It was a good speech, heartfelt and honest, in which a pastor spoke about the demands of pastoring and leading. He read an excerpt from a troubled young woman who was sharing her story. She told of her pastor and his wife meeting her to talk. The young woman quickly changed and avoided a subject that her pastor brought up. She wrote that the man realized what the girl was doing, but “the bird-brained wife didn’t know what happened.”

That sentence arrested me and made me angry enough that I couldn’t concentrate much on the rest of the talk. In my interaction with young women, hearing their stories, and seeing how many fall through the cracks, I am angry if an older woman cannot follow a young woman’s conversation well enough to see when she is carefully avoiding talking about needs to be talked about.

Granted, the girl may have misread the wife. Maybe the lady was tabling the issue, intending to bring it up again at a more opportune time. I hope she was.

But I say to anyone who will listen–especially women!–Life consists of far more than the space around the house and garden, the computer and shopping mall. There are bigger priorities to hold than comfort and pleasure, peers and reputation. Among the greater priorities should be young women who are fragile, tentative, searching. When these young women are neglected at the cost of pursuing lesser things, and/or taught the same values the older ones hold, the results are ugly and tragic. This is what makes me angry. And all of us are responsible, not only pastors’ wives.

(While I know that anger is not a good place to work from, it can give the impetus to work toward changing whatever triggers the anger. When God keeps anger from poisoning and embittering me, it is part of His miracle of redeeming the things I’m angry at.)

Bird-brained is not so much about intelligence but about “looking at life with raised eyebrows,” asking questions, taking interest in people and ideas, acknowledging that I am not the center of the world. (My gifted friend, Jewel, writes about this kind of intentional living more eloquently in this blog post.)

As for me, I have a complex about my own lack of academic intelligence; all my family members can out-wit me and reason and argue more logically than I. I wish I had a higher IQ, but I am not holding up intelligence as the answer to the world’s ills. What I am saying is that we need an alertness, an awareness, a constant sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness in order to expand our world and offer ourselves and what we have to the ones coming along beside us. This is more than intellectual prowess; it is about a Spirit-led sensitivity to what others are feeling and needing.

Is that too much to dream for?

It’s been a lightening-swift week. And nearly every day, I got another story about drops of honey. Oh, it was lovely.

I asked for stories in my last post for several reasons, and one was because I hate the way bad news makes the headlines, but good stories are too dull, I guess, for the world to hear about. And I think that’s a dreadful thing, and something to counter-act.

I have two happy stories about the past week. On Thurs. evening I was one of eleven ladies at my house, gathered around the fire in the sitting room. We asked each other the very personal questions of favorite and least-favorite foods, and introduced each other to the group that way. Surprising, the strong feelings that a food discussion brings! Then we settled into the kitchen and watched two of us do cooking demonstrations: stuffed courgette, and stuffed peppers. Yum! Then of course there was tea and dessert around the fire. When I asked about their worst food disaster, it brought out lots of stories about food and guests and funny food stories. We laughed til we had tears, and it was a most lovely, relaxing, fun evening. Great big drops of honey!

On Sat. a van load of us were in the West, headed for the harbour village of Portmagee. We boarded a boat and 45 min. later stepped off on Skellig Michael. It was beyond words. We climbed nearly 700 steps to the top, stopping now and then to look and wonder at the sea, sun, and lack of wind. There were hundreds of puffin’s burrows, and I stooped to look into several and a colorful bill and beady eye met mine. The skipper told me on the way out that when you’re on the island, you’re without distractions and as close to heaven as you can get. I know now what he meant. I didn’t spend much time at the very tip-top of the rock because we needed to get down and meet the boat again, but also because it made me weak in the knees. The island was surprisingly green, and there were mounds and carpets of wild flowers clinging to the rocks. I wanted to spend the whole day there, but the boat was waiting after we explored for about 2 hours.

Last year, the best day of my year was when we went paragliding in Interlocken, Switzerland. This year, the best day was when we were way above the water, absorbing the vista of sea, birds, and sunshine.

The best part of writing a book is getting feedback from readers. In the back of the book, I invite people to write me and share their story with me. I’m hugely honored to get emails and letters that introduce themselves and their lives. The one thing all of the letters have in common, no matter where they come from on the globe, is that they carry some degree of heartache and betrayal, loneliness and longing. Some say more about it than others, but it’s always there. In two years, I can remember only one letter from a reader that spoke of her happiness and delightful romance.

Of all that God has shown me
I can speak but the smallest word,
Not more than a honey bee
Takes on her foot
From an overspilling jar…
–Mechtild of Magdeburg

Part of my calling is to be an ear for ladies who have no one to listen to them, and I enter into this gladly. But sometimes I wonder where the happy stories are. Right now I’m ready to listen to something lovely and smiley and warm. It can be anything that you saw or heard or felt today or ten years ago. It can be about a rainbow you saw, or how your husband won your heart. It could be the pansy you found smiling at you, or the gentle rain on your face. I don’t care what it is. I just want happy stories, drops of honey from an overspilling jar. Surely that’s not asking too much?

An African proverb says that a person who sees something good must tell the story. So let’s hear some, because I know they’re out there.

Write your story in the comments box OR email me (anitayoder[at]gmail[dot]com). I want to hear from you! And if you don’t have a happy story, well, that’s ok. Send me your sad one tomorrow. I want to hear that too, honestly. Just not today, ok?

Last night after work and other jobs I stopped at my brother’s house to drop off a book. I wasn’t going to stay long. But two little boys were in the tub, and the youngest one was being fed, and my brother and I stood in the kitchen and chatted. Then I helped myself to a muffin and had to tell the bathed boys ‘hi’ before I left. Which turned out to be drying them and putting pj’s on the middle one.

When the oldest one, age four, asked “Do you want a cup of tea?” I wasn’t going to accept, but then, how could I refuse? So my brother made us lovely fresh mint tea, and he and his wife sat at the table with me to drink it while three little boys rotated on and off our laps. We didn’t solve all the world’s problems, but they gave me wise words and perspective that I needed. Finally, I tumbled the littlest Cuddle Bug into his daddy’s lap and left the warm circle of their dining room light.

When I left, it was 9:00. Being a Saturday night, I’m sure they had umpteen things to do that didn’t include sitting and drinking tea with a sister and auntie. In the next month, they plan to move an hour away. In a few months, I plan to move to another country. The times I can drop in on them after work are going to be limited. But the rarity of the event was only part of the value to me. My brother put mint leaves in the cup, but an Alchemist was working because when I drank it, I found comfort and love.

He wouldn’t have to bother.
A friend commented this after telling how she was learning about God’s character of generosity in pursuing her soul and giving her salvation. And it is true: God bothers a lot about us, goes to amazing details for the well-being of our whole person: spirit, soul, and body.

My awe at the way He looks after the intangible parts of me–is it my spirit, or soul? I never know–was renewed recently when I listened to a talk by Jerry Root entitled “C.S.Lewis’ Approach to Art and Literature.” (The speech is found here, among many other excellent talks.) At first the speech is very academic, and I could only grasp parts of it. Toward the end, however, Root becomes more practical about observing and appreciating art, and then he quotes Lewis in his Letters to Malcom, Chiefly on Prayer:

Gratitude exclaims, very properly, “How good of God to give me this.” Adoration says, “What must be the quality of that being whose far-off and momentary coruscations* are like this! One’s mind runs back up from the sunbeam to the sun.”

Mr. Root then becomes poetic as he explains further how observing art and creativity around us can result in worship. “Something we might have missed at first makes its way into our consciousness. We could have lived on a dark planet. And been told that there would be one sunset. And we’d have lined every west coast of every continent and every island on the planet. And as we saw the glory of that event and tears came to our eyes, we’d have written about it in our journals and regaled our progeny with the glory of that event.

But what must God be like, that He has made our planet a perpetual kaleidoscope of sunrises and sunsets?! One star in a night sky should be enough to make any right-thinking mind and open heart fall in a state of wonder. But God is so liberal with His glory that He’s littered the heavens with stars and moons and galaxies and shooting stars!”

I live on a perpetual kaleidoscope. What must God be like? He wouldn’t have to bother. But I’m awfully glad He does!

*coruscation: a sudden flash of brightness