Passover is coming!

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about."

-G.K Chesterton, friend and contemporary of C.S. Lewis, in his book Orthodoxy

I love the tradition of a passover meal. I love how the symbols are so chock-full of God-things. We have held a Seder meal anually for a few years now. We also celebrate a fairly traditional Protestant Easter, too, with new Easter outfits, Easter baskets, and an egg hunt. As I was thinking over our various tradition, it occurred to me that our passover meal -with all its rememberances- on Thursday or Friday was utterly disconnected from the celebration and brightness of Easter morning. If the traditions are so compartmentalized in my reasoning, adult brain I can only assume that my children will suffer the same dis-connect. I was sharing this thought with a dear friend the other day and she offered this wonderful idea that I cannot wait to implement this year:

Our Seder meal, representing both the deliverance from Egypt and our deliverance from sin, also puts us in mind of Jesus celebrating His last passover before the crucifixtion. So we (in a mind of grace, not requiring exact days to match) will celebrate our Seder this year on Friday evening. Saturday, we are going to wear mourning clothes. As black and plain as I can find.

The followers of Jesus were grieving. Their hope of a Messiah was lying dead in a tomb, only a shadowy promise left. Would Jesus really rise from the grave? They were grieving, questioning their faith, scattered and dis-heartened. I want to remember. It was the darkness before the dawn, and I want my children to know. Pain and blackness. Clothes plain and black.

And this will then be the setting from which we wake Sunday morning to the glory of the resurrection: the brightly colored Easter dresses and ties, colored eggs and the SWEETNESS of His life.

Em-PHA-sizing the Wrong Syl-LA-ble

Had I read Ann's 9th chapter, Going Lower, a bit earlier, I probably wouldn't have written the post on dying to self. Her whole chapter was on humility, but written with more flair and better developed analogies. Ahh, there is nothing new under the sun.

Well, this post is certainly nothing new, but as "A Thomas Jefferson Education" by Oliver DeMille asserts, the best way to learn something is to read it, write it, and discuss it. I have read my Bible this morning, a chapter in Ann's book, and now I am writing about it. I invite you to help pursue the last tenet by discussing it with me here, so feel free to leave a comment.


Ps. 63:1 "O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;"

I have always read it like this: Oh God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;

But like our pastor reminded us on Sunday, the Bible is not about us. It is always and unrelentingly revealing GOD to us. He gave the example of the David and Goliath story. How many of us have been taught that the application to that story is that we, through God's help, can slay the giants in our lives? Yet Pastor Geoff posited that the proper way to read that story is like this: The sheep-herder of Israel goes to fight his enemy, this shepherd wins the victory and his victory is imputed to the entire nation of Israel. What a foreshadowing! It IS all about God.

So I re-read the verse from this morning with this emphasis:

O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;

I had always read that "dry and thirsty land" figuritively. But David did not write this in a palace, looking out over the Judean desert, thinking "I want to desire God like I would desire water in that dry land." According to Spiros Zodhiates, the editor of my study Bible, David was IN THE PHYSICAL WILDERNESS being hunted like an animal (1 Sam. 22&23). Early in the morning is a prime-time to travel and gather food, before the heat of the day takes your strength. Water and food are critical to physical survival. And in these actual literal circumstances what does David want? GOD, GOD, more of GOD.

I glanced the title of a book the other day "Made to Crave" and yes, we are made to crave. What is David craving? Not gratitude, not understanding, not joy, not even life itself (63:3): GOD.

I have been thoroughly challenged and provoked by Ann's book. I needed this teaching, encouragement, and challenge. Ann mentioned a different book in a recent posting called "Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier" by Robert Emmons. This book seems to set out gratitude as the goal. Gratitude is a grand gateway. But a gateway to what? Not a gateway to better performance and better success and closer friendships. Those may be by-products, but for gratitude to be satisfying it must be a gateway to GOD.

Ann herself said it this way, ""The one thousand presents wake me to the presence of God- but more so, living eucharisteo, living in thanks, had done the far harder work of keeping me awake to Him."

Gratefulness is all about GOD. My life is, should be, must be, all about emphasizing that one syllable.

Theological Meat of Thanksgiving

I love this song: Christ is Risen by Matt Maher. It has all the theological meat of thanksgiving and for thanksgiving.

Thank you God for:

Rising from the grave

Trampling over death

Showing great love

Freely bleeding for us

Making us one with you again

Bowing only to Heaven's will

Reigning in strength

Defeating the night

Calling us to stand in your light.

Thank you.

Learning to Speak (Pray) Again

Before I had babies, I marvelled and (to my shame) scoffed at times, that so many women I met in child-rearing years and beyond couldn't put a coherent, cohesive thought together into a sentence. Words would not come to mind when beckoned, mispronunciations abounded, reverse in words order... I mean, words in reverse order, and more.

AND THEN I BECAME ONE OF THEM. Along about my 3rd baby, the sleepness nights, the hormone surges and the pace of life got to me, too. One day I was speaking with a dear friend, when I heard myself speak. I hope you can follow this in print, "Uh, uhum, yeah, the watchamacallit, well, I was thinking, um, you know, yeah!" And between the sound, the tones, and the gestures I had cobbled together some form of communication. I had gotten my point across, but NOT IN SPEECH. For the first time in months, I really heard myself and it startled me.

I immediately started concentrating harder, forcing myself to compose complete thoughts in my brain before I let my tongue loose. The short story is that, yes, I learned to speak again. In fact, this blog is an extension of that story that pushes me to search the recesses of my brain for just the precise words to express rightly what the Creator has put in my heart.

Now I am determined to learn to pray again. I discovered my lack one morning this week. My version of a prayer while showering -what one friend calls "her thinking time"- was a virtual spot-on repetition of my non-speaking sentence above. I may have been thinking (even that is iffy), but I was not rightly expressing. Although I love Anne Shirley, I am pretty sure that her romantic idea of an open field and "just feeling a prayer" is not Biblical (at least not all the time).

Ann said, "Praying with eyes wide open is the only way to pray without ceasing." And then a few pages later she echoes Annie Dillard who said, "Seeing is of course a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply won't see it."

So if praying without ceasing means praying while seeing, and seeing is a matter of verbalization, then I must have the discipline to verbalize - to focus my thoughts. I have an unfocused prayer life. And the reverse? If I do not verbalize (focus in mind), I will not see, and so will not pray without ceasing? Wasn't this what the Savior asked of the disciples in the garden: WATCH AND PRAY? (Matt. 26:41) The spirit in indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. (26:41 again) My fleshy gray matter between the ears is weak. Spirit, help my spirit to overcome the weakness, to hone the discipline of verbalization, to nail thoughts down, and glue words together to communicate, so I can obey the Savior's words: WATCH AND PRAY.

I want to watch and communicate with God through the white loads that comprise my days. On my small carousel that goes from laundry, to cooking, to schooling, to child-bathing, to dish-washing and around again, I want to see and pray throughout.

God, help me to galvanize my thoughts, help me to talk to You with focus, teach me to express rightly, show me how to pray.

The White Load

I was up late, laundry scattered over chairs and sofa, piles of chaos waiting for my ordering hand. Being folded in expectation of company's arrival. I whipped through the bath towel load in no time at all, feeling a small degree of triumph at the neat stacks, now shelf-ready. The red load was similar, made up mostly of girls dresses, a couple of my knit shirts and boys' shirts, all laid out smooth and ready to be hung. The dark load contained many pairs of little boy jeans, too short after a season of wear, with holes ripped in every knee. And then came the white loads...

No-match socks mutliplied, wadded undershirts, underwear caught and balled in the corners of fitted sheets, washcloths strangled in the grasp of Sunday's white tights... ahhh, the white loads that cannot be avoided, these bleached waters must be navigated.

Easy triumphs rarely comprise the necessities of life. Life will go on even if Surprise Girl doesn't have her favorite red dress. Hunter Boy can always wear another pair of hole-pocked jeans. But life stops just short of toppling into the abyss, toes curled over the precipice, fighting for a shred of saving balance, without clean underwear. Yes, these are the trenches of a mother.

Some days are blizzards of white loads. The mundane, the tedious, the daily, the necessary.

Do I see God in the white loads? Ann said it this way, "The only way to see God manifested in the world around is with the eyes of Jesus within. God within is the one seeing God without." IT'S ALL GOD. That's a new layer on the onion. Not only is God in the white load, the ability to find God in the white load is God at work. It's like looking in two mirrors at once and seeing your reflection in the the reflection in the reflection, ad infinitum. No matter how far you look, you will always see God at work at the heart of it.

Yesterday the mundane took shape as greasy globs of Vaseline in Hurricane Baby's hair. Washing after washing, shampoo, grease-cutting dish soap, scrubbing and rubbing, red-rimmed swollen eyes and wailing... and no avail. He still looks like a q-tip full of earwax.

God, what do you have for me here? What eternal truth? Where are You in this white load? What a great picture of us being washed in the Word. You know its working, you see the suds and feel the scrub, yet, rinse the soap, step out into "the real world" and there sin is, sticky, icky, still present. Welcome to sanctification: to sanctify, to be set apart, be sacred. And to KNOW THAT IT IS PROGRESSIVE, SOME DAY IT WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED. Hurricane Baby's hair will eventually come clean. So will my nature. On THAT day. In the meantime, sing along with Dory, "Just keep washing, just keep washing." Yes, God is certainly present in this white load.

When God purifies the heart by faith, the market is sacred as well as the sanctuary; neither remaineth there any work or place which is profane. -Martin Luther (emphasis mine)

My heart is purified, being sanctified and the white loads are sacred.

Psalm 27:8, "When thou saidst, Seek my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek." I can find it. Even, or especially, in the white loads.

The Secret Garden

Chapter Five. I am not even finished reading it. Ann - I won't add her last name anymore, she feels like an old friend now - is talking about going deeper in her understanding of thanksgiving, eucharisteo, into what she aptly terms "hard eucharisteo." What to give thanks for when, from the human perspective, it all just looks bad. When the going gets tough. When we need the Eternal God perspective.

John 16:33 says "In the world ye shall have tribulation..." I know my time for gut-wrenching, brutal loss, sadness, and trials will come. I will have tribulations. Ye shall have. Not IF, WHEN. But that time has not come for me yet.

So, as I pondered hard eucharisteo, I asked God, what does this mean for me now?

And then I went to church. Our beloved local body of congregating saints and

GOD ANSWERED.

Not all hard eucharisteo is because of circumstances He calls us to walk through, sometimes it is the posture He calls us to assume.

Pastor Geoff spoke on Isa. 66:2, "...but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor (humble) and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word."

This posture of the heart, this draws the gaze of the All Mighty Who inhabits eternity. Humility, humbleness, being set low willingly.

But I am strong, and brave and intelligent, not humble. My flesh rises, indignant, that this is what God wants. But God knows my pride, knows that I have forgotten my place. He has reminded me in 66:1, heaven is His throne, not mine. Me, where I dwell, this is just His footstool. BE HUMBLE.

There is crumpled, worn and faded piece of paper in my bedside drawer. It has been with me half my life. This poem is written on it. This poem, that somewhere on my journey I stopped reading because it was just too hard. Right now, THIS IS MY HARD EUCHARISTEO.

And God be praised - For the first time in years, I look at the necessity of dying to self and say, with tears welling in my eyes, God, YOU ARE A GOOD GOD, AND EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING YOU CALL ME TO IS GOOD. It is your banner over me: Love; the very essence of the goodness of God.

DYING TO SELF (anonymous)

When you are forgotten, neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting or hurt with the oversight, but your heart is happy being counted worthy to suffer for Christ;

That is dying to self.

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinion ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient, loving silence;

That is dying to self.

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any annoyance; when you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, and endure it as Jesus did;

That is dying to self.

When you are content with any food, and offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God;

That is dying to self.

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or record your own good works or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown;

That is dying to self.

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met, and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and you are in desperate circumstances;

That is dying to self.

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit, inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart;

That is dying to self.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I used to wonder how anyone could really, honestly walk this way. I have found the doorway, behind the years of tangled vines, to this secret garden. It is thanksgiving. And the key? Yes, it is the God-perspective He gives in His Word. Yes, He makes a way.

Dayenu

A glimpse of yesterday...

Capable Girl went out with grandparents for a birthday morning breakfast at IHOP. She got everything sweet her little heart desired, evidenced by her comment when she got home, "The only healthy thing I had for breakfast was two pieces of bacon!"

Hunter Boy... I hope I never forget this image... him flying down our little grass hill on his bike, proudly sporting his camo shorts, cowboy boots and ski goggles.

Surprise Girl running to me in her too-short dress bringing me most precious weed flowers.

Sunshine Boy's conversation with me by the camp fire: "Mama, am I cool?" Me - "Yes, YOU are cool, how did you know?" Sunshine - "God told me, cuz I forgot."

Hurricane Baby learned to say "Bye."

I read chapter four of Ann Voskamp's book yesterday. A Sanctuary of Time. I don't think there is a single person who doesn't feel press and heat of the rush, who doesn't feel the need for more time. Ann shares her insights into how thanksgiving helps us focus on the present, where I AM inhabits the praises of his people, in thanksgiving. She shares how in our thanksgiving God can multiply our lack into abundance. She gives the example of Jesus and the account of the loaves and fishes and sheds a fresh ray of light on it, " Jesus embraces His not enough... he gives thanks... and there is more than enough."

Not enough, enough, more than enough. In the Passover Seder Dinner, there is a segment called Dayenu. Its meaning in Hebrew, "It would have been enough." In the traditional Seder Meal it goes like this:

If He had only brought us out of Egypt. DAYENU... It would have been enough.
If He had only executed justice upon the Egyptians. DAYENU
If He had only executed justice upon their gods. DAYENU
If He had only slain their first born. DAYENU
If He had only given to us their health and wealth. DAYENU
If He had split the sea for us. DAYENU
If He had led us through on dry land. DAYENU

There are eight more verses taking the reader through the history of the escape, the giving of the law and the establishment of the nation of Israel. Our good friends, in their Seder meal, continue the tradition every year, extending the Dayenu song to the history of redemption, and beyond that to their own history of God's workings on their behalf.

MY TIME DAYENU

If He only gave me time to read His Word. DAYENU
If He only gave me time to give my husband a loving touch. DAYENU
If He only gave me time for a meal with my family. DAYENU
If He only gave me time to see one child reach 8 years old. DAYENU
If He only gave me time for one conversation with one child. DAYENU
If He only gave me time to savor one baby's accomplishment. DAYENU
If He only gave me time to soak in the dancing flames of a campfire. DAYENU
If He only gave me time to forge these thoughts into words. DAYENU
If He only gave me time for His Beloved to sleep. DAYENU

It would have been enough. Thank you Father.