My Commander in Chief Weeps about War

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Recently a friend and I were talking about reading the Bible, and we wondered what we’d think about it if we’d only now read it for the first time. Would we find all the doctrinal points that every church holds so dearly? Would it make sense to us, and would we be persuaded that it is Truth?

So these questions are often in the back of my mind when I read my daily portion in the book I wrote about here. And very recently, while reading through John, the light clicked on in my brain, and I thought to myself, Yes! This Jesus is a man I would follow and I would believe what He says. If I would have heard Him speak and interact with people, I would definitely have been part of the crowd that followed Him.

There was something fresh and liberating in coming to that conclusion, acknowledging that this decision of following Christ is part mystery, part wistfulness, part staunch, glad faith.

Then another friend was telling something about the political shenanigans in her country. I listened because I like to hear people tell me their perspectives about politics even though I never follow the news about it. Then she asked, “So what do you tell people when they ask why you don’t vote?”

My answer went something like this: I have become acquainted with wonderful person of Christ, and He is my hero and I am following Him. He lived in very unstable political times, and He had lots of chances to start His own kingdom/political party but He didn’t. He said He was calling people to the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a place where Love dwells, not war or violence or deceit or pride and one-up-manship. I don’t have a lot of answers on all the details, but I just know that His kingdom is where I want to put my allegiance and time and interest and energy.

Then this morning I read several blogs that extolled the armed forces because of today being Memorial Day in the US, and I wanted to weep. How can violence bring peace? How can killing be laudable? I believe that there are soldiers in the military with soft hearts who want to follow Truth. But they’re part of a ghastly machine and support a kingdom that opposes the one Jesus leads.

He has won me by His love, not His power, and thus He demonstrates that Love, not guns or bombs, is the most powerful force in the world. I follow Him. Falteringly, feebly, but convinced that He is the one who deserves my allegiance. I do this because I have heard His voice in the Gospels (it IS good news) and His is not the voice of a smooth-talking politician but of a healer whose face is streaked with tears.

A Re-read

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Books are like friends. You get attached to them, and keep going back to the ones who tell you things you need to know.

On Sunday, four of us took a picnic out to the cliffs to enjoy the sea and the sunshine. We watched a sailboat sit for awhile for lack of wind, and it reminded me of Sheldon and Davy Vanauken’s fanciful plans for their “Grey Goose.” Together, my sister and I recounted for our friends the gist of the story of A Severe Mercy which was fun because she remembered details I’d forgotten.

I know some people who think the story is about two spoiled children. Maybe it is, but I still liked it from the first time I read it, fresh out of high school. Our discussion on Sunday inspired me to go back to it again for the umpteenth time, and now I’m enjoying it again. There’s nothing like revisiting words that delighted you before. This time, I can understand how it could be seen as a spoiled child’s story, but it is still a powerful account of love, faith, and grief, beautifully told. I don’t mind admitting that Sheldon’s way with words completely charms me.

Back at age fifteen or sixteen or so, I didn’t know what he meant when he said that beauty has an ache, a pang. I couldn’t follow all the British terms from their time in Oxford and friendship with C.S.Lewis. The years have increased my understanding and experience, and now I comprehend more of what he says. “Severe Mercy” was Lewis’ phrase in a letter between the two men, referring to the grief that deepened Sheldon’s faith and love for God.

Vanauken’s second book, Under the Mercy recounts more of his professor days in Lynchburg, VA after Davy died, and shares some papers he wrote in those days. I’ve frequently gone back to the chapter on “The Bachelor” because he writes so eloquently of the historical place in society and the dignity of the single person. He writes about feminism and political protests in DC, and eventually of his “crossing the English Channel” and becoming a Catholic. The second book is good, but doesn’t carry the immediacy of the first.

This is an excerpt from A Severe Mercy that has become part of my world-view:

…we have not always been or will not always be purely temporal creatures…we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to. We are always amazed at it–how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren’t adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.

Pentecost

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This morning I woke up earlier than necessary, and obeyed the nudge to take a long walk and talk to God about a lot of my friends who were on my mind. Last night on the phone, I told one of them that I don’t understand how it works or helps, but I WILL pray for her.

God and I have this frequent discussion and we had it again this morning. It goes something like this:
Me: I don’t understand why talking to You about these people changes anything. Do You just beam them a shot of courage or strength or hope or inspiration or whatever it is that they need, when I ask You?
Him: I’m not telling you what I do or what I give them or how I answer. I’m just asking that you talk to Me.
Me: Sometimes when I’m feeling unsettled, peace comes to me in gentle ripples and washes over me. Is that because someone was praying for me?
Him: Maybe.
Me: And when I ask You for things on my behalf or others’, You never make me feel guilty or selfish. It’s as if You like hearing from me.
Him: I do.
Me: And then I feel better, calmer, more loved. Is that what prayer is about?
Him: Maybe.
Me: And it seems that when I bring neediness and brokeness to You, that is an act of worship or praise because it’s acknowledging that I can’t fix this, but You can, and I think You like hearing that.
Him: I do!
Me: Maybe it’s ok that I don’t understand how prayer works because You don’t want it to become formulaic, and You know how fond I am of solutions and plans to reduce problems.
Him: You’re getting close…

Then at church, the first hymn was a prayer and the 2nd verse was one of my very favourites: Oh, bring our dearest friends to God; remember those we love. Fit them on earth for Thy abode; fit them for joys above.
And the next hymn sang: Father-like, He tends and spares us; well our feeble frame He knows. In His hands He gently spares us, rescues us from all our foes…

In Sunday school, the ladies shared prayer needs and I was asked to pray. As earlier in the morning, it was the same verbalizing of neediness, the same thankfulness/worship for His strength and perfect wisdom. Tears dripped off my cheeks despite (maybe because of?) the confidence and gratitude deep in my spirit.

Pentecost. Why does the powerful, infinite Creator inhabit His dusty created? Why does the Spirit fill and guide and intercede on our behalf with groanings that can’t be put into words? It must be because of a love that is larger than anything anyone can know.

I’m learning that part of prayer is acknowledging that love, and that’s what changes me when I pray.

That there be no Bird-Brained Women in our Streets

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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?

Honey Drops

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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.

Wanted: Drops of Honey

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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?

What a Cup of Tea Holds

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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.

What Must God Be Like?

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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

A Space in the Music

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Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is think of a truth and embody it rather than say it.

Not being a theologian, or not always being able to explain what/how I believe what I do, I am always looking for practical, tangible ways to live my beliefs. I believe that on this side of Eden, we cannot avoid pain. I believe that because of Christ, the Healer and Restorer, pain can be redeemed, even on this side of heaven. I believe that Christians’ highest aim should be to be as Christ to their world.

Hence, This article from “Christianity Today” rang clear for me in several ways.

It broaches the theological minefield of the subject of pain without offering platitudes. It uses the metaphor of rests in music as a way to be as Christ to our world. The sentence about embodying a truth without saying it is one I hope I can always remember.

Lengthening the Cords

Posted in Family, Ireland, travel by

This article from Boundless this morning rang a deep chord in my soul. The themes of travel, the far horizon, passport stamps, and ethnic food makes my heart sing. And I love how the article wraps up with a picture of heaven. There is something timeless about exploration and sharing food with people. We were created for this, and will continue to enjoy it in heaven.

It is always a dramatic moment for me to fly trans-Atlantic with two passports in hand. One maroon, one navy. American and Irish. It is a huge gift to me, and nothing that I have earned. When the ticket agent in Pittsburg asked me to confirm that Dublin is my final destination, my friend thought it was an amazing idea. Another friend emailed me later: “Really, Ireland must be a novel place to live.” I have lost some of that wonder; some of the novelty has disappeared into the mist. But I hope I never lose the awe of being handed this gift.

The wanderlust comes from generations before me. I have two grandfathers who had the same kind of itchy feet that I inherited. One learned Spanish in middle age, took his family to El Salvador and would happily have stayed for the rest of his life. People there still call him “Papa Juan.” All his children have spent time in service in foreign countries. My other grandfather loved to tell us minute details about his globetrotting in Australia and Russia. My parents love to travel and explore new places. Their open, interested minds shaped me and made my world big.

Now my generation, my cousins, are living and serving in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Ghana. My sister teaches school in California, which is like another country too, isn’t it? And this summer another cousin goes to Liberia, and I go to Poland.

We make our own choices, but we are products of our background. I want to say here how proud I am of my grandparents and parents whose life goals were not to stay comfortable and build up the family farm/business, but who valued people who looked and spoke different from them, and who cared about them enough to pour out their lives in their behalf.

This kind of living is not pleasure-driven, but there is pleasure in it. There is delight, joy, and “ah-ha” moments where we realize again that all people on the globe share the Creator’s stamp, and at the deepest level of our beings, we hunger and long for the same things. We’re not so different from each other after all. The cords on this tent enclose a big family.