Tag: change

Coming to Your House for Tea

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography7 Comments

Photo: Drop by any time

Grandma sang this song. About forty of us kids would be crammed into the Cumming’s basement rumpus room for Happy Hour Bible Club after school on Thursdays. We sat cross-legged beside the mountain of jackets and snowpants that threatened to avalanche on us. Snow-soaked socks flopped off the ends of our feet in the too hot after being too cold temperature quandary that was our norm. My Grandma stood beside her flannel story board and “did the actions” to this song:

Zacchaeus was a wee little man

And a wee little man was he

He climbed up into a sycamore tree

For the Lord he wanted to see

And as the Lord came passin’ by

He looked up into that tree

And He said, “Zacchaeus, you come down!

For I’m going to your house for tea

For I’m going to your house for tea.”

I know now the last line is usually “coming to your house today” but coming to your house for tea made perfect sense to me, because on days when Grandma wasn’t teaching Happy Hour Bible Club at four o’clock on Thursdays, tea was either happening at  Mrs. Stuart’s house or Mrs. Page’s house or at her own house around a quilt stretched out on a frame in the living room.

Here’s the story as told in Luke 19 without Grandma’s creative embellishments (Zacchaeus quickly ran out and bought raisin bread and milk in her version):

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

 When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.”

 Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy.  But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.

 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!”

 Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.” 

Genuine encounters with Jesus are life-changing.

The story I heard was that tax collectors in Israel at the time were even less appreciated than tax collectors in our time. Apparently they not only collected money on behalf of highly resented foreign occupiers, but they had to “raise their own support” and frequently turned the screws to squeeze out a little more cash flow for themselves.

I used to think that Zacchaeus’ change of heart came after Jesus sat down with him at the kitchen table and gave him a good talking to, but the story in Luke says Zac made his announcement after Christ simply addressed him by name and announced he would be Zac’s guest. Jesus said he was seeking and saving the lost and that day was Zac’s day. I bet he went to Jericho specifically for that one man.

The eagerness of the tax man and his desire to see Jesus, the quick response of admitting fault, and changing his ways, tells me this man had a heart that was already softened.

May my heart be so prepared to change when Jesus calls my name.

I’m going to go buy some raisin bread and milk now.

Learning to step lightly

On By Charis PsalloIn Animals, Black and white, PhotographyLeave a comment

Sometimes it don’t come easy.

Elefeet

Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. (Philippians 4:5)

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:17, 18)

Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. (Titus 3:1, 2)

Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)

Plans for you

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography, Sky, Uncategorized10 Comments

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

(Jeremiah 29:11)

I often wonder if many of the people who buy lovely posters and trinkets with this scripture verse printed on them are aware of the context. Jeremiah gives this message to a people who are in the midst of the worst possible calamity they could imagine. He writes quite clearly that they face a 70 year exile. He tells them to plant gardens, build houses and seek the welfare of the people who destroyed the Judean way of life.

God’s timetable can be so different from ours. We can be assured God is at work even we can’t see what he is up to.

One of the people who read Jeremiah’s letter was Daniel. Think of it, Daniel was in service to a man who destroyed or confiscated his family’s property, removed their rights and freedoms, probably killed many friends and relatives and to top it off turned him into a eunuch, which has got to qualify as traumatic sexual abuse.

And yet, and yet…

Daniel is a faithful and trusted civil servant. When he interprets the king’s dream, which he knows is bad news, he says that he wishes the dream was about the king’s enemies and not the king himself.  In spite of severe persecution he is faithful to his God, and God allows him to see beyond his circumstances. God lets him in on his plans, even though Daniel doesn’t have a grid for what he sees.

I stopped for lunch near the Alberta border a couple of days ago and I read my Bible as I sipped a thermos of coffee. The passage for the day was about Jesus taking his closest friends up a mountain where they were allowed to see him transfigured into a brilliant figure talking with Moses and Elijah (the law-giver and the prophet).  The guys were overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do with such an experience.

Then came the hard part, the part their Master told them about several times, the part where he was arrested, sentenced, and executed. In those dark days before his resurrection, they must have wondered what that mountaintop experience was all about. What power must have been at work beyond their valley experience! The fulfillment of God’s plans were already in motion as the promise of the ages was arising in that dark place.

As I meditated on this passage I glanced over to my left, towards Crowsnest Mountain. This is what I saw. It was a pay-attention moment.

(Click on photo for larger version)

Sight for Sore Eyes

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography, Sky, Trees and forests, Uncategorized22 Comments

Photo: this is sort of what life looks like through a glaucomatocyclitic crisis

I had a horrible sinking feeling in my gut when I woke up in the wee hours Sunday morning and tried to look at the clock. I got up and turned on the bathroom light. Yup. It was back.

The fog. The rainbow halos around lights. The fear. Blindness.

What the…?

The eye specialist who treated me last time said it’s a very rare condition. He’s only seen three cases in his very busy practice here and back in South Africa. It comes in combination with autoimmune disease that causes  inflammations in the joints and eyes and other parts of the body. The tiny drain pipes in the eye are blocked by shedding cells and pressure builds up so fast that the lens actually steams up. It’s a crisis and if the pressures are not brought down I could lose my sight within hours.

I cried, “But, Lord! You healed me of this five years ago! I threw away the cane! I invested in new camera gear! Why is this back?”

The staff at the hospital was super and I received immediate attention, but it’s such a rare condition they never know what to do. I have to explain it to them. In the old days it always seemed to flare up when there were no ophthalmologists within a four-hour drive, or when I was visiting another city or small town. But I’ve been doing so well lately that I don’t know what I did with the slip of paper with the names of the medications I used to need.

I prayed. Man, I prayed, and I called friends and asked them to pray.

By the time I saw the eye doctor my vision was back to normal (and it was a joy to see him). There was no sign of uveitis. My pressures were within normal range. He assured me that although he believed my story, there was no evidence that I was in danger and there was no need to take drastic action or even use any of the drops with nasty side-effects. He couldn’t explain it. Some sort of temporary anomaly.

“You’re fine. Go home and just come back if it happens again.”

So, Lord. What was that about?

I keep running into scripture verses about having eyes and not seeing, and about having ears and not hearing. (I had a horribly sore throat and ear ache last week too come to think of it.) This morning I read the warning to the church of Laodicea who thought they were prosperous and doing so well, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.” (Rev. 3:17-19) (The word repent here meaning “change your mind, or think again.”)

Oliver Sacks tells the story of a man whose sight was restored after being blind since childhood. The task of learning to interpret visual data into meaningful images became overwhelming for him. He had to learn that a dog can have entirely different shapes depending on the direction he is running, things change size according to how near or far they are and a truck on the road two blocks away does not require as quick a reaction as a toy truck two feet away on the side-walk. As a blind physiotherapist who could read braille he was considered highly skilled. As a sighted man he was treated like an incompetent idiot because he hadn’t yet learned to read simple signs. Eventually he shut off his mind to the barrage of visual information that made him feel so out of control and went back to life as a blind man. It was so much easier.

I think people who are developing spiritual sight feel like this. When we come alive in Christ and he communicates with us through a newly awakened sense it is difficult to interpret the information until the mind is renewed. We don’t have a grid for it. We feel humbled, incompetent. When logic and reason was our highest faculty we knew how the system worked and how to function. When God asks us to subject our minds to His way of seeing it can be thrilling at first, then confusing, then hard work. I wonder if a lot of people simply shut down the ability to see and hear God in a realm beyond our physical senses because we felt more sure of ourselves the way it was before. Repentance, or changing the way we think, and cooperation with God to construct a new grid can be really tough. It means living in what feels like a chaotic construction zone sometimes. We long for decently-and-in-order, right and wrong rules and regulations and a predictable easy life. Like the children of Israel said to Moses, when confronted with the fire and trumpet show on the mountain, we say this Yhwh is too scary. Just get the essentials in writing and we’ll have our people look at it.

It becomes easy to accept spiritual sensitivity impairment as normal.

Jesus said to his disciples who were discussing the lack of bread shortly after they had seen thousands fed miraculously with their own eyes, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?” (Mark 8:17,18)

Paul reminded Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.” (1 Tim 4: 14,15)

Photo: Neglect

I wonder if losing my sight this week was meant to be a reminder of how precious it is and  not to take it for granted.

This much I know: I am thankful for eyesight. I am deeply grateful that it has been restored. Coincidentally (as if) I spent part of the evening with my friend’s mother who is blind from a similar condition. She is an incredibly courageous, stubbornly independent woman who managed to live alone on her farm for several years after becoming almost totally blind. I held her hand as she also told me of the terror of feeling lost in a motel room, of tripping over her little grandchildren, and of not being able to eat rice anymore because she tired of hunting for it on her plate. She understood how I felt waking up with ominous symptoms, but I felt awkward sitting beside her with my vision restored.

Why are some people healed, and some people not? I don’t know.

Is healing permanent?  A humour-impaired doctor once told me when he brought back an unexpectedly good test result, “Good news! You are going to die of something else.”  So far, we all die. Healing is a sign that points to something -or Someone. It is not the destination itself.

But today, here now, I can see, and I am profoundly grateful, and I will continue to learn to use my physical eyes and my spiritual eyes to pay attention to what God is saying for as long as he gives me strength.

You can be pretty frustrating, Lord, but I trust you. Teach me.

On Being a Descendent of Royalty

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folks2 Comments

Image-Charlemagne-by-Durer

This was unexpected.

In the process of trying to reduce 83 years of photographic memories onto tiny cards for a digital frame, I discovered I am the descendent of kings and queens.

My father asked me to add names to the hundreds of family photos I scanned for him, since his failing memory was the main reason for him to leave his house and move into a senior’s Lodge.  He conceded that it was time to voluntarily give up some his independence, but not at the expense of memories. Trying to condense the contents of a house belonging to a man who survived the Great Depression to a collection that would fit into two small rooms was a daunting task.

The tendency to carry a camera around with me all the time is an inherited one, so I spent many, many hours sorting and labelling old photos. The most precious went into albums, the rest I squeezed onto miraculously tiny memory cards.

Grandpa upon arrival in the west,with older brother and friend (with unusual taste in reading material)

One evening, I impulsively googled Dad’s grandmother’s name to see if I could find a birthplace for her.  Her story is a fascinating one. As a young girl she escaped virtual slavery in a foster home in New York and was found wandering in the woods in Ontario by First Nations people. They took her into their tribe and raised her. Later she married a Scottish trapper and raised ten children thirty miles from the nearest road in the area now known as Algonquin National Park. I didn’t expect to find much, but what I discovered about her family line shocked me.

Her name showed up on an ancestry site, as did her father’s and his father’s and his father’s right back to the first Puritans to arrive in Massachusetts. This same family had three daughters found guilty of being witches in the Salem witch trials. When I continued to click on the names of ancestors the trail led me back through generations of aristocratic families to William the Conqueror’s cousin, Geoff, who apparently came along for the ride when Bill decided to take over England. I clicked on Geoff’s Dad and the page lit up with heraldic signs and listed Kings and Queens of every country in Europe.

By three a.m. I learned I had sprung from the loins of some pretty powerful people including Charlemagne himself.

I was so amazed at this finding that I went on Facebook to gloat. Every time I made another connection to a famous person I posted –the patron saint of beer,  a Jewish banker, a sheriff of Nottingham, a Roman proconsul….

Then I ran across an article by a mathematician. He said he traced his family lines back to Charlemagne four different ways and began to wonder what the chances were than any European was descended from The Holy Roman Emperor. He worked out that the odds were one in 17 million of not being a descendant of any one person living in that time, including Charlemagne himself.

I felt deflated and embarrassed that I had not considered how many great grandparents one would have going back that far. It turns out to be a much greater number than the estimated population of the entire continent.

But then I got to thinking. Does this mean I am not the descendant of royalty? Well, actually no; it pretty much confirms that I am. I’m just upset that my position is not unique and that most of the people I know are also of royal blood.

Recently a long lost cousin contacted me with information he has discovered about our mutual great grandfather’s line. He broke through the secrecy barrier when he learned that our first ancestor to land in Canada was the bastard son of a member of a noble house, the descendant of an Earl –and the Prince of Wales and the Chancellor of England and propertied people going back through William the Conqueror all the way back to guess who? Charlemagne!

I haven’t the heart to explain the math to him. There is comfort amid this daily eking out a living stuff, to know that had King Edward or Prince Owain, or the 10th Earl of Oxford stayed out shooting quail (or each other) one day longer, or if Queen Matilda, or one of Charlemagne’s wives had feigned a headache that night we would not be here.

I also discovered some Jewish ancestors and since my mother’s parents came from a part of the world where east meets west and north meets south (my maternal grandfather spoke several languages including Turkish), and my husband is racially mixed,  whole other branches probably reach out to the rest of the world for our children. (Although getting past the secrecy barrier there is more difficult.)

The big C Church is like this. 1 Peter 2:9 says “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Those of us belonging to the household of faith can feel like merely one of millions of princes and princesses sometimes, yet in God’s eyes we are all royalty and each a divinely planned miracle. He is infinitely wealthy and infinitely powerful. He does not limit inheritance to the eldest son, in fact history proves he likes to choose younger children and “illegitimate” offspring for special favour, just because he can.

I’m a much-loved child of the King. I am who I am, and I am blessed.

And so are you.

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Higher Ground

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Photography5 Comments

Please, please! I appeal to you people who call yourselves Christians! Neither Obama, Romney, nor Harper nor any other public service candidate’s names for that matter, are cuss words! They are names of people we are called to respect and pray for. Please treat others with the respect you yourself would appreciate. “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” -Jesus.

This is so basic!!!

Whatever the outcome in the election to the south I beg you to take the higher ground and bless, not curse.

We reap what we sow people. We reap what we sow.

Photo: Higher groundIMG_6586 Mt. fisher fog hwy

Chasing the clouds away

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Sky, Trees and forests, Uncategorized7 Comments

Photo: The storm from Haha Creek road

Photo: storm clouds leaving

I just needed to quickly run an errand, but I saw the light and had to follow it. I was on the edge of the clouds as they kept moving eastward. Two hours later…

I love that the name of the road is Haha Creek Road. Laughter chasing the dark blue storm clouds away.

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. (Psalm 2:4)