Lent: Memory

"One of the great sorrows which came to human beings when Adam and Eve left the garden was the loss of memory, memory of all that God's children are meant to be."  Madeline L'Engle, Walking on Water

Could the awkward, unsettled parts of my life be caused by the forgetting?  I strive to "fulfill my calling" and "use my gifts," but always there is something out there, just beyond my reach; elusive, something that would fully satisfy my cravings and smooth out the wrinkles in my sheets.  

A friend and I were talking about where he and his dream fit in this world.  He shrugged and said, "We're aliens anyway."  He doesn't expect to fit east of Eden.   

The Scriptures respond to this ache:  wait, be patient, persevere, hope.  

Observing Lent has been an exercise in memory...remembering the man of sorrows, from the ragged edges of his story to the blazing cross at the center, and remembering what that means for me: that because I identify with this grand story, from Adam to Christ, I know there is something I'm forgetting.

Lent: Confession

I recently asked a young Catholic friend, Claire, about her experience in a confessional.  I admitted I thought it was a strange, unnecessary step in the process of spiritual reconciliation.  We have unlimited access to Christ through his work on the cross, so why climb in a little booth and recount our sins to a human intercessor?  

She looked at me with a knowing smile, her curly red hair framing her beautiful, pale features.  She said something like, "I know people who didn't grow up with it think it's strange, but I think it's beautiful."  She told me about her first confessional, where the priest came to her home and gentle encouraged her in the art of identifying sin.  She explained how it helps her be conscious of and accountable for her sin, and how confessing it aloud frees her from guilt and reconnects her to Christ.   

I can see the beauty of it now.  

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.  James 5:16

I am learning to name my sin, to call overeating "gluttony" and impure thoughts "lust," and to discern the pride and idolatry that creep into my thoughts and actions, but I have a lot to learn about confession.  I want to jump right into the pool of grace before taking the shower of confession.  

While I don't intend to slip into a confessional booth, I am convinced that there is value in confessing sin in a safe community.  I did this one day in my ladies' small group.  I unleashed my tongue and my heart and took a chance to confess something raw and embarrassing.  Behold, the power that Claire and the Book of James described manifested in my life!  Beauty. Freedom.  Healing.  
Confession to one another celebrates the expiation of our sin and the sanctifying work of God through the cross of Christ (1 John 1:9). Confession to another Christian also guards us from absolving ourselves without true repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). Bonhoeffer writes that God gives us certainty that we are dealing with the living God “through our brother” (116).  from this excellent article:  Confessing our Sins Together by John Piper

Lent teaches that if I want to draw near to God, I need to take sin seriously through earnest confession to God and to my brother.  

Lent: Misgivings

It's only one week into Lent and I'm having misgivings about my ability to be consistent and committed to this One Word project.  I would have misgivings if I was fasting, too.  I'd forget and eat the chocolate if I was fasting from sweets.  I'd sneak a peak on Facebook if I was fasting from social media. 

I remember reading a blog about fasting by Ann Voskamp some years ago.  She reminded me that the whole point of giving something up for Lent is to prove our pathetic weakness and our great need for Christ.  

Lent paints the sad picture of how we crave earthly things more than Christ.  I sit down in the mornings and really just want to surf the net, check in with Facebook friends, and respond to emails.  I don't want to ponder great Biblical truths.  I don't want anything that smacks of discipline in these early hours.  

 Lent takes us deep into the dark heart of humanity, where we realize we would have probably had a role in the ancient story. Would we have been a scoffer in the crowd?  Would we have been weak like Pontius Pilate or violent like the guards?  Would we have been unfaithful to Christ like Peter or betrayed Christ like Judas.  

I'd like to think I would be Mary with the long hair, cracking open the jar of exquisite, fragrant oil to pour on Christ's feet.  

Maybe, but I have misgivings about that, too.  Lent reveals that I can't even follow the primary commandment of Christ.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  Matthew 22:37

Lent teaches that this is not possible.  I cannot love with all my heart.  It will always be divided.  But through Christ's work on the cross, I can earnestly pray with the psalmist:

Teach me your way, LORD, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.  Psalm 86:11

Lent: Held

One look in Karmen's eyes last night, and we both started crying.  We were at a Sara Grove's concert when Sara started talking about friendship; how her group of four close friends stand at the corner of a stretcher for each other.  That story did us in.  Both our minds went to this Scripture:

Four men came to Jesus carrying a man who could not move his body. These men could not get near Jesus because of so many people. They made a hole in the roof of the house over where Jesus stood. Then they let down the bed with the sick man on it.  Mark 2:3-4

Several years ago, four of us adopted this Scripture as our standing orders.  We would be at the corners for each other so that we could always feel supported.  Since then, our little group has tested the stretcher many times, and we've taken our turns holding and being held.  I even wrote a song called "At the Corners" to seal the promise. 

Four Corners:  Vicki, Emma, Karmen, me

Now one of us is gone.  When Emma died of cancer two weeks ago, we stood together and grieved.  Part of the grief is that the image of the four corners doesn't work anymore.  It's all lopsided.  

Today, Lent reminds me Christ fills all empty spaces.  He holds all things together.  He girds up the weak points.  He is the final word on standing in the gap.  Emma is with Him in heaven even as He is with us here on earth, standing in her place.  

Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord. Jeremiah 23:24

Karmen, Sara Groves, and me

Lent: Lonliness

As I shared lunch with a friend on Sunday, we fell into a conversation about what kinds of suffering bother us most.  For her, it was loneliness, particularly seeing elderly people eating alone.  

I've thought about lonely hearts quite a bit lately.  I read this article recently about drug addiction which pointed out addiction is not so much a crime against society as a symptom of loneliness, and that when you remove the stigma of crime and put addicted people in strong community, the problem is decimated.  It resonated deeply with me.  

I've worried about friends suffering alone, and of Emma's little Gracie, who just lost her mother to cancer, of her impending loneliness.   I've not had to endure loss like that, though I have had seasons of loneliness as a young mother and a new college student.  I think our society calls it depression, but maybe it is just a secret, sad space of disconnection and dissatisfaction.  

I imagine the road to Golgotha was as lonesome a road as any.  Jesus was surrounded his whole life by people who, at best, did not understand him, and at worst, despised him.  He walked his final steps, dragging his own cross, surrounded by people, but utterly alone.

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Isaiah 53:3  

and so, this:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses...  Hebrews 4:15

This is not a Christian platitude for loneliness.  This is a truth to cling to.  And it is a reminder to extend empathy and to let it move you bravely into the circle of someone's loneliness.  

Lent: Chaff

The wisest people I know have discovered how to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Chaff is light, airy, useless fluff; wheat is the kernel of  nourishment.  So they lay their commitments, their attitudes, and their goals down on the threshing floor and pound.  

This process can hurt.  It hurts to give up good things for best things.  It hurts to relinquish long held attitudes and habits in an effort to align with Christ.  It's risky to ask God to direct your future and shape your goals.  What if he calls you to do something radical?  

This process is confusing.  A single activity can be both wheat and chaff.  Facebook, for instance, can be used for encouragement and ministry or can stir up trouble and sin.  Mundane tasks can be frustrating burdens, or, if taken to the threshing floor, can become sacred moments.  

Picture this:  you step into the sanctuary of the laundry room.  You smell the staleness of sin and the freshness of new life mingled together.  You move dirty clothes into the washer, close the door, and watch the magic. You pull out fresh, clean clothes from the dryer, thinking on each person represented by t-shirts and underwear and little wadded socks.  You give thanks at the white metal altar.  Suddenly, what once felt like chaff becomes nourishment to the soul.  

Christ spent his life and sweated blood trying to help people see the difference between the wheat and the chaff before his own body was flailed.  

His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.  Luke 3:16

Lent: Suffering

On Day 5 of Lent, I think a friend is contemplating suicide.  It's just a gut feeling, which places me in a quandry.  Do I speak?  Do I wait?  Do I hope and pray I'm mistaken?   What is my place in this distant friendship?  His life has completely unraveled in Job-like fashion, but I am just on the Facebook periphery, which is a weird, hand-wringing place to be.

It leads me to think about suffering.  I witnessed suffering this year in its most heart-wrenching intensity as Emma's cancer raged.  But she beautifully used it to testify to God's glory and provision, and thus, all that the Bible promises about the good things suffering produces were evident in her life and death.  Not unlike Jesus walking the road to Golgotha, weeping and praying, but knowing and trusting.  

Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.-Tim Keller

What is it like to have a Job-like life without a Job-like faith? What is it like to feel this part of a psalm...

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?  Psalm 22:1

without this...

From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly.  Psalm 22:25

Lent: Unknowing

I have a mentor who is teaching me through example and gentle instruction to sit in the Mystery, to relinquish my need to control, understand, and plan.  He promises that it is messy and holds no guarantees of worldly success but that it develops a keen awareness of God's smallest provisions.  

It's the opposite of knowing but the equivalent of love.  

I am bad at it.  The poet in me likes mystery, but the rest of me likes to execute a plan and enjoys positive feedback.  

The ancient church fathers often had adroit descriptions of our walk with Christ.  One anonymous writer from the Middle Ages described God as dwelling in a Cloud of Unknowing that could only be pierced with a dart of longing.  

Longing, tense and acute, should drench this Lenten journey.  And after the 40 day walk to the cross, shall I expect to know the Unknowable better?  My guess is that the mystery will build, like a bank of clouds, but so, I pray, will the Love. 



O God, you are my God,
  and I long for you.
My whole being desires you;
  like a dry, worn-out, and waterless land,
  my soul is thristy for you.
Let me see you in the sanctuary;
  let me see how mighty and glorious you are.
Your constant love is better than life itself,
  and so I will praise you.
I will give you thanks as long as I live;
  I will raise my hands to you in prayer.
My soul will feast and be satisfied,
  and I will sing glad songs of praise to you.
from Psalm 63

Lent: Presence

When I embarked yesterday on this Lenten "word meditation," I wondered how I would know to which word I should  fasten my thoughts.  My days are full of words.  I worked for 2 hours yesterday with 15 kids collaborating on a musical we are writing.  That session alone was an explosion of words!  

But God, who planted this idea in my heart, is faithful to bring one word bubbling to the surface this morning:  presence.

What do I desire from this Lenten journey?  What does God desire of me?  Presence, I think.

Me drawing near to Him through contemplation, through small deeds done in love, through telling of his goodness.  Him drawing near to me because I ask, because that's who He is, an eager dance partner who will pull me close and lead out with joy. 

 “I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the presence of GOD. For my part I keep myself retired with Him in the depth of centre of my soul as much as I can; and while I am so with Him I fear nothing; but the least turning from Him is insupportable.” 
― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

As I sat in a ladies' Bible study yesterday, I learned of a helpful distinction regarding the presence of God.  One attribute of God is his omnipresence.  That he can be everywhere at once is a mind-blowing feat, but I tend to accept his omnipresence in stride.  

What I cannot overlook is his manifest presence...the times when his utter being breaks through the veil in rays of light and warmth and revelation, and I viscerally react with tears or goosebumps.  

I find I'm most prone to experience God's manifest presence when I am in worship or when I am telling a story about Him or his people; when I am actively thinking on His glory.  

But as for me, it is good to be near God.

    I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge;

    I will tell of all your deeds.  Psalm 73:28

Yesterday, as I sat at a corner table in a coffee shop with my laptop and headphones, this song came on the Pandora classical channel: Tribute and Angus Dei by Michael W. Smith.   It broke through my thoughts with its gorgeous crescendo, and God's manifest presence joined me for tea.  Goosebumps.

Lent: Homesick

I spent the more spiritual moments of yesterday, Ash Wednesday, thinking about Lent.  I taught my daughter how to solve for x in a story problem.  I thought about Lent.  I made Ruebens.  I thought about Lent.  I gave a curly-haired neighbor girl a piano lesson.  I thought about Lent.  

I searched in those moments for direction from God.  How now do I honor Thee in this long walk to the Cross that culminates on Easter.  How do I invite my kids on the journey?  Lent is not something my church corporately recognizes, so this is a private meditation.  One that I've come to cherish in recent years.  

This morning, I woke with an answer.  One word a day.  A brief meditation on a single word.  

Homesick.  

My closest-person-to-a-sister went home to be with Jesus a week ago Sunday.  Her devotion and worship was described by her husband at the funeral as "white hot" and with every song we sang, we knew she was singing for real. Hotter than ever. In His presence.  It made me homesick.

I think I am plagued with homesickness most of the time because I cannot worship God like I want to.  I cannot be fully devoted because of sin and selfishness.  I can too easily forget all His benefits.  Any determination I have one day to do better, pray harder, study deeper, love more fully, is quickly ashes in the wind.  

It's all that regret and frustration and disappointment and confusion that become the virtual cross of ashes on my forehead.  

But this I believe:  Jesus understands the grand maze of my interior.  He gave me free will to do as I please.  He gave me sensitivity to refrain from always doing as I please.  He designed me with an emotional space for homesickness.  And as I walk this road to Golgotha over the next 40 days, he will whisper, "Home is here with me."  

For he (Abraham) was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. - Hebrews 11:10

William Blake, God as Architect, 1794

Be Who You Are...a Tribute to Emma

Emma, Karmen, me, and our daughters after singing
together at a Christmas concert many moons ago

The phone rang at 4:45 in the morning with the news that my sweet Emma had gone Home.

She beat cancer.

I imagine her today bathed in light, rediscovering her rich alto voice, getting a bear hug from Jesus, sitting down to a feast, moving (flying?) without pain or fear.

She said dying was like "faith becoming sight."  She had to take every biblical truth she'd professed in her 40 years of life and really BELIEVE.  But she didn't have to try.  The Spirit did the work, and because of that, she became the comforter to the rest of us who miserably watched her decline.

I am an only child, but God has given me a handful of Hand-picked sisters.  Emma is the sister who could speak truth with love, exhort, encourage, and inspire.  Godliness oozed out of her...but not as shallow platitudes and Christian-ese.  She embraced the messiness of life and faith.  She taught me to drop Christian facades and to live authentically.  And because of that, she directly inspired numerous songs, four of which are on my Songs With Wings album, and several more of which I hope to record someday.  She gave many gifts to people around her.  I know this, because I have been reading their tributes to her.  To me, she gave songs.

I'd like to share three "Emma phrases" that resound in my ears this morning.

"Be who you are."  I heard her say this ALL the time to her kids; just about every time they walked out the door.  At first, I thought it was strange to tell two little boys and a girl to "be who you are."  They were so little and feisty and not who they were going to be yet.  When I asked about this, because I COULD ask her stuff like this, she said her kids understood the phrase to mean, "Be who God made you to be."  Now I understand.  I tell it to myself:  BE WHO YOU ARE.  Rise above your littleness.

"All I Have is Christ."  This phrase from the worship song crushes me.  It's the last song Emma was able to record at my house before a tumor stole her singing voice.  We had a list of 12 songs we were going to record together as a legacy project.  I still have her hand-written list taped up in my music room.  We procrastinated.  We only completed one.  This list stands as a cautionary tale.  Move when the spirit says move.  

"We do this single file."  If ever I am tempted to take a seat on the judgement chair and declare someone's failure at this or that, I hear this phrase in Emma's cancer-scraped voice.  She said this a lot toward the end.  We do death single file.  We do life single file.  We do faith single file.  Be tender and patient with yourself and others.

Emma's final gift to her beloved church was to die on a Sunday morning so that her people could be together worshiping and grieving and talking and remembering.  Several times my tears mingled with another's as we hugged cheek to cheek.  Emma would have approved.  

I leave you with Emma's final recorded song if you'd like to listen.