Category: Man made

Bowls

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Man made6 Comments

vessels oil charis warm

 

The gift shop sparkled with luxury table settings -fine china, crystal goblets, bright jeweled napkin rings and silver cutlery in perfect formation. Totally impressive, and totally out of my price range. More utilitarian items for food preparations artistically occupied the shelves at the back, much like the way the mess of a kitchen is kept out of sight from a formal dining room. That’s where the simple bowls caught my eye.

My mother was a marvelous cook. It’s how she expressed her love for her family and friends. She loved being in the kitchen and throwing Martha Stewart-style dinner parties with her best china. I appreciate people with the gift of hospitality, but it feels like an awful lot of work. For me, time in the kitchen is an act of sacrifice. There are other areas of the house I enjoy more, but I extend myself to cook for those I love.

Those bowls stacked on a shelf reminded me of mixing pancake batter or homemade granola bars for my kids and grandchildren. I have a few nice pieces of china and silver and crystal and serving platters I inherited, but I seldom use them.  I keep them on a high shelf so they won’t be knocked about, but they are a pain to get down, so they sit there looking pretty. My mixing bowls are chipped and the colour is practically worn off in places -and the finish is crazed where it is not. They are not as impressive as the pretty bowls in the shop, but they are the faithful servants in my kitchen.

I am often amazed by the “people vessels” God chooses to express his love through. Most of them are not “high shelf” people. They have chips and cracks. Their finish can be a bit crazed, but what comes out of them nurtures my soul. God loves ordinary people. What comes out is all about what he puts into them anyway.

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31 The Message)

The Burmis Tree

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Man made, Mountains, Photography, Trees and forests15 Comments

IMG_7388 burmis tree colour dark clouds bw

I’ve driven past the Burmis tree too many times to count but I have never stopped to photograph it before. Apparently it is the most photographed tree in Alberta. There are always vehicles pulled over near it and locals watch in amusement as tourists try to push their doors open and steady their cameras in winds that can almost knock you off your feet sometimes. I’ve never stopped or taken my camera out – just because so many other people do, and I  have to be different I guess. But this week the light was perfect, and nobody was watching, so…

Experts (who knows which ones) say it is a 600 to 750-year old limber pine. That means it could have been a sapling during the time of the last Crusades or the Black Death. It could have been bending in that wind when Kublai Khan came to power, when Dante and Chaucer were writing, when William Wallace was painting his face blue, or Marco Polo eating noodles in a Chinese take-out for the first time, or Wycliffe had just lost his teaching position for ticking off the University establishment with the crazy notion that if you are going to tell people to follow the teachings of the Bible they should at least be able to read it for themselves. I suppose the tree is worthy of attention simply for standing from then until now.

Except that it sort of blew over that time in the nineties, after it was pronounced officially dead about twenty years before. The thing is the Burmis tree is just about the only thing that the town of Burmis still has going for it, so some stalwart citizens discretely employed rods and brackets and raised it back up again. When annoying vandals (sans Huns) broke off an iconic branch they glued it back on and supported it with a rod, Jeremy Bentham-style.

Most photographers, including me, edit it back out.

Don’t get me wrong, I love history, I really do. I almost passed out from excitement when I saw the gates of Ninevah and the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles at the British museum. No beach vacation on earth could ever compare to walking the pavement of Jerusalem or hearing the crunch of pottery shards underfoot in Shiloh. But there is something about this sad-looking dead tree, reminiscent of a Dr. Seuss illustration, gathering tourists’ attention on the side of a blustery highway that makes me want to ask, “So, little tree, what have you done lately?” The tree’s claim to fame was that it had lived for such a long time. An amazingly long time actually, but now it is no longer living and I wonder if it is an homage to life or to death and its inevitability, even if one had the strength to stand strong through a thousand winter gales.

I suppose though, that all these historic figures I admire are just as dead as the Burmis tree. Well, deader actually, because they popped off their mortal coils long before the tree gave in. So many women and men of the past have demonstrated greatness and taught us profound truths, but they are gone now too. Perhaps the lesson of the tree is to simply be an example of standing in the gales of adversity, and having done all one can, to stand some more.

I pondered. Then I read this quote by E.M. Bounds (who demonstrated some standing ability himself):

“The past has not exhausted the possibilities nor the demands for doing great things for God. The church that is dependent on its past history for its miracles of power and grace is a fallen church....”

Hmmm… Perhaps that’s why the Lord drew my attention to the Burmis tree this week. The greats were not great when they started. There was a time when they were as weak as saplings. But when we look to the deep thinkers and devoted people of the past and the institutions they started more than we look to the God who longs to be active in our present, we tend to cease to see, or even believe in miracles of power and grace in our own day – or when we do we dismiss them as coincidences or “unexplained” events too good to be true.

Further down the road the fire-ravaged shell of the old Mohawk tipple in Burmis stands as a symbol of the loss of prosperity and hope in a town of people who ran out of resources. There are some vacation homes in the area, but not much else is happening in downtown Burmis these days.

The thought strikes me that it is so easy to forget Who our source is and to try to resurrect dead monuments to the past instead of pursue active encounters with God.

 

IMG_7397 crowsnest from burmis coal tip bw ch

St. Paul, the intellectual who changed his opinion about Jesus Christ so drastically he went from killing his followers to risking his own life to bring the good news of the kingdom of God, had this to say to folks in Corinth: “When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.  My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,  so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”

 

Fear and Over-organization

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography21 Comments

IMG_8499 walls and window
“Another cause back of our top-heavy and ugly over-organization is fear. Churches and societies founded by saintly men with courage, faith and sanctified imagination appear unable to propagate themselves on the same spiritual level beyond one or two generations.

The spiritual fathers were not able to sire others with courage and faith equal to their own. The fathers had God and little else, but their descendants lose their vision and look to methods and constitutions for the power their hearts tell them they lack. Then rules and precedents harden into a protective shell where they can take refuge from trouble. It is always easier and safer to pull in our necks than to fight things out on the field of battle.

In all our fallen life there is a strong gravitational pull toward complexity and away from things simple and real. There seems to be a kind of sad inevitability back of our morbid urge toward spiritual suicide. Only by prophetic insight, watchful prayer and hard work can we reverse the trend and recover the departed glory.”

~ A.W. Tozer

I overheard a conversation recently when a clergyman was challenged to explain a certain practice in his denomination. He said it could best be explained by giving the history. It began in Victorian times, apparently, and seemed like a good idea at the time, and even though circumstances are very different now, the practice has remained. It’s become rather endearing actually, and is now part of their “distinctives.” Then he admitted, in a softer voice, that although some contemporary pastors agree it makes no sense and quietly try to ignore it,  it is still entrenched in their constitution, and change is not something they do well. It upsets people.

The church I grew up in was never intended to be a denomination. The first members of the group left the confines of the steepled building to reach out to poor people in the local streets and then in the streets around the world. They had to leave because most parishioners were comfortable in their enclaves and wanted to protect standards -and the lower classes did not meet those standards. The poor and dysfunctional who met the real Jesus in the streets found they never did fit in with the established church so they just hung out together until they realized they were also the church and they gradually formed a constitution and established methods of maintaining their own standards.

My grandmother joined in the early days, but by the time she lived in the senior’s lodge, beside the new mega church edifice, the social climate there  had changed. It’s called “lift.” The problem is that the protestant work ethic works. Get a person free of alcohol and other addictions, restore their love for neighbour and family, and their kids become better educated, get good jobs and nice homes, and their grandchildren are raised in a completely different environment with different expectations (or feelings of entitlement). I remember Grandma lamenting that it was a sad day when she realized she was too poor to go to prayer meeting in that church. You see, someone (who undoubtedly did not live on a widow’s pension) thought it was a good idea to encourage people to come to prayer gatherings on certain mornings by having them catered. A woman who had fed her children lard sandwiches had trouble adjusting to the thought of paying $15 for breakfast. She did know how to feed a street full of kids on $15, but the church she was now in was just like the church the founders left, because those members had also lost understanding of the people on the outside. My grandmother’s denomination became comfortable with plush theatre seats, sound systems and coffee shop  in the grand foyer. The order of service was established, and the academic qualifications (from approved seminaries) of those who are ordained to preach and preside over communion was written in stone. Policies now require a complicated procedure at the national annual general conference to change.

History shows us this pattern repeating itself.

In  “The Jesus Style,” Gayle D Erwin writes about fresh movements of the Holy Spirit in different generations. He has this to say in the chapter entitled “Prisoners of History”:

“Here is a drastic proposal. Every religious organization should have in its first constitution the irrevocable provision that it be disbanded and dispersed at the end of 50 years. For some this limit should be 25 years. This would free the constituency to be more constantly in touch with God . . . Such an approach would simply be recognizing the manner in which the Holy Spirit works anyway. He keeps raising movements that are alive and in touch with him, while the older structures get huffy and kick the new movement out. . .”

Perhaps we have reached a point where we can recognize the pattern and instead of kicking new movements out of the older structures, the older structures can offer the benefits of wisdom seasoned by knowledge accumulated in good and bad years and make room for those not familiar with the culture. Or it that too optimistic? Can we repent – that is, think again, determine not to repeat the errors of the past, change our ways and join in following what Holy Spirit is doing now – or does fear of loss of control keep us clinging to old wine skins whether they be two generations or two hundred generations old? Is giving control of the church back to Holy Spirit feasible? Or is that thought too scary?  Can the Church of Laodicea become hot again? Can its vision be healed? Can the Church of Ephesus return to it’s first love? Can the Church of Sardis awaken from its near-death coma?

Or is it time for another Reformation?

Tell me what you think.

“Do not put child in bag”

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made4 Comments

IMG_2045 do not put child in bag   Seriously? “Do not put child in bag?”

This was on a deep mesh bag on the back of  two-seater child stroller that the mall loaned out to shoppers. It was obviously meant as a catch-all for parcels, purses and winter jackets. Put a child in the bag? You’ve got to wonder who necessitated a warning like this.

There are other examples of dumb warning labels on the internet.

“Warning: May contain nuts.” — On a package of peanuts.

“Do not eat.” — On a slip of paper in a stereo box, referring to the styrofoam packing.

“Remove occupants from the stroller before folding it.”

“Warning: May cause drowsiness.” — On a bottle of Nytol, a brand of sleeping pills.

“Warning: Misuse may cause injury or death.” — Stamped on the metal barrel of a .22 calibre rifle.

“Turn off motor before using this product.” — On the packaging for a chain saw file, used to sharpen the cutting teeth on the chain.

“Not dishwasher safe.” — On a remote control for a TV.

“Do not use if you cannot read safety label.” –On a bottle of pills -with a safety cap.

I spent many years trapped by a sense of not being good enough, of feeling it was my duty to serve an angry god who was perpetually disappointed with me. It seemed all I heard were warnings from people who presumed I was too dumb to figure out for myself that sin was not a good idea. I felt I was being labeled stupid and treated dishonourably by a lot of those warnings. I heard a lot of “shoulds” and not a lot of “hows.” There were an awful lot of rules, but not much peace or freedom.

This is what I have learned since then: God is good.

He loves us because of his character, not ours.

It is his kindness that leads us to change the way we think.

His grace is over-the-top and in no way can we earn it.

We are forgiven, but our relationship to God is fully restored when we respond to him and admit we have done things that required his forgiveness and we need to change. Change occurs when we get a better picture of who He is and who He created us to be.

Can I be honest and say sometimes I shake my head in wonder when people respond to this message of abundant grace with outrage and expressions of fear that this will offer those (who apparently do not rate highly in the area of common sense gifting) an excuse to sin?

“But they need warnings! How will they know that sinful behaviour is bad unless we tell them?”

Seriously?  Like they haven’t noticed that sin sets off consequences like a Rube Goldberg device that can play out for generations? Like being told that horrible punishment awaits them for messing up doesn’t chase people away from the only One who can clean them up?

Paul, the guy who hated people for not following religious rules so much that he tried to imprison and kill followers of Jesus had this to say after he was changed by an encounter with the real promised saviour -the One who loved him:

Now we find that the Law keeps slipping into the picture to point the vast extent of sin. Yet, though sin is shown to be wide and deep, thank God his grace is wider and deeper still!

The whole outlook changes—sin used to be the master of men and in the end handed them over to death:

now grace is the ruling factor,

with righteousness as its purpose and its end the bringing of men to the eternal life of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now what is our response to be? Shall we sin to our heart’s content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God? What a ghastly thought! We, who have died to sin—how could we live in sin a moment longer? (Romans 5:20, 21; 6:1,2 Phillips translation)

Put a child in a bag? Sharpen a chainsaw while it’s running? Play with a gun? Continue to sin and think that’s good for you -and everyone else in the world?

What a ghastly thought!

Stuck

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography4 Comments

truck hay barn vignette

 

There is something comforting about the past. Even when we know it is dysfunctional, and carries useless clutter, it’s familiar. My thinking is like that sometimes. I know my old default way of thinking was filled with negativity and got me into all manner of trouble before, but when I’m not careful about being intentional I slip back behind the wheel and try to take the jalopie for one more spin. The seat is old and worn, but it conforms to the shape of my bum. I settle in -and then wonder why I am making no progress.

I hear the voice of my Lord asking, “And how’s that working for you?”
“I can’t seem to get it in gear… Can you give me a hand?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I have something better in mind.”
“But that means giving up ol’ Bessie.”
“It does.”
“But I’ve had this way of thinking for a long time. It served me in the past and got me through a lot of stuff.”
“And how’s it working for you now?”
“I’m kind of stuck.”
“I have something better in mind.”
“What’s that?”
“My vehicle, not yours. My thoughts, not yours.”
“Let me think about it……Well, this isn’t working. That’s for sure. By now I should be much farther ahead….”

“OK. Show me your ways Lord.”

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him,  throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. (Ephesians 4:21-23)

 

Edited to add:

So I just read something that said tonight is the first night of Passover and it included this verse:

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1Cor. 5:6-8)

Suddenly I started wondering what the expiry date is on my jar of baking yeast in the fridge. (Sometimes the literal/metaphorical line in my brain is not all that well-defined.) I checked. It’s this month. I chucked it. It’s probably time to toss some old thinking as well.

Ok, not “probably time.” It is time. I hear You, Lord.

Humility and the Oriental Rug

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Man made, Photography2 Comments

 

Jerusalem Market
Jerusalem Market

Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. — C.S. Lewis

Like a fine Oriental rug, a humble person freely displays beauty — from the lowest position in the room.

Treasures

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Man made, Photography11 Comments
Treasures
Treasures

But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

(Luke 2:19)

Grandmothers have them -little treasures labeled with memories- daughter’s first shoes, mother’s salt and pepper shakers, son’s first woodworking project. Depending on tolerance for visual clutter and willingness to dust, they may be displayed on a shelf or tucked in a box under the bed.

Folks caught in the flood in High River tell me their most painful losses were photos and personal trinkets and heirlooms irretrievably saturated in mud and sewage. At least they still have their memories. I watch my elderly father desperately grabbing for precious memories as they are sucked into the muddy mess of dementia. His frustration in trying to recall a name is because that name is attached to the memory of a person whose significance he realizes is fading. His memory treasures are being de-cluttered down to the essential ones -his wife, his children, his God.

It’s not necessary to have objects to help us remember, in fact when too many things carry memories for us we can easily become hoarders and block our own paths to the future with junk from the past. A lot of memories need to be tossed, but sometimes a jar that carried precious spice a magi gave your baby can be pretty special. I wonder if Mary kept it or if Joseph sold it to finance their sojourn to Egypt.

It’s really the memories of God-moments that Mary treasured. She pondered them, meditated on them, tried to understand the significance of them.

Sometimes God has shown up in my life and handed me something I don’t know what to do with, but  know it’s significant, so I store it on a shelf in my mind. Sometimes I take it down and ponder it, looking at it from all sides, then put it back. Later, when I’ve almost forgotten, it comes in handy and suddenly makes sense.

About a year ago I had a dream in which I saw a leather-covered box with long leather tethers attached. In the box I saw pieces of paper with scripture verses written on them and I had a strong sense that I would need these. I pondered this dream when I woke up and realized the box was like the phylactery boxes orthodox Jews tie on their foreheads and arms. At the time I was waiting for O.R. time so my surgeon could do a biopsy on something that had all the signs of serious advanced cancer. Fear gripped my mind; it almost paralyzed me. I remembered all the promises and significant Bible verses that stood out to me in the previous few weeks and wrote them down on coloured sticky notes. I didn’t have a leather box, but I read them over and over applying them to my mind. Even when I had trouble hearing them -(By His stripes we are healed; Bless the Lord and forget not all his benefits -who heals your diseases and renews your youth; Trust in the Lord with all your heart... and many more) I tied them on my head figuratively speaking, as weapons against the monster of fear that waged war in my mind. Metaphorically I tied them on my arm as a reminder to continue to choose to act in the light of His words, believing in God’s faithfulness.

By the time the biopsy was done I was at peace. My doctor was totally surprised when the procedure revealed a benign growth that could be easily removed. God was not surprised. But this whole exercise was just a warm-up for the next battle.

Before we left to go to our granddaughter’s birthday I saw the pile of scripture verses on my dresser. They had become precious, ponderable treasures to me and for some reason I grabbed them at the last minute and tucked them in my suitcase. Later that week, when our son-in-law was comatose in critical condition and doctors were privately giving him 0% chance of survival, I pulled out the verses and read them over him in the hospital room. My daughter borrowed them and in the battle for his life read them as well. I sometimes saw her pull them out of her pocket and lay them (now worn and curled) on the counter with her keys at the end of a long day. I saw her faith grow. I saw my faith grow. Together we, and an entire community, saw God miraculously restore her husband to perfect health in away that totally defied all predictions.

Mary didn’t understand a lot of the things she witnessed and experienced in her life. It’s easy in hindsight to put the puzzle pieces together, but God didn’t give her the complete picture all at once. He told her she was highly favoured and that the message she carried in her body was for the salvation of the world. Who could possibly fathom how that would work? Who could possibly comprehend that the pain she suffered — the gossip and rejection, the refugee flight, seeing her son shamed and executed as a criminal– were all signs of God’s favour? So until the day when her son rose from the dead and became her own Saviour she treasured the promises and pondered the memories on the shelf. When the time was right, in God’s good time, they all made sense.

Prepare Him Room

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Mountains, Photography, Sky, Uncategorized7 Comments

*Let every heart prepare him room*airport mountain clouds IMG_5869

 

I do love to watch friends and family crowd the doors in the airport terminal building as they wait to embrace new arrivals. Yesterday at the airport I thought about the preparations needed for a plane to land. The ground is leveled, paved, and lit. Air traffic controllers, setting up various sensitive instruments, watch the skies. Airport workers clear the run-way, and prepare to move baggage carts, set wheel blocks, and at our little airport, get ready to secure stairs to the aircraft door.

I tried to imagine what people who populated this valley a hundred years ago would have thought if they saw a light in the sky grow bigger and move toward them in the clearing. Would they run toward it, or away from it?

I asked myself, “Self? If you saw something beyond your usual experience approaching, would you run toward it or away from it?

Honestly, I would probably yell, “Run away! Run away!” and head for a cave with wifi so I could research it.

I know some adventurous people who run toward new experiences. Sometimes it works well for them, and other times….   Still, I admire their fearlessness, their raw faith, and their willingness to risk making mistakes — and  honest admissions when they miss it.

Preparing room in our hearts and heads for the presence of God, whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts, whose ways are greater than our ways, who is there and is not silent, requires preparation. Making room sometimes requires bulldozing established forests of old ideas and creating a landing-place for something that hasn’t arrived yet.

The Advent season reminds us of a time when the world, tired of sinful darkness, waited in anticipation of something more. The prophets told them something more was coming, but it was difficult to comprehend what the Messiah would look like. The scholars of the day had clues in the Book, but they still got it completely wrong, and humility demands that we admit even though the Bible is central, trustworthy and sufficient, we might not have the complete interpretation either. Maybe the people who take the risk of running toward a deeper understanding of the nature and plans of God are just ones who are trying to prepare Him room.

Abba, may I anticipate your plans with the same enthusiasm.