Holy

The piano began to play and everyone stood. Middle-ranged notes told the story and all gathered there knew this song was for them. And the song beheld all; the utter wretchedness, the tears, the first glimpse of the Lover, the traveled way. The notes mingled and ran together and light streamed through the branches overhead. There were no walls around the piano and the people gathered, because it wasn't about the walls at all, but faces. And they all stood in a circle around a tree, waiting.

The music began to build in the most quiet and full way as the notes climbed further up the scale as if they were traveling as water does, rippling over the rocks after the cascade of a waterfall.

Gently, someone across the circle took hold of the person's hand next to them. Standing on soft mossy ground, hands reached out and connected. Connected, the circle complete, and the piano player kept building the quiet climax of the noted melody.

Then it happened. It started quiet with the music and a word formed on the lips gathered around to make the song whole. A few strong voices whispered the word while it took others moments to form as the fullness of such a love penetrated them. All joined in and began to express the overflowing of their souls,

"Holy, holy... Holy, holy."

Oh! It was breathtaking to behold the sound of such a verse being sung by humans. You see, the gathering included everyone. Everyone; the faithful father and mother, the light-filled daughter, the generations of the deceived, and the wild, searching man whose light had not yet been lit again. All had the potential of light. All broken, all connected. All singing, "Holy."

The music changed slightly and rang with anticipation as eyes searched the rough texture of the tree in front of them. Its roots rippled out like waves, laying the foundation for growth. Strong, secure, firm. Tatooed with the mistakes of the gathered, the tree bore them all.

Then the expected happened and everyone waiting stood tall and singing louder than before the words of the One who was set apart. A man with dark hair broke through the circle bearing an ax in his right hand. Walking boldly up to the tree without hesitation, he raised the ax above his head, took aim, and cut deep into that etched tree.

The tree began to sway and bend with the sound of sorrow as the wood creaked and broke with the final swings of the ax. The man with the dark hair bent down and tied a rope to the base of the scarred trunk. Standing, he pulled the slack over his shoulder and began to walk toward the perimeter of those gathered there. Dragging the broken tree behind him and with the weight of much on his shoulder, he said, "It is finished."

The gathered stood close together and watched, knowing this was not the end, but a beginning. Their wedding day was coming and the Lover would be among them again to close up the circle of the broken and make it whole. And the roots of the great tree would be there, laying the foundation for new growth. This is the hope of the people who sing, "Holy."

*I wrote this after hearing the song, "Holy (Wedding Day)" by The City Harmonic. "Holy" in Hebrew means "to be set apart for a special purpose."

God's Blog

Addicted, captivated, and distracted! These words describe my behavior when reading. Currently, I am in the middle of three books...well, actually four. Bottom line: I love to read a written word and the journey to understand another being through those words.

Since being abroad, I have savored reading other people's blog entries. Minutes ago, I was staring at my computer screen wondering which blog I would read next, when I glanced across my white metal desktop at the new copy of the RSV of The Green Bible which was given to me by a friend today. Then I heard it, "There you go: you've got God's blog right there."

In a culture that derives its satisfaction on  instant communication we are an impatient people. Once in Bangladesh, while waiting for our bus to leave the station, the "schedule" changed a counted four times that day, resulting in us leaving 12 hours later than our expected time of departure (Well, expected by mostly me). As these changes kept happening through out the day, I leaned over to my Bangali friend and said, "I think Bangladesh is teaching me patience."

And my friend in turn said, "Yes, you Americans want everything now. It doesn't work that way here."

Hmm...impatience. I'm in the middle of four books, because I am too impatient to stick with just one story-line. I prefer the variety. Much like my times of prayer and worship; I want to feel God and I want to feel Him now. And there is value in the desire. We were created this way. Yet, in my life the least read book of my chosen four is the Bible. So, am I the one missing the point? And is it all about feeling, anyway?

Reading blogs intrigue me, because people are laying their thoughts out in the wide-open and if they are really okay with the "wide-open" business then it can get quite interesting and very compelling to experience those words. Tonight, I picked up a Jesus-follower's words and my eyes instantly found this title: The Purpose of This Book.

Good, I thought, now we are getting somewhere!

"Now Jesus did many signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may [continue to believe] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name." (John 20:30,31)

"God is here whether we feel him or not." This was said by a close friend of mine and it turned my thoughts toward faith. Faith is deeper than feeling. Faith is searching what we know to be true and grasping hold of it to live. To live! And mercy isn't about us being prime candidates of a love campaign. Grace is about Jesus being here no matter the feeling. Immanuel: God with us.

All I Keep

Breathe deep and full.
I'm feeling the air come and go
feeling my chest rise and slow.
And I've got it.
I've got the time to be.
You've got it too
if you just stop and breathe.
Breathe deep, breathe full.
Taking a walk outside to see the moon whole.
And then
it all stills...

The world stops from time to time,

but have I the time to watch the world stop?
I do,
but I choose to walk more often than not.
The message is in the eyes of the stars
as they rhythmically twinkle:
Breathe deep, breathe full.
So, I fill that space behind my heart with air
and empty it as a kind of prayer
for who am I to breathe deep of love
and not have fear of a God
who binds and forms the mud that framed my lungs.
The air floats between these cheeks
and I savor the raw delight for He is all I keep.
For I am a creature of dust
a manifestation
of  breath.

Fullness

Content.
No, there's more.
Loved. Ahhh.
How did this fullness work its way in?
Stunningly unexpected, but oh so accepted.
At least I do now.
Oh how Someone could fill the soul
and see beauty despite the vines wrapped tight.
It's a puzzle to see Him write it in the dust,
but now the dust has been wiped away
and He doesn't see the puzzle,
but understands how we do.
I still see a mess and some brokenness.
Fingers touch my closed eyes as He smears this watered-dust over
and says, "Wash."
Washing I remember the touch
and I feel
loved.

An Advocate for Love

Sometimes all that is needed is a cup of tea, a pencil, and words on beautiful paper around to feel full. There's some tea in a tinted jar inches away and an open cup warming my cheeks with its steam. Quiet moments stolen, given, lived in become awakenings. And they happen as often as the time we give to them.

"And this is the real and eternal life: That they know you, the one and only true God...Father, I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am...so that your love for me might be in them exactly as I am in them." John 17:3,24,26

An Advocate has come forth from the dust for the dust-filled. This is it! This is when our dusty selves are validated! Value is restored in our advocate wanting to be with us, in us, for us. A love perfect in being. The Advocate of dust pleading for his perfect love received to be given. Stop, rest, run it over in your head a few times: "...so that your love for me might be in them..." Oh, how He loves us!

It was dark and the bench I sat on was long. Candles flickered on stage and acoustic music resonated in the darkness of the ceiling far above my head. Hundreds of other voices filled the space in song to the Creator and for a few moments my voice did not join in. I was captivated unlike the other hundred times I had sung this song. And the song hit the bridge and the phrase, "Oh, how He loves us", was written over and over on the screen above and suddenly I knew: He didn't have to love me. There was no reason for Him to do so as Romans 5:8 says,

"We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him."

But, the most beautiful thing is He does. love. us. And a gaping smile lifted the corners of my face and I felt loved! We are special! We are advocated for! Excitement filled me to the brim as I turned with deep humbleness filling my soul and  great enthusiasm to my friend sitting next to me and said in the midst of the song, "He. loves. us! He. loves. us!"

You are loved. You are advocated for. And you are accepted. No strings attached! Revel in it and be full!

Life-Giving Monuments

Trees are monuments of intentional creation and beauty. Tilting my head back and soaking in the color, texture, and shape of such a creation through my mixed brown eyes has been a more astonishing experience lately. Existing in another part of the world can mean a change in climate where tree varieties are much different. Except for the Jasmine bush in the corner of the campus at Bangla Hope, Bangladesh was full of exotic varieties: banana, coconut, mango, papaya, mahogany, and many shade trees which were almost always covered in a layer of dust.

Coming home to the lush Pacific Northwest I am captivated by the juxtaposing in my mind between my two homes and their native greenery. Standing on a steep hillside in Washington at the foot of a wide jagged wall of rough rock I turned South and drank deep of nature.

A carpet of fingered ferns bowed in reverence to the majestic splendor of the uniformed fir trees as they stood guard on the hillside against the white-capped waters of the broad Columbia River. A beautiful spray of sunlight speckled the bowed foliage through the thick branches above.

Trees are life-giving! They are an intentional creations of service! All of creation is breathing out carbon dioxide and trees are soaking it in and giving us life in oxygen. Life-giving monuments to the
Creator who takes our bad and breathes life into the lowest of places.

 "There was no doubt which was more like Love Himself. Divine Love is Gift-love. The Father gives all He is to the Son. The Son gives Himself back to the Father, and gives Himself to the world, and for the world to the Father, and thus gives the world (in Himself) back to the Father too."

 (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves) 

And the tree stands strong and firm pointing up, always up reminding all of creation where beauty had its start and where Love reigns.

May I drink in nature as an act of worship to the One who gives life and may I in turn be a creation of intentional growth towards Jesus, pointing to Jesus, always up.

Brown-Cheeked Wonders

Here I sit in my carpeted room, but most of the time I'm still there where tile covers everything and dust longs for water and where little brown fingers cling to my arms and wrists. I remember the feeling of my visionary wheels turning in my brain, searching every corner for a glimpse of sound choice, but there was none than the one in front of me. My standard 30-day visa application had been declined and in it's place I sat holding my passport, opening and closing it again and reading over and over their response: an exit visa. Four days to be on a plane headed anywhere but where I was sitting.

And oh I heard it! It was difficult to define between the flurry of thoughts swirling in my head, but I heard it and it was the same response I heard when I had decided to even come to where little hands grasped mine: "Go and I will teach." And all of a sudden the flurrying stopped and peace reigned and I knew definitively the journey I had to take. So, I stood with a strength and muscle I knew not of my own, but of Someone and I walked. And the hope of Heaven never looked so beautiful.

Kissing each of the 128 brown-cheeked wonders sweet dreams as I walked away from this dreamland I had lived in and hoped with all of my heart that Love was the lasting impression left and not just the tears dripped behind. This dreamland of struggle, heart ache, and raw beauty.

Lifting my head I look forward and walk and a renewed hope of Heaven lives within, a longing to be with brown-cheeked children and a Father who knows no condition of love.