Naomi, you can't get rid of me!

     I wonder if Ruth ever cast a tentative glance back toward the land of Moab. Did she ever question her decision to “goest where thou goest”? As resolute as her decision was to leave everything behind to go with her mother-in-law, it seems like there would be times afterward where she might have re-evaluated her choice of making this “bitter” woman her new best friend. Maybe Ruth didn’t agonize over these things too much, and maybe that is why she was worth 7 boys to Naomi. Maybe she only allowed herself to shed so many tears for her mom and pop back home, and looked straight ahead and attended to the task at hand (survival!). But even though we know her decision had the seal of God’s approval, it could not have been a stress-free environment for this tenderhearted Moabitess.

     Choices are fickled things. Are they not? When I try to draw some conclusions about them, part of me says I would like to see the result of my choices right away, as when the curtain is raised up on those glitzy game shows, and instantly the contestant knows if they are a proud owner of a new ca-arrr, or if they just got themselves a functional toaster oven. The other part of me says that it is okay that choices slowly play out. We know that in the throes of military action the results of choices are often quickly brought to light. You took a wrong turn, and now the comrade at your side has a bullet through his chest. Bad choice; now you know; the price is dear.

     Sometimes our choices demand more of us than we bargained for, and the weight lays heavily on our shoulders, such as the caretaker of a sick person on a “bad” day, or a mother who has just answered the same question for the umpteenth time, or the chain smoker next door, who, in his own ashen faced way is trying to shovel the snow out of his driveway. In all these situations, an individual might be tempted to examine the original point that brought them to that land of toil, and lament that they turned right at the fork-in-the-road instead of left.

     I am no Ruth, but I want to take a page out of her book; I want to learn from her example. I am sure the folks back in the land of Moab thought she was mad for the decision she made- thought that she was throwing away her chance to have a legacy, to have kids and a family. But what did they know? She grasped hold of the true God in that strange land that she found herself in, and thrived. We know how this story played out. How she became the ladylove of Boaz, how she became interconnected with the human chain that produced the likes of King David, and later heralded in the promised messiah. We know the decision she made to accompany Naomi was not stupid! It was not rash! It was a good, solid decision that brought blessing and transformed the lives of those closely associated with her. Naomi did not die calling herself Mara. That is something. Isn’t it? And I say, since we have such a cloud of witnesses that have gone before us, like this gal Ruth, let us run! run! run! the race marked out for us, and trust that our God brought us to Himself and this land for a reason.



New Year's Res

I thought I would slip this in before the Christmas season was entirely over, and I also thought this quotation echoed the heart of someone who knew how to make proper resolutions. Here are the words of Nate Saint:

"As we have a high old time this Christmas, may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever a chance. May we be moved with compassion as our Lord was. May we shed tears of repentance for these we have failed to bring out of darkness. Beyond the smiling scenes of Bethlehem may we see the crushing agony of Golgotha. May God give us a new vision of His will concerning the lost and our responsibility."  

Surprising Joy

I have been listening to kids’ books in my car. It makes driving around town oh so much more daring-suspenseful-surprising-intriguing! I’m questioning the grammatical stability of that last sentence, but I’ve recently heard others like it, so it must be okay.


Two of the freshly listened to audio books have been from The Series of Unfortunate Events (bks 9 & 10) by Lemony Snicket. These books are witty and cleverly written, but the whole premise behind them is that nothing ever goes right (or ends right) in the books. The three orphans, who are the main characters in the series, continually escape the evil Count Olaf by using their inventive skills, book knowledge and sharp teeth. Nevertheless, I believe I will take a sabbatical from the books- I’m just a little put off with the fact that one the orphans had her sweetheart swept away by a flooded stream… that just seems so depressing. Depressing, but I should have guessed; nothing ever goes right for those orphans.

I think Lemony Snicket’s books get something right, though. It is an underlying principle in the book series that ingenuity comes out of cataclysmic situations, and I think that’s not skewing things too much. It IS probably during the most difficult seasons in our lives that good things are produced, and perhaps even marvelous things, such as prolific literature, invention, art, and sometimes… sometimes even joy. I can think of quite a few occasions where things seemed pretty dismal in my life, but where I also experienced joy at the same time. Weird. Paradoxical isn’t it? Here are the top three personal examples that come to mind as I type this paragraph.

Story #1: When I was in Bogota, Colombia I sunburned so badly that I looked like a lobster. The package deal with this sunburn included heat stroke and a blistered scalp. When things started to heal a day or two later, my skin started peeling like mad. I was a little embarrassed about this, considering that I was in a country where a person’s presentation and appearance heavily mattered, but the job of combing all the dead skin from my hair seemed gargantuan. My friend Jess pulled me aside and painstakingly combed through my hair getting rid of the disgusting dead skin. I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant for her, probably right up there with looking through hair for lice, but she took the time to do it, and even lightened the situation by cracking jokes and making me laugh. It made me happy that I had a friend like her.

Story #2: When I had my wisdom teeth pulled out, I remember sitting on the couch, watching the movie Hot Fuzz and eating a strawberry blizzard, both kindly supplied to me by my parents. Despite looking like a chipmunk and feeling like I had just come out on the unlucky end of a bar fight, I felt very loved and taken care of.

Story #3 A week after I had knee surgery, I fell on a freshly mopped floor at a Forensics and Debate national tournament. I was sick to my stomach- having felt something rip during the fall I was pretty sure I had undone everything the doctors had meticulously accomplished with the surgery. In the ER, while awaiting an X-Ray, I remember giggling with my debate coach, Marla, as the guy in the compartment next door related to a friend how he accidently chopped off part of his finger with a lawnmower. It doesn’t sound very funny right now, but maybe you had to have been there. We also took turns drawing pictures and commenting on the wall charts while we waited. It was a physically painful time, but probably one of the best bonding times I had with that coach.

How about you? What’s your story?

Racing Toward Hope

I am not sure I would recommend the movie Apocalypto to you; even though I definitely consider it a worthwhile flick. Just to put it out there, it’s not for those easily offended by South American Birthday Suits. But if you can take that with a grain of salt, you will find an epic story of a man battling ridiculous odds to stay alive, and to keep his family members alive as well. The gauntlet the hero endures is jaw dropping- spear wounds, arrows through the chest, encounters with a mama jaguar, being stretched out on a chopping block as unfriendly Mayans anticipate non-surgically removing his heart- this all keeps the storyline moving. It seems like at every turn Jaguar Paw, the hero, should be a dead man, but right as you think all is lost, there is a twist in events, or the man himself finds some kind of hidden strength- unnatural endurance to spur him on- keeping him from giving into fear. There was too much on the line for him to give up hope. He craved and clung to it with all his might… and then some.


This thread of an idea, pushing beyond natural human limits for the sake of hope, seems to be a reoccurring theme in my thought life recently. It is everywhere. I see elements of it in the Christmas story, lingering around that One in the manger, with the delicious soft infant skin and the cry of a newborn. Strong traces of it are found throughout Christ’s ministry, culminating to a fever pitch at gethsemane, the cross, and with manic victory at the empty tomb. The crushing weight of Christ’s battles, evidenced in drops of blood on his brow, through an enemy who would not leave him alone during his darkest hours, and through the water and blood that poured out from a broken heart. Death did not just threaten to take him, but actually swept him into that dark stream. Comparing this story to the movie mentioned earlier, I suppose one of the main differences between Christ and Jaguar Paw was that Christ did not just passionately cling to hope. He was, and is hope.

Through the influence of my brother and sister-in-law I have started to listen to a group called Mumford & Sons. There is song written by M & S called The Cave. I have had my computer repeatedly play this tune to me over the last week and a half. Here are a few lines from the chorus that have stuck in my head:

But I will hold on hope
And I won't let you choke
On the noose around your neck

And I'll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I'll know my name as it's called again

I don’t know about you, but there is a lot in life that seems to be bent on sucking my hope dry. But even with the crushing weight of circumstance, and the internal battles that wage war and leave us sputtering for breath, it is vital that we hold onto hope with all that we got. All that we got… plus some.

Incarnation

"The feed trough was no afterthought. All along God has been doing His best to get next to us, humbling Himself to reach out to us. But nothing can match what happened that night in that Bethlehem cave. There a child was born among 'the sweet breath and streaming dung of beasts' and nothing is ever the same again... once [we] can never be sure where he will appear, or to what lengths he will go or what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man."   
      -Thoughts from a Dave Roper book

Twas much that man was made like God before,
But that God should be made like man- much more.           
     -John Donne

Ruined

Last week I was hanging with my family when I heard a dramatic “OH NOOOOO!” come from my 4 year old nephew. I asked him what was wrong, and he feverishly explained “I got snot on my shirt, AND IT USED TO BE MY FAVORITE SHIRT TOO!!!” I looked at the patch on his shirt; casualty of an explosive sneeze. I laughed inside as I wet a paper napkin and dabbed the beloved shirt a few times. The piece of clothing, I believe, was salvageable.


The situation was a little funny, but at the same time, I can empathize with those same kind of panicked feelings. They can pop up unassumingly, catching you off guard during moments of weakness. Sometimes, I will be painting a picture, and the brush will glob on the wrong shade of blue, or accidently smear a crisp line that I had genuinely liked before it was “Ruined”. And I’ll be thinking “AHHHGGH, the whole painting is ruined!” “I’m not an artist; I’m a fake!” “I can’t paint!” So on, and so forth. If you could hear my screaming thoughts at these times, you’d say “pathetic”. Really.

Or sometimes I will get that same panicked feeling when a glass slips out of my hand because I was thinking about other things. By the time I hear the glass shattering I know there is no gluing that thing back together. Ruined. Broken. At least with the painting there was some hope, but this…

Sometimes I wonder if God chuckles at my drama. When I take the time to consider my life, words like “ruined” come all too quickly to my lips. Upsets and mistakes can make a life look unattractive, but life is not ruined no matter how bad it gets. God in his mercy can wash what we claim to be indelible ink. In addition, He gives us new mornings to work with. “Try again” He tells us... and we should.

Listless No More

Here are some of my favorite things, in no particular order:



Bagpipes and snare drums… played outside

Grasshopper cookies made by Keebler. They’re like Girl Scout Thin Mints, but not.

The effect of paint on canvas. Sometimes it does its own thing, and I’m okay with that.

Bubble baths. The type where the bubbles are mighty enough to form a bubble beard… and bubble eyebrows.

*

Tea. Especially on the days I feel cold and shivery.

A musical instrument in the hands of someone who knows how to play well. They don’t have to be a virtuoso necessarily, but someone who plays with heart and skill.

Applepie- homemade, just out of the oven, but cooled off slightly. A little cinnamon… not too much.

Movies that make me laugh, think, or that put some effort into unraveling a good story.

Penguins and Monkeys. Need I say more?

Travel- roadtrips, oversea trips, field trips, DQ trips

Walks- brisk, but slow enough you have time to think, pray or talk

Rollerblading

Super hero movies- Spiderman, X-man, Batman

Well written books

Current favorite color: Emerald. Runner up: Violet. Third favorite color: Bright Orange.

*I was going to put people on the list, but I think that would be kind of a polemic thing to do, because people technically are not “things”… they are… well, people.