Author Archives: Life is For Living book

Grace on a Plate

Posted in My Book, words by

Grace isn’t shocking enough to make the headlines. The words that give life and breath to the panting and exhausted don’t usually get said loudly enough for the world to hear. They’re whispered, or mouthed, and seen only by several eyes. But that doesn’t make them less important or powerful.

Micha Boyett wrote wise words here after a public, unloving book critique and a soft, gracious answer to that–actually, an invitation for a meal. The result of this grace was a gentle apology, and a great illustration of how powerful mercy is.  I found these words beautiful and convicting because when I hear criticism about my book, I am carnal enough that I drafted  a scathing, frigid letter sooner than send a dinner invitation.

After Jesus’s disciples absconded, and started living as though they’d never been with Him, He pursued them, gave them a miracle at work, and cooked breakfast for them. I wish I could have been there. His grace to them that morning had to have changed them profoundly–which is what grace and mercy does in its quiet way, without headlines and hoopla.

Micah is writing about words and relationships across the internet, which is an important part of communication. But I want grace to be even more important to me in the real-time, real-life words and actions that I engage in every day, in as normal things as breakfast or dinner.

I find the Internet to be the hardest place to follow the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed is she who has the most blog hits? Blessed is he who stands by his theological stance with the most vigor and resentment?

On the Internet, we can talk a good game about Jesus. We don’t have to know each other. We don’t have to love each other from afar. Instead we can pick on each other’s wounds and brokenness and separate ourselves into more and more theological camps. Who needs denominations? We can just align ourselves with the blogger who reads the Bible the way we do and criticizes the ones we like to criticize.

We can be a generation of sarcasm, biting, and cutting. We can roll our eyes and slam the laptop shut. Then open it up again to see if all our friends on Twitter agree.

Or, we can learn earnestness from the example of Voskamp’s genuine kindness. We are also invited to hold the gospel out. We are invited to prepare a table and set a place for the one who criticizes our lives, our beliefs, our art. We are invited to live out the blessing of Jesus:

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.

The world does not need angry theology: it needs a true, good story. It needs the good news that God’s compassion is deep enough to rescue, to remake, to restore our broken lives.

After all, we are followers of a Messiah who said in his kingdom our job is not to win the argument: it’s to make the peace, to see God, to show mercy.

Beauty and a Blog

Posted in life, recommendations, words by

I’m a bit of a blog junkie, but don’t comment often on them. You’re supposed to get your name out there and comment on lots of blogs so that people find your link and discover your blog. My book needs publicity, but I don’t, and I don’t feel a compulsion to get my name out there, so I’m not driven to do lots of commenting.

What I like best is to have friends who blog, and when they post, I like knowing their email address, and being able to connect via email or Google Chat and have this dialogue going behind the scenes. I like that hugely.

That’s what’s happening with me and my friend Shari these days. Years ago, we were in the same writers’ critique group, and I always liked her pieces, plus her input and advice on what others wrote. Now she’s writing again, and I love to see it.

I think she’s brave and compassionate, intelligent and insightful. She blogs for love of words, and in that she’s able to speak for those who don’t write, but who feel the things deeply, and are happy to find someone who is walking with them who understands. Which is, I think, what our blogs are–not publicity so much as a way to communicate and identify with each other and not feel so alone.

A couples weeks ago, Shari wrote a post on beauty that gave me deep things to think about. I know it’s true that every woman wants to know she’s beautiful, and Shari put into words what is true–that our soul reveals itself and make us beautiful or otherwise, and no creams or colors can hide that. It makes me hope that my wrinkles are/will be from smiles and laughter.

As we mature, we find our inside becoming slowly, inexorably etched on our outside. I know this is true. I have seen it over and over. I love reading faces, and have case-studied this as extensively as possible in my small 29 years, particularly in the 28 ¾ in which I’ve been aware of beauty. People start to look more and more like who they are. It scares the willies out of me.

Each of us is given the wonderful opportunity/ terrible responsibility of painting our own faces. Before 30, only a glimpse of our work shows. After 30… oh boy. Then the peace of my heart begins to take a permanent place on my forehead. Then the bitterness of my soul finds a lasting home in the shape of my chin. Then joy begins to cling to the corners of my mouth. Then anger-in-private carves deep lines in public, to be seen by all. Then humility and confidence awaken visibly, like a halo around my face.

At first, it’s apparent only to those with sharp eyes. Soon, any casual observer can read it. (Isn’t it ironic that many of us find spouses before our souls start to show? Oh boys, beware, beware.)

If you like honest women’s blogs, you’ll like Shari’s. You’ll agree sometimes and giggle other times, like a recent post and its ensuing comments amused me.

Proud of you, Shari, and someday we’ll talk in real space and time again over coffee!

Dusty Feet

Posted in life, Poland, teaching English by

“Why did I say I’d do this?” I asked of  Ria who works and lives with me and has to pick up the pieces when I over-commit. I was scurrying to prepare a lesson for a new child whose English level I didn’t know, and was (again) out of my depth. “I knew I have time, but I’m not sure that I have the energy for this.” I like a challenge but I’d forgotten that energy is as precious a commodity as time. Ria shook her head and tactfully reminded me that she had tried to tell me I had enough commitments without adding more.

That morning I had known every minute of my day was committed to something, and I didn’t know if I could do everything. But during the prayer time at staff meeting, God invited me to just walk alongside Him for the day, and join along in what He’s doing. Immediately, the pressure was off. I didn’t have to perform, only stay in touch with the Spirit’s direction. I didn’t have anything to prove, no agenda except His.

I met beautiful people that day. Met one new friend in her home with her family, and saw her care well for her children and pets. Met my vet friend in her home, drank her coffee, ate yummy scrambled eggs and pickles, and watched her vaccinate a client’s dog with expertise and finesse. Had delightful lessons with various students who made me laugh and pushed my creativity to stay ahead of them.

Even so, it was a frazzling day. My emotional elastic was stretched beyond comfort and I dissolved into tears that night in prayer meeting, asking God for my friends’ salvation and as we were going home, Ria said “You sound tired out or fed up” and I said I was both. Not a good combination, but it was remedied with some quiet, some conversation, tea and a book.

I don’t want to think of how fractured I’d have been if I’d have been following my schedule that day. Instead of feeling pressured to fill a schedule with frantic energy, it felt freeing to me to ask how I can fall into step with what God is planning and doing. The focus changed from me to Him. A good change. Amazing, that He lets fallible people join Him in His designs.  Amazing, how He refreshes and restores daily after a day’s rigors.

So often I wish for a chance to walk beside Jesus and ask Him questions like the disciples did. In those days, students aimed to walk so close to their rabbi that the dust from his sandals would fall on their feet as they walked. I wish we could still do that.

What would happen if His children in every country would ask Him how to fall into step with Him? His Spirit is waiting to show us when we ask. I think it would change the world. We should recognize each other by our dusty feet.

Make the World More Beautiful

Posted in Poland, teaching English by

One of my favourite things about teaching English is all the variety I can implement in the lessons. I can get bored pretty fast, and a bored teacher equals a bored class.

I love reading stories with my classes. It gives them vocabulary and usage, plus some concept that I hope goes with them. Last week I read Miss Rumphius to my two 12 yr. old girls. I completely identify with Miss Rumphius in her life goals: to travel to far-away places, live by the sea, and make her world more beautiful.

This post inspired me to do something with the girls to make their world more beautiful. So I told them to bring some small stones to the next lesson. We painted them with little postive messages (this is an English lesson) that they came up with. Never say never. Smile! Hi, sunshine! Someone (heart) U. Tomorrow is another day. 

Today we took the painted little stones and a tube of glue to the train station, looked for deserted places, because we didn’t want too many people to watch us, and glued the stones here and there. On a cement trash can. On a curb by the stairs. On a planter.  The girls took great pride and thought in where they placed them, and we had fun, funny conversations the whole 45 min. as we walked and laughed in the sun. Part of the assignment was to talk in English the whole time, and they complied perfectly.

Then we walked to the ice cream kiosk for cones, which completed the lesson. We talked about our lessons finishing in five weeks, and they said they want to come back next year because they like lessons here, and their English is improving. Words this teacher fairly purrs at.

I want to see if the stones are still there in a week or two. Someone could easily kick them away if they wanted. But it doesn’t matter because I think two young girls know the phrase “make the world more beautiful” and that’s why I love stories.

Taken Care Of

Posted in life by

She stayed for several nights, my friend without a job and without a place to live. I hugged her before she left, and whispered in her ear, “Take care of yourself.”

“I will,” she said. “I have to.”

Because no one else will take care of her, she has to, and sometimes she can barely manage to do even that.

She has mountains to climb and dreams to fight for, all alone. I think about her and feel  that I have the riches of a millionaire compared to her. I have all the connections, all the friends (not on Facebook) and relations that a girl could ever want.  Much of who I am is because of what others have poured into me, the conversations and questions and time friends and family gave, and still give, me.

Some words I will never forget:

I think maybe you aren’t quite ok. Do you need to talk?

When I called to tell her I feel bothered and bewitched, she said, Shall I come over so we can talk? I’ll come right away.

In an email: Tell me everything—the good and bad and ugly. I want to hear it.

And there was the girl who saw my tears and wiped them away with her fingers and sent me flowers the next day.

I know that I have multiple support groups in place any time I need it. I live in the reality of having safe places to go to all over the globe any time I need an ear and advice, a cup of coffee, or a place to stay. It’s such an integral part of the fabric of my life that I often don’t acknowledge it or realize the wonder of it–

Until I’m with my lonely artist friend and I see again that everything I have is given to me, and for some mysterious reason, I’m not in her shoes even though I have the same potential and tendencies toward self-destruction and alienation that she does.

It is true that relationships go both ways. In response to my family and friends’ generosity in taking care of me, I have opened my hand to accept the love they offer. It’s humbling to be weak; it’s embarrassing to admit need. But I’m not willing (usually) to refuse a hand that’s offered to help me walk a little straighter. It’s a lot less lonely this way, too.

How Many Hours in a Mile?

Posted in books, life, recommendations by

Last week, for no reason except that it was in front of me,  I picked up Lewis’ A Grief Observed. Douglas Gresham’s introduction took me in and it wasn’t long before I’d read all four chapters of the short book.

But not without being profoundly shaken. It’s a raw, intimate book, like reading someone’s journal, as Lewis walks  through debilitating grief after his wife’s death. Reading it is like watching the writhing of a man in agony. I barely had the emotional fortification to take it in. Parts of it made me cry, and drew me back to re-read them, as a kind of catharsis and soothing.

Living in a broken, groaning world, even without feeling the deep grief of death, I ask God lots of questions. It calms me somehow to know that He hears and understands and cares, and that’s enough, even though the questions don’t have answers.

Am I just sidling back to God because I know that if there’s any road to H. it runs through Him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as the means,  you’re not really approaching Him at all.

Lord, are these your real terms? Can I meet H. again only if I learn to love you so much that I don’t care whether I meet her again or not?

When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of  “No answer.” It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, “Peace, child; you don’t understand.”

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask–half our great theological and metaphysical problems–are like that.

Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.

A Drawing for a Drawing

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A heads-up here: this is basically a self-serving post. I would be so happy if I could win something, and so I’m going to link to my friend  Becca’s blog. She’s hosting a give-away of one of her drawings, and it would be great fun to win.

Becca is, among other things, an artist with words and paint. It would be an honor to have something she drew, and it would just be a ton of fun to win a drawing!

Hope, A Thing With Feathers

Posted in life, teaching English by

She was one of my teen students last year and wanted to interview me now for her school project about the political conflicts in Ireland. But most of the time, while we walked to the coffee shop in wind and dust, and while we sat inside, over my hot chocolate and her (healthier) fresh orange juice, we talked about everything outside of Ireland.  The stuff that girls talk about when they’re relaxed and happy: life and love and dreams.

“I’m scared of my future. I don’t want to grow up and make big decisions.”

You don’t have to make those decisions now, I said. Enjoy today. And you can always be a little girl inside. You know how old I am, and you know what? I still feel like a little girl even though I’ve done some adult-sized things.

“I know, that’s why I feel you can understand me, and really, you’re cute!”

Never mind that her command of English didn’t let her know how to use ‘cute’. Hearing it from her was priceless.

“Do you believe in true love? Like Romeo and Juliet?” Smarting after a break up that was friendship but not love. “I think we’re too young for love now, but do you believe in true love?”

Yes, I do! I don’t know know if Romeo and Juliet had real love, but I believe in true love and that it is commitment. Do you know this word?

“No.”   It’s a long word for a language student.

Maybe love can be like Romeo and Juliet. I don’t know, because I’m still waiting for true love. But I think true love is commitment. That means he loves what’s inside you, your heart, not only your hair or your face or body. And it means even when you are disappointed, or angry or impatient, you will love him, and he will love you. That’s real love.

“Yes, because when I’m old, I won’t be beautiful. True love, commitment, that’s what I want.”

I finished my luscious chocolate and we walked back to her street in gusts of wind, and I was happy beyond words that being an English teacher gave me the chance to have this conversation with this beautiful, thoughtful young lady. I was glad that even if I didn’t have a colorful, amazing story to prove something, I could tell her with confidence that true love does exist. If I couldn’t give her anything else, I could give her hope.

Sometimes this is the most one person can give another.

Comments on “The Jesus I Never Knew”

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I’ve been reading Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew and have only several pages left to read. Like always at the end of a good book, I’m sorry to see the end coming.  Yancey’s calm, thorough, careful writing soothed and fed me when I felt restless and hungry for rich words and truth.

He writes about Jesus’ world, what it must have been like to breathe that air, to walk those roads. In many ways, I’m not sure that it was so different from today’s gritty, tentative, restless towns. More than ever to me, Jesus is the hero to follow, the leader to believe in. And the audacity hits me sometimes, that I say I try to live like He did, because of my colossal failures in loving and serving like He did/does.

The best parts of the book are the last two chapters: “Kingdom: Wheat Among Weeds” and “The Difference He Makes.” The words and ideas are full of triumph and purpose, not heady and empty ideas, but solid and real–truer than our present physical surroundings.

I recommend this book, not just because of the easy-to-digest writing style, but because of the content that can lead to the source of Life.

And as an aside: Someone wrote me recently to ask why I’m reading Yancey, because she heard that he left the faith. I sighed, not because of the question, but because of the rumor. Someone has not been doing their homework, and jumped on a victim and spread a lie without reading to the end of the story.  So Yancey did leave the faith in his youth, but the fruit of his life now shows his allegiance to Christ. Who hasn’t done stupid things when they were young?

Please do yourself a favor and when you hear negative things about an author, don’t write him/her off as poison. Ask good questions of people you trust, don’t believe everything you hear or read on the internet, read books with discernment. ALL books are going to be flawed because their authors are flawed. But we can be students and ask good questions and learn the good that people have to teach us and at the same time be honest about the things that aren’t truth.

(The aside turns into a rant so the speaker steps off her soapbox.)

A Writing Meme From Dorcas Smucker

Posted in life, My Book, words by

Let’s be clear about this: I don’t do chain stuff or forwards. For various reasons. Two recipes or 50 questions about yourself to forward to 51 of your friends or email poems that have 152 emoticons in them that you MUST  forward unless you want to be attacked by a billy goat? I don’t do it. Life is too short. But Dorcas tagged me in a meme, which is (or can be) a different thing, and I answered her questions because they were about things I care about, and I had time to answer them.

(A meme is an idea or theme that spreads like a virus in the blogging world, and this one is about writing and I’m breaking the bendable rules by not preparing a list of more questions or bloggers.)

1. How long have you been blogging, and how often do you post?

I started the blog in ’08 when my book came out. Before that, I had a xanga site, which was more social to me than serious writing. There is no rhyme or reason as to how I often I post. I refuse to write just so that I get more hits on my site, or because it’s been awhile since I last posted. I only write when I feel there’s something inside that needs to get out. This is my 201st post here.

2. Have you had anything published, and if so, what and when?

Some devotional/inspirational articles in CLP’s “Companions” some years ago. I published my own book, written especially for single women, in ’08.

3. Who is the author who best speaks your language and who you would most like to be like, in style and message?

Philip Yancey speaks my language because of his honesty. I admire the way he explains his conclusions with words that are carefully chosen but still carry a cadence, a kind of rhythm.  I admire CS Lewis for the way he connects the spiritual and the tangible world. I’m relishing Les Miserables  but would NOT want to mimic Victor Hugo’s style.

4. What do you see as the unique message God has given you to share with the world ?

It has something to do with exposing beauty and truth. Also, I want to be a voice for those who have none, and an ear for those who those who have found none. In other words, be a facilitator, which may not necessarily mean writing.

5. Who or what has made you believe in yourself as a writer?

A teacher at school (Rosalind McGrath Byler) and a Calvary Bible school teacher (Ervin Hershberger).

6. Who or what has done the opposite?

Men who refused to market my book, were opposed to it because it didn’t fit their theology and disapproved of my using quotes from writers in other denominations.

7. Besides blogging, what types of writing have you done?

Journaling. Letters. Dabbled in verse and music composition but wasn’t willing to stick to it. In my head, I’ve written travel articles about my local area in Ireland.

8. Where would you like to be, writing-wise, in five years?

Working on my 2nd book.

9. What would need to happen to move you from here to there?

A lot of things that God and I keep discussing.

10. Any advice for beginning bloggers/writers?

Don’t write if you can help it. But if you can’t help but write, do! Read all the time, always have several books on the go, and don’t read rubbish.

11. Just for fun: what’s a skill you have that almost no one knows about? (example: I know how to develop black and white film in a darkroom.)

I can read and write words upside-down, across the table from my English students.