But You Would Not

I've started a new book: Forty Days to a Closer Walk with God: The Practice of Contemplative Prayer, which walks you through the process of Lectio Divina. In this practice you read scripture and listen for a word from God. Journaling your thoughts is encouraged, and thus I am recording my thoughts here. The suggested scripture for day one is Isaiah 30:15:

"For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: in returning to Me and resting in Me you shall be saved; in quietness and in trusting confidence shall be your strength. But you would not. (Amplified)

Sadly, I think my word from God is: you would not. I read God's promises, I share His promises with others, but deep down, I would not. I would not get my strength from quietness and confidence. I would not rest in God. Even if I get that feeling--you know the one--where you do feel deep down that everything will be all right, I choose not to rest in it. I would not. I'm like the following verses - "I say no - I will speed my own course, I will ride my swift steed doing things my own way". Why do I choose this when I can rest in the Lord God? When quietness and trusting confidence can be my strength? Verse 18 says that "the Lord is a God of justice, and that we are to be envied who expect, look for, and long for Him--His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless unbroken companionship".

My problem is I'm too grounded in this temporal world. I believe this world over and above my heavenly world. I believe this world over and above God. I need to deepen my connection to God. I need to deepen my trust in God. I need to change my would not into I will. I need to rest in God and allow Him to do this work in me.

Inside the Chaos of My Mind

Lara, this post is for you. You wanted to see my sewing or "project" room, and so, here it is. It is full of ideas and imaginings and it is utter chaos, as you can see above!

This room reflects the creative side of me that never seems to have the energy to express itself anymore. My spirit is numbed and benumbed by ITBS, ELPA, MEAP, and Consolidated Grant. I never wanted to be a numbers person for this very reason. Somehow instead of feeding my energy this type of work depletes my energy and when I get home I just collapse exhausted in my chair and escape into a book. One lovely thing about art is that there are no rules, if someone says you can't do that, you just say "why not", or "yes I can" with no worries about the MDE police cracking down on you!

These little glimmerings of creativeness refuse to die, and so they live on in obscurity in my Project Room. They poke and prod at me wanting and waiting to be expressed in some way. They get birthed, so to speak, and then wait in silence to be given life. Now my room is so full of glimmerings that it is daunting to go in there and work on something. (I have other rooms that could house some of my projects, but I'm a little afraid I will take up every empty room in the house!). Enjoy the tour, but don't judge me on my messiness!

Addendum: It occurs to me that perhaps cleaning my project room should have been on my "Six Impossible Things" list!

Sacred Places

Bright Shoots Of Everlastingness: Essays On Faith And The American Wild by Paul J. Willis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am not usually an essay reader, but this book captured my interest with the lovely title. I was hooked by the time I was halfway through the introduction. Why exactly did I like it so much? I think I liked the author's honesty and the gentleness in which he presented it. Take for example this thought:

"American evangelicals are no doubt some of the tackiest, corniest, pigheadedest people on earth. However, They are my people, and I am one of them. By historical accident or design, they are the unsavory husk for the kernel of divine love that has been given for me to taste."

What a great picture of Christianity - the ugliness and the beauty lie side by side.

This book felt like a conversation to me. Not a "hurry up" conversation, but a "let's linger together" conversation. A book to help you slow down and contemplate life rather than just rushing through it. Sometimes it made you ponder, and sometimes you just laughed. I felt like the author could be a great friend.

Willis is not only an author, but a mountain climber. He loves the wilderness, he loves reaching the peak. Why? What draws him there? I recently learned that to the Hebrews, to God's people, the mountains are sacred, or thin, places. The people believed that on the mountain the veil separating us from Heaven is thinning out, that they are closer to Heaven on the mountaintop. Is this what the mountaineer feels--that they are closer to God on the mountaintop?

This led me to consider what would my sacred place be, or yours? Is there a place you feel closer to God? Is it by the water, in a meadow, is it a quiet space you've set up at home? Is it the 5 minutes you might spend on your knees in the morning, is it in the difficult situation you are encountering in life, when you cry out to God for help?

I love the water. Something about the lap of the waves, the sound of the beach grass, the way the sun light hovers over the water like a thousand little tinkerbells dancing soothes me and gives comfort. I saw it just yesterday when I took a walk to the channel at Holland State Park. It made me think of Isaiah 61:10:

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

I think those thousand little tinkerbells dancing on the water would make a lovely robe of righteousness don't you? At least I always imagine that some day when I am clothed with righteousness, I will be illumined by God's lovelight.

It's my favorite time of year, Easter. So much to contemplate as we come up to Maundy Thursday and Resurrection morning. We don't need to climb a mountain to "thin" the veil that separates us from Heaven. The death of Jesus tore the veil, and there is no separation any more. Any place is sacred that we allow Jesus to have full reign over.

So, find a place, it can be anyplace, and let the sacred take you over and rejoice. He is risen!
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Six Impossible Things

So I'm walking down a hallway, and from the corner of my eyes, I see a stack of books. Hmmm. . . . impossible to pass a stack of books without looking at them. I discover they are all the same book: Firstlight by Sue Monk Kidd. I pick it up, it holds nicely in the hand. I'm excited - I like Sue Monk Kidd. I stop at the office and ask if I can borrow one of the books over the weekend. "Oh, you may have one" the secretary tells me. "Really - to keep?" , "Yes, that's what they're for". Well, it certainly is a good day when you get a free book, and on top of that, discover you really like it! Which leads us to "Six Impossible Things". In one of the little homilies we are reminded that in Alice in Wonderland, the White Queen practiced believing six impossible things before breakfast. Kidd and her daughter decide to give it a try. I'm intrigued. What if I practice six impossible things before breakfast? What would they be? In Firstlight, the daughter wishes for 100 on her science test, and Kidd wishes for completion of two speeches she has to write before tomorrow. Guess what - both their impossible wishes come true. So, here are my six impossible wishes:

1. To wake up full of energy and good cheer (and with balanced hormones). (Buechner says: Grace is a good night's sleep.)
   
2. To create Shalom at work and at home. (Shalom: more than peace, it is where God's will is done--God's purpose is to do everything He can to replace chaos with Shalom)
   
3. To slow down and give full attention to the people who "interrupt" my day.
4. To ask God for guidance before making decisions.
5. To be patient with whatever comes my way.
6. To be content with the life God has given me.

Shalom!

Shalom must surely be one of the most common Hebrew words known around the world! It is pretty much the only Hebrew word I knew when I started an Interactive Hebrew class 2 weeks ago. My good friend Vonnie invited me, and I was eager to attend. The class is taught in a mixture of Hebrew and English. It's fun, informative, and challenging. I am such a reader, I love words, and am finding how much I rely on words to aid me in my learning. To be taught in another language, and pretty much solely by story telling, is to engage my brain in a challenge. I won't come out of the class as a Hebrew linguist, but I will have a new respect for the culture behind the language, the tradition of oral story telling, and the deeper meanings that come from a language other than English. Hebrew language doesn't have as many words as the English language, but the richness of the meanings of the words used adds a depth to their language that is missing from our language, especially in the ways that we write and speak today. When did we lose the richness of our language? I think we need to start a movement to bring it back!

As part of the class we are also reading a book called "Getting Involved With God: Rediscovering the Old Testament" by Ellen F. Davis. We won't be discussing the book (such torture), but it is meant to compliment our learning. We are only supposed to read the chapter assigned to us--whoever heard of such a thing! This is so hard for a person who greedily looks at the books people are reading and wants to snatch and grab them for herself. So, I guess I have to share what I found worth contemplating here. (I did however, notice a book the instructor had on the table called "In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed" which I rushed right out to buy and am a third of the way through--I tell you, I am not lying when I say I am greedy for books!)

So, our assigned chapter was chapter 5: "Ive Got to Turn Aside: The Burning Bush". The author is making an association between the burning bush and the incarnation. This is what caught my attention:

"Mary, who carried God in her belly and later in her arms, yet did not dissolve to ash--she is herself the bush that burns perpetually, yet is not consumed. That image of Mary, ancient and still fresh, may serve to refresh our reading of Moses' story, which suffers somewhat from over-familiarity. Mary and Moses have this in common: in the history of the world, they are the two people who have known God most intimately, known God in ways that mortal flesh ordinarily could not tolerate without burning to a cinder. The Israelites understood that trespassing on holy ground would bring instant death. The high priest took his life in his hands when he entered the Holy of Holies one day each year, and even he entered the holy place enveloped in smoke, for who could see God and live? Yet God spoke to Moses "face to face, as one speaks to a friend" (Exodus 33:11)--in one place, scripture says "mouth-to-mouth" (Numbers 12:8).

I have never thought of Jesus birth in those terms before. It really is amazing, isn't it. In all the Bible stories before, it's true, the people could not see God, the High Priests had to follow specific rules or die. Yet God placed Jesus in Mary and she lived. It struck me that in a sense we are all like Mary now. God placed the Holy Spirit in us, we carry Him with us through and in everything we say and do. We do not die. We approach Him every day with no consequence other than Love. Even in our disobedience, He loves us. I loved the end of the chapter where the author says:

The flame that burned in the bush at Sinai is the same light to which Mary give birth. It burns yet, and, for all our darkness, is not extinguished. We are in Epiphany, the season of light. Come then, "take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing, it's holy ground".

Be Still My Soul by Elisabeth Elliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the second time I've read this book. Ironically, I pulled it from my shelf looking for "comfort" words, instead of words like:

"God included the hardships of my life in His original plan. Nothing takes Him by surprise. Nothing is for nothing. His plan is to make me holy, and hardship is indispensable for that as long as I live in this hard old world. All I have to do is accept it."

I forgot how practical Elliot is, and true to God's word, and unyielding on the dying to self theme. Do you know how sometimes you're just sick of it, and if someone asks you to do something one more time you just think you'll scream? How sometimes it seems like it would be so nice to have no responsibilities, no none, other than eating cake or sitting on the beach, or anything that only involves the happiness of one person, that person being you? (If you have never been in this place then I think you have the gift of contentment and you are blessed!). Well, that's how I've been feeling lately (not the content part, but the other). So, I looked to Elliot for some good and encouraging words. Oddly, those words didn't provide balm for my soul, but they still did help me. She reminded me that "acceptance of circumstances, the first step in obtaining joy and peace, begins with faith"

I think dying to self has fallen out of favor with the Christian community--it has sure fallen out of favor with me lately! Consider this:

"All the paths of the Lord are lovingkindness and truth to those who keep His covenant and His testimonies [Psalm 25:10 NASB]. About this passage Amy Carmichael once wrote in a note to a coworker, "All does not mean 'all but these paths we are in now' or 'nearly all, but perhaps just not this specially difficult painful one.' All must mean all."

More specific to the dying to self theme:

"As His servants, we lay down our desire for a certain quality of life, our insistence that our life must be arranged in a certain way to order to be acceptable. In a word, we deny ourselves."

So, while I didn't get the balm for my soul I was looking for, God sure told me that I need to get back to work on that dying to self thing. He must have thought I needed a good kick in the pants instead of words of comfort!

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The Babs Bon Mots Book Store

So, I'm perusing other people's blogs, and I think I need my own bookstore.

If I had my own bookstore I would require that my employees read while working. After all, it is important to model the importance of reading to all people, and everyone knows, when you are shopping for a book, it is usually best to do so without the interference of other people. Naturally employees would lay their book down to assist with purchases (providing they are not at a very exciting part in the book). To aid in their book search, I would employ a computer look up system similar to what we have at the library, making it very easy to see if we have their special book in stock, and exactly where to find it.

I would have a perpetual book club room where you could stop by for wine and chocolate, or mochas and chocolate, or milk and chocolates (there will definately be chocolates) and talk about books with other bibliophiles. (It is possible we could have some healthy snacks, but, that really is debatable.)

Naturally the bookstore will be filled with comfy chairs, and pillows, and maybe even couches.We will stick to the motto of "Snack, Nap, Read" (I think this may need to be made into a quilt). This very important life lesson should begin as soon as a reader is born (if not before)!

Are any of my friends willing to finance this endeavor?