As a mom, a still point in a day has become a precious gift, a deep and glorious breath, a moment to collect one's thoughts, un-interrupted by the little voices, the many distractions that often challenge, seem to define and certainly enrich our lives. Thoughts shared here come from the still points of one life and pass along to another, hopefully to enrich, encourage and perhaps entertain. ("Burnt Norton", by T.S. Eliot)

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Prayer

Hi Ladies,
The topic, import and method of prayer was up for discussion at our last "Mom's Group" meeting. My reading for the week happened to be The Living Reminder by Henri Nouwen (a great quick read!!) and he had a lot of great wisdom including some profound thoughts on prayer. I'll include one portion of his thoughts on prayer and spirituality here. I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have on this quotation or on anything related to prayer that you've learned lately (you can comment below or email us). I love how Nouwen takes the idea of prayer (and the injunction to pray without ceasing) and frames it in terms of a holistic view of spirituality where prayer is a part of being rather than a thing (routine or not) that you "do".

Blessings, Christy

“Before any professional skill, we need a spirituality, a way of living in the spirit by which all we are and all we do becomes a form of reminding. One way to express this is to say that in order to be a living reminder of the Lord; we must walk in his presence as Abraham did. To walk in the presence of the Lord means to move forward in life in such a way that all our desires, thoughts, and actions are constantly guided by him. When we walk in the Lord’s presence, everything we see, hear, touch, or taste reminds us of him. This is what is meant by a prayerful life. It is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.” P. 28

Friday, March 4, 2011

Bittersweet


Thank you Alison for the sweet and generous gift of your friend Shauna's book. (Bittersweet, by Shauna Niequist). I found it to be a quick read with many engaging topics that a woman in our stage of life (married/motherhood) could relate to. In particular I identified with her thoughts on the pain of miscarriage and appreciate her willingness to be open about her experience. I know that several of us have suffered from the pain of miscarriage, some more recent than others, and I'd encourage you to read her thoughts (in particular the "What Might Have Been" Chapter). I loved her encouragement regarding the act of creativity and hope to employ it more in my own life. I think I sometimes hesitate to be creative (for me the chosen form would be writing) because I think there is no real purpose to it, no real need... what I have to say has probably already been said by someone else, most certainly in a better way... To this she says, "We create because we were made to create, having been made in the image of God, whose first role was Creator." So there! Whether it's creating things with your kids, writing, or interior decorating I would LOVE to hear more about how any of you identify with your "creator" side!!

What I wanted to share however, and what I thought we would ALL relate to and enjoy - a high point in the book, in my mind - was this:

Chapter: "Eight for Eight"
"Motherhood has rumbled over us like a freight train, rendering us in some moments out of control and humbled, positions we're not accustomed to. We're get-it-done women. We've handled everything, all the time, all at the same time. We've made lists and plans and back-up plans. And motherhood laughed at our plans, twisted up our expectations, and gave them back to us upside down, covered with blood and stretch marks and Goldfish cracker paste." Ha ha!! So true!! At least it resonates with me... does it with you?

She goes on to say... "We have been made vulnerable by motherhood as we have by nothing else in our lives."

That is it for me. It sums up in one word what my soul has encountered and my natural inclinations fight against... a vulnerability at every turn that tells me, I am not in control, the world does not revolve around me, I can not escape or distract from the pain of life, I can not see the future, I can not control the future, my timeline is irrelevant, my self-centerdness is inexcusable... I could go on.

The JOY in all of it... I know that God is using this season, this vulnerability, to make me and mold me and shape me into that unavoidable bond-servant ideal He depicts in His Word and demonstrated through His Son. What a task He has in store!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Trinity Thoughts

A Word from Heather on the Trinity... "Below is a very abridged version of one of the chapters in Reasons for God by Timothy Keller. Excellent book. This particular chapter that I read totally changed the way I think of the triune God and how the trinity ties into all of creation!"

"The Dance of God"

Christianity is the only world faith that teaches that God is triune. The trinity means that God is, in essence, relational. The gospels say that the Spirit glorifies the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father and that this has been going on for all eternity. The term "glorify" means to praise, enjoy, and delight in something. When something is useful, you are attracted to it for what it can bring you or do for you. But if it is beautiful, then you enjoy it simply for what it is. Just being in its presence is its own reward. To glorify someone is also to serve or defer to him or her. Instead of sacrificing their interests to make yourself happy, you sacrifice your interests to make them happy. Why? Your ultimate joy is to see them in joy. In self-centeredness we demand that others orbit around us. We will do things and give affection to others, as long as it helps us meet our personal goals and fulfills us.

The triune God however, is very different. The trinity is characterized by self-giving love. When we delight and serve someone else, we enter into a dynamic orbit around him or her; we center on the interests and desires of the other. That creates a dance, particularly if there are two or three persons. This is how the trinity operates. Each person of the Trinity loves, adores, defers to, and rejoices in the others. God is not unipersonal. If God were unipersonal, then love did not exist until he created, because love is something shared between people. A unipersonal God would have power, greatness, sovereignty from all eternity, but not love. With a unipersonal God, power would be at his essence.

When Jesus said you must lose yourself in service, he was recounting what the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have been doing throughout eternity. You will never get a sense of self by standing still and making every one else revolve around your needs and interests. Unless you are willing to experience the loss of options and the individual limitation that comes from being in committed relationships, you will remain out of touch with your own nature.

The world was not created by a God who was only an individual, nor was it created by an impersonal force. It is not the product of power struggles between personal deities nor of random, violent, accidental natural forces. We as Christians reject these creation accounts because they do not give love primacy. We believe the world was made by God who is a community of persons who have loved each other for all eternity. We were made for mutually self-giving, other-directed love. Self-centeredness destroys the fabric of what God has made! That's what went wrong in the Garden of Eden. We became self-centered, wanting to fulfill our own desires. And thus we have the disintegration of relationships between nations, races, classes, individuals. But Jesus died for us. He centered upon us, loving us without benefit to Himself. And that is what He is calling us back to. Jesus mission here was an infinitely costly rescue operation to restore justice to the oppressed, physical wholeness to the diseased and dying, community to the isolated and lonely, and spiritual joy and connection to those alienated from God. To be a Christian today is to become part of that same operation. We have assurance of eventual success. We labor in expectation of a perfect world in which: "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of thing is passed away." Revelation 21:4

Heather's son Ben and my daughter Kate enjoying some quality pumpkin time...

Monday, November 1, 2010

Distractions (2) or "I'm the Pharisee!!"



Pete and I had a night away from the kids and spent it up at Timberline Lodge (highly recommend!!!) which enabled hours of uninterrupted “adult conversation”. You remember, full sentences, complete thoughts, whole paragraphs eve! Non-truncated by the doing or responding or caring for wee ones! It was lovely.

Pete is “in” real estate which currently means he is buying and selling apartments. Prior to purchasing an apartment complex you have to walk through every single unit to do an “inspection” – checking for any expensive repairs. I knew this but didn’t really grasp that this means that you have to go into some 100 plus people homes and poke around their stuff – or their lack of stuff.

You can imagine some of the stuff he sees. Mostly it’s not very pleasant and sometimes its really sad. He told me about it at dinner and what stuck with me the most wasn’t the odd pets or bizarre living habits or nasty posters, but his description of how many people had so very little. A single mother with kids with one or two toys; an elderly couple with about 8 items each hung neatly in a closet; a 20 year tenant with one or two pieces of furniture and a single photograph on the wall. Suddenly the vast excess in my life was glaringly apparent. The bulging drawers, boxed storage bins and overflowing closets took on a rather grotesque quality. The verse in Proverbs (3:27-28) compelling one to not hold back any good from another in need reverberated in my head and I was very sad.

Social Justice is en vogue these days – and that’s a good thing. People, Christians and non-Christians alike are all becoming more socially conscious, more globally aware, more informed of the problems that exist both locally and abroad, but with all that information and consciousness, are we actually doing anything different? Has my life changed? Mostly I’d say no, but I’m not sure it’s because of a hardened heart nearly as much as it is from a lack of empowerment combined with busy distracting lives. I’m a mom of 2 young kids and a full schedule, what could I possibly do to meet the needs of the world? I can tithe and I do, I can sponsor a child or two, participate in food drives, get impassioned and angry about the state of society… all good things… but only a drop in the bucket. And a drop, I’m realizing, can be very de-motivating!

So, why the de-motivation? Is it the size of the drop or the size of the ocean that seems to be the problem? Serving on a Board of a Foundation that has invested some 20 million “drops” into the ocean, I realize that I don’t think it’s the size of the drop that de-motivates. Once can invest $15 or $1.5 million and still be aghast at the overwhelming size of the problem at hand. As many “yes’s” one is able to make, there are still a multiplicity of “no’s” that have to be made. One can’t fund every good idea or join every worthy cause. However, I don’t think it’s the size of the Ocean that is the problem either. Jesus essentially told us this when he said in Matthew 26:11 that the poor will always be with us. Only Jesus could say this and not be accused of promoting or having a lack of “social awareness”, love or concern for the poor. So why did He say it? Perhaps to point out that if the drops you are dripping are motivated by a desire to eradicate the ocean – you’ll be thwarted and end up… de-motivated and frustrated.

So I kept going with this train of thought. What if, instead, my motivation came from another source? A desire not to “make a difference” (which, I’m realizing is more about me and my sense of self worth than it is about the difference being made) but to simply be obedient to the nature that is – supposedly – within me. If I’m dead to self and alive in Christ is not my nature to be one of likeness to Christ? And if Christ’s nature was not one of compassion, then what was it? The Holy Spirit within me is what compels me to compassion – however again and again no action is taken, or at least the action taken costs me nothing. And therefore gives me nothing.

Something I’ve been wrestling with for a long time, both as a steward of funds designated to promote the work of discipleship, and as a spouse, trying to help make responsible philanthropic decisions for our family, is the conundrum that Christian Buckley in his book The Humanitarian Jesus calls, the “sandwich tract debate". (Do you give a hungry man a sandwich and wrap it in a tract or give him a tract and wrap it in a sandwich? It’s essentially the same thing but your response demonstrates your philosophical or perhaps theological leaning). The question of whether you give a cup of cold water or the message of eternal life is an important one to answer because I think it can help give you feedback as to where you stand in relationship to the message of the Cross and your role, as you see it, in the work of the Great Commission. Ideally however it should never have to be an “either/or” sort of question. Without delving into the complexities of this issue I would just like to highlight the truth I’ve recently stumbled on for myself. I strongly believe it is important to wisely consider the ways in which one chooses to invest and support the work of social justice around the world, demonstrating “true religion” as it is put in James 1:27. And, yes, I believe the Great Commission and the realities of this temporal existence as compared to an eternal existence must be taken into consideration as one chooses what good works to support. However, I’ve found that this analysis, this search to support only the “best” work has rendered me an inactive observer as opposed to an involved participant within my own neighborhood. Why give money ot a homeless man feeding him for a single day when I can send that same money to a ministry oversees that does an excellent job teaching a man to fish – and shares the gospel within at the same time… for cheaper? Perhaps it is because this man is my neighbor.

I’m not advocating the handing out of cash to the homeless, but I am realizing that my lofty sense of wise investment has hardened me from the heart of compassion I ought to have. Maybe “charity begins at home” is more about the cultivation of the heart of the giver than it is about the geographical location of the receiver.

So, this entire preface brings me to the startling, humbling, surprising and rather pathetic revelation I had during my mountain top retreat with my hubby. He had just shared his day with me (his experiences in the apartments) and I was sharing my day, telling him how his 3 year old received the story of the Good Samaritan. I stopped suddenly and started at him with what I’m guessing was a rather blank and then sheepish look on my face. “Oh my gosh, Pete, I’m the Pharisee.” I said. Somehow-how narcissistic of me- I’ve always identified with the Samaritan in the story, vilifying the Pharisee as a pious hypocrite who would leave a man to die on the road in order to get to church on time. It’s not like I pass by like he did… I’m just so distracted by my own life that I forget to notice. So, I’m back to my life’s theme of, in T.S. Eliot’s words, “Distracted by Distraction from Distraction.” It’s not some big sin that’s keeping me from the cross… It’s just my many distractions. I’m the Pharisee. And it’s humiliating to have to come to this revelation after so many years of reading that story. And it’s terrifying to think, that even after coming to this revelation, nothing in my life might change.

So, to my not-so-profound, but utterly-significant-to-me conclusion: the reason I care about my neighbor and my neighborhood, is not because my drop matters (though it may matter to that one on that day), or because my drop will impact the tide of the ocean, but because my drop changes me. The action I take in obedience to the Spirit of Christ within transforms me more into the likeness of who Christ created me to be – and THAT – Christ more fully alive in me- might someday make a difference.

Post Script: Immediate follow up actions to please hold me to. (1) Hosting a Table at local ministry Compassion Connect dinner, need to fill that table, would you be interested in joining us?? (2) Going through my closets and giving away what I am not using. (3) Linking up with the manager in the apartments my husband’s company owns and trying to give directly in anonymous ways that will meet tenant needs (as opposed to giving to Good Will which I find to be incredibly de-motivating as I know that though a non-profit their CEO and upper echelon directors are making upwards of the high6 figure salaries…) Let me know if you want to be kept abreast of their needs. (4) Connecting with local Crisis Pregnancy centers to get them needed items like toys, maternity and baby clothes. Do you have any you would like to give me?

Post Script (2): As to this question of who is my neighbor and what is my responsiblity to him, I like what Henri Nouwen has to say in The Living Reminder, reminding us that it is only through God and His strength that we are to serve anyone at all and that it is ultimately not about service to anyone other than service/servitude to God: “It is this unconditional and unreserved love for God that leads to the care for our neighbor, not as an activity which distracts us from God or competes with our attention to God, but as an expression of our love for God who reveals himself to us as the God of all people. It is in God that we find our neighbors and discover our responsibility to them. We might even say that only in God does our neighbor become a neighbor rather than an infringement upon our autonomy, and that only in and through God does service become possible.”

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

A Word From Stephanie

I find I don’t like beginning essays/blogs/whatever you’d like to call them because I feel some need to say something clever. I am not clever, so I am going to skip over this part.


God's plan for marriage is incredible to me. Initially I married Jason because he was hot, wonderful, and I loved him. Now I realize, God had a plan all along to use marriage to shape me into the likeness of Him. Never in my life have I been so completely forced to face my insecurities, my fears, my past hurts, my present assumptions. Every time I find a new stumbling block to my marriage, I am amazed to find I have the same stumbling block in my relationship with God. You’d think I’d get over being amazed! Presently, God is in the business of addressing the guilt and fear that to some extent has plagued me for as long as I can remember. From a young age, every time my parents called my name fear would sweep over me as I thought (falsely about 90% of the time) that I was in trouble, that they were angry or disappointed with me. Now as an adult I am doing the same thing to my husband. I have also done the same thing to God, constantly expecting Him to be mad at me, then having to be reassured of His love. I realize now that guilt, the feeling of failure, or not meeting up to expectations, has been a constant theme in my life, and to avoid these feelings I have avoided responsibilities, relationships, and commitment. The main fallacy in all this however, is that I have the ability to be anything good on my own strength. In Psalms 16:2 David cries “I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord, I have no good besides you.” This verse has always spoken to me, yet I have failed to see how true it really is. By the very presence of guilt, I have admitted that I am relying on my own good to get me through the day. In reality, as Jesus has been constantly reminding me over the last few weeks, we have NO good outside of Him. When I fail, when I am less than I ought to be, I do not need to struggle. Instead I need to pray for the Holy Spirit to change me, to guide me. God wants to change us from the inside out, but He can’t do that very well when I am constantly having the ME that’s trying to change me getting in the way. Instead I need to pray for Christ in me, and to rest in His spirit. God is not waiting for me to get my act together and read the Bible every day. He is not waiting for me to be a good wife and do the laundry every day. He is waiting me to give it all up, to rely on Him, and realize that I have nothing to fear, nothing to dread, because it is Him IN me that is going to do the work. He has taken all guilt, taken it upon Himself on the cross. Now, I need to move forward in faith, in joy, in prayer. There is freedom in knowing we have no good outside of Christ. Stephanie, summer 2010

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Distractions (1)

My friend Ann recently gave me a copy of, Gift from the Sea, written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Charles Lindbergh’s wife) in 1955. It was quite the gift. It is absolutely amazing to me how a mom writing in the 1950’s could be so relevant to the space and time that I am in as a mother in 2010. The pages in this short book stroked my soul and gave me the most enjoyable read I’ve had in years. I would highly recommend! Though I think I bought all the copies Powell’s had to offer… and have given them all away…

It cracks me up that Anne says, “For life today (1955!!!) in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication.” If only she could see us now! Her point is that our lives are more complicated than lives of mother’s past used to be… there are more demands, more opportunities, more good things that we need to say no to if we are going to be able to give full focus to the best things! Unfortunately, I find saying no to good things is hard. Saying no to mediocre things is even often hard…

“What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It puts the trapeze artist to shame. Look at us. We run a tight rope daily, balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now! This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn us of. It leads not to unification but to fragmentation. It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul.”

It’s true, we have so many more options than women before us did, than women in third world countries do. We are so privileged to have those choices… and yet, enter cliché: “with great privilege comes great responsibility!” I find that I’m not generally struggling to choose between the good and the bad – but between the good and the best. In the still points of the day, do I choose what is best, what is edifying, what is eternal? Are my priorities set? Am I moving on a course that is leading me towards fulfillment and purpose, the abundant life? Do I even have or take the pause to examine and see if and where and in what direction I am headed?! Or does life just overwhelm and complicate and distract?

Whereas the women before us, and today in other, less fortunate cultures, struggled merely to exist, we have the luxury of free time and the responsibility to choose how to use it wisely. Not so that we can measure up to some standard of modern world Proverbs 31 woman… but so that we can live a life of refreshing intentionality, of peace and grace.

I love that Anne chooses the word “distraction” to describe the common cause of complication in our lives, “Distraction is, always has been, and probably always will be inherent in a woman’s life.” Ever since discovering T.S. Eliot’s poem, Burnt Norton, and his line “distracted from distraction by distraction,” I’ve been obsessed with the word. It’s true though, for many of us it’s not some huge negative event or pivotal moment in life that keeps us from the things we ought or want to be about… it’s instead the little distractions. From bad things to mediocre things to good things, just enough distraction and I find myself off balance, out of synch, moving in the wrong direction, not moving at all…

So she poses the question, “how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.” Anne would agree, there is no easy answer, but perhaps it’s enough if we at least find ourselves asking the question.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1918