t lose it when you go back down. But I won’t make you leave. Stay in the clouds for a while if you like.

ready.

"At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready.” –Annie Dillard

The trail did not have her full attention. Work had a way of bugging her brain before and after hours. Was it not enough, she wondered, that they got her mind during? But she hated those ad-like phrases, encouraging outdoor-lovers to “leave life behind” and come adventure. Irresponsibility. That is what they were selling.

No, she thought, she had a job. She had to keep at it. Surely there was life that gave fresh-air freedom too. Maybe she needed to work for it. Most good things, you do.

When spring came she was ready. Boots unlaced at the door and hair braided for the hike. If the frogs were singing, she would be out there listening. If only she could leak out the other thoughts. If only the frogs were her only sound in those minutes.

And mountains never seemed so far as they did this time of year. Birds were the envy of her heart—to have wings, to go flapping into landscapes that made Hallmark cards cry. As a little girl she ran after them yelling, “don’t leave me behind!” As a woman she looked long and tried not to think the same thing.

She thought it.

Some do not hear the hills sing or streams whisper. Some hear but don’t have time to listen better. Some do though.

She would be one of the last some. Oh yes. Sure enough she’d work. But she’d work for the chance to listen—that was her decision. She’d work for time. Time to taste wind and to expedition. For the love of it, not the glory. Please.

And she would learn to silence the other sounds. She must.

The trail asked for more attention, for her own good. The trees agreed—let go. This was her finest adventure at present, if she could just enjoy it. She should be prepared, she mused, to revel in any quest before her—for life, it is now—and live ready to love it.

an ode to march.

There is something inviting about March. The warmth and the spring peepers, on a good year, tell us to sit still. Or run softly, if we must run. Listening is essential. Taking in, irresistible.

Geese float proudly across the lake and the dog ignores nature’s decree for silence. Now he startles the birds to the sky. Could it be endless—this peace? Not for the geese, I suppose. But if only it could remain still for us. I will it to be endless.

There is something in the smell of March that brings back childhood. I wrote then too. The worst sort of poems. But I imagine the trees appreciated the amateur effort I made on their behalf. No, on another thought, not even the kindness of trees could approve such misplaced words. Oh well. At least I tried.

I had all the intention of being accomplished, and none of the discipline for it.

We like the flowers best. But they have not come yet. The waiting is good too. And maybe the peace will last. There is always that chance.

Our wills play little, or no, role in the progressions of the world. But I find it builds stamina to will things, nonetheless. I am sure the geese appreciate my efforts.

There is something promising about March. Feels as though we could start over here.

Perhaps it will be endless.

fool.

We don’t listen to fools. They are ever so wrong about anything. And when we have them for tea it is not to be kind, it is to share in a good laugh once they’ve gone. Foolish people are, after all, so easy to have a laugh about. We hear them, we laugh. We don’t listen.

But the nasty bit is when they see us laugh, when they know we don’t consider them seriously. Dreadful to see their faces as their brains understand—we do not count them as one of us. They are on the silly level, they are a notch below. We hear and hear and hear. But hearing is nothing. When a Queen speaks we listen. For a Queen cannot be a fool. And listening is easily gotten out of us at the word of Queens. But fools, why, we could not listen to them unless we made a great effort. And great efforts are not to be made for fools.

Before you judge us, have a thought for the logic here. It is rarely rewarding to speak intelligently and listeningly to a fool. They talk nonsense and of course they haven’t a thing in common with us—that is the foolish part of them, see. To hear, looking near their faces and nodding, or saying “yes” here and “mhhmm” there, it is a chore! Chore enough for us. They do not appreciate the work we put into it, nor do they say anything worth hearing. So why listen?

If we listened we would have to care. Listening cannot be faked as hearing can. To listen we would have to say, “Forget their oddities and awkwardness, their way of saying things out of place.” Eyes would meet eyes. To listen we would have to accept and appreciate authentically. We would have to want to know. Not pretend to smile at them as they talk too much, so we can impress the people we hope smile at us. Don’t you see the bother of it all?

Before you agree, have another thought. I am more likely wrong about everything than I am right about anything.

And I am a fool. So are you.

We are all a fool to someone.

what i make it.

I said I could do it. And I think I believed it too.

This moment is for classical music and a gulp of coffee.

Yes, after that pause, I am sure, I believed wrongly. Very much so. But isn’t that the way when we don’t know the routines and every little detail is difficult, just from the newness of it? Transitions are a terror. All that changing and feeling uncomfortably shoved into a mold that is not your comfort zone. There are surely those that enjoy this; thrive in it even. But I am not one of them, those changeful gurus.

No, no, I am best off here, drinking deep and wondering at the way all the trees seem to lean eastward. Or is it south? They appear eager for something and I am inclined to agree with them.

But she told me something today—a lady I labored alongside—“It is what you make it.” I presume she is not the first to think of such a brilliantly contented option, but she was the right soul to remind me. It is, I know it, I know it, what I make it.

There isn’t much sunlight left to see today, but I will be seeing with it for hours yet. I will carry a handful of it with me into the night and thank the trees for a lesson in leaning. It’s not always about loving where you are; it is always about loving whoever surrounds you. And if it gets me a little closer to the sun, I will lean too.

I pretend to still believe I can do it. That way I’ll survive. And when surviving feels less than enough, I’ll make it glorious. It is, after all, what I make it.

age.

There is a symphony in their faces—something delicate I suppose. But I prefer to say seasoned, or even weather-beaten. Not weak for the sake of it, weak for the many past years of strength. They have faced it, nearly the entirety of it, and we are pawns next to their knowledge. Life. They know the ins and outs, the troubles we believe shall never come to us and the victories we cannot yet recognize. We label them, “old people” and they call us “young hooligans.” But when the generations collide peacefully there is a depth of wisdom to be had.

There is something careless in their mannerisms. A way of living quite alien to myself. They do not bother about others’ estimations, they bother about the day. It is not, “what shall the world think of me this year?” it is, “what shall I be able to do today?” Certainly not all with age have such an ease, but certainly few without the age do.

I suspect it is odd of me, to want to share in their sentiments. I do. I want to feel less about how others see me, and I want to feel more in the victory of this day. Sip my coffee, elated at my taste buds, and walk under trees, awed. Proud to have the dishes washed. I can only wish to have a small piece of the wisdom that graces them; I wish.

I cannot yet speak as they do, saying whatever sentences I please, unabated. When such a young one does this, the mouths drop about the room and there is that awful sense that all was much better prior to one’s talking. When a seasoned one does this, everyone smiles politely and laughs about it later. “Oh to be old,” they say, “how it dulls the social queues and sensitivities.” Well, I like to think it is not a dullness to the unspoken rules, but a somewhat noble disregard for them, that prompts their unrestraint. “We have lived,” they cry through dentures, “and shall not pretend to be perfect as we once did.”

Hear, hear.

We young are a foolish lot, but it is the weather-beaten that best see our folly. They do sometimes judge us for it and we do always judge them for judging us. Silly.

If I could give a gift to us foolish, it would be this: That we might live joyfully accepting, “someday that worn one will be me,” and so we change.

foxes in the snow.

Tried to eat snow. But it was too fluffy and floated away from my reaching tongue. All this shuffling through flurries, wears me out in the good sort of way. Then it is the rushing as sled hits hill and I am sky-bound for a glorious collage of moments. I’m in a wonderland, if only for the last hour of daylight. And oh, the day this is now—so different from the one I awoke to. So much whiter and livable. Maybe hopeful.

After supper it is declared a time for development of art and intellect. Pens, pencils, books, paper. If only the little brother would stop jumping. But I would miss it if he did stop. Jump away. I will intellect on.

Of a sudden, he jumps and I see snow again. Curtsy and twirl. A dance of flurry fairies—all the forest has come to see. Little foxes prance with frost on their noses and tails. Between trees and across a frozen lake. We shouldn’t be able to see each other but for the oddest of unknowns, we do. A royal witnessing of wonder. I am not a queen though. I am a baffled bystander. Too often we make ourselves queens. I will be careful not to.

Just watch. And say thank you.

They smile—the intellectuals now—at their work on paper. And I look to mine; a grin of anticipation starts to crawl up my cheeks. But no good. It is empty.

Doesn’t seem to matter how greatly I think, there is no way of saying it. That’s that. So I must choose from these: speak and bewilder? Or just stick to thoughts, that I might appear correctly put-together? The choice is made, for this night at least. Don’t be so silly as to ask. There are words here.

cattail ventures.

We talk big. But we do, and we feel small. So small, and cold down to our bones. The wild is never so kind to us as we assume it will be amidst our anticipations. But we fight and carve out some enjoyment regardless.

We wilderness seekers, we think we know how to find our dreams. Then we get knee-deep into the looking and figure out we may not be content until after we have gotten passed what we hoped to get to.

The campsite is excellence, except for the thorn thickets which require hours of clearing. The hike is good, except for the endless hills and too-small shoes.

We argue and laugh, argue and laugh. Soon we short-cut and pretend we don’t care that we are “cheating.” But hot tea awaits us at the halfway point and we can’t believe how big the lake is there.

It is evident, on the getting there, that the map should be studied and a different course taken on the homeward journey. In the midst of tea and decisions we spill a quarter pound of sugar. Something for the forest folk to remember us by.

Go back by the frozen marshes—it is decided.

Cattails break dryly before our feet and their fluffy heads coat us in pollen. We laugh more and argue less. But we hurry. Our highway of ice starts to melt. Irony is a regular comrade on these ventures. We want it cold now, but as we shivered in our sleeping bags only hours ago, warmth was all we dreamed of.

We make it out, we make it home. And there we lie, exhausted. It is not that we aren’t glad we adventured, just that we need a bit of time before we are eager to do it again. One night should do.