Category Archives: words

Comfort and Forgive

Posted in gratitude, life, love, poetry, words by

Recently I’ve been lingering in Psalm 25, particularly verse 18: “Look upon my affliction and my distress [I need comfort.] and take away all my sins [I need forgiveness.]” This pairs with the gospel song with line “He took my sins and my sorrows.”

At the cross, we find both comfort for what’s been done to us and forgiveness for the wrong we’ve done. Beyond that, there’s more at the empty tomb, which I’m still exploring.

Last week one morning, this acrostic poem seeped out of my pen. And yes, I’m reading The Hobbit right now, so that found its way onto some lines as well.

Come closer, friend and savior Jesus
Or I will
Move off the path to where
Foul goblins lurk to
Overwhelm my heart. I want to walk with You to
Rivendell where
Time slows and music lingers in the leaves

And cake and wine heap up but
Not too much to long for more.
Desire and dust

Fill my mouth and still holy water
Offerings will never ever wash or
Rinse the dust and
Grime and wrinkled skin of
Inconvenient, stubborn
Vices
Except you hold my hand and clean and caress each crevice.

After Saturday Night

Posted in gratitude, love, poetry, words by

Photo by Łukasz Łada on Unsplash

 

He saw me first.

I saw a garden hand

With grass-pressed tunic,

Soil on toes,

Eyes at ease with a job well done.

 

He saw my tears yet didn’t flinch—

No garden hand had ever asked me

About that water swelling

In stormy cataracts on cheeks.

They’d taken my Love—He’s

Broken, stabbed, now stolen.

My love is gone, is gone, and

I would wail and run

Five thousand furlongs if only this garden man

Confides to me the hiding place that

Holds my love, my broken love.

 

He said my name, my truest word:

Mary, once bitter, now sweet.

He was a garden man, but

More—the one I’d lost. I knew

Him by that voice and by

Those eyes, new, knowing.

They caught the morning light and

Calmed my own frantic, swollen ones.

 

Where had He been? What ablutions

Rinsed crusted blood and water from olive skin and linen?

What had He seen and how did this morning’s Father

Turn toward yesterday’s forsaken Son?

What words had made my sad untrue?

 

Quiet mystery surrounded, hovered, haloed Him—this

Garden-loving, light-bearing frame of holed and holy clay.

He didn’t tell me where He’d been. (He never tells me everything.)

The rose-gold sky back-lit His frame.

My Love

Found me

Again.

The Awl

Posted in love, poetry, words by

Photo by Victoriano Izquierdo on Unsplash

Some months ago, I was in a battle of wills with the Almighty. One Sunday in share time, a brother reflected on the ceremony of the awl and the pierced ear. He said, “That slave must have really trusted his master to be willing to stay with him the rest of his life.” I knew then it was mine to trust, not fight for my will to be done, and I went home and wrote this poem.

Then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently. Exodus 21:6

He stands at my shoulder,

Awl in hand.

His eyes speak what His words

Have always said and what

I know is truer than true.

 

I voice my yes, so I can hear tomorrow

When my heart wanders:

“My Master, yes.

Yes to never owning but always having enough.

Yes to living under Your roof over Your furniture.

Yes.

Yes to safety You’ve proven these seven tenuous years.

Yes to plenty and to peace, to eating like a child at home.

Yes to Your care and not another’s, to a home not my own.

Yes.”

 

My eyes sweep over His turbaned head and out past tiled rooftops,

Mountain Hermon, the Jordan, and towns beyond.

But it’s here He invites me to stay and I say

Yes.

In His weathered doorway I lean

After the awl,

Hole held in His fingers that

Drip blood.

A Blessing For This Weekend

Posted in gratitude, life, love, words by

Photo by Achim Ruhnau on Unsplash

May you see spring birds puffed up on branches to stay warm as they forage seeds, and may it remind you that God provides and cares even more for you. May you see diamonds in rain drops on buds and leaves. May your baby plants flourish with the promise that summer is coming.

May the weekend give you golden moments to be less efficient and more human, and may your inefficiency include walks in blowing snow and naps in warm blankets and conversations in real time. May someone hear your heart under your words, and may you listen to someone else in a way that helps them feel less alone.

May the strong arms of God, the compassion of Jesus, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit hold you.

A Benediction for Your Weekend

Posted in community, gratitude, life, love, poetry, words by

Because I believe that Christians should be people of benediction (bene: good + diction: speaking) here’s one for your weekend. I hope to be dropping benedictions here and there (blog, social media, cards) the next while.

May sweet, glad birdsong surprise you on your walks. May golden light highlight greens and whites, and if golden light isn’t happening today, may it fall on you sometime this week. May you eat enough fluffy carbs to make your soul happy, and enough protein to make your brain strong.

May your bones not break, and if they do, may you receive so much support and care that it makes you cry. May your grey hair stay well camouflaged, and if they spiral out in odd angles, may you remember all the goodness that brought you to this good age. May you take time for at least two naps.

May your heroes be people who love God supremely, love you like Jesus, and make you a better person. May the skin tones you see and the languages you hear give you a sneak peak of our eternal home and the wedding feast that will never end.

 

A List of Lists

Posted in gratitude, life, words by

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

I am not one of those organized people who makes lists in order to feel good about their day. I hear them talking about writing a task on a list so they feel happy crossing it off, but I can’t identify with that.

However, I’ve discovered a way making lists that is enormously satisfying. I’m taking a 10-week writing course with the inimitable Rachel Devenish Ford. Twice a week, we meet over zoom, a dozen ladies across as many time zones, and Rachel, in Thailand’s sunshine, coaches us in writing from the heart. One way to write is to make lists, and then craft paragraphs from those lists.

The exercise reminded me of several years ago when I had an overwhelming decision to make, and I was paralyzed with fears. My pastor said I should list those fears. When I did, the fears suddenly didn’t feel so big or so many. Since then, I’ve often handed the same advice to someone who was overwhelmed. When they have too much on their mind and their nervous system is overloaded, writing a list is something they can manage.

It also reminds me of how I’ve kept a Thanks Journal for years, which is a daily list of something to be thankful for, some points of light to remember. It’s not eloquent or poetic. It’s quick and minimal but enough.

The beauty about lists is that they can be spare, ragged, choppy, and incomplete, but they carry the essence of what we want to express. In our writing course with Rachel, we’ve made lists about these subjects:

  • Who I am
  • What I notice in a favorite photo
  • The kinds of writing I feel the most drawn to
  • What I notice where I’m sitting (I had never noticed that I have green dolphins at my desk until I made a list of what I noticed.)
  • Impactful moments
  • What we want
  • What we have (I noticed that my want list included only one thing that costs money. Right afterward, Rachel coached us to list what we have, and I choked up because I have. So. Much.)
  • What we’ve learned

Some days, I amuse myself by thinking about all the fun lists I could make. Here is a list I could list:

  • Beautiful things
  • What I noticed in church today (includes many colors because that’s what I notice)
  • Things to do with one arm in a cast
  • Distractions
  • Cool things about living in America (could include interstate highways and pancakes the size of dinnerplates)
  • Uncool things about America (could include synthetically fragranced fabric softeners)
  • What I love about my people
  • Reasons to cry
  • Topics I could write about
  • Why I can’t write
  • Favorite parts of favorite books
  • Memorable meals
  • Heavenly fragrances (would not include fabric softener)
  • What I like about my age
  • Ways people have helped me
  • Lovely sounds (would include rain on a metal roof)

You might try this yourself. If writing a blog post or a poem or a letter feels like too much investment, or too weighty, try making a list and see where it takes you.

At the very least, you might surprise yourself at what you notice and what you have.

Are You a Theologian?

Posted in community, recommendations, women's stuff, words by

My friends and I used to amuse ourselves by inventing cutesy, cringy names for women’s devotionals:

  • Coffee Time with God
  • Puppy Snuggles with God
  • Tea Cups and Promises

Our amusement came from what we saw as fluffy women’s devotionals that were packaged to make the content as winsome and inviting as possible, and we had no time for it.

I still don’t.

Observation 1: The devotional guides I’ve seen for women have disappointed me by being consumer-driven, comfy platitudes that try to make readers feel better. If you’re partial to a book or writer, and if you’ve found life in that content, I’m happy for you. There are some good writers out there but exceptional women’s devotional guides are rare.

Observation 2: Women need life-giving, rich input from God in order to fill their responsibilities well. I look at moms and the ways they see after their children, household, and neighbors with deep love, wisdom, and skills, and I think “How does she does she do it? She’s heroic!” Singles have other ways in which they give and feel depleted, but we all need so much more goodness and light than we can produce on our own.

This why I’m SO excited about the new Bible study guide, Kingdom of Priests! And until December 8, you can use a discount code to pre-order it: FRIENDS&FAMILY10. Run and get it for yourself and your friends, your small group, your neighbors. This is a meaty, serious, solid guide that you can take with you and be fed. A bonus for me is that my good friend Kristi wrote it, so I loved hearing her voice in it!

As a pilot tester, I got to do five of the ten lessons in the book. I loved the scope of the study, and how it explores the theme of priests from Genesis to Revelation. For years, I’ve been been thinking about the theme of temple—the places where we meet God—so studying priests fit perfectly into my line of interest.

The last few weeks, I began each day doing part of a lesson, and later, in the cracks of the day, my brain was pinging with ideas and words and concepts about priests and temples, the ways God shows His glory, the ways fallible humans represent God to their world. How does He trust us with so much! I kept thinking how much dignity and worth this calling of priesthood gives every person, how much responsibility women carry to represent God well regardless of their life calling.

In addition to probing the specific subject of priesthood, each chapter/lesson introduces a tool or a lens for exploring any Scripture passage. This give readers ways to study themes and passages of their interest, ways to teach Sunday school, and methods to study or lead Bible studies.

Probably the biggest weakness with women’s Bible studies is that we rush from the text to ourselves. We think “What’s in it for me? How does this speak to my situation?” I think that’s why those cutesy titles are wrong: they serve the reader who loves coffee or puppies instead of calling the reader to serve the text and its intentions.

Instead, we need to come to Scripture asking “Where is God here, and how is He revealing Himself? What is the author’s intent? How can I align my life with the ways God reveals His heart in His story?”

Imagine the results if women would sit in circles to explore these questions instead of talking about recipes and décor and gardening—all worthy topics in their places—but let’s not give ourselves a pass from studying Scripture, shrug, and say we’re not theologians or leaders. We ARE theologians—priests—in all the ways and places that we represent God to our world.

He doesn’t require us to be perfect, silver-tongued teachers, but shouldn’t we aim to be the best representatives of God we can be?

Writing Poetry

Posted in gratitude, poetry, words by

A charming shop front in St. Malo, France when I visited in 2009.

For a long time, I admired poets and felt they breathed rare air. I had the words and the emotions they had, but felt that if I’d write poetry, I’d shatter. 

Then in the summer of 2020, my friend in England killed herself. During the next ten days, there was another suicide, a teenage cancer diagnosis, a mom with brain cancer, an adoption process stopped, all connected to people very close to me. The sad bad tragic news felt relentless, and I spiraled down into a blackness that lasted for about a year and a half.

That initial spate of summer tragedies fell right during the time that I was taking a five-week Creating Writing course. Every day, we were assigned to produce two writing projects, and the next day we’d share one of those projects to the class for their critique. That class was the most wonderful narcotic in my devastated, awful season. Every day I’d walk into the classroom and for ninety minutes I was in a parallel universe that felt light and airy and delightful. We played with words, read beautiful lines, gave suggestions to improve words. We laughed and cried and sometimes we still talk about Jonny’s “polysyllabic flamingo” because his flamboyant phrase, created in that class, will never die.

I started writing poetry because it was an assignment. I thought the textbook looked boring. I might be justified for feeling this way:

But the book was fascinating, accessible, and gave me endless ideas. Then I surprised myself and enjoyed the challenge of writing poetry and liked some of my lines. I was told I need to keep writing poetry. And instead of shattering me as I’d feared, writing poems started healing me, started bringing back pinpricks of light.

I’ll never be a great poet because I’m too impatient to work long and hard at it. But what’s greatness? The point of poetry is to communicate in a specific, concise form, and while most of my pieces are pathetic and will never be public, I feel more whole and at rest when I let a poem dribble itself onto the page—especially when I’m troubled, sad, or mad. I’m not proud of this, but I can be very articulate when I’m angry.

Early one morning last month I scratched down sad, angry lines and felt better all day for it. Maybe it was a seed of hope planted. Maybe it was part of self-regulating. Maybe it was only inked long-hand scrawled on every other line that will never see daylight.

Poetry is a viable outlet for lament, I’ve found. Lament is hope, and to lament in poetry on a page embodies, for me, my answer to the mysterious, alluring call of hope. 

Poetry also lends itself to exuberance. Think of Miriam, Hannah, Elizabeth, and the forms their joy took in dramatic declarations and vivid word pictures. 

My poetry hasn’t become exuberant yet. It tends toward lament, abstraction, or reflection, which is what this last blog post was. Incidentally, that poem was from an assignment in the class that introduced me to writing poetry, and the idea of an abstract poem came from that boring-looking book.

More lines may or may not appear here on the blog in the future. Don’t hold your breath, but don’t be surprised.

Abstract Painting

Posted in Art, gratitude, travel, words by

A craggy cove of Irish green and spray

Rome’s sun-washed marble plazas and diminutive espressos

But before that, shiny copper toes and nose of Bremen town musicians

Jerusalem’s crookedy paths, coaxing vendors, spice mounds

Piercing glacier breeze in Swiss Alps, milk chocolate bars on chewy bread

Acres of rainbow fields below sea level and pristine curtain-less Dutch windows

Mediterranean, Aegean, Irish, Baltic, Galilean, Dead Sea waters splashed throughout

Southern Cross, Iguazu Falls, mandioca, churrascaria

Syrupy, flaky baklava and two bald brother hills of Mars and the Parthenon

The fishwife in Waterford, children with shining eyes reaching for ice creams

My Polish mom who fussed me soup and heard my silent tears and kissed me quiet

Farmer neighbors who regaled me with stories of feeding cats and shutting the courtyard gate.

Caption:

Place and people

Splashed color

Flung texture

And the ring of the globe

Circling its frame.

Pair o’ Ducks

Posted in gratitude, Ireland, life, love, Poland, words by

When I left Poland and came to Pennsylvania in 2015, I stopped taking pictures. I gave away my little digital camera because why would I need it anymore? Over a year later, I got my first smart phone, but even then I didn’t use the camera except when I went overseas.

My camera use and my minimal pictures indicate how I saw my States-side life. It wasn’t worth documenting or noticing–not compared to my colorful students and the old world charm of Europe. I have megabytes of photos from there, but not from here.

This summer will mark seven years since I left Poland and came to the US for one year, which stretched to now. I still scan the horizon and the road sides and trees and food for photogenic moments, and I rarely find something to document.

I can hear howls of protests from readers who love their home state, and I concede that my few pictures reveal more about my poor vision than about the world I live in now. The beauty of this blog is that no one pays to read it, and if my dismissal of the USA offends you, stop reading here.

Stephan Gingerich spoke at REACH about Third Culture Kids like me with excellent insight and advice. He said those of us who return to our passport country should be quiet for two years, and I’m sure he’s right. I bite my tongue every day to stay quiet about another life and another world that I know and love. But indulge me for a minute while I list things in America that make me cringe and want to be a million miles away.

  1. People put sugared, candied nuts on salads. This is a grave confusion of the proper place of sweets and savories. Salads are for any kind of crunch and textures and colors, but they are to be strictly savory, not sweet. Mixing candied, caramelly nuts is offensive to the character of the bright flavors of cheeses, garlic, and herbs. Along the same line, people bake ham and cheese sandwiches doused with a syrupy mixture with poppy seeds. The first time I had this, I honestly thought the cook was serving us a mistake. Now I know they have recipes for this, and I can’t imagine a poorer use of calories.
  2. I opened a fridge door recently (not mine) and saw not two or three, but FIVE different flavors of coffee creamers. This baffled me on several levels, not the least of which: how is dairy-free, artificially-flavored so wonderful? I wondered if five in a fridge indicates the next level of entitlement and it also reminded me of how incredulous I was when I first saw the rows and rows, shelves and shelves of creamers at Walmart.
  3. To kneel for prayer in traditional Mennonite churches, people whirl around, half standing, half crouching, and put their faces into the place they were just sitting. It’s awkward and illogical and embarrassing for anyone unfamiliar with this tradition. Why not gracefully kneel forward and lean your elbows on the seat back in front of you? I cringe for the visitors most of all.
  4. People talk SO LOUD on their phones and at restaurant tables.

Sometimes I catch a whiff of loveliness, a view that takes my breath away. It took me a long time to look past my bias against the US and recognize beauty here. People might not be as whimsical or colorful as my English students, but I meet gifted, passionate, fun people here. They tell me their big, beautiful, impossible dreams and stories of healing and generosity that remind me that Aslan is on the move here and life is wonderful and worth celebrating here.

Last summer I was gifted a missionary debrief retreat. Those sessions helped me start to acknowledge and name the vast chasm that spans the various worlds I’ve lived in. In many ways, I’m living my best life now, but I still cry from the losses of my former life.

The retreat leaders had a word for this: paradox. This word gave me permission to hold opposing realities simultaneously.

During the first evening of the retreat, each of us was given two rubber ducks and a Sharpie. We were told to mark up one duck. I eagerly and generously covered one duck with stitches and a black eye and broken heart and bruises. He’s the yuck duck and the other is the yay duck, and I hold them both in one hand. Both yuck and yay are true and real at the same time.

Because I tend to live in an all-or-nothing mode, and because I love tactile lessons and puns, the pair o’ ducks gave me an enormous step toward wholeness. Now I recognize paradox in many places. And instead of rushing to one of two opposing views and camping out at one place, I slow down and recognize that both the yuck and the yay are here, and neither of them ignores or denies the other.

I can’t tell you how freeing this concept is for me. I see paradox in people, how we’re all beautiful and broken. I see paradox in events or situations, and the blend of terrible and wonderful. As a TCK, paradox gives me permission to love the present while mourning the past.

The Apostle Paul lived with paradox too. In II Corinthians 4, it’s like he’s holding his own pair o’ ducks.

I may never completely settle in the US or come to peace with plastic creamers and startling traditions. But my ducks remind me that not everything in Europe was yay, and there is wonder and joy right here. The ducks are odd desk ornaments but I have a hunch they’ll sit here a long time.