Grace Through Confession

A fearful question arose in me the other day...do I use the word "grace" as a coverall for those things in my life my don't really want to  deal with?

How much am I like our original ancestors, Adam and Eve, who when caught in sin, hide?  And then not only hide, but sew together some sort of leafy makeshift clothing to cover my shame...but then try to downplay it by calling upon something known as grace?  I wonder if I want a god who sees my fig leaf attire and who will chuckle at my wayward ways.  I wonder if I want him to say, "Ah, humans will be humans!", wink at what a scoundrel I am, and send me on my merry way.

But instead, I know a God who walks among us, asking me (like He did to Adam and Eve), "Where are you?" When I explain my fig leaf covering to him, he names it for what it really is...stinkweed.  He exposes the reality of my vestments made from noxiously scented plants and calls it sin.

So often - out of protection or fear, or shame - I Christianly package that deep sin.  Psalm 4 haunts me by asking, "how long will you love what is worthless and aim at deception?"  That is the sin planted so deep in me.  I cling for life - I love - worthless things....self-protection, self love, self cultivation.  But 1 John tells me:

If we claim we are free from sin, we're only fooling ourselves.  A claim like that is errant nonsense.  On the other hand, if we admit our sins - make a clean breast of them - He  {God} won't let us down.  He'll be true to himself.  He'll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.

God says these things to me because He knows something I often forget.  I want to hide and claim a fuzzy, tolerant concept of grace, but so often....

Grace comes through confession.

It is the difficult way, but any other way is misnamed.  Grace can come as I am exposed for who I am - a lover of worthlessness, liar, "little sin" person, or part of a tribe skilled at packaging my behavior with a "Jesus" label to make it OK.

My little sins are actually big.  "Continuing grudges. Competition for recognition.  Power plays in work gatherings and board meetings. Weariness in well-doing that excuses laziness and justifies my insistence that others notice me.  Ten-second peeks at pornography.  A few minutes of "harmless" fantasies before I go to sleep.  Materialism hidden beneath gratitude to God for good income.  Resentment at my spouse for not coming through for me.  A commitment never to hurt again like that.  The resolve to be in control of how my kids turn out.  Too much television that helps me pretend I'm not lonely." (quoted: Larry Crabb)

And all that must be confessed.  I must admit what God already knows; I am invited to agree with His vision of reality.  And He - the One who could rightfully accuse - chooses forgiveness and even cleanses me of the deep sin that would destroy me.  That is grace!

It is this continual confession that allows me to know grace, not by covering myself with some renamed leaves of self-protection.  While I might want a god who says to us, "It's OK.  I understand", I actually have a grace-full God who says, "It's not OK and I understand your condition far deeper than you know.  I love you so much but your sin is killing you.  It needs to be exposed, confessed, forgiven and you need to be cleansed.  Only I can do that for you.  Only then will you know real grace"

Hi Daddy!!

Where did you learn the Lord's Prayer?  From years of standing and reciting in unison with a gathering of people?  From a Sunday school teacher?  From a good-hearted grandmother who gave you a thick children's bible full of stories?  Maybe you inadvertently learned it from the bible-as-literature class you were required to take in college?  Though I've known the words of this prayer for years, I learned it afresh this summer from a 4 year old redhead with special needs.

On a recent service project trip with our church, I found myself living with 17 other people for a week.  We had meals together, and had to share common spaces in the home we were staying at.  People of all ages were on the trip and the family of belonging to the little redhead was among them.

Their room was at the top of two flights of steps, causing them to have to descend the staircase to get to any common gathering rooms.  As it usually happened, the adults arose before little ones and would be enjoying strong cups of Dominican coffee before we would hear little feet moving on the ceiling about us.  Without exception, as those footsteps came down the stairs and turned the corner on the landing, giving them full view of the living room, the owner of those little feet would see a man sitting at the table and exclaim in a slightly surprised and fully delighted voice, "Hi, Daddy!!!"

Eager to greet this figure she has seen hundreds upon hundreds of times, she would run over and clutch his legs, hugging them until he bent down and gathered her into his arms for well-placed Daddy kisses.

This activity happened over and over again, not only every morning, but anytime she would see her dad from a distance.  Each time her surprise and delight was palpable.  She never grew tired of seeing him and greeting him.  She was always a little amazed to find him in her line of sight as she came around a corner.  Usually, she had no request for him other than to gain his smiling attention and the occasional opportunity to be lifted into his arms to see life from a new perspective.  And when she did have a request for him, it was mostly to share some sort of snack he was enjoying.

She is a child of few words, for that type of processing is a hurdle she is having to climb in her life, but she is a keen observer of life.  Her little eyes see things grown up eyes move too swiftly over.  There is a sweet simplicity about the items she gives her attention to - a bus, her well-loved stuffed animal, trying to fit new marraccas  into her pockets, and of course, her daddy.

Each time I heard the sing-song cadence of "Hi, Daddy!!" from her mouth, I had to grin and my heart was invited to awaken to a new reality.  I saw in her the picture of who I am to be and how I could approach God in the Lord's Prayer.  So much more than a formal system for asking God for stuff, it is the surprising delight of finding a Father already waiting for me and my invitation to greet Him with a "Hi, Daddy!!"

The Lord's Prayer gives me, when I too find words difficult to form, something to focus on.  Simple things - sustenance for the day, forgiveness, keeping my feet our of places they should not be - and trust in a Father who enjoys me sitting with Him.  This little redhead reminded me that to ask to be lifted into Daddy's arms gives a better perspective of the lay of the land.  So too with the first part of the prayer.  As I recite those words, it is an asking to see the world from His height and in His arms.

Here is how she taught me to pray....

Hi, Daddy!!!  You are so important                        Our Father, who art in heaven
to me and I'm so glad to find you here.                    Hallowed be Thy name

Will You lift me into Your arms so I                        Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
can see from where You are, not from                     On earth as it is in heaven
my perspective way down here.

Do You have any snacks in Your                            Give us this day our daily bread
pocket, because I am hungry.

I'm sorry when I do something wrong                      Forgive us our sins as we forgive
and please help me to forgive my                             those who sin against us.
brother when he is mean to me.

Will You pick me up when I am in                           Lead us not into temptation but
danger?  And put me in safe places?                        deliver us from evil

I love you, Daddy!                                                  For Yours is the kingdom, the
                                                                               power and the glory!

Obviously this is not a straight across translation, but for me, it is a new way to approach the praying of the Lord's Prayer.

Thank you, little redhead!!  I want to be like you and each morning want the first words out of my mouth to be, "Hi, Daddy!!"

Soup

Does a caterpillar know her destiny from the beginning?  Does she know the life she is born into will be shortened by an event that will both bind her and transform her at the same time?  For my part, I don't think the fuzzy creature has a clue.  If she did, she could not move in the world as a caterpillar.  Instead, she would be paralyzed by fear of what must come and she would vainly fight against inevitability.

Instead, the caterpillar goes about her caterpillar life.  She walks, learns to protect herself from predators and voraciously devours any plant life put in front of her.  And she grows - almost exponentially.  Driven by her eating habits, she consumes and consumes and swells larger, more voluminous by the day.  Preoccupied with eating and growing, what that caterpillar doesn't know is that just below the surface of her skin, there are thin, fragile structures forming.  Unaware of their existence, this anatomy resembling wings, antennae, and long legs remains dormant until their use will become necessity to her.  She, like any member of the animal kingdom, simply goes about her day learning - capturing experiences in her memory.  These recollections, so vital to her survival, embed themselves in her brain and form her reactions, decisions and her movements.  They fashion her story.

At some point, the eating, growing life of the caterpillar stops.  Does she choose it?  Does it "happen" to her?  Is there some biological countdown clock that, like a timer on a bomb, once it reaches zero, causes a cataclysmic, cascading chain of events?  I am not sure anyone can even answer those questions, but what we know for sure is, the caterpillar enters darkness.  A chrysalis is formed around her and great opaque doors clang shut - closing out light and life as she knew it.

Then, the waiting begins.

It was once thought the caterpillar completely died inside the chrysalis, or that she underwent a slow, gradual metamorphasis.  If the chrysalis was cut open during the process, so the logic went, we would find a half caterpillar, half butterfly mutation.  This however, is not the case.  Those useless structures the caterpillar hid unknowingly just beneath her skin roll up and hide against the side of the dark chrysalis cave.  And then rest of the caterpillar turns to soup.

Her body, her legs, her eyes, her everything...liquefies and the caterpillar ceases to be.  She dissolves.  And now, she must wait.  She must exist as soup...though all the DNA to form a butterfly floats about in the amalgamation.

Evidently, soup needs time.  Any sense of solid form must be abandoned and forgotten.  Is the transforming creature grateful for that chrysalis?  It causes the liquefying and promises only darkness, but at least provides a container - walls so the liquid doesn't spill out into nothingness.  This torture chamber at least holds the soupy mess together.

How long the soup lasts is unknown.  Perhaps some biological, cosmic clock begins another countdown.  Something begins to be formed inside the darkness.  The wing pieces, the antennae, and long legs, once useless, join the new creature and become an integral part of her new identity.  And, the funny thing is, it seems some of the memories and experiences from her former life make it through the soup too.  Yes, the caterpillar dissolved, but small pieces of her survived and are embedded in the body and mind of this new winged creature.

And so the butterfly emerges.  She is completely different from what she was , yet still carries pieces of who she used to be inside her.

The caterpillar's story is mine too.  I spent many years happy - devouring "food" in my local church.  I ate and ate...and grew and grew, until one day, the cosmic countdown reached zero.  Through a chain of events and a deeply felt betrayal, God built me a chrysalis and shoved me in.  In that dark place, I dissolved, turned to soup and waited.  

That place was both friend and foe.  It bound me, undid me, dissolved everything I thought I was.  So many times the squeezing of the walls was too tight, but it was the only solid sense of anything I had.  That dark chrysalis, as much as I hated it, was, at times, my only sense of God.  In the darkness, I floated with no concept of any direction.  I lost all labels.  I entered a churning confusion and anger that lasted years.

However, somewhere in the midst of the liquefied state, transformation was underway.  So minute, it could never be quantified.  The great Creator was doing what He always does - stringing amino acids into proteins into chains of DNA and creating new life out of soup.  Old memories were woven into new creation and useless structures of the past were now prominent, vital pieces of who I was to be.

At some point, the dark soup gives way to solidity and color, but it all happens in darkness.  The coming butterfly never sees the forming beauty.  All she knows is the tight dark hold of the chrysalis.

And so, I am learning to live again, transformed and new, yet carrying old memory.  I who once crawled am now called to fly.  She who endured darkness for years is invited into the light once more.  And my soul finds trepidation in it all.  

A Little Help

I stood on the street corner and held the sign.

"A little help" is what it read.

I stood there embarrassed as cars waited at the stoplight.  I looked down at the cardboard sign so I didn't have to make eye contact.  First two cars stopped, then three, and still two more added to their number before the light gave reprieve.  Panic set in.  What would I actually do if someone gave me money?  Would I graciously, humbly take it?  Or would I decline their offer and explain I was only part of an experiment?

I stood on street corner and held the sign.

It was an object lesson - an education in empathy - of what our homeless friends feel everyday.  Vulnerable, needing the help of another, shame, poverty...out of options except to stand with a sign.

For the upwardly mobile woman, being out of options is akin to hell.  I like change.  I need a way of escape when faced with discomfort.  Options are tokens I collect on my shelf and run to cash in when I've grown tired of adversity.  But the woman who holds the sign while her stomach grumbles, well, she has no currency to spend in this choice-grabbing economy.

I stood on the street corner and held the sign.

The lesson was learned.  Jesus should have known that.  Until He showed up the next morning....

Wrestling with the Sermon on the Mount, anger and two, recent wound-causing relationships should have been enough for Him, right?  I just wanted Him to give me compassion and some options.  He gave me neither.  Instead, He handed me the sign.

"You have not murdered anyone...but you are angry with them.  In my book, that is the same thing.  The attitude of your heart that justifies your anger is the same that would allow you to murder them.  No options.  Oh, and Tara...blessed are the poor in spirit."

I stood confused in my living room and held the sign.

Now, I figured I had a pretty good working, commentary definition of poor in spirit but I never really had to actually live it.  Up to this point, the upwardly-mobile-Christian in me had been pretty good at seeing options and seizing opportunities.  As the anger in my heart seethed at the offenses endured, I turned to my option trophy case only to find the shelves of selection were bare.....except for a ripped cardboard sign that read "A Little Help", and the echo of a Voice that reminded me "you're blessed when you are at the end of your rope.  When you acknowledge the poverty of your heart, only then are you able to receive a little help from Me. "

I stood before Jesus and held the sign.

Eyes downcast, ashamed at my failure, how could I make eye contact with Him when I couldn't even make eye contact with those drivers the day before?  That was an experiment; a little play acting.  This was not.  I had options yesterday.  I had none now.  The poor - and the poor in spirit - know this.  They know the meaning of poverty.  They know their lives depend on "a little help" (or a lot!!)

I stand before Jesus and hold my sign.

"A little help" is what it reads.

I am still angry, still struggling, but still with no choices - needing "a little help".   All options are gone because my heart is the problem.  It is poor and bankrupt. 

 And there are no options for the heart - save One.

Was Jesus "Biblical"?

Coming home this morning from dropping off one of my kids, I heard a lady on the radio describing a betrayal in her 34 year marriage.  She revealed that her husband had been leading a double life (ie sexual infidelity) and she had "all biblical grounds" to leave him.  She, however, was choosing not to.

It made me think about how many, many times I have heard the logic of "biblical grounds", and then I wondered if Jesus himself would use that defense.  Was Jesus "biblical"?

When the Pharisees came to him and asked him about the "biblical" grounds for divorce that Moses had allowed, Jesus replies that is was because of hardness of heart that Moses permitted divorce, but it was not supposed to be that way from the beginning.  When Jesus is challenged about his "biblical" working/healing on the Sabbath, he asks about what is "biblical" (or lawful) on the Sabbath - doing good or evil, saving a life or killing it?  To which the "biblical" folks were silent.  When a smug group catches a woman in the "unbiblical" act of adultery and brings that woman to Jesus, he doesn't deny the sin, but gives them freedom to "biblically" kill her as long as the one who throws a stone at her finds no sin in himself.  

Jesus, of course, lived with and under the authority of the Scriptures.  He was a good Jewish boy who had studied the Torah, prayed the Psalms and knew the stories of God's deliverance.  He saw in the Scriptures the calling - the vocation - on his life.  He was to be the long promised Messiah.  In that sense, Jesus was totally "biblical".  

However, as I am reading through the book of John, something deeper and beyond "biblical" seems to always surface in Jesus' life.  He seems to come back to phrases like, "I only do what I see the Father doing", "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me", "I always do the things that are pleasing to the Father", and the writer of John describes Jesus as "the one who is closest to the Father's heart".  It seems when Jesus needs to justify his actions or his words, he doesn't grasp at the word "biblical" (like the religious of his day), but clings to the Father.

To Jesus, this "doing only what I see the Father doing", isn't a cop-out to avoid conflict or a weak, sissy response.  But it also isn't a rigid this-is-the-way-things-have-always-been-done reaction either.  Instead, for one occasion it looks incredibly gentle (as he invites little children to come to him) and on another, violent (when he topples tables and chases people out of the temple with a whip).  To him, the Father's heart is much deeper than the status quo and transcends all categories and rules.  And it is funny, isn't it?  When Jesus "only does what he sees the Father doing", he gets accused by people (of his day and ours!) of being "not-biblical"!!

And this got me thinking.  I grew up as a Christian in an solid, evangelical, Bible church.  I heard the word "biblical" more times than I can even imagine.  There was always a "biblical" answer for everything as if there were a frozen interpretation to every position.  But I heard very little talk of "only doing what we see the Father doing".  To be sure, the Scriptures reveal to us the Father's heart, but I wonder how many times we just pick our favorite parts and dig our heels in in those places?  I wondered, this morning, how many times I have used the word "biblical" to protect my ego and avoided really pursuing and asking God what He thinks about the issue at hand?  (And how He wants me to bring His kingdom into those places.)

Of course, this doesn't only happen in a Bible church.  It happens all over Christendom, doesn't it?  We love to talk - both the right and the left - about what is "biblical" or what the bible really means when it says something.  But again, I hear very little conversation about searching for the Father's heart, and even less action in really grappling with what it means to "do only what we see the Father doing" in the situation at hand.

If I call myself a follower of Jesus (and I do), should not one of the defining marks in my life be trying "to do what I see the Father doing"?  My self identity then, is not in being as "biblical" as possible, but in searching the Scriptures to discover the Father's heart...and then keeping my eyes on Him all through the day to see how He wants me to move in the place I already am.

God, forgive me for when I have claimed "biblical" but it has just really been to avoid Your heart.  There are two things I know:  I really want to say with Jesus that I only do what I see You doing, and I really know I am so self-deceived and don't know where to start.  Would You let me see, through Your Holy Spirit, what you are doing today...and enable me to live out what I see right where I am standing? 

The Prodigal

I wrote a piece for a Lenten meditation about Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son, and thought I'd post it here.  (And I added some extra images of a Prodigal Son statue that I am so intrigued with.)

Scripture:

  Then Jeus said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’ So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any. That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father. When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’ But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.

All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day’s work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, ‘Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.’ The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’ His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!’”

Perhaps the most well known of all parables, the Story of the Prodigal Son, is really misnamed. The story Jesus told had two sons in it – both prodigals in their own way – but they are not even the central characters in the narrative. The father is. This father who gives when disgraced, who runs, who embraces, who showers with generosity, who throws a party, and who goes out to both sons is the central focus in the picture Jesus painted. The same is true of Rembrandt's painting. Jesus' story and Rembrandt's picture are both about two prodigal sons. Both of these boys traveled “to a far distant country” - one physically, one on the interior. Both needed to return home. Perhaps, a more fitting name for the account would be Returning to the Embrace of the Father.

Focal Points:

Looking for light: Rembrandt's use of light in this painting tells us where he wants us to look. Three people are illumined in a golden light – the father, the younger son and the older son standing on the right. In addtion, the light falls mostly on the hands of the father, the back of the younger son, and on the hands and face of the older son.

Father and Younger Son:

Clothing: The father is dressed in fine clothes of rich, regal red. Though elderly, he has a fullness to his stature. He is substantive and has a presence that takes up most of the left side of the painting. His red robe is in an arch shape, like an open door welcoming in those in need of shelter. The kneeling son, on the other hand is dressed in rags the color of dirt. He is emaciated and is dwarved in comparison to the more substantial frame of his father. The sandals on his feet are worn out – perhaps depicting his long journey home or that he has come to the end of his own resources (or both!)

The father's hands: Two hands embrace the younger son's back, but on closer examination, they are very different from one another. The father's left hand is strong, muscular and quite masculine. The fingers are spread out and active. There is a certain pressure about this hand, as though it is not just touching the son, but holding him with a gentle strength. The father's right hand is refined, soft, tender, looking almost feminine. It does not hold or grasp, but just touches with an elegant quality to it. Its feminity offers comfort, consolation and a tender caress.

Interestingly, this caressing hand is right above the bare, wounded foot of the kneeling son, while the masculine hand parallels the foot dressed in the sandal. “Is it too much to think that one hand protects the vulnerable side of the son, while the other hand reinforces the son's strength and desire to get on with his life?” (Henri Nouwen)

Older Son: The man standing to the right in the painting is thought to be the older son. He wears the red robes of his father, showing he belongs to the household. However, his illumined hands show a marked difference from that of his father's. His hands are clasped, closed and held close to his body. While his eyes are totally focused on the interaction before him, his face is stern looking with no smile or emotion. There is a good distance between him and what is going on before him. (This could depict physical distance, as in the story Jesus told, the older brother was not there when his younger brother actually returned, or perhaps it represents the distance his heart had traveled from his “home” in the father.)

Looking for darkness: “The return”, though central to the scripture in Luke 15, is not centered in Rembrandt's picture. All the action between the father and younger brother is positioned on the left side while the older brother is on the right. In the Luke account, both boys have a choice to make. Will they leave their darkness and move into the light. We know the younger son makes his journey through darkness back to the father, but what of the older son? We are left wondering. Jesus tells us he is invited in by the father to join the celebration but we do not know what he eventually chooses. In Rembrandt's picture, his face is illumined, but he seems so be unmoved by the father's joy. Right in the center of this picture is a large, dark, open space, perhaps creating the tension of the question, “Who will truly come home?”

Reflection:

Spend a few moments looking at the picture, allowing your eyes to rest on places that pique your curiosity. As you settle into gazing, move your eyes back to one area of the picture that intrigues, evokes emotion or disturbs you. Ask the Father why He has brought your attention to this place at this time. What is it He wants to say to you? Don't be afraid of whatever comes forth, remembering that the embrace of the Father is generous enough to hold it all.

Perhaps you see yourself in the face of one of the main subjects of the painting. Which person do you most identify with? Are you one of the people sitting in the darkness, just watching and inquiring about this Father's great love? Are you the younger son who believes he is “no longer worthy to be called a son”?(Luke 15) or are you the returned younger son who lays his head on the Father's chest and senses His embrace? Are you the older son who “has been working hard on the father's farm, but has never fully tasted the joy of being at home?” (Nouwen) Whoever you identify with, can you hear the Father who reminds all sons (and daughters) of who they are? “You are extravagantly loved. Come home to Me.”

The Vocation

Part 3 of the story...(final part for now!)

The other day, I was writing a piece for a friend about Rembrandt's painting, The Return of the Prodigal Son.  As part of my study, I came across a great little book by Henri Nouwen about the painting.  His experience of Rembrandt's work of art so strikingly mirrored my encounter with The Kiss, I found myself weeping over it as I read it.  

I guess I had known that God "gave" me the picture of The Kiss at a time of hardship and had used it to sustain me for a long, six year period of darkness in my life.  And for that I am so, so grateful!  What I didn't know was The Kiss would move from being a bolster to hold me up in dark times, to the voice of a new calling in my life.

"I have a new vocation now", is how Nouwen describes the transforming effect of his picture.  That is how I feel about The Kiss.

I have a new vocation now.  To speak and write and live from the vantage point of The Kiss:

As one who is loved

As one who is enveloped

As one who can let go of her rehearsed speeches

As one who knows that the Father "is not listening", so I don't have to either

As one who holds on and is held

As one on my knees before my Love

As one held close

As one who gives in to the embrace

As one who is kissed

To live from The Kiss is to speak into realms void of affection; to convey freedom to places of bondage.  It is to move energized by the Father's great abundance into houses of scarcity and hoarding.  It is to remember that everyone I see is invited into the kiss, and to remind them of that fact.

I have a new vocation now.  

And in case that wasn't totally clear already, as I was praying over all of this, here was my "fortune" from a dinner the other night.

Funny how God keeps using some sort of canvas and color to get my attention!!

The Kiss

Part 2 of my story...

I came across a phrase when I was seventeen that summed up my love affair with Jesus.  Written by an Argentinian poet and translated into English, it was etched onto the tablet of my mind as pure truth.

"He kissed me and now I am someone different."

That was what had happened between me and Jesus.  He had kissed me!  And with that kiss, my heart, my mind and my life were transformed!  Like the old fairy tales where a dark spell has been cast upon the princess and she has fallen into a deep sleep, so I was awakened by the kiss of a Stranger, and life would never be the same again.

Many years passed from those early moments of first love (and first kisses), but the poetry of it reverberated always through the halls and corridors of my soul.  Sometimes soft...sometimes loud... the kiss always lingered near.

Until I came to a time of great adversity.  The echo of the kiss was fading as life was difficult and aching.  I was struggling deeply with who I was and what I was called to do.  I found myself living in a new place - both physically and in my soul - disoriented.  Labels and categories that had once been useful, were now confining me and squeezing me in.  They had been places of comfort before, but now just caused confusion, angst, and resentment.  I was trying to find my way by listening to the voices - of people and society - around me but though I longed for guidance, it all sounded like gibberish.  I was propelled by the internal voice of "should"....'I should be this...I should do this....I should have this....'  My heart ached.

During this time, I took a trip to Europe to go visit some friends and ended up on a spur of the moment journey into Vienna.  And I found God waiting for me there.

All over on display in Vienna was Gustav Klimt's painting, The Kiss.  I had never seen it before, but now it was all around me - on posters, in stores, on match boxes, on shopping bags...everywhere!  The funny thing is, I hated it!  It seemed gaudy and excessive; too gold and geometric.  It offended my eyes, but I could not get away from it.  And, like a thistle that secretly attaches itself to a sock or pant leg while on a hike, unknowingly I returned home carrying this picture in my mind.

Back on this continent, I soon received a letter from a friend from Singapore.  She knew of my internal struggle and the voices that seemed to dominate the conversations in my head.  Though she had no advice for a fix, her closing line to the letter was simply, "May you enjoy His many kisses".  

(Funny...for the first time in my life, I think I understand the Psalmists use of the word "Selah".  When a spark of God's beauty has been glimpsed and the only response is to stop and pause in wonder!)

Perhaps you will think me dense, or perhaps you will see God as a great, persistent Lover, but even after all this, I did not "selah" - pause and reflect.  I did however, walk into the house of a friend of mine and there, hanging at the top of her split level stairs was a picture of Klimt's, The Kiss!

Still fighting my distaste for the picture, a few mornings later, I relented and met God on the couch.  I really didn't feel like I needed a lesson in kissing, but rather clarity on my life direction.  I needed answers, and relief, and peace from Him.   Instead,  He directed me to the story of The Prodigal Son.

Perhaps the most well known story in the scriptures, I am sure I had read it a hundred times.  I was skimming my way through the passage when I came to the part where the squandering son comes to his senses and decides to go back to his father.  Reading a little more slowly, I could see the picture Jesus was painting when he said, "when he was still a long way off, his father saw him.  His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him and kissed him."  (emphasis mine)

Klimt's picture flooded my mind...and was transforming into something beautiful before my eyes.  God had given me a picture of a "prodigal daughter" through Klimt's image.  While I was a long way off (away from the original kisses of my Love), He saw me.  Not only did He see me, but He came to me (all the way to Vienna and back!)  Not only did He come to me, He kissed me...again!

Through tears, I read on in the story.  The son begins to confess to his father - true things - that he had sinned and wasn't worthy to be called a son.  Those were true things my heart understood, because I knew that was my confession too!  But then the story turns to the central person in the narrative and a phrase, like the one when I was seventeen, changed my life.

"But the father wasn't listening."

The father wasn't listening.  He was too busy calling for clothing to be put on this child of his, for rings and shoes to be lavished on him, for food to be prepared, and for a celebration to begin.  (And I'd like to believe the father was clutching the child's face and showering it with kisses in between shouting out those orders.)  

It was in that space, between the confession of the son and "but the father wasn't listening", that God said, "Tara, all those things you say about yourself or labels you put on yourself...well, I'm not listening.  All those voices that bombard you to tell you what they expect out of you...well, I'm not listening.  All the "shoulds" that berate you...I'm not listening to them.  Here, with me, all that matters is My embrace and My kisses.  I am not listening to anything else.  And if I am not listening to any of the other noise, you don't have to either!"

That is where I find myself.  Kissed and changed.  A prodigal extravagantly (in spite of everything) loved.  An embraced woman in a picture covered with elaborate robes.   

I find I have a God who pays no attention to the voices that would try to define me.  Rather He reminds me of who I am - the beloved finding her identity only in what the Lover says about her.  So, I become the woman in Klimt's picture - resting and delighting in the embrace of my Love, and enjoying His many kisses!

Branding and Love

A pastor from our church spoke yesterday of advertising and the process of branding a product or service.  As a business owner, I wanted to listen intently to what he had to say.  I am always struggling (in business) on the thin edge of following the practices in corporate America and what it looks like to be a Kingdom business owner.  I wrestle with questions about social media and my business image - why should I use Twitter?  what will an Instagram account gain me?  how can I be a value to my clients and not give into the "selfie" way of advertising.  After all, when people see my business, what do they see?

The truth is, I can use every social media outlet and hire people to make me a great logo and catch phrase, but if there is no substance to what I offer to my clients, the whole thing will quickly fall apart.  The question I always need to be asking myself is not how much money I want to make or how to advertise in the hippest, coolest way, but what is the substance of of the product?  What is really there when all the glitz and tinsel is removed?  (And that is a question it is so easy for me to lose sight of!)

Of course, the pastor's point was not about focusing on our business careers, but rather, he turned the same concept to our walk with God.  If we bear the "brand" of Christian, what is really the substance of the product that is actually there?  Does it turn out to be an anemic, diminished version of what we advertise it to be?  Or is there enough substance there for those who know me to say "yes, she walks in the Jesus way".  And not just that, but would people know the calling on my life from spending time with me?  (Heck...do I know the calling on my life?)

This past week, God seemed to pull multiple pieces together to help bring a flash of clarity to my life.  The Sunday message was one of them; memories of past events, a picture and a writer's words joined the patchwork quilt to reveal a pattern of substance (or calling) that God has been creating in my life since I came to know Him.  He is kindly reminding me of the substance of our relationship and the identity He wants to carry into the world.

This will be a three part revealing of that substance and His branding.  Here is the first:

I am not sure what happened the night of April 17, 1987.  I went into the building at the invitation of a friend and I left having fallen deeply in love with a Man who would change my life.  I thought I had come to watch the play, so elaborately set up on stage.  But really, I was to encounter the drama not as a spectator, but as a participant.

It was Good Friday.  I was a sophomore in high school struggling with teenage angst - friendships, purpose in life, where I fit in this world.   I was not particularly religious.  Afterall, I was raised in Canada, a country not known for being formed by the Christian story.   I received the invitation from my friend to attend an Easter Musical and since I believed it was good to go to church a couple times a year, the Easter season seemed like a good fit for that (Christmas being the other one!).  I went with her expecting to see the story of Jesus’ last few days of life and his supposed raising from the dead.  We would watch quietly, then clap for all the actors and go home.

That plan of mine was well on its way to being carried out when that Jesus character, having had that Last Supper thing with his guys, wandered into a garden to pray.  As all his friends fell asleep around Him, he began to talk to this invisible God.  Here is what I heard.  “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah….Father, I am praying not only for them (the snoozing friends), but also for those who will believe in me through them...blah, blah, blah, blah…..Father, I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am….so that your love for me might be in them...blah, blah, blah, blah.”

I am pretty sure I didn’t hear anymore of anything from that point on.  I am sure the Judas-actor came and betrayed Jesus with a kiss. I am sure Jesus was nailed to the cross and then rose again.  I am sure the pastor came up front to recap all we had just seen and to give us an “invitation” to believe in Jesus.  

But for me, the whole universe stopped on that solitary figure, agonizing in prayer in a garden.  All I knew was that I was no longer just watching a play about Jesus. That was Jesus there on stage and I wanted Him. My heart was breached and as it ruptured, the floodgates sent out such a torrent, I found myself trying to tread water in a raging storm of affection.  All I knew was that in an instant I had fallen in love with that Man.  

His prayer was the only invitation I needed.  Like a person sinking in raging waters, I wanted to reach out and grab him. I wanted his life to be in me and my life to be in him.  And I knew nothing else - I did not know the right things to believe, I did not even know I was a sinner - all I knew was that love compelled me to want Him.

Thus began my journey with this Jesus.  I have learned many things since that beginning day of our romance - lots of facts, lots of doctrines, lots of religious opinions - but my journey began deeply rooted and grounded in this thing called love.  (And even at that, it was a love not from gratitude for what had been done for me, but a passionate love like a lover to her Companion.)

I have been asked lots of times what it was about Jesus praying in the garden that affected me so much.  Twenty-seven years later I still don’t have the answer.  Who knows why love appears so magically out of nowhere?  Doesn’t it always surprise us and take us aback a little?  All I know is I walked in to see a play and walked out in love with this man Jesus who had already begun to transform my life.

A Tree in Winter Stands

A tree in winter stands.  That is all it can do.  Gone are the flourishing leaves, the bejeweling birds, and the warm yellow sun.  Left is barrenness, nakedness and sluggish sap that moves little, if at all.  It stands in air that is an blue-cold enemy, piercing, and uninviting.  

A tree in winter stands.  There is no life growing energy to exert, just roots that cling to cold soil, hoping their hold is enough to brace against the next frosty storm.  Even the blanket of moss that covers the trunk abandons it as it falls off in rough, icy pieces.

A tree in winter stands.  It stands in the cold shadows cast by the low sun.  Its extended arms reach longingly for a warmth that does not come.  It cannot hide its undressed limbs, nor wrap those appendages around its body for modesty or protection.

No...a tree in winter stands.  And that is all it can do.  It has no bounty to give the world around it - no shade, no fruit, no beauty.  It only stands - waiting, longing, hoping - while the onslaught of winter weather is relentless.  

But in its standing months, it learns to be unmovable and anchored.  It also learns the opposite: to be flexible - dancing with the prevailing winds.  It learns what great vanity there is in holding on to its adornments and so will be grateful instead of prideful when its leaves return.  It learns that cold and snow, ice and freezing temperatures are inevitable and can be endured. And though it stands in shade, it knows that there must be light somewhere to create that deep shadow.

Within the winter-stand, the tree learns who it really is.  One called to be deeply rooted, strong and upright, with branches reaching high into the sky.  With all else stripped away, it can unashamedly embrace its calling.  When all the flourishes return and it becomes useful again, it is grateful, but does not mistake its outward appearance or its utility for its core vocation.

A tree in winter stands.  That is all it can do.  And its Creator smiles as the tree begins to understand that truth.  

(Sometimes, I think I might just be a tree.  How about you?)

Shadows

What happens when someone points out my shadow?

In the photographic world, both light and shadow are needed for a picture to have depth, texture and bold richness.  Too much light and a picture is either overexposed or just flat.  Too much shadow and the picture is dark and unrecognizable.  The two - shadow and light - tumble over and around each other to create a dynamic interplay.

But what about inside of me?  Are the truths of photography true of my soul as well?  There is both light and shadow inside me, and like the picture world, one is not evil and the other one good.  Though we love, in our dualistic society, to personify light and darkness as enemies, they can be allied hues that show a greater picture, if we are willing to be curious.

The light part of me is the part I fully know.  It is my strengths; it is the places I feel confident.  The shadow side of me, however, is my unexplored part.  Though I can see it in others, it is opaque and hidden from me.  It contains all the elements I disown about myself.  Elements that are true, both positive and negative, but I refuse to acknowledge.

Even without our looking for them, our shadow selves make an appearance when we react very strongly - positive and negative - to people (or ideas?) in our lives.  Those people or things that strongly repel or attract us give us clues to the hidden parts of our lives.

So what happens when someone points out my shadow?  What happens, hypothetically, in a fight heated conversation, when I find myself reacting in repulsion to that person or something that is said? Everything in me wants to only show my light-self and my instinct is to cram that shadow-self back in the box it had the audacity to venture out from.

However, as hurtful as it is to look at my shadow, perhaps that is exactly when I am granted a moment of salvation.  It is not a moment of "fix-it-and-make-the-shadow-turn-into-light", but rather a moment to invite back in the part of me I have rejected.  It is to allow the shadow to be known and so have the possibility to make beauty with my light, instead of just reeking havoc on my soul.

Gregory Mayers talks of being ruled by our shadows as a deep self-trance:

"The deep self-trance constricts our vision to preferred patterns of perception, a security matrix that blunts or masks the uncomfortable edge of our anxiety over the unknown.  In other words, we see what we want to see, what we have been taught to see, what we are told to see, what we expect to see.  We construct our world, extracting from the scene before us that which we prefer and leaving aside whatever is at odds with our preferences."  (Listen to the Desert: Secrets of Spiritual Maturity from the Desert Fathers and Mothers)

While it is easier to construct my own world and avoid the uncomfortable edges, that is not life. 

Not REAL life.

So what do I do when someone points out my shadow?  Well...first I throw an internal temper tantrum. (Just being honest!!)  I get defensive, cross the arms of my heart, and say things like "how dare they??"   Then, when I am done, the Spirit takes me by the hand and says "Fear not.  Let's explore this together."  And I learn once more that life is not meant to be flat or dark, but it is to have the depth that only light AND shadow can bring.

Pearls and the Mind of Christ

They say a pearl is formed by an irritating piece of sand or harmful parasite within the oyster.  The marine mollusc cannot endure the scratching of the intruder and thus begins a long (possibly a decade) process of covering it with pearl-like material.  What began as an invader becomes shaped with layers of value.

Years ago, a piece of irritating sand, entered my mind in the form of a quote from a friend:

"We are raising children who have a christian morality, but who don't have the mind of Christ."

Those words have stuck in my soft, grey matter and have scratched and clawed at my thoughts like nails down a chalkboard.  It is so much easier to teach a morality and behavior modification than it is to help the mind of Christ be cultivated and birthed in our children.  

The truth is, I have, at times been content with my kids having a christian morality because their behavior has made me look like a good parent.  When they are polite in public, show kindness towards someone, or can hold an engaging conversation with another human being, they seem to buy into the morality we so often want to call "kingdom life", and yet their hearts may be so far from that kingdom.  However, because they look good on the outside, I stop....and I think I've done my job as a parent.

So how do I encourage the formation of the mind of Christ in my children, now that they are almost 17 and 14?  (I think we've tried over the years, but sometimes not until we felt the irritation of that sandy intruder in our parenting paradigm.) I don't just want them to be "good kids" with a certain morality, but I deeply desire for them to follow Jesus and to have his thoughts deeply implanted within them.  I don't just want them to "do what looks right", but to ask Him what He thinks about whatever situation they find themselves in.  

That piece of sand that sneaked its way in so many years ago is irritating me again.  My parenting goals, desires and eyesight need to shift and change.  What has been - what has gone before - needs to be covered up with new layers of priceless, liquid pearl-esque practices.  New layers are needed to be sure that the mind of Christ, not just good behavior, is being encouraged to grow in my kids.

May I have the mind of Christ too, as I try to help my children find Him for themselves!!

Unique Conformity

I am really struggling with "my calling", my vocation...what I am supposed to do in life.  I keep asking God for what He wants from me and for me, and the prayer seems to hit a wall like the thick, steel fortresses of bank vaults, and then just fall flat. 

I think part of my problem is that I really want to be unique.  I think it may even be part of the messaging I was given as a kid, and it is for sure the very societal climate I live in right now.  Everyone, it seems, wants their 20 minutes of fame - of uniqueness - so we will douse the internet and other social media with pictures, songs, videos, words...just to see if anything will go viral (and make us stand out from the other 7.139 billion humans also residing on this planet.)

But what if uniqueness is not God's goal for us?  (Though I am pretty sure I've heard that as a well developed theology from many pulpits.)  What if God called me to be a farmer.  There are plenty of other farmers in this country and around the world.  Most of them are not growing unique crops, but rather the bulk of the same food sources for the rest of those planetary residents.  

To plant, to tend, to grow, to harvest the same thing season after season seems utterly boring to me...but my mouth doesn't think so.  The mundane season after season job is not really glamorous....but when the smell of delicious food fills my kitchen, it has a hint of glamour to it.

What if God called me to motherhood?  Like the farmer, there are millions of maternal types across this terrestrial ball.  They too are called to plant, tend, grow, and harvest in the lives of their children and community.  They too have a mostly mundane and tedious job....but not when I come in contact with a young man who, in kindness, holds the door open for me.  Moms around the world do a lot of the same jobs together.  We cook, clean, listen, encourage, heal, discipline, push, and hug, to name a few.  There is nothing unique about those things...until I meet a teenage girl who can carry on a delightful conversation with another adult.

God has called me to motherhood.  And it is boring and long and really not glamorous.  I would really like to go get a job where I get noticed, make an instant difference, and receive bonuses.  Instead, I get to tell my kids a million times to make their beds, and attempt, in this electronic age, to keep what is being seen on screens (tv, computers, phones) monitored.  I get to have those I work with roll their eyes at me and grab for everything they want while forgetting what I've done for them.

There is no uniqueness, per se, in what I do.  It is simply the daily tasks of mothering.  Then again, maybe God's calling on my life is not to be unique.  Maybe His calling is to be faithful, to love, to endure suffering, to take a servant's posture, to think more of others than we think of ourselves....hmmmm....to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus.

Maybe conformity is my calling.  And I'll leave the uniqueness to Him. 

Throw the Nets

The disciples went out - doing what they knew to do, namely fish.  Is it possible that in-between the time of seeing Jesus raised from the the dead before the Spirit came upon them, sent them spinning and confused so they gravitated to what they knew?  But what they knew came up empty...until a Stranger asks a question and gives a command.  

"Did you catch anything?  Throw the net off the right side and see what happens."

You can't tell me those fishermen didn't have a moment of skepticism.  They had fished all night, evidently when the fishing was supposed to "work".  They caught nothing and were probably ready to just call it quits.  And here is a guy standing on the shore telling them what to do?  The audacity!  But they do it anyway.  They may have rolled their eyes at one another when they threw those nets back in, but they listened to that Sand Walker.

Of course, a bounty of fish are caught, but an even bigger miracle happens next.  The men's eyes are opened.  They obeyed the request and now they can see the requester is Jesus.

Faith is like that sometimes.  There is this sense of a command to something - a calling to action - but we may sometimes hem and haw about whether it is from God.  We want to KNOW for certain it is from Him.  But this story reminds us that certainty is over-rated and sometimes action unlocks our understanding.  Doing what is asked of us (even if we may have our doubts) opens our eyes to see that it really is the Master who has called us.

Sometimes action comes before seeing.  So we act and crazily throw our nets into the waters we are told to, at a time inconvenient for us, and we see what happens.  The lovely thing is that at the end of the story, Jesus already has the fire going and the food we are so hungry for, and we get to hang out with Him.