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

This evening I said good bye to my 10 Russian-German ESL students. We’ve been together for the last 17 days.  At every break time, I’d open windows that they’d closed.  ( I think  Slavic culture dislikes drafts.) In every class time, I’d be as winsome and active as possible to distract them from talking to each other. They got better at conversation and they learned lots of vocabulary.

The ironic thing is that the ones who were the noisiest, least conducive to studious atmosphere–they’re the ones I’m sorriest to let go. It’s the lively ones that charm me, not the prim, perfect ones. Maybe it’s because I feel the most affinity to the noisy ones. The sparkle in their eyes meets mine, and we become allies, and I’m sorry they’re leaving. I so much want them to have seen Christ. To feel the breath of His love and gentleness and bubbling joy. I think they get little enough love. I like to think they can learn English vocabulary from someone else, but maybe no one can love them like Jesus and  I can.

Prayer mystifies me. I love to pray, love to talk to God about things, but I often wonder what the point is.

Is it about persuading God to agree with me? Hardly.

Is it like giving obeisance to a great cosmic vending machine? I don’t think so.

Is it acting like a voter in a democracy, where the majority wins, so if more people pray, the more effective it is? That doesn’t sound like God.

I have more questions than answers. But Luke frequently wrote how Jesus spent the night in prayer, and if He was God, and needed a lot of time to pray, well, how can I think I can function well without it?

I do think that it may be time to reword the cliche prayer changes things. I find that prayer changes me. And maybe that’s why God asks us to pray. There is something beautiful and exciting, to think that we are still people in process, still being changed more and more into His image!

I’m thinking about poetry lately. Which is a switch because I’m not a big poetry fan. I don’t know enough about it to be very knowledgeable, but I know what I like and don’t like. I don’t like to think terribly hard while I’m reading it. I’m thinking that most contemporary free verse is emotional and meets the need of the hour, while classic poetry endures through the heat of the moment, and stays through the years to keep steadying us.

When I was introduced to “Praise Song for the Day” I liked it right away. So it’s patriotic, but it’s real, earthy, and human. That’s what connected with me. Here it is:

The following is a transcript of the inaugural poem, “Praise Song for the Day,” written and recited by Elizabeth Alexander, as provided by Graywolf Press

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.