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Archive - October, 2011

what’s happened to satan? — today at deeper story

October 28, 2011 in deeper story with 0 Comments

We near that time in the year when Church and secular conflate with regard to the holidays and it becomes, at times, hard to distinguish them. As we near the close of October, I find myself thinking on evil, evil and what evil means. Or doesn’t. Is. Or isn’t.

One year at a local church’s Fall Festival—one of the valiant, though often unfortunate, attempts to reclaim All Saints Day and All Souls Day from Halloween—I was greeted by a boy dressed up as the devil. At least, his conception of him. Pitchfork in hand, horns on his head, red cape on his back, and a defiant look of satisfaction on his face.

“And what are you supposed to be?” I asked him, while at the same time encouraging yet another child to throw their fishing line—string with a clothespin affixed to a stick—over into the sea—a blue sheet with cutout fish taped to it—to see what they could catch—candy attached to a fish cutout that a very kind, very bored volunteer would time and again place into the expectant clothespin, then give a little tug and put up a playful fight before letting go to the victory shout of the child.

“I’m Satan!” declared the boy, sounding horrifically triumphant.

I was amused. “You are most obviously not.”

Keep reading with me here?

life: unmasked — failing to see cosmos

October 27, 2011 in life: unmasked with 4 Comments

Today, I share a post about life: unmasked, a blog meme started by my sensational friend, Joy.

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My hand grips the edge of the seat a bit too tightly, blanching fingers and feeling upholstery buckle within grasp. Words slip unbridled from my lips, white hot passion and vindication welled up within soul suddenly breaking forth, tumbling out.

I’m not mad at him, but at circumstance, at those who have made the circumstances for him, and I slip quickly into seeing them as faceless others, not persons, things and obstacles. I reverse the mystery of transubstantiated souls, deny the incarnate persons, and fail to see them as cosmoses in their own right. So I speak with certainty, a certainty that supposes that it is easy to reject others, easy to deny enfleshed being.

But it’s not.

It is hard to turn, to venture, to break. When we fail to see that each person in their own right is a cosmos, a complicated soul expanding to the very edge of their body and pulsating beneath the delicate paraffin of skin, we fail to see that each is made in the Image.

Though Likeness is part of the journey, incepting with the kiss of Holy Ghost that sets the pulled flesh alight, makes soul dance and cosmos spin, Image is ever there. Image tarnished, but Image present.

Each person a cosmos, each tribe a galaxy, and all this contained within the broader system, cosmos, galaxy, universe, and to the edges, the fringe, where the hands of Father God hold close and keep in delicate balance.

How easy to forget. How easy I forget.

And this, my friends, is life: unmasked.

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It is my joy, with Joy, to share here words that expose life honestly, openly, and messily. Some days my posts for this meme are about this chaos of being, other days I manage a bit more gentle words.Would you join us in sharing the vulnerable times, the unordered times, the unkempt rooms?

from each his own

October 26, 2011 in reflections with 4 Comments

The tables were not always tables, but in the trueness of symbolism they were ever abundant. Last week I had the joy of eating with Micha and her family, Elora and hers. What passed between filled glasses and cheese plates, abundantly warm entrees and gently crafted delights was the binding word of sacramental life, love that fills all the spaces and pauses between, that makes old laughter out of new friends and gives in the fullness of time the harvest of memories that are life and food, as Wordsworth said, for the years to come.

Now I sit in cool of the afternoon outside the coffee shop, watching a world of wonder slowly ravel into evening. I am tired, draining my coffee cup with a thirsty spirit, taking in small bites of the Word to rest in. The night before was spent joyously, but laboriously, pulling up the freshly milled wheat and giving over what I had to be nourishment for those in need. Hours spent at tables, offering of the self with a delighted abandon. That day I had been blessed with enough wheat to give–that is the cosmic humor, that loaves and fishes are always in abundance, though the store cupboard seems ever uncertain. But I had given much, happy as I was to give it, and I am left here in the afternoon feeling joyously depleted.

Is this not love?

In the darker parts of my soul, which I am from time to time misfortunate enough to expose to others not to mention myself, I have to confess that my ability to love with such abandon often feels like a curse. Should not everyone give all the time, should not everyone be driven to serve, feed, bless? I sit back in the fullness of my storehouse, ready to distribute, but am often quick to wonder when someone shall come pass me by and offer something of the abundance that I have once given them. When shall be my feast? Where is my prize?

It is a terrible thing to love, for only in love can we be disappointed. Expectations, true expectations, do not exist outside of love. And our expectations can sometimes be damage, old scars, entitlement, or even the innocent delusion which supposes that everyone else must be like we are, must feel as we do, be as we find ourselves being. Continue Reading…

for the girl whose name i have lost

October 25, 2011 in reflections with 1 Comment

Today I write for the child whose name I have forgotten, but whose face is burned into the wood of my soul.

We made do in the field outside between the church and the farmland. Nearly a hundred children and hardly enough supplies. There was prayer on that point and somehow drawing pads and markers were as loaves and fishes–enough, abundant. We small group of volunteers in the midst of a Romanian spring, looking after the orphaned children of gypsies long ridiculed and ostracized.

I don’t remember her name. At the time I was young enough to embrace the foolish belief that I would remember things forever and never needed to write them down. I gave her the marker, the pad, took her photo while she glowered at me in her impossibly red hat.

I wonder now, nearly a decade later, what has become of her. I wonder if there was comfort, sacrament in marker and drawing pad. I wonder if it was enough. I wonder if the gift of presence was acceptable, if it came in the fullness of time.

We are quickly approaching World Orphan Sunday on November 6th. This year, I am proud to support the ministry of Cry of the Orphan, a mission project that has proved to be an exceptional endeavor. There are over 140 million orphans in the world. Adoption cannot be the feasible answer for each, however much we wish it. Accordingly, Cry of the Orphan offers a free DVD and guide that gives information and resources as to how singles, teens, couples unable to adopt, and young and old alike can be a part of radically changing the life of an orphaned child forever and for the better.

Would you consider receiving some of their materials and sharing them as you feel led with your friends, your community, your church? Watch the trailer and then click the link on the top left to request a DVD and resource packet.

We the Church are a broad brushstroke of brothers and sisters in and across time. Let us come together now and answer the cry.

a practical way to deny lust – guest post for ally spotts

October 21, 2011 in sex, relationships, and women with 0 Comments

Today I am honored to be sharing over at Ally Spotts’s wonderful and amazing blog. You may recall several months ago when I guest posted there a tongue-in-cheek, open letter to women about rejecting men. Well, today I nervously and humbly share a further glimpse into my own heart and the battle I have with lust, offering one way in which that battle is being won by Christ our victor in my soul with a little help–a lot of help–of my best friend. Join me on Ally’s blog today?

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Three months ago I wrote a post for the Good Women Project about pornography, in which I stated that a woman had no business getting engaged to a man who struggled with porn. Hiccups were one thing, but a continual, habituated sin was another.

Since that post, I have received hundreds of emails from women and men alike asking me how to practically overcome lust, how to tame a beast that is ever and always much greater than ourselves.

For the longest time, I didn’t really have much of an answer.

I knew what to say in the traditional sense: Read your Bible, pray, find an accountability partner.

All the stuff that sounded good to do, right to do, but at the close I had to admit in my own heart, in that dark space between advised words and lived action, that those hadn’t been enough for me.

While reading your Bible, prayer, and accountability are crucial, we shouldn’t hold them on a pedestal of medicinal salve.

Keep reading this post here.