My Blog

Christmas past

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:24:42 -0600

This is a piece I wrote in 2006...

Mary Alice Freeman cannot hear. She leaned forward, seeing the lips on the carolers moving, the young men’s feet tapping to the beat, a child angel standing up front lifting her arms at the close of the song. But she could not hear the heart-felt mixed melodies of talented and tone deaf crooners side by side, attempting to break the silent nights at the Lakeshore Retirement center.

I sat with her after the caroling, the two of us quietly communing. I reached carefully for one of her hands, and held it in both of mine, stroking the wrinkled skin, and smooth palms. Before I could control myself, my head was on her shoulder, and we sat there, mending each other in silence. Me longing for my Mother’s touch, her for the embrace of a daughter never born.

Sometimes my communing with the Lord is like this. Silence on both of our parts, but His presence soothing the inner places of ache I hesitatingly reveal.

Silent nights are not unique to my own experience. Between the writing of Malachi and Matthew, heaven was silent for 400 years. There were no prophets, no meetings on high mountains with booming voices writing on stones, no still small voice.

Times of silence before great appearings seems to be the rhythm of heaven. That 400 year silence was broken by the voices of the first carolers singing “Gloria, in Excelsis Deo”, “Emmanuel, God with us!”.

Other periods of distinct silence marked the season of Jesus come to earth. Thirty years of silence before His ministry. A silent night in the garden before His crucifixion, and then three days of silence before the resurrection.

I think I have sometimes equated “silence” with “abandonment”.   The moments that echo with nothing seem so lonely. My monologues feel unheard. My letters of supplication seem to collect, unopened. And in my most desperate times, I wonder kneeling, do I cry alone?

But there is no way I could believe that when Jesus prayed in the garden, the silence from heaven indicated disregard or desertion on God’s part. Or that God relinquished desire for his people for 400 years. Or that when the Psalmist or I beg for Him to speak He simply turns his back in indifference.

Mary Alice Freeman was not abandoned. My Mother has not abandoned me by going home to be with the Lord. Tonight, her fur cape hugs me almost like she did. Perhaps it is an extension of her arms to me on a silent night.

A taciturn heaven can be pregnant with Presence. And the silence is, like in Revelatioan after the seventh seal was broken, a certain hush before the trumpets.

In the near last words of Malachi before the 400 years of silence, it says “The Father heard”, and that those who thought on His name were written in His book of remembrance.

No, silence has not meant abandonment. He has collected my heart and words in golden bowls and they sit ever in His presence.

I am listening. My ear is pressed to the door and I’m listening. And anticipating the trumpets after the silence. God speaks in soul stirring interruptions, sometimes in the form of a new and unlikely friend.

Just before I left Mary Alice that night, she pulled my face to her lips and whispered in my ear, “I think we could be friends.”

Indeed, isn’t that what God has done at Christmas? He sent His son to rescue a lost creation, pulls our hearts close to Him, and offers the invitation of fellowship, family, belonging. “I think we could be friends...”

What tidings of great news. What comfort and joy. What a lovely way to break the silence.

Counting sheep faces

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:37:40 -0500

I couldn’t sleep. I was hot. I was cold. I was awake. Fortunately for me, quality late night television was aware of this, and afforded me several options.

I passed on the many thoughtful “gift” offers being shared at that hour, skipped quickly past the show about the men who make scary motorcycles causing me to obsess about whether I locked the doors, could not click fast enough past the sci-fi channel, or the animals who eat other animals documentary. I was getting idiot cranky.

I surfed on. Then, I found her. The nasal high pitched frosted haired sweatered grandmother was recounting the riveting story of the potato she found that looked like Jay Leno. (So fortunate that the Leno show is not only shown one time each night, but is also rebroadcast for those of us able to miss it the first time.) As the details of the narrative spilled out, I couldn’t help but think, “Now why don’t astonishing things like that happen to me?”

Settling there to ruminate, I remembered the national scandal of the Bongo Java “Nun-bun”. A cinnamon bun unassumingly went into the oven an ontological breakfast snack, and exited it an iconic imago Mother Theresa. Once again, not something that happened to me, but, it DID happen near me, and someone I know said someone they knew saw it.

Earlier in the day at a meeting I noticed a face in the knots in the table grain. It was upside down, and neither famous nor necessarily miraculous. A pair of boots I was trying on had two rivets over a strap, looking like hollow eyes with a wide grin. Stars, leaves on the ground, puddles with stones, and finger prints on the window all turned themselves up or around somehow to resemble a face. No Nun-Buns, but faintly anthropologically entertaining.

Tonight I watched as two of the 33 trapped men came out of the mine in Chile. The cameras all jockeyed to see their faces as they exited their vein of earth. I’ll bet the wives and children who saw them felt that something astonishing and miraculous was happening to them. I was glad to watch through the glass box on my table.

We talked about the new heavens and new earth in our Bible study this evening. I thought of the recent deaths in our community, and wondered what the Face looked like that greeted them and welcomed them home. It would be astonishing. I’m sure of it.

I was tired enough to turn over, and fluff my pillow then, and as I reached up to pull down my eye visor I saw the face of my beloved. Even with his eyes closed, I saw his blue eyes, and the way he has been looking at me lately, and realized, astonishing things do happen to me. Every night, and every morning, I see his face. 32 years of that counts as something pretty miraculous.

Thank you Lord. Good night.

Broken Ballerina

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:53:37 -0500

"Once I have found that in my total brokenness I am still loved, I become free from the compulsion of doing successful things." Henri Nouwen

Dear women,
I had an ivory leather jewelry box with a little keyed brass latch on it when I was growing up. It had a gold harlequin diamond pattern decorating the puffy lid, and lipstick red velvet, tucked and glued, lining the inside. At the time, my jewelry collection consisted of a charm bracelet my Aunt Mary had given me, with one solitary charm on it, a couple of squeezee adjustable size rings with various plastic gems in various unknown metal settings, some of my mom's tossed off costume necklaces, dad's tie bars, a pearl button from a white shirt, and one important personal treasure, my Sunday School pin. It was a red insert set in a gold torch with "Primaries" stamped on it, and there was a "candle" attached by a short chain signifying each year of perfect attendance... 3. That was, at the time, almost half my life.

The jewelry box had a little ballerina inside who spent much of her life facing down until the lid was opened, at which time she would spring up, and dance around a small clear platform to the tune of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Her hands were stretched above her head, fingers reaching higher than the tiara on her head, one leg steadied her while the other extended at a 45 degree angle behind her. She was exquisite, black painted hair snugged in a chignon, red lips and pink tutu. Every time I opened the box, she celebrated with a twirl around and around her little platform. Once I made my selection and closed the lid, she would quietly fold herself down onto the red velvet and rest until the next time I opened the box.

Somewhere in my adolescent years, while the music continued, the dancing had stopped. In my haste to reach for lockets on chains, and a now jangling half full charm bracelet, and a growing collection of rings, I had not noticed the day that my little ballerina quit dancing. She would still pop up, and reach high, but the dance in her was gone. She was broken.

The box stayed with me until I moved away to college. I had picked up a fine furniture jewelry box that my Dad purchased for me in the orient, and most of my "real" jewelry had been transferred there. I emptied out the harlequin leather box of the remaining lesser used items, pulling the Sunday School pin out with the other "jewels", and then prepared to take the box up to the attic with the other retired childhood artifacts. I sat on the pull down attic stairs with the box open on my lap humming the rainbow song, and touched the little dancers fingers, lovingly, no less fond of the still dancer than the kinetic one that used to spin joyfully.

Father, some days the dance is just out of me. Some days I just can't seem to be the women I really want to be. I am humbled by the continuing intensity of your love for me, even when I am a still dancer, in an empty box. Even when I am broken. I am simply your beloved.

You too, my dancing, broken, tiared friends.

See you along the way.

never alone

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 11:16:12 -0500

I love Jane Truitt. She’s a rather obscure artist from the 70’s, and while I’ve never seen a piece of her work, I’ve read her journal and feel that I’ve seen the mind behind the sculpture.

One of my favorite things she wrote was about the loneliness of being an artist. Even with friendships and beloveds around, eventually, you go to the canvas or clay alone, and must make the choices and decisions alone. She compared it to the pony express riders, who delivered the mail. Some late rainy nights, they came off their horses to the warmth of a kettle and a cup of tea in the home of a friend or stranger, but in the back of their mind, they knew the long ride was still ahead, and they must make it alone.

Whether you are an artist or not, you know something about the lonely ride in a dark night with the rain whipping your hair across your face. It might be a literal long night holding a sick child, or the still wait in a hospital waiting room, or a long silence beside a phone or unreturned text, or a calling you know is yours but seems daunting, or a courageous stand you’ve been urged to take, but will likely stand alone in. Sometimes it’s the battle for anxious thoughts to be surrendered in the quiet of a stilled house. Sometimes, it’s the relentless chore of simple daily fidelities. But in any case, you feel alone, vulnerable, and forgotten, and the walls are closer than you wanted them to feel.

I imagine Joseph felt something similar down in the pit. And Jonah inside the big fish. The three young men who stood in defiance of Nebuchadnezzer likely felt it. Mary must have felt it when she missed her period, and had not been with a man. And another Mary, when she first felt the nudge to take her jar of perfume to break open on the Savior. And the Savior, when he was in Gethsemenee, He felt it too.

Into the silence, and the loneliness, and the dark night, let me remind you what our Father has said in His revealed word:
“...the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name, Immanuel, which means “GOD WITH US”. Matt. 1:23
“...I am with you always, even to the end of the earth.” Matt. 28:20
“...nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rom 8:39
“...I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” Psalms 32:8
“...Christ IN YOU, the hope of glory.” Col. 1:27
“...though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for You are with me...” Psalms 23:4
“...I will never leave you, or forsake you...” Hebrews 13:5
“...He who sent me is with me, and will not leave me alone...” John 8:29

You are not alone. Sometimes there is a ride you must make by yourself, but you will never be alone.

See you along the way.

Kim

Bye-bye fair

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:29:11 -0500

We thought it might get rained out. Ok, I thought it might get ripped up, torn apart, and we'd all be mauled by a tornado, but they thought it might rain.

So we met and packed ourselves into one car and drove to the fair Friday night. I checked in with weather.com on my phone throughout the evening, so that we would know when to find one of the cardboard sheds to huddle and hide in from the funnel clouds.

We started our evening on damp picnic benches, dining on various corn products: corn dogs, corn on the cob, popcorn, kettle corn. Oh who am I kidding, here's the truth: I ate two of those huge roasted corns trounced in butter. Yup, it was so good, and my face had a cherubic glow from the butter smearing all over my cheeks as I type-writered my way up and down the cob. It was good old Americana fun and just the fuel needed to send us out on an evening reminiscent of a simpler time.

I admit it, I'm usually too busy in life to take notice of the largest pumpkin, best pie, most beautiful Barbie, or most endearing rooster. It is shockingly difficult for me to stop my brain from running to all of my busy piles waiting to be tended. But Friday night, from 6-10, I shut down all productivity and wandered with no goal, other than "being" with friends. I think I started to unwind and relax a little when my eyes fell on the headless wedding cake...a large busted white dress cake with a pearl necklace (difficult, as there was no neck, either). That’s when I realized, “I’m at the fair and by golly it’s fun!”

Later, after Jodi had willingly snuggled a snake, and we had misplaced poor Jen (she was leaning up against a pole somewhere resting her injured ankle), Carla, the birthday girl (whom we were honoring that evening), began to engage the roosters in a rousing dance and sing-a-long. And that my friends is where I really dropped my last vestige of uptight. You just couldn’t help but surrender to the joy. The poor creatures were so relieved to have the distraction from the very loud death-drop carnival ride situated right outside their shed, that they all gave it their very best. And for me, well, Carla’s joy was the best part of the night. Sudden momma to two boys (under the age of 3) whom she has taken into her home and heart on a much more grand adventure than the fair, the purity in her laughter reminded me, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”. And the things that seemed awfully important two hours earlier were beginning to sit comfortably on the get-to-it-tomorrow shelf.

It’s been a tradition for the past several years. The sky almost always threatens to tornado up, and we’re always still good to go, although the caramel corn suffers on those hi humidity nights. This year, there were no white tigers, no men hopping on top of sky-scraper poles next to motorcycles in round-ball cages, and fewer freaks to view for only a dollar. But the corn products and the agro were still entertaining enough, and I won’t soon forget that cake.

As we walked down the hill to the car, someone said, “well, that’s the last time”. I guess the city is actually shutting down the fair grounds, and history will swallow up these simpler pleasures in her attic of memories. I turned for one last photo, and snapped a facile shot of the bright ferris wheel pausing, scaring the people in the top car swinging over the edge. Against a black sky, reigning over what was once a grand kingdom, it was a confectionary nimbus, the welcome sign hailing tired city people to an evening of ease. I waived, and said, “Bye-bye fair, forever.”

Hope you find a place to sit and rest this week, set aside the stuff, breathe because you want to feel the air in your lungs, and remember that God can be seen in the blessed simplicity.

a familiar breeze

Mon, 6 Sep 2010 23:14:00 -0500

The awkward little white earbuds struggled to stay more in my ears than out as I walked. And my attention was clinging to them, listening to words from a woman I’ve never met, will probably never know, feeling that she was also more in my head than out.

To be honest, I couldn’t give you any idea of what she said after the first 10 minutes of her 57 minute talk. I held onto the incidental story she told before she even got to her topic, and reran it visually in my head as I walked the trail.

She spoke of sitting in her sunroom with the windows open one morning, enjoying the early coolness. A while later, as she was leaving, she made her way window to window, closing each one as if sacramentally ending her liturgy of morning quiet, and she found that there was a dragonfly caught between one of the windows and the screen. While lovely, displayed in first morning light, the poor creature was in a precarious spot. If the woman raised the window, she would tear the delicate wing. If she closed it, she would completely crush her. So she made the only decision one could - she did nothing, and left the little one to her privacy, and her indefinite pause from flight.

You can’t help but wonder what the dragonfly was doing there. Of all the places to light, how did she get in such a tight spot? What image from inside the sunroom might have drawn her in for a closer look? And where was the rip in the screen, allowing her access to the in-between?

Imagining her quivering slightly, maintaining her dignity and thoughtfulness, I felt a deep sisterhood with her. I was in a season of pause from flight, and felt the pressures from the outside and the inside, and I had forgotten where the rip was that I entered through. I wondered why God allowed me to be so carelessly stuck in such a potentially dangerous place. Why was I where He could not raise, or lower my window without wounding me? Until the fat tear rolled under my chin, I didn’t even know I was weeping. Man, I better just pull myself together here, I’m crying over a bug.

When she came home that afternoon, the woman discovered the dragonfly was gone. It seems that she had a breeze blow over her, familiar enough to remind her she was made to fly. Her wings ached for the sky, and she inevitably found her way out the rip she came in by, and resumed her rightful place on the air.

And I got it. She wasn’t so much in a precarious place, as a safe place to rest, waiting for a familiar breeze to come her way. I felt a little bit of air move over my soul, and that day, I went home and made notes for something I was writing, and then went into my studio to open paint and touch canvas. My wings had been brushed, and I recognized the feeling, and I started to find my way out the rip I came in by.

See the Lord couldn’t simply raise or lower the window, because escape wasn’t the point. Knowing my calling for that season, or being reminded of it again, was.

What tight place are you in? Have you been so concerned with rescue, that you have missed a familiar breeze? Is there a safe in-between where you could sit for a while, and wait? The breeze will come. He will send it, at the right time, on the right day, over the edge of the perfect sunlight. You were made for something, and it looks like something, and it feels like something, and He’ll remind you, if you wait.

Multiple choice

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:18:31 -0500

I went to buy dish soap. How did these shoes, this lamp, this coffee maker and these bath towels get in my shopping cart?
It was a simple decision. Pick out a yellow soap, pay for it and leave. And then, well, there were all of those other decisions asking for me to make them. I was a willing party, and as I walked the aisles of the red “target” logo’d store, I was assaulted by options. Pretty little strappy sandals, or pleather flip flops… lucite column lamp or nickel urn lamp… pods or ground coffee maker… Egyptian cotton or hotel quality… The Sirens sang to me under the fluorescent lights and I chose and I chose and I chose. I’m on a roll, send me for cereal, I’ll come back with a tractor and lip gloss.
It’s actually kind of overwhelming when you start collecting the number of choices facing us in a day, and honestly, I don’t do very well some days. Some of the choices are benign, like what to wear or what coffee cup to drink from. But others are core shaping, like will I be kind within a person’s hearing and when they can’t hear me, in front of their eyes or behind their back? Will I choose to spoil the precious “yet-ness” of a day with choleric recitations of the me-song? Or, will I allow a fruit of the Spirit to catch the moment before I’ve spoiled it? The sheer volume of choices produces a ratchet snapping brittleness of quick-fired yes/no decisions and leaves shards of what-might-have-beens behind me all day.
I don’t like that. I rather prefer when I start the day choosing to lay myself face down on the floor, surrendering in a silently repeated, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner”. It sets the mood. It lays the groundwork for grace to walk on. It frames the certain but unnamed choices I will meet with the possibility of Godliness and kingdom building.
In that wake, I will choose to wait for the sun to pink the clouds around 6:15, and for appropriate times to open my mouth and offer thoughtful words to the people I spend time with. I’ll raise my sails, and then decide to wait for the wind God might send to direct them. I’ll choose to live in this day, not missing a moment because I chose poorly to focus on the what-ifs of tomorrow. I will choose to be intentional and form precise decisions regarding who I will be, what fruit I will bear, what effect and legacy my imprint will leave on the soft underside of this day.
It will be a busy day. And the hardest decision I will make will be not to choose, when I’m flustered and uncertain, but instead to patiently wait for the peace the Spirit will deliver wisdom in.
Lots of mornings Jim looks at me over the cup of coffee he hands me and simply says, “Have you made your decision yet?” It’s our shorthand for “don’t let today rush all over you before you’ve chosen to believe it belongs to God”. It’s a pretty good question. It makes me just a teensy bit cranky that he’s so smart. But I sip the coffee, and I work on deciding.

MOLTING

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:35:57 -0500

For about a year, I’ve been slightly molting. Ironically, since I want to be accurate and sure that it is “molting” I’m doing, and not “molding”, I took a short visit to my close friend Google. Here comes the ironic part. Yes, I’ve molted not molded. (Not the ironic part). See, a feather can’t heal itself when it is damaged, it has to be completely replaced. And a molt is when all or part of the feathers are replaced. Definitely, that’s what I was talking about. I know, I know, here is the irony: “Molting occurs in response to a mixture of hormonal changes brought about by seasonal changes.” Oh yeah, that’s it, um-hmm, I’ve been molting.
 I love the picture of something damaged being replaced. You know, sometimes damage can simply be repaired, but in something as light and essential to the process of flying, it must be completely replaced. I think about a year ago, I had too many broken feathers, and became earthbound. That’s not so bad, because things look pretty good from that view too. But there is a part of me that was made to fly, and broken feathers, instead of being tools, become dead weight. “Seasonal changes”. That is a powerful descriptor of life. Friends and relationships change. Yup. Jobs change. Yup. Nests change. Yup. Titles change. Yes. Pets, children, schedules, loves, hopes, names, plans… seasonal changes.
 So, I found I was exhausted. You? And frustrated. And disappointed. And no longer tender, pliable, willing, oo-oo – “moldable”. (I knew that was in there too somewhere.) Are you seeing you here too, a little?
 As I have prayed through my season of molting, a quiet God voice has lovingly directed my thoughts to feathers in need of replacing. Broken habits of holiness, squeezed out sacraments of silence and solitude, delayed confessions and repentance, tight fists around control and rigid grips on expectations. I had rather let my wings go a bit, and I’m looking ragged in the soul department.
 My research continued to tell me that it takes a lot of energy to build new feathers. That would be reeeeeally frustrating. Seasons of brokenness, if anything, are rarely characterized by a good back-log of extra energy available for building with. Ahh, but here is some more great news. It takes energy, but not striving. Have you ever seen a bird and thought, oh, he’s growing new feathers. I can tell by all the effort and striving, the furrowed brow. Nope. God set a process in motion when He created the little creatures, and while it takes energy from the bird, it does not take striving. I’m told that molting usually happens in seasons of less strenuous demands, like after nesting or before migration. At strategic times, feathers shed and renew.
 Well my chickadees (unlike buntings and warblers), an annual molting can be a good thing. Don’t be discouraged. Broken wings need care and time. That is the quiet work of the Spirit. Old things can become new. The weights that beset us, we can set aside. We can become transformed by the renewing of our minds, setting our thoughts, affections on Christ. And as we spend a season earthbound, waiting on the Lord, God is renewing our strength so that we will once again mount up with wings as eagles, and fly.

Still tasting and seeing

Tue, 6 Apr 2010 00:45:49 -0500

Hawaiian bread was stuck in my back molars, and fruit juice stained my fingers this past Easter Sunday. It was great.

In all four services, I sat on the edge of my seat for each moment to take center stage. The children filling the holes on the cross with yellow flowers, a congregation singing "Oh, The Wonderful Cross", the choir sounding like twenty-hundred fistfuls of voices in a European cathedral, lilting Latin syllables ringing out the Lord's Prayer. Testimonies of second chances and courageous choices, "...because of the resurrection". Reminders of the first disciples, and their reactions to the empty tomb, pastoral encouragement to enter in, to "see" the scars, to hear our name, to be patient for revelation. And then, the celebration of remembrance, as we joyfully received the bread and juice while singing "Oh, Happy Day, Happy Day...You washed my sin away!". And after the Great Celebration, we stood, me on my tiptoes, for the "Hallelujah Chorus". Oh my, and oh my. It was great.

As we walked to our car around 8 that night, the sweet taste of the bread lingered, and the sticky juice stained my fingers. And I thought of what might be lingering and staining my heart and soul.

I suppose I am surprised that even in the joyous and undeniable glow of the day, there were still marks of the broken creation, bold and demanding. There were those sitting among our chairs who were still breathing the gasps of fresh grief, having recently buried loved ones. I prayed with others who wept the fresh tears of disappointment and uncertainty regarding relationships. I remembered the fresh anger of someone frustrated, and weary, doing the best they could. And I saw hints of someone's fresh rebellion, disregarding the image of God in those they have privilege of being in community with.

I fought with myself, scolding the part of me who lives in a half empty glass, yet affirming the tenderness of my heart, still able to be moved by the broken Shalom that fractures whatever kind of glass any of us live in.

I know the truth and promise of the Gospel, the complete work of the cross and resurrection. But it's sort of like watching for my peonies every year. I look at the hard ground, convinced there is no way the delicate full scented flowers could ever return through the hard and undernourished soil. But the bloom is promised, it's what peonies do. There might be scorching heat, drought, wind, pummeling rain, before the petals of the bloom peal back and expose the beauty of beauties, but the beauty will come. For now, I see pink edged green shoots that have broken the surface, and I must become expectant. As the next two months measure on, the scent will be hovering in the air, and every once in a while, I will smell it, even before the blooms appear. It is the unfamiliar yet oh so familiar scent of "what was intended".

From Colossians 1:18-20 in The Message:
He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

He will save. He will love. It's what He does, it's who He is.

That's what will stick in my teeth and stain my fingers. And ring in my ears, and fill my lungs and spill from my lips in gratitude and thanksgiving.

root words

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 01:04:13 -0500

Well I just can't imagine a single one of us who didn't like this day. Fresh air dotted with Bradford Pear blossoms, outlined in yellow forsythia stripes, and underscored with stout green grass. Oh yeah, and wrapped in a blue sky head scarf!!

What are you going to do with me? Radnor has set me writing again. Radnor oh Radnor... your refrain never tires me, your melody never makes me crazy-mad like that "It's a small world" dither.

This time it's roots that have my attention. Not the kind I colored with chemicals Saturday, staining both my gray and my ears. No, this time it's the tree roots that make me look for tight little sentences and rhythmically syllabic adjectives.

In the fading winter nakedness, the woods have started covering themselves again. But before they are fully clothed, I have taken inventory of the felled trees exposed by the season. So many of the grand dames of the lake path have simply swooned to the forest floor, taking their rest beneath Maples and fast growing Tulip Poplars, and slower, older Chinquepin Oaks. They have surrendered to time, weather, sickness, or perhaps just the growing crowd under the skin of soil. For one reason or another, the old ladies have opened their fingers, loosening their grip on the soil, and turned up their skirts to the wind.

The adolescent trees stand near the sleeping beauties, wisely making their own root paths near the well plowed furrows. The older lead the younger, showing their own form of sculptural beauty, in the shadow of the long legs and arms of tall new trees.

The upturned roots, a mass of tangle and turn, trace a life of surprises, unexpected changes, tenacity, and adaptability, while the trunks have testified of strength, unyielding, bearing up under the elements with great confidence, regardless of what ran beneath the surface in the dark. The roots have lyrically chronicled the necessary messiness, the trunks have recited order and single mindedness.

And so I consider what I’m planted in, and where my roots have curled and adapted. How tenacious and searching am I in the hidden interiors of my life? Am I strong, ordered, committed? Does my visible strength allow for the often less visible narrative of my mistakes and course corrections? Am I striking a well marked path for the younger who come behind me? When I lay down, will my legacy draw curious inquiry?

You can’t have traveled a life of faith very long and not visited the Psalms at some point. My paraphrase here of Psalm 1:

“Blessed is she whose delight is in the Word of God; she will be like a tree planted by good things, rooted and grounded in Christ, productive, and flourishing, watched over by the Lord in all her days.”

And one day, she will turn her skirts to the wind, and show her roots, to the glory of God.