Season Three of the famous Masterpiece series Downton Abbey came to a conclusion with a grand finale, and no I am not going to weigh in on THAT.....rather I thought it a great time to share my all time favorite scene and why I am so taken with it.
In the last episode of Season Two entitled "Christmas at Downton Abbey" Daisy the kitchen maid finally pays a visit to the farm of her father in law Mr. Mason. If you aren't familiar with the storyline, Daisy married the farmer's son William on his death bed, doing it more as an act of kindness to a dying soldier than out of deep affection. She has been conflicted about it ever since. This scene opens with William's father fixing tea for Daisy and goes something like this:
Daisy: You shouldn't have gone to all this trouble ...not for me.
Farmer: No? Not when you're the nearest thing to a child of mine left on earth?
Daisy: Well I don't deserve it... not when I was only married to William for a few hours...you were there, you saw it.
The farmer goes on to explain to Daisy that William had three brothers and one sister all who died at or near child birth. He believes one of the reasons William married Daisy even though he was dying was so that his father would not be left alone. Then Mr. Mason makes this amazing confession and beautiful offer to Daisy....
"Without you I would have no one to pray for. So will you be my daughter? Let me take you into my heart and make you special? You have parents of course..."
Daisy: No I have no parents....never been special to anyone.
Farmer: Except William
Daisy: I was only ever special to William ...never thought of it like that before.
Sweet, sentimental, but the all time favorite out of the entire three seasons? Yes! Let me explain why. I see within this little exchange a beautiful resemblance to a much Larger Story. The dying son marries Daisy to ensure her being taken care of and so his father won't be bereft of children. An act of loving kindness to be sure but it is the father's invitation that captures my heart. "Will you be my daughter...let me take you into my heart and make you special?" This is the very heart of God the Father who having lost his children now extends the greatest invitation ever to those loved by the Son, "come and be my daughter and let me take you into my heart and be a special treasure to me".
Daisy the kitchen maid the very least in the world she inhabits, who has never been special to anyone is invited out of her small story and into a place of relationship, blessing, and inheritance all because she was the beloved of the son. Now she has a father who will mentor her, guide her and take care of her; she can leave "service" and come to the farm and to be his apprentice for he will give her everything he owns!
When we reduce the gospel to a religious act of "asking Jesus into our heart" to get us into heaven when we die we minimize the extravagant love of God and bring Him down to our size. How much greater to hear the invitation as it should be heard..."will you be my son/daughter and let me take you into my heart and make you special to me....Be my apprentice...I will teach you all you need to know for the inheritance that I am going to give you"
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1Peter 2:9-10
Reclaim, Restore, Upcycle these are all very trendy and fashionable terms these days. Maybe they were subconsciously in the back of my mind when I was cleaning out the hall closet. I was rearranging shelves and trying to put away Christmas decorations when I spied this little cup all black with tarnish. I know this cup....I have moved it around the closet many times before. It is one of those things you cannot throw or give away but you do not want, so you move it and move it and move it . Meanwhile it gets darker and darker and darker.
I know the reason why I can't get rid of the cup and I know the reason I don't want the cup. The cup bears three sets of initials with a year underneath each set: RWC1924; my father's initials and the year he was born; JGC1945, my brother; and JCC1969 his son. This was my father's and brother's baby cup.
The initials are the reason why the cup has been hidden and become so tarnished. They represent three lives that were tarnished and filled with pain. Father and son were hard core Marines that went off to war very early in life and spent the rest of their days drinking away the pain of those wars. They died ugly deaths and left those who loved them with nothing but sadness and loss. The third set of initials was lost to the family at six months of age due to divorce and then came suddenly back for one painful weekend eighteen years later, only to reveal that the alcoholism had claimed another generation. The initials and who they represented, was the cup to me and so I hid it, moved it and forgot it.
On this cleaning day, however, a thought came to me out of somewhere...polish it! Yes maybe it was an upcycle/restore/reclaim kind of thought. What does this look like besides the initials? Is there more to the cup than those dates? So I got the silver polish and went to work. I should have taken a "before" picture as the cup was so black with tarnish you could not see the initials or dates. It took quite some time and a lot of elbow grease to rub away all those years of neglect but as I polished an amazing thing happened. For the first time ever I began to see the beauty and the value of the cup itself.
The cup is sterling silver and has the mark stamped on the bottom. There is a whimsical sweetness about this baby cup and years of patina I could never have seen with all the tarnish on it. Small dents made me realize a little hand had held this, banged it, and drank from it. The handle has a wonderful design, which let me know this cup was chosen with love for my father. What I am trying to say is there was so much more to the cup than what I thought! After the tarnish was gone there was a beautiful vessel of sterling quality marked by its maker and reclaimed from its corruptible state.
The cup wasn't about me upcycling an old object from my closet. It was a reclamation and restoration of my heart. For years all I saw in the cup and the people it represented was tarnish but today I see a deeper beauty, something the Lord saw and knew all along. He was their maker and to Him they were a precious vessel and because He is a great God I can have hope.
The cup is no longer hidden in my closet forgotten and tarnished. It has been reclaimed and restored to a place where its beauty can reflect the light and bring joy not sadness. It is a great reminder that there is far more to a human being created in the image of God than the ugly tarnish of sin. I was given a gift of grace to lovingly polish a silver cup while in reality God was polishing my heart....and showing me just how amazing and wonderful He is.
I was standing in my daughter's kitchen looking down at the most precious face of my granddaughter Lily Grace. At age six her beautiful smile has those gaping holes from losing her two front teeth and a few others. She was smiling and laughing and saying good-bye to me when her eye caught the small bisque like figurine on the counter. "Look Nana at what I bought at the Restore with my own three ( tongue through the hole in teeth) dollars!" She was so proud of herself and her treasure.
I, in my usual get on the go hurriedness said " oh that's wonderful Lily Grace" and immediately began to dig in the large black bag that eats everything I put into it especially my car keys. Digging around and having a hard time finding anything....yes, you know what is going to happen...I moved the purse without realizing how close to the figurine it was and down went her little ballerina crashing on the floor.
The look on her face is forever etched in my memory. Shock...pain...loss...disappointment. She stood there crushed and the knowledge that I had crushed her little heart broke mine. "Oh Lily Grace" I grabbed her..."I am so sorry", "I am so sorry"." Please forgive me" I cried..."I will buy you a new one". Here I was desperately trying to undo the terrible deed I carelessly had done and acting as if I could go find her another figurine like the one she so proudly purchased with her own three dollars. Hugging her I kept saying "I am so sorry".
And then the miracle happened. No not instant rewind photography like in the movies where the little ballerina suddenly flew backward to the counter and ended up in one piece right where it was originally. No not that kind of a miracle, another kind. Little six year old Lily Grace took my face in her hands and pulled me down to where my face was touching hers and as our noses touched she said "I FORGIVE YOU".
In that moment we were released into a freedom that saved us both. She wasn't captured by anger and bitterness over a careless Nana who broke her treasure and I wasn't left in the pit of regret and condemnation. We were both freed by her generous loving act of forgiveness ....BUT... the figurine was still broken.
I learned a hard lesson that day. We live in a world that has not only "random acts of kindness" but "random acts of carelessness" and worse. I need not elaborate as we have all experienced pain because of someone else's sin( let's call it what it is). Forgiveness does free us when it is given and received and in my case brought immediate reconciliation between Lily Grace and myself; but it did not fix everything as if nothing had ever happened. Her figurine was broken and she and I both have to live with that loss. But my hope does not lie with what I can do to repair something that has been broken for the truth is I cannot repair it...but there is one who can.
My daughter was standing there and watched the whole episode unfold, and the second that figurine hit the ground she was there gathering every fragment...down to the last tiny particle. She was not content to let one piece go missing, and I knew what she was intending to do without her saying a word.She is a loving mother and daughter and so she would go patiently to work with her magic crazy glue and begin the slow tedious process of putting it all back together. To me she symbolized the beauty and the work of Jesus Christ.
In the Anglican tradition there is a prayer that is prayed at the end of the Communion service.:
"Almighty God, before whose face the human generations pass away: We thank you that in you we are kept safe for ever, and that the broken fragments of our history are gathered up in the redeeming act of your dear Son,remembered in this holy sacrament of bread and wine. Help us to walk daily in the Communion of Saints, declaring our faith in the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the body. Now send us out in the power of your Holy Spirit to live and work for your praise and glory. Amen."
Those who are "In Christ" are forgiven and even though we may have to live with brokenness in our lives we can rest assured that He is gathering up every broken fragment and in a mystery and miracle we cannot explain is making all things new( Rev.21:5). That is the hope of the Resurrection and that is worth pondering new everyday.
I have a young friend who's name is Cade. He is a very precocious ten year old filled with spunk and a tad bit mischievous, which makes him even cuter. Since he hails from the great state of Texas ( I had to say that for Cade's sake) he plays football and loves those Friday night lights! This year very close to Cade's tenth birthday he entered a new school.....the school of suffering.
Within a one month period of time his father lost the job he held for twenty years, was diagnosed with cancer in the spine and ribs, and was told he had a tumor in his right sinus the size of a baseball. The doctors decided the tumor was the most life threatening and so Cade's father had to undergo a twelve hour surgery and then endure weeks of horrific pain, knowing that when he was sufficiently recovered he would have to start the battle with cancer.
Anyone of these things alone would have been devastating; but all three together are very hard for adults to comprehend much less a ten year old who loves his dad very much. Cade's father is one of the best men I know. If I were to look around and try and nominate someone from the male species for best husband, father, friend, boss etc. he would be at the top of my list.
One day while I was praying for this family a picture came to my mind; one I thought might help Cade in his ordeal. So I wrote him a letter and he has graciously given me permission to share it with others in the hopes that this picture may find its way to another who is in the school of suffering.
Dear Cade,
I was going through my bookcase the other day and came upon one of my favorite stories...War Horse. I don't know if you and your family went to see the movie last year when it came out and are familiar with it. At any rate I felt I was to send it on to you and I do hope you read it.
It is about a very special horse named Joey. The story opens in a world of beauty with Joey living on a farm and having a master (Albert) who loves him very much. But then a war comes and Joey is forced to go into another world where he becomes a "war horse". He serves much like a humble servant to each of the warring factions of men and they both recognize his noble qualities. He also has one true friend Topthorn who he looks up to and who helps him survive his ordeal.
But then comes a terrible day when he loses Topthorn and runs from all the shelling into a place called "no man's land"....and in the awful darkness he gets all tangled up in the barbed wire the men at war have strung all across the deep dark trenches. He can do nothing but stand in pain and wait.
It is Christmas. One man from each side gets brave enough to care more about the wounded horse tangled in barbed wire than their own safety. They each set aside their weapons and walk out into "no man's land". I will let you read and finish the story; but what I want to suggest to you is that Joey is much like Jesus. Jesus lived in a world of beauty with his Father and then came the war caused by men which separated heaven and earth and brought destruction on human beings and creation. He enters the world of men as the "Suffering Servant' and ends up on a cross with a crown of thorns...which represent all the thorns that have now covered the creation; much like Joey being all tangled up in barbed wire.
What Christmas really means is that because of His sacrifice peace has now re-entered the world of warring men; they can have peace with God and peace among themselves. They can go out to Him like the two men did Joey, laying aside all their weapons and warfare and find something more to live for ; something of great nobility and beauty.
There is another reason I hope you will read this book Cade, and actually what inspired me to write to you about Joey. It is about what has happened to your own dad. You see Cade, as Christians we are called not to just believe in Jesus; we are called to follow Him. That will look different for each one of us but one thing we can know, if His own life went into a place of great loss and suffering ours will too.
For your dad it is pretty obvious what all he has lost and how much he has suffered. He is a lot like Joey all tangled in barbed wire and waiting. The important thing here is that this very thing is not going unnoticed here on earth and in the heavens above. Like Joey's suffering causing men to lay down their weapons and come out to him, so many people are looking at your dads suffering and patient endurance and are being changed by it.
Your dad is one of the bravest and finest men I have ever known. He is a hero Cade. Like Joey everyone recognizes him for the noble man that he is. He has served others sacrificially all his life and blessed so many people (I am just one of many). Now he is being used in a way that is hard for us to understand, very hard for you, your brothers and your mom. But you must not lose hope! Joey is restored to Albert and gets back to England. Our stories have a good ending because we are following Jesus and His story has the best ending.
You have a great part to play now in your dad's story...and your own story. Will you be brave and be one of the ones to go out and help your dad? To go where it is very hard to go...into his suffering? It must have been very hard to cut the wire off of Joey, to wash his wounds and help him. Read the story and you will see how Albert comes back into it. I am convinced Cade that you have it in you to be brave and courageous and to move toward your dad and help your mom. This won't be easy but being a hero never is. Your dad is a hero and you are his son, love him well.
I ended the letter with a personal blessing. The charge I gave to Cade is really a charge to myself. It is too easy to withdraw to my safe world rather than walk into someone else's pain and suffering. It is a way of self protection that I know only too well. Yet I am convinced the love of Christ looks like this....laying our weapons of self defense down and walking out into "no man's land". Remembering when we move toward the suffering and wounded we move toward Jesus.
I am a rule keeper. I am sure I learned this very early and it has been such a part of my life and character that I never gave it serious thought until this trip to Alaska; then I was made painfully aware of just how much of a rule keeper I am.
Our first morning in Anchorage we woke to find our hotel had closed their breakfast bar. No problem they said, just go down the street to_____and you can find a great home style breakfast; the fact that our Alaskan friend did not want to go with us should have been a clue but we were famished and so we went.
This was one of those greasy, way more than you can eat places with stuff all over the walls and Polar Bears standing around for local color. We were waiting in line for a table and noticed a large oak barrel on a stand and it had written on it "Do Not Look Inside This Barrel" right above a peep hole. Okay...how many of you would go look in the barrel? You're not a rule keeper. It would never enter my mind to go look in the barrel because it said not to. But I had one free spirit in my company and the very first thing she did was move to go to look in the barrel. Which is when my rule keeping morphed into something else; fear/control took over and I said "oh no, you aren't supposed to do that". Seriously I did this!
The much saner and freer person said "Why not? Don't you get it, they want you to look in the hole!" Well we won't go into the logic of the reverse psychology operating here but it was clear that my rule keeping had been exposed. Not to others; they have probably long been aware of it and tolerant of me. No it was exposed to me. All of a sudden in a real epiphany I saw the silliness of the rule and how my rule keeping not only wanted to keep me in line but desired to keep others there as well.
A week later we were staying in a private home in Seward and by total coincidence another friend from the Carolinas arrived in Alaska and came over to the hosts home for dinner. After she arrived everyone was out on the deck taking in the seldom seen Alaskan sun and looking at Mt. Alice when this lovely lady who brought the wine for everyone said"How about a glass of wine?" Oh this is painful.....my response was "it's not 5 o'clock yet". Yes, I really did say that. Do not ask me where I got the rule you cannot drink a glass of wine before 5 o'clock. I did not know it was in my personal rule book until that moment. "Why not?" said the lovely lady; a very kind way of saying "where is it written?"Or more importantly who's rule is this?
Exposed again. God really.....you bring me all the way to Alaska to show me what a rule keeper I am? And aren't rules important? Yes, sometimes they are. A few days later we were down at the local airport and our Alaskan friend said "oh you can go walk down there". "Really?" I said, for there was a large sign warning us not to. And just as if on queue a black bear came out and crossed the runway. We ended up getting a cheap thrill and some nice photographs; but the man who ignored the rules in Denali that week was not as fortunate, he lost his life.
So how do you know when to obey and when not to? When are the rules silly and when are they vital? And what about God in all of this? What about His rules? Didn't Adam and Eve break a rule to get us into this mess? And didn't Jesus break rules to get us out of it? How do we know what to do?
Well I don't think rule keepers like me are going to like my answer nor do I think rule breakers will especially like it either. You see rules are easy. We want rules because it makes life easy. We can go by the rules and be self satisfied or we can break the rules and be self satisfied, it really doesn't matter. What is hard is relationship. What is hard is being real. What is hard is love....Love? Yes, let me explain.
Adam and Eve did not break a rule. They broke a relationship. They turned from loving God to loving self and the moment they turned they began to re-image the creature rather than the Creator. Their life union with God was broken and their relationship with each other, with the animal kingdom and with the creation was shattered. Had they maintained their union with God and continued to walk with Him they would have received His knowledge, His wisdom, and His truth about each and every thing that crossed their path. This is what we see in Christ. He lived and modeled a life in loving union with His Father. He said "I'm telling you this straight. The Son can't independently do a thing, only what he sees the Father doing. What the Father does, the Son does. The Father loves the Son and includes him in everything he is doing ( John 7:19-20 The Msg.) He lived by relationship not by rules. Was it easy? Obviously not...it led to the cross.
When we reduce Christianity from a relationship (loving union with God) to a religion we get rules. The rule breakers exit the Church and the rule keepers stay and make more rules and unfortunately like me they tend to project their rules on everyone else. Some of you are probably still asking how we could have been drinking wine in the first place regardless of the hour.
So what is the answer? Christ. He has given his life not to save us to go to heaven when we die; but that we might be restored into loving union and communion with his Father. And he has poured out his Holy Spirit to be our Comforter, Teacher, Guide, Mentor, ....you name it. Here is someone you can be real with.
What might this look like? Let me give you this analogy. In Mockingjay the third book of The Hunger Games trilogy, Peeta one of the main characters has been brainwashed by the folks in the Capitol. When he is restored to Katniss (who he really loves) he attacks her because he has been brainwashed and does not remember what is real or true.In order to restore their broken relationship (and cleanse his mind) they come up with a plan where he will simply ask her real or not real. He will have to trust and it will be very hard because his mind has been filled with lies; but gradually their relationship and their love is restored.
Might I suggest this is exactly what God desires of His brainwashed children? Walk with me...trust me....ask me...live in union and communion with me and I will be your guide, your teacher. Just this week I read how Dallas Willard* said he gets up in the morning and asks the Lord "what do you want me to do today, what do you want me to learn today. He is the teacher I am his student". Life in the Kingdom of God is that simple. And when you come to a sign that needs interpreting just be real and ask real or not real. The one who gave his life to restore the relationship and bring you into the Kingdom doesn't care about your rules; he cares about His union with you.
*Dallas Willard is the author of The Divine Conspiracy, The Spirit of the Disciplines, and Hearing God.
It all started with a small sign. I suppose that is how many adventures begin...just a small sign and you see something, it catches you and off you go! Mine was a small sign post in the middle of the souvenir shops in Seward Harbor. I am sure it has gone unnoticed by thousands of tourists and fishermen but for some reason it caught my eye. It was a reproduction of an illustration by an artist named Rockwell Kent accompanied by a quote from St. Augustine. Maybe it was the great Saint's name that attracted me and the fact that hundreds of years later his words were still being publically posted....at any rate I was intrigued.
"And the people went there and admired the high mountains, the wide wastes of sea and the mighty downward rushing streams and the ocean and the course of the stars and they forgot themselves"
I liked the quote, snapped a picture, and walked away, and just happened to wander into Kenai Fjords National Park Information Center. Scanning the bookshelves I came across the book Wilderness by the artist Rockwell Kent, the one containing the illustration I had just photographed. A journal of the time he spent on Fox Island in the winter of 1918-1919; the book was one I remembered thumbing through the previous year but for whatever reason had decided not to buy. Now, here I was again scanning its pages, wondering what a man's journal about his time in the wilderness could possibly have to say to a woman like me. Nothing I assumed, so I decided to purchase it for my son and off I went. But that night a funny thing happened. Skimming the book I was going to give away, I discovered that I bought it on August 24th and it was on August 24th 1918 that Rockwell Kent arrived in Seward Alaska. Coincidence? Sure...but I love things like this....let's call it serendipity...and Rockwell Kent not only came to Seward on the 24th, he made his first visit to Fox Island on August 25th. Guess where I wanted to go the next day?
I woke up on the 25th of August to an absolutely gorgeous day, one of the kind of days the locals will tell you are few and far between. The sun was shining (a small miracle) and there was no wind (another miracle) and I decided it was the perfect day to explore to Fox Island. There was just one minor problem....there was absolutely no way of getting there. Since the weather was so beautiful all the tour boats that have Fox Island on their itinerary were already completely booked.
Now you may be wondering about all of this...like...What is so great about Fox Island? (I had no idea). Why did you want to go there? ( I have no idea). Was it the date? (Maybe). How silly! ( Yes).
All I can tell you is at that moment I really wanted to go to Fox Island. No, it was more, I felt compelled to go, so I told my friend Ann, "let's go down to the harbor and maybe somebody will cancel and we can get on a boat to Fox Island" And so we did...and so we did!
I spent one of the most wonderful days of my life going to and sea kayaking around Fox Island. This small island at the entrance to Resurrection Bay from the Gulf of Alaska is still very pristine and only has one small (and expensive) wilderness lodge. Few people actually spend the night there but the tour boats do take the passengers to the island for buffet lunches and some of the adventurous stay for the afternoon and go sea kayaking. I could go on and on about the beauty of the day, the majesty of the place and just the presence of God I felt as I sat on the shore of Fox Island, but these would be just descriptive words...nothing more. I think Augustine said it so well; they went and were so in awe they forgot themselves.
Which brings me back to Rockwell Kent. He was struggling with his art and his life when he made his journey to Fox Island. Taking his nine year old son Rockwell with him he spent from September 1918 until March 1919 in a very primitive cabin loaned to him by the only other person on the island an old Swedish goat herder. He spent the winter in a very harsh isolated place doing the mundane tasks of chopping wood and cooking food and yet it was in this place he came fully alive and reignited his passion for art. I like to think that in the wilderness he was able to forget himself and find Life.
The creation is given to us as a sign post leading us to its Creator. Just as I was given a small black and white illustration on a sign post that eventually led me to an island of staggering beauty; we are all given this creation of staggering beauty to lead us to the One who created it. I am more than certain when we actually see Him in all His Glory this small garden we call Earth will seem as "black and white" as the illustration I found in Seward Harbor on the 24th day of August in the Year of Our Lord 2012.
The question that begs to be answered is what do you do with the sign? Do you walk past it and never see it? Do you stop for a minute and say "oh interesting" and go on? Or do you follow it to where it is pointing.....no matter how foolish your pursuit may seem to others?
I have just returned from a two week adventure in Alaska. Once again I was invited to tag along with two friends who were doing some aerial photography for Streamwerx; a production company that creates some amazing things with the aerial footage they shoot . I went with the same team in August 2011 and believed that it was the trip of a lifetime. Never did I imagine I would be able to return to Alaska, much less one year later. But our God is an amazing God and thankfully the things that shrink my imagination do not confine His!
Since I am not teaching a class this Fall, having set the time aside to work on my writing project Crossing the Threshold, I thought I might use this blog space to try and capture some of the thoughts, impressions, and well.... yes lessons I received on this latest Alaskan journey. One lovely woman I have taught for many years asked me if I was gathering power points clips for a Fall class on my trip;( I used some of last years photographs in that fashion). I hated to disappoint her with no I'm not and I am not even going to be teaching, but then it occurred to me I could blog away and attach some clips! Leave it to a frustrated teacher to find another way to teach!
So follow along this Fall and I will share the adventure with you! It was amazing, breath taking and way too fun for one person to keep to herself. You may get a touch of Chicago as I am headed there next week ......who knows ??? But I will leave you with the Streamwerx video the folks there created last year for Alyeska Lodge. If nothing else it will wet your appetite for something more.......
Several weeks ago I was reading an article and the author was talking about taking the position of a supplicant. Now there is an old fashioned word you do not hear very often. A supplicant is one who supplicates...I am not kidding that is from the dictionary. Supplicate means to make a humble entreaty for; to ask for earnestly and humbly. The author was using it in the context of leaning into God in prayer; taking a humble posture and opening your hands as a supplicant.This word fascinated me so I looked it up in my Concise Dictionary of English Etymology. I wanted to know what does it really mean? It comes from the same root word as supple and means to bend down under.
Well today I was given the very best picture of supplicate/supplicant and a wonderful insight into what this word really does mean. I was walking with a friend at Four Mile Creek, an area in Charlotte that borders a large creek and nature preserve where the city has built a beautiful walking/riding trail. We came to a place where several people had stopped and were looking at something in the grassy area not twenty five feet from the path. There a doe had stopped and was nursing her fawn for all to see. She didn't seem to me to be the least bit alarmed at all of the humans gawking at her, but what so caught my attention was the position of the mother and babe. The fawn was bending down under and nursing happily away; so much so that all you could see of the fawn was its white tail wagging excitedly. The mother's position was not one of boredom...looking straight ahead... or alarm ...looking at us.. but rather her constant posture the entire time was having her head turned in and turned down toward her young one.
All I could think of was the word supplicate; seeing it with news eyes and new understanding. The fawn is a supplicant bending down opening its mouth and receiving life from its mother. That is exactly what God wants me to be and to do. It should be as joyous to pray and commune with God as it was for that fawn to nurse from its mother. I smile even now as I remember the little white tail communicating in a way that words cannot. And how reassuring that the mother was not ignoring the fawn or distracted or remote or any other word we might conjure up to think about where God is when we pray. The mother in whom the Creator Himself deposited all these beautiful instincts was looking down, turning in and intently involved with her offspring. Why should we think God would do anything less?
I cannot believe the last time I posted anything was in January! I have been so caught up in other pursuits that when I have something to write I simple don't have the time or energy. So I just wanted to say a word about what I am up to for those who maybe interested.
I am in the process of trying to take the material from the class I taught Crossing the Threshold and turn it into a written format in order that it may reach a larger audience. That is a huge undertaking and has required an enormous amount of time. I do hope that one day it will be published as a book. I feel as if I am literally on the Hero's Journey with this project and am sure there will be many "tests" and "ordeals" ahead but right now I am enjoying the challenge and find it exciting. Writing is very different than teaching and I am seeing the material in all sorts of new ways. So if you have listened to Crossing the Threshold and wanted more; hang in there I am working on it!
As for Movieglimpse.....I have seen some movies I really want to write on, but once again it is a time issue. I will just throw a couple of thoughts out there and hopefully will get to put more up on the site this summer. I really want to write on The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. There are lots of things to say about this film and I know that it is reaching a huge audience; especially the over 50 crowd. As a matter of fact one of the really key things about this film is that so many people are going to see it. Why? That is the real question I hope to explore.
Pixar's Brave is another jewel that has such a wonderful message with deep truth. I hope to have time to really unpack that movie for it truly deserves more than a movie review. I did see Madagascar 3 with one of my grandsons and while it is not something I will be writing on I did love the ending. The four animals who have been on a real "Hero's Journey" finally return to the zoo in New York. This is a key scene but says soooo much! They look inside and see that the zoo they have been trying to get back to for so long is not quite how they remember it. They look at the small cages and how isolated they were and what they had settled for as life and then compare it to the the wild adventure they've been on and the tribe/ family they have been part of. All of a sudden they realize what a small story they were living in and it is no wonder they opt out for the much larger adventure that life really is. The movie is worth it just to see the ending. It is a beautiful message about life versus the small story we so often settle for.
I have a friend who recently moved to Africa. One day before she departed she shared with me how worried she was about her mother's corner cupboard; the packers were not doing a very good job of getting it ready for shipping. "Your mother's cupboard" I replied, "your really taking that?" "Yes" she said "I want it with me." At first I was thinking, if it is so precious why would you risk it? But after giving it some thought I think I know the answer.
Taking her mother's cupboard to Africa is her way of staying rooted in the United States. The antique cherry corner cupboard sitting in her new Moroccan apartment is her way of planting her flag on foreign soil. As if to say we may be here in Africa but the heart of this home; the corner cupboard, is still in Ohio. It is the same thing as Captain Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander thinking of his ship the HMS Surprise as his little piece of England, even though it be on the far side of the world.
It got me to thinking about how I would fill in the blank: My Mother's ________. Immediately my mother's Haviland china came to mind. My grandmother gave the "old china" from the farm to my mother when she was first married, and because my father was a career military man the china saw more than its fair share of cardboard shipping barrels. Once or twice a year on the holidays the Haviland would appear on our dining room table. We could be living in a small tract house in Southern California but the Haviland would take my mother back to another time and another life. The beauty it created acted like a portal in which something of a golden happier past could now be reflected in and on.
The military life of a combat Marine officer was not easy and my mother soon descended into the depths of alcoholism that claimed her life at an early age. When I was twenty years old my mother died in a fire. She had one too many drinks, passed out with a cigarette and that was it. I had to go in and clean out that apartment and the one treasure that survived besides my Christmas stocking was the Haviland china. And yes, I have carted it around with me through 42 years of married life and brought it out annually as I was taught to do so many years ago. It roots me in a few memories of beauty amidst great darkness and the good intentions of a woman whom I called Mommy.
We all need to be rooted in time and place, in history and creation. What roots us in God? We have all left the garden and gone to the far side of the world; what do we take with us to remind us of whom we are and more importantly to whom we belong? I think God knows that we need something tangible like a piece of earth or better yet a person of the earth; a human being. And so at just the right moment in time He entered in and The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Rooting us in him required descending into the darkness of the grave, of going deep into the earth and in a mysterious work we will never plumb the depth of, breaking forever the power of being uprooted; separated; cut off from God. The cross of Jesus Christ reclaims the whole creation for God the Father; and in our hearts He has deposited the Holy Spirit. "If any man be in Christ...new creation" (2Corinthians 5:17).
Whether you realize it or not if you are "in Christ" you now become the earthen vessel that is to be a portal to reflect the glory and beauty of God. You are a living flag planted in the Old Creation proclaiming that the New Creation has arrived. No wonder the King of all creation said "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven" ( Matthew 5:16).
The cupboard and the dishes are ordinary objects...so are we. They passed through ocean water and fiery death baptisms.....so have we. Yet in their unique and humble ways they tell and proclaim a much Larger Story...so may we.
