Waiting: How Long? How Hard?

February 14, 2012 By
 One of my favorite pictures from the last ‘fun’ trip we took with my mom – wildflower hunting in the spring of 2010. This is a little known reserve called
the Carrizo Plain, located in central CA, midway between Santa Maria & Bakersfield.

First, gut-level response?
Step into a hot, hot shower.
Let the water sting and pummel,
wash and re-wash every piece of me,
pounding and prickling, and rinsing it all away.
The sadness,
the creeping sadness, pervasive and thick;
that strange coating I feel as I walk from my car into the house.
A thick layer of 
sorrow,
age,
fragility,
forgetfulness,
anxiety,
confusion,
teariness,
pain.
The exhale that sticks to me with every breath my mother breathes these days.
The one that makes me cry,
“How long, O Lord?
How long?”
The one I know I must get used to;
that I need to learn to feel and endure the weight of,
perhaps even to welcome.
Because this is what is these days.
This is what is.
I do not like what is, that much is clear.
I resist it,
I resent it,
I rant to heaven about it,
I want it to go away.
I admit to ugly feelings of envy when I hear
of mothers who go home to Jesus forthwith,
with little disintegration,
little pain,
no sense of hopelessness,
of being forever lost.

I don’t like these feelings in my spirit.
But I must face into them,
I must acknowledge this shadow side,
this hard wrestle with what is.
And I think,
in fact I know,
that God honors my honesty,
even as God asks for my acquiescence,
my gradual acceptance of this ‘is-ness,’
this hard, steadily familiar reality.
She vacillates between delight at the sight of me
and despair that she cannot remember I was coming.
One minute, smiling and expectant,
the next, weeping and lost.
Appetite declining,
back aching from a fall,
hiding out in her new apartment far too many evening meals.

With me beside her, she ventures out,
 proud to introduce me to her friends.
Her natural extroversion carries her,
the steadiest, surest her.
It brings her momentarily back to the surface 
and she engages friends well,
using social skills honed over years of practice.
Back in her room,
her shoulders visibly slump,
a loud sigh escapes,
releasing pent up sorrow and fear.

And I wonder,
how long will she be in this never land,
this in-between space of who she was
and who she is becoming?
How long will we enjoy even a piece
of who she was
in the middle of who she is?

And I know the word is still ‘waiting.’
And I still don’t like it very much.
But I’m here, Lord.
Still leaning,
still looking for glimmers of that shine I’m seeking.
But a shower was what I needed tonight.
What I may still need for a long, long time.

I am finding that I need to write about all this inner tumbling, this distress and nascent anger. I am prayerfully hoping that what I am feeling is akin to the ‘indignation’ (sometimes translated ‘compassion’) that Jesus is described as exhibiting several times in the gospel record. Each of those times featured a confrontation with illness/darkness/death and the word seems to indicate the depth of Jesus’ sadness at the results of the sin and brokenness in this world of ours. And the ravages caused by these self-eating brain disorders are surely among the hardest of those results. Kyrie eleison.
I don’t think what I’ve written here is exactly right for joining with most of my Monday bunch. The last two days have surely not been a playdate, nor are they particularly centered on place. Nor are they filled with the wonder of ‘God-Bumps,’ nor are they reflections on Sunday worship. And they wouldn’t fit very well with Ann’s gratitude list, either. So I will link with Jen at the sisterhood and Heather at “Just Write” and leave it at that for now.
Back again on Friday morning, deciding to add this into Bonnie Gray’s invitation to be “Vulnerable” this week. This one is about as vulnerable as I’ve gotten in a while, so maybe it will fit there. I’m thinking this is a topic most people don’t want to read about – it cuts too close, maybe? But believe me, it happens to all of as at some point…and we’re never quite ready for it.

Filed Under: family, Wonderings in the World

Synchronicity: The THC Book Club

February 10, 2012 By
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the Book Club selection this time around – David Brooks’, “The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.” 
Yeah, I like it a lot. 
But writing about what I’m reading? Not so much. No, not so much. It’s a tad overwhelming, that’s what it is. It’s a whole lot of factual information coming from the worlds of neuro-science, anthropology, sociology, psychology and a whole bunch of other ‘ologies,’ and there are times when it feels like I’m trying to drink from a fire hose. So, I missed last week’s go-round. And I almost missed this week’s, too. It’s called procrastination and it’s my middle name. So far, there hasn’t been a study to explain why some of us do this so very well, but there really should be. Sometimes it feels like a real, textbook disease!
So to make up for this lapse in my notoriously short-circuiting attention span, I am going to attempt the impossible tonight: I’m going to write about SIX chapters instead of the usual weekly three. How’s that for crazy??
Using his central characters Harold and Erica to help illustrate the information he has gathered, Brooks looks at the following topics over the course of these 100 pages: Intelligence (which includes other factors besides IQ), Choice Architecture (basically, a chapter on marketing psychology), Freedom & Commitment (a brief glimpse into how we grow our most intimate relationships), Limerance (where the kind of happiness that results from ‘falling in love’ leads to a repeating rhythm of ‘difficulty to harmony’ rather than any kind of a ‘golden mean’), The Grand Narrative (how the basic human tendency toward overconfidence can lead to the spectacular failure of a system or a business), and Métis (a French word meaning a ‘mental map,’ which allows a person to ‘know,’ both rationally and intuitively, how to proceed in any given situation.)

As I read through these chapters, I found myself becoming increasingly excited to discover that so much of what Brooks’ research has led him to conclude is in remarkable synch with a whole lot of other reading I’ve been doing in the last few years. Specifically, I am finding a lot of synchronicity with the work I am doing both to learn about and to practice the discipline and art of Spiritual Direction. So much of what I’ve learned – and am also beginning to experience  – of spirituality in the 2nd half of life is centered around the interaction between our conscious and unconscious selves. Growing deeper spiritually necessarily involves letting go of a lot of ideas and behaviors learned in the first half of life. Richard Rohr, Gerald May, Margaret Guenther, Basil Pennington, Thomas Keating, my own spiritual director and his teaching team at the Charismatic School for Spiritual Direction where I am enrolled – all of them talk, write and teach about the search for wholeness, the integration of the self, the fine-tuning of our spiritual eyes and ears to catch glimpses of the work that is going on underneath the surface.

And woven all the way through these chapters – peaking with the last one – I found many of the same ideas. The terminology used is much more academic (Level 1 and Level 2 thinking, British vs. French Enlightenment, Epistemological Modesty), but the resonance is there. These two quotes could have come directly from some of my other reading, without missing a beat:

“Our hypothesis leads us to the radical suggestion that the critical difference between the thinking of humans and of lower animals lies not in the existence of consciousness but in the capacity for complex processes outside of it.”

“Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know. Epistemological modesty is the knowledge of how little we know and can know. Epistemological modesty is an attitude toward life…built on the awareness that we don’t know ourselves. Most of what we think and believe is unavailable to conscious review. We are our own deepest mystery…And yet this humble attitude doesn’t necessarily produce passivity. Epistemological modesty is a disposition for action. The people with this disposition believe that wisdom begins with an awareness of our own ignorance…that there is no one method of solving problems…most of what [we] know accumulates through a long and arduous process of wandering…the wanderer endures uncertainty…possessing what John Keats called negative capability, the ability to be in ‘uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.'”  quotes taken from pages 245-248

Learning to balance these different kinds of knowing – the knowing that comes from fine-tuning our conscious mind’s ability to use logic and rationality AND the knowing that lies submerged at the level of the unconscious, things we don’t even know that we know – this is where I believe the work of the Holy Spirit is most powerfully revealed. And this is what each of these chapters, in its own unique way, underscores by means of research data engagingly presented. 
Please understand that this is most definitely NOT a book about human spirituality. Brooks is writing for the popular, mainstream culture; he is not writing about the work of the Holy Spirit. But what I see as I read is heavily influenced by what I am learning elsewhere, by what I have experienced through my own integrative process. (Which is, by the way, far from complete.) As a person who has wandered many years now, who has learned to be more and more at peace with the many uncertainties of this life and to relish a good mystery on occasion, I found these chapters affirming, encouraging and captivating. I don’t know where he’s going with these characters of his (they seem to have gotten shoved to the background behind all the data in these pages), but I am looking forward to seeing how it all ends up, that’s for sure. And for me, that is a sure sign of a ‘good read.’
Please hop on over to The High Calling and check out our leader, Laura Boggess’s take on the book thus far. 
The High Calling is one of the finest websites out there for thinking Christians. Check out their other resources while you’re over there.
Filed Under: Book Review, Wonderings in the World

Five Minute Friday: Real

February 3, 2012 By
Can you believe it’s Friday again? Already? Me, neither. But that’s what the calendar is telling me….almost. Still 30 minutes to go here on the west side of the land, but I’m ready to try this five minute things anyhow!
Joining with Lisa-Jo once again over at The Gypsy Mama for her weekly invitation to ‘just write.’
“I don’t think that it is always necessary to talk about the deepest and most private dimension of who we are, but I think we are called to talk to each other out of it, and just as importantly to listen to each other out of it, to live out of our depths as well as our shallows. We are all of us adolescents, painfully growing and groping our way toward something like true adulthood, and maybe the greatest value we have both to teach and to learn as we go is the capacity to be amazed…which is a power to heal us and bless us and in the end maybe even to transform us into truly human beings at last.”

Source: The Clown in the Belfry, by Frederick Buechner

This week’s prompt: REAL
GO:
This quote really jumped up and bit me tonight as I was scurrying through the long list of unread emails in my inbox. This was the devotional thought from The Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. for today and it invites serious thinking about some of the very things I’ve been pondering these last few days.


So to find this quote – and to see Lisa-Jo’s prompt – made me wonder: What am I supposed to be seeing/learning from all this synchronicity?

Here are a few (very few) initial responses to that inner query:

That authenticity and vulnerability are beautiful things, that they need to be honored and held lightly, that they need to be protected and valued. 

That we don’t need to spill every intimate detail of our lives into each and every conversation we ever have, but we do need to be sensitive to the movement of the Spirit within for those times when appropriate and helpful sharing could facilitate healing and health in ourselves or others.

That there is always, always something going on around or within us that could, if we stopped long enough to notice it, cause us to drop that jaw in amazement, gratitude and joy.

That giving the gift of ‘real’ is a matter of both discretion and trust – ultimately, trust in God’s grace to bring healing, and trust in the other person to hold confidence and to offer listening that goes deep.

STOP

This just may be the strangest response to a Lisa-Jo prompt I’ve ever written! (About one extra minute – and links were added after the time limit.)
 
Filed Under: Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World

Real Life Community

February 2, 2012 By

Joining with Bonnie over at The Faith Barista today and with Emily for her last Imperfect Prose for a while as she and her family move into a challenging new phase of life with two new boys to love.





Life is strange sometimes.
 
Take this, for example:
 
I was the pastoral staff person responsible for the 
care and maintenance of small groups 
in our congregation for 14 years.
Yet, my husband and I found it very hard
to be in a small group ourselves.
We tried twice in the early years.
One a Bible study,
the other a sermon study.
 
(You see, I developed and suggested all kinds of different formats for groups to try – ours is a congregation of eclectics, different-strokes-for-different-folks kind of mentality – and I always kept a couple of shelves available with study guides/suggestions for anyone wishing to form or join a group.)
But every time we joined one,
it began to fall apart fairly early on.
 
It was a mystery to me, that whole small groups thing.
 
Some groups worked so very well that the people in them stayed together for years, sometimes decades.
Problem there was –
they weren’t open to anyone new.
Other groups would start off with a bang,
then disappear with a whimper, 
despite training for leaders and
regular check-ins to see how things were going. 
 
So it was with a feeling of dread mixed with anxiety that I began my last round of small group organization during that final year of employment at the church.
 
With a gifted and committed lay leader, 
I had planned a marriage retreat in the spring. 
Twenty-six couples came away for a weekend of worship, learning, practice, prayer.
It was very, very good.
 
And from that group, I attempted to form several follow-up groups, choosing to let the groups themselves decide what kind of schedule and format they would follow.
And, very hesitantly,
I offered our own home and hospitality,
without much hope, frankly,
that anything would work.
 
But God.
 
Just that. 
 
But God had other ideas.
About four successful groups came together and 
stayed together from that project.
And one of those 
was the one that meets once a month at our home.
 
We meet on Sundays, after church, at 1:30 in the afternoon.
We meet for two hours – some couples have kids and two hours is long enough to entrust them to a sitter.
We gather in the yard – in sunny weather – 
or in our dining room, when it’s cooler.
Someone brings dessert, we provide beverages.
We keep it very, very simple.
 
We catch up with each other for the first 30 minutes or so. Sometimes that catching up spurs some deep sharing, sometimes it’s just a check-in time.
And some weeks, one couple is given
the opportunity to use the  Group Bucket – 
a small colorful container containing
slips of paper with thought-provoking questions on them.  Questions designed to elicit some deeper story-telling.
The couple of the week has the option to refuse the question they draw or to edit the question in any way they like.
And then, we go round the circle. 
 
It.is.amazing.
We have shared about all kinds of things,
most of them have brought us to our knees,
in prayers of thanksgiving or supplication.
And that’s the other thing we do each time we gather:
we pray for one another.
This is not a study.
This is a time to share,
sometimes to confess,
often to laugh, to cry, to be honest about where we’re struggling, 
to ask for prayer for ourselves or our kids or our parents,
depending on where we are in the life cycle.

And that’s the other thing that has been really rich about this group. 
We are very intentionally inter-generational. 
When we began, we had one couple newly married, 
two couples of 40+ years, 
one of 20 and another of 12.
Some have moved away and we’ve been open to newcomers.
And each time, the Lord has brought exactly the right people, the right ‘demographic,’ even!

As I look back over our time in this place,
I can see and understand God’s timing
a bit better.
During those earliest years,
it was tough to do community authentically
with people we were just getting to know.
We had come from 20+ year in the same congregation,
where our ties ran deep, deep.

And it was tough to find the lines between my job
and my desire to know and be known
at a deep level.
 
And the demands of both job and family during most of my employed life 
left little space or energy
to build the kind of couple connections we
were used to having.
We each found avenues for service and for worship,
but community?
Not so much.

Somehow, at the end of my pastoral life,
the door opened for this kind of connection.
We were ready for it,
God provided it,
and we are grateful.

But I gotta say – it was a long time coming.
And it’s a very fragile thing, this community building.
It needs tending and commitment
and it needs the baptizing presence of the Spirit of God.
Because all of us are a mess, you know?
We’re flawed,
we’re over-scheduled,
we’re over-committed,
we’re afraid to let the scars show
for fear we’ll be judged or rejected
or, God forbid, ‘fixed’ in some way.
It is a great gift to feel safe with a small group of fellow strugglers on the way, 
one that I do not take for granted after several years without it.
I thank God that we have found such a place of safety.
 
How about you?
Are you connected to people who love you, warts and all?
People who will pray for you and with you when things get dicey?
People who will let Jesus shine through them,
right into your heart?

 

Filed Under: Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World

Healing Prayer – Holy Ground

January 31, 2012 By
Our text on Sunday was Mark 1:21-34. Check it out.
I love the gospel of Mark.
Quick to the point of brusqueness,
Mark moves things right along,
no meandering,
no wondering.
A lot of “immediately”s and a lot of “amazed”s
are peppered throughout his narrative.
Usually, I enjoy a story that unfolds slowly,
like a beautiful flower,
gradually revealing its hidden beauty and fragrance.
Mark will have none of that.

And on Sunday, I remembered how much I like that,
how thankful I am for Mark’s rapid-fire depiction of the jaw-dropping things 
Jesus began to do after his immersion in the Jordan River.

Living in the 21st century as we do, 
I am struck by how underwhelmed we are a lot of the time.
Maybe that’s because we’re bombarded with HEADLINES all the time,
most of them horrific.
Maybe that’s because finding a good news story 
is increasingly tough to do.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing.
But maybe it’s a church thing, too.
Maybe we have mislaid
our sense of wonder,
that overwhelming well of gratitude and praise
that winds like a shimmering ribbon throughout so much of our Holy Book, 
most especially the gospel narratives that
tell us about the life of Jesus.
So let me ask you a question:
When was the last time that you were truly amazed by Jesus?
I mean, stopped in your tracks,
drop to your knees,
dumbstruck,
bleary and teary-eyed
at who Jesus is and what Jesus does?

It’s so easy to become slightly blase about the whole thing sometimes. 
Oh, yeah, Jesus is a great guy – loves little kids, lives simply, must have been a quiet sorta fella, 
don’t you think?
Yawn.

But start reading Mark and those yawns 
will be stifled pretty darn fast.
The people of Capernaum, that little backwater town in Galilee, 
they were stunned.
The man in the synagogue –
did you catch that –
in the synagogue
who had an evil spirit within –
both he and the spirit were slack-faced with wonder
and fear.
Peter’s mother-in-law, the one who was too sick to serve,
she was pretty bug-eyed, too.
And then all those townspeople,
the ones who crowded around the front door 
of Peter’s house that night.
Dumbfounded.
Jubilant.
Amazed.

Here was someone who spoke and taught with authority.
Here was someone whom the powers of evil 
knew instinctively was their nemesis. 
Someone with whom evil was totally incompatible.
Here was someone who cared about 
his friends and their families.
Here was someone who had compassion on an entire town –
 and who showed that compassion by ‘healing many.’
Our pastor noted that the first step to healing
is to rout out evil.
That’s the first little nugget in this narrative –
the spirit of evil is noisy and chaotic.
Jesus is calm and clear:
“Shut up. Get out.”
Can we do that to the evils that beset us,
those voices,
temptations,
habits,
thoughts
that fill us with chaos and noise?
It’s time to be released from the noise,
to lean into the calm,
 to be amazed at the gracious,
authoritative healing power of our God.

Our service ended with a time of anointing,
of coming forward to be blessed,
touched by the oil of grace,
prayed over.
One of my very favorite things ever 
in my years of pastoral ministry.
And, at the very last minute, 
I was invited to stand in front of the kneeler 
and pray for some of the hurting ones who came forward.
While the congregation sang, about a dozen people found their way to the front.
Each one amazed,
each one open,
each one blessed.

And I?
I was the most blessed of all.
For I stood on holy ground,
lifted by the music,
surrounded by the people of God,
amazed at the power of grace
all over again.

Linking with Michelle DeRusha and Jen Ferguson and Jennifer Lee and Ann Voskamp
this Monday night.



Filed Under: Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World

Sunset on the Bluffs

January 31, 2012 By
Dick was in Chicago for board meetings on Friday.
Lilly came to play for a couple of hours in the morning,
and Eric picked her up about 11:00.
“Whatcha doing for dinner tonight, Mom?”
“Oh, nothing much. Got some leftover chili…”
“Have you taken your walk yet?”
“Nope.”
“Well, why don’t you meet us at the bluffs
in Carpinteria and take your walk
with us tonight.
Then we can go out to dinner.”
What a grand idea!
Nothing quite like an invitation from your children, right?
So I drove my way through the small neighborhood 
which borders the oceanside path.
 Their family of four had walked down from their home and were waiting when I drove up.
“Can you believe this view is right here, Mom?
We can walk here. 
Isn’t that something?”

That’s something, all right.
 I will admit to liking this view a lot, too.
Two girls in the fading light.
Especially the pink boots.
 So we set off to the south.
Mama and Dada and Gracie and Lilly
and me.
We were heading to the seal rookery.
Yes, we have one of those nearby –
but your normal, everyday sea lions,
many of them heavy with pups.
To get there, we walked along the edge of the bluffs,
through the eucalyptus woods,
by the oil refinery, hidden just north of the train tracks.
 The rookery is right on the beach next to the oil company pier.
Great care is taken to be sure this area is protected from undue noise or confusion, so that these mamas can rest, give birth and nurse their young.

The Chumash Indians who used to live in these parts 
came to these headlands to build their canoes. 
Why?
Because of the copious amounts of black pitch 
available right on the beach – 
oil –
that precious commodity of 21st century life,
that bane of environmentalism,
oil seeps right through the sand all along this shore.
The off-shore rigs have actually helped keep the beaches accessible, in an oddly ironic meet-up of modern technology and environmental science.
 Within the next few weeks, all of these
sausage-like creatures will push out new pups,
and the place will be ringing with the noises
of new life.
 Trying out a new camera as the sun sets into the sea.
 Checking out the seals and the birds, too.
 A greater egret and a brown pelican rest for a moment before heading to their roosts for the night.
 The Surfliner heads east and then south to San Diego,
sending out its mournful, evocative cry all along the way.
 Even the intrusion of spidery equipment looks
quieter and dreamier in the last of the sunlight.
 And a telephoto close-up reveals the striped glory of sky 
and sea as night approaches.
 I have lived in Santa Barbara for 15 years.
I’ve been down to my local beach countless times.
I’ve traveled to other Santa Barbara beaches weekly.
But I’d never been to these bluffs in Carpinteria
until my son suggested I come and see.
I never stop learning from my kids – 
and that’s exactly as it should be, I think.
It was a lovely walk.
And a great dinner, too.

“From all eternity, Lord, you are.
The waters have lifted up, O Lord,
the waters have lifted up their voice,
the waters have lifted up their thunder.
Greater than the roar of mighty waters,
more glorious than the surgings of the sea,
The LORD is glorious on high.
Truly your decrees are to be trusted.
Holiness is fitting to your house, 
O LORD, until the end of time.”


Psalm 93:2c-5

Joining with L.L. and Laura for their weekly sign-up – as playdates go, this was a fave.
And as far as a sense of place? Oh yeah, this spot has it in spades.
On In Around button
Filed Under: Photo Essay, Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World

The Light of the Lord’s Face: Still Saturday & Sunday!

January 29, 2012 By

“What can bring us happiness?” many say.
Lift up the light of your face upon us, O LORD. 

You have put into my heart a greater joy

than they have from abundance of corn and new wine. 

I will lie down in peace and sleep comes at once.

For you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety. 

 Psalm 4:7-9, the Grail translation

Joining with Deidra at JumpingTandem and Sandy at SandraHeskaKing (widget promised soon!) for their new(ish) invitations to be still on the weekends.
What a lovely idea.
It’s orchid season here on the central coast and the warehouses are full to bustin’ with glorious color and shape. 
Filed Under: Photo Essay, Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World

When Life is a Struggle: The THC Book Club

January 29, 2012 By

(The book we are studying, in case you are joining in after the first two installments – which can be found on my blog here for the first segment, covering the introduction and the first 3 chapters, and here, for chapters 4-6,  is David Brooks’ book, The Social Animal: the Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement. The prime point of discussion begins with the wonderful writing and observations of Laura Boggess over at The High Calling. This was a birthday week for me, so I am very late in contributing to the discussion and, as a disclaimer, I must admit that I have not yet read any of the other blogs, including lovely Laura’s. That shall be remedied anon, I promise!)

 My parents, on their wedding day and many years later. 
Their story shares some slight – accent on the word slight! – similarities to that of Erica and Harold’s.*

At last, we meet Erica. The other half of this fascinating and complicated story about the forces that form us into who we are.  And I, for one, am delighted to make her acquaintance. Erica comes from a very differently storied environment than does Harold, and reading about how her life unfolds is both startling and intriguing. 
These three chapters about her are titled, “Norms,” “Self-Control,” and “Culture,” and they are rich with interesting, and sometimes controversial, information. Erica, you see, comes from what most people would call a highly dysfunctional family system, fathered by a mostly-absent Hispanic father, mothered (occasionally, between bouts with mental illness) by a Chinese-American mother. She and her mother cycle in and out of both poverty-stricken and working class neighborhoods, setting Erica up for what might seem to be a pre-determined future of struggle and failure.

But Brooks chooses to take a different route: he describes how Erica, through the intervention of a counter-cultural high school environment and the loving, though flawed, attention of both of her large, extended families, is able to succeed in ways far beyond most indicators and projected outcomes.

Most intriguing to me in the first of these three chapters were the discussions about “emergent systems” and “Gloomy Prospect” thinking and behavior, the latter often a byproduct of the former. Like our brains, our marriages, our cultures, poverty is an emergent system because the causes and contributors it are many and varied. Trying to pull one causal element out of the mix for some kind of ‘fixing’ is nearly impossible and just about always doomed to failure. 
Instead, new thinking is required; the transformation of personalities and experiences by immersion in a completely different system. That system for Erica is the Academy high school she brazenly pushes her way into. Reading about how this system worked its ‘magic’ through their diverse and wholistic approach – offering counseling, medical care, new thinking, long hours, high demand and one-on-one interaction with teachers and coaches – was truly eye-opening. As I read about how and why the founders of this particular school succeeded in changing the ethos of their students, thus dramatically improving their chances for breaking free of the inter-generational cycle of poverty in which they were trapped – I found myself reflecting on my own recent professional past. This story underscored for me the importance of presenting the whole gospel to the cultures within which we live and work. The work of the church should never be restricted to gathering conversion-notches on our belts. Instead, we need to be practicing love and living gospel truth by reaching out to people in all areas of their lives, by seeing people as whole persons.

The themes that emerged from the next two chapters also resonated with a lot of what I have been learning and practicing in my own spiritual journey over the last fifteen to twenty years. These are the ideas (and the reflections they invited) that spoke most clearly to me: 
1.) the power of anxiety to change the very structure of our brains (perhaps this is why, “Fear not!” is one of the most frequent imperatives in scripture?)
2.) the remarkable interplay between our conscious and unconscious selves 
(we are integrated creatures and God meets us in every part of who we are)
3.) the use of the imagination in helping us to learn healthy habits  (the value of dreams, imagined outcomes, hopes)
4. Self-control can be nurtured and strengthened by a whole series of small choices that center on the task at hand 
(removing the egotistic self from the center of life)
5.) the primary power of how we see things in the decision making process  
(“those with eyes to see…”)
6.) the tremendous impact of the community in which we live on the formation of our individual character 
(how much of the story of scripture is centered around this whole idea? the chosen people in the OT, the church in the NT?)
7.) the import of paying attention in developing strong character (almost all contemplative spirituality begins with this truth)
8.) the influence of practice and repetition on the development of talents/skills 
(the role of things like scripture memory and regular habits of prayer and study in the spiritual formation process)
9.) the force of positive self-interpretation in determining outcomes 
(learning to see ourselves as loved and valued – by God and others – is crucial to growing in faith)
10.) the uniquely human ability and predisposition to teach, to hand on culture, to build “scaffolds that guide future thought.” 
(the call in Deuteronomy 6 to teach our children, the entire rabbinic structure into which Jesus moved so readily and his call to us to teach what we have learned)
The least successful part of Brooks’ presentation came near the end of Chapter 9, Culture. He cites the work of Thomas Sowell who argues that cultures are not only intrinsically different, but also differently successful. For me, this argument only holds if we insist on a western view of ‘success.’ Having lived for 2 years in an African nation where none of our markers for success (upward mobility, salary, status) are valued, I had to fight the urge to feel superior to a people whose values were very different from those with which I was most familiar. The people of the southern province of Zambia value community, connection, paying attention to the intricacies of conversation, and are deeply committed to tradition. I would not choose to live there forever nor to absorb their cultural values. But I do hesitate to say that mine are better just because they’re mine. Some of this rang true to me, but a lot of it was troubling. It cuts to the heart of some of the difficulties of the modern missionary movement – where western culture was imported along with the gospel. Thankfully, that has changed a lot over the last 40 years!

By the end of her college career, after eight years of observation and learning in both high school and college,  Erica distilled everything into these three life maxims: 1.) Think in networks; (we are all embedded in multiple ones) 2.) Be the glue; (always work in an environment of high trust and do all you can to be a conduit of it.) (3.) Be an Idea-Space Integrator. (standing at the junction of two ideas can be a place for success and connection – fill any existing gaps in information and/or in trust.) 

I look forward to learning how Erica implements these maxims in her future life, both professionally and personally. Seeing how this young woman with seemingly few prospects grew into a determined, self-controlled, committed young adult was fascinating. Surely, sparks of all kinds will fly when she and Harold connect!

*The differences between the home ‘cultures’ of my parents were not nearly as dramatic as those of Harold and Erica. But…my father was raised by southerners committed to education, had two parents with middle-class jobs (accountant and school teacher, when she worked before she had children), was catered to, showcased and favored by his mother (to the extent that it made him physically sick for one entire school year), was successful academically and musically. My mother was raised by Canadians from the working class (father a binge alcoholic jack-of-all-trades {butcher/gardener} and a mother in retail sales who didn’t spend much time at home). Education was not a value in her home, although she did attend college for two years – until the money ran out. The counter-culture for my mom was the church her parents dropped her off at each week – it’s where her gifts were affirmed, her primary friendships were formed (many of them lasting 50 years or more) and where she met my dad. The two of them filled the gaps for one another and together, they worked hard to create a happy and healthy home life for me and my brothers. I’m curious to see what Erica and Harold do with their own family, if they have one.









Filed Under: Book Review, Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World

Five Minute Friday: Tender

January 28, 2012 By

Yes, it is Friday once again. Seems like it rolls around a little bit earlier each and every week. Lisa-Jo’s invitation still stands and now about 200 folks are signing in each week with their 5 minute, unscripted, unedited posts on the prompt of the day. Just writing, whether it’s ‘just right’ or not. So, in a minute, I’ll set the timer and see what comes. Try it – you’ll like it!

 Prompt this week: TENDER

 The sweetest feet on the planet belong to this girl.
 Are these the cutest or what??

Go:

She was only about 18 months old,
already talking a blue streak
and often including some of her
newly learned vocabulary
in the ‘project’ of the moment.
That day, she was playing with two of her
favorite ‘dolls’ –
a very old, very dingy Cabbage Patch infant,
and a somewhat larger 
orange-haired Zoe doll
(you know, the character from Sesame Street)
which she inexplicably insisted was
really Abby
(another character from that life-and-sanity-saving bit of television history).
We’d taken her in the yard for a walk earlier
that day, in a stroller I found somewhere
for a good price,
and it was still sitting in the living room,
waiting to be scooted out of sight
after Lilly went home.
She immediately commandeered it,
placing her two friends neatly into the
seat, adjusting their clothes a little,
making sure each one was comfortable.
From that day on,
Baby and Zoe were in that stroller 
every Wednesday and many Fridays.
The day I am remembering happened 
the week following her initial discovery of this grand new addition to 
her child-care game.
Her daddy dropped her off, as usual,
and, after helping herself to Poppy’s breakfast, 
checking out a few additional toys 
in the baskets we keep for her,
she found her way to the stroller,
not aware that I was watching.
Carefully and tenderly,
she bent over one side.
“You okay?” she asked Baby.
Waiting a beat, as if for an answer,
she walked around to the other side,
leaned in again and said,
“You okay?”
Apparently they were both doing fine.

But I was struck by how very early our children 
begin to mimic what we do, what we say.
How many times had her parents, her sister, 
her other grandparents, we ourselves – how many times had we leaned over her,
carefully and tenderly, and said,
“You okay, Lil? You doin’ okay?”
It’s lovely to see that sometimes,
sometimes,
parents and grandparents get it right!
STOP
I got interrupted by a phone call, so this one probably got about 2 extra minutes (and a few edits here and there, too). 
Filed Under: Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World

Looking Long at the Sea

January 27, 2012 By

I paid attention when he spoke.
“Sit and look at the sea,” he said.
“Look a long time.
Look long enough to become
the sea looking back at you.
Then tell me what you see.
I think you’ll like it.”

So I went to the sea.
I sat in the sun,
high on a bluff.
And I looked long.
I looked wide.
I breathed slow,
and I moved slow,
and I was slow.

And here is what I saw.

Islands, off in the distance,
a low layer of fog
pushed up against them,
like the covers
in a bed just left. 

Kelp beds, red and brown,
swaying with the tide,
housing life
deep down,
where I cannot see.
I know it’s there,
moving, feeding,
following the rhythm
of the water.



LIGHT,
sprinkled across
the surface of the sea,
light.
Dancing, winking,
blinking, blinding.
I see light.
And I am undone.

Mesmerized by the motion,
caught by the pattern.
One spot, shining bright.
Then two or three more,
then hundreds of them as 
the wave reaches its zenith.
See that thread of molten silver
as the water breaks against
the sand!

For just the briefest of moments,
enough for a breath or two,
I know the sea,
I am the sea,
And I see myself as lovely.

Loved.

See for yourself: (and listen, too.)

We’re experiencing a winter heat-wave here on the central coast. It was nearly 80 degrees today, and beautifully clear. Somehow, my parking spot was perfectly situated to see these cascades of moving light as I sat and contemplated the magnificence of the sea. I watched for a little over an hour. I was actually anxious about trying this. Generally, I have a book to read, a lunch to eat, a nap to take when I park at the beach. Trying to imagine sitting and looking for a long stretch was hard to do. The actual doing of it? Divinely wonderful, amazing, restful, moving, sacred. I’ve been told that this experience can be replicated by choosing any natural location that is beautiful to you – your own back yard might work just fine. The point is to sit in contemplation for a long stretch of time – 1 to 2 hours. Finding the time is probably the biggest challenge – but I am now hoping to do this regularly and will make the time somehow.









Filed Under: Photo Essay, Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World
« Previous Page
Next Page »