Painting: Play is children’s work
“Joy is the serious business of Heaven.” -C.S. Lewis
Tag: worship art
It just gets better
Peggy Lee’s song from the 60’s, “Is that all there is?” came to mind this week when I saw many of my young friends post pictures of graduation and the prom on Facebook. A former grad admitted to me that the whole thing was a little disappointing. After looking forward to it her entire school career as a magical night of glamour and celebration (and possible romance) in the end it was the same old people standing around in expensive, uncomfortable clothes saying and doing the same dorky things they said and did last week –and the week before, and the year before.
Dare we admit that some of the moments we were told would be the highlights of our lives were not all that brilliant? I came away from my high school grad party thinking like Peggy, “Is that all there is?” (Mom worked so hard to put together the perfect evening, but I was not permitted to go to the prom dance and since my dress was a gift, I never got to choose it. The guy I had just broken up with turned up with his fiancée and the last minute substitute escort was called home by his mother because she needed help getting his drunk uncle out of the bath tub.) Even if everything had turned out as planned I think I would have been disappointed.
The problem: I have an imagination.
Sometimes I feel like asking people not to give rave reviews to a movie or book or performance –or even a cleaning product that sounds like heaven by way of a sparkling shower door. I almost wish people hadn’t told me how wonderful life experiences like a wedding or childbirth and breastfeeding or a vacation in Mexico or a standing ovation after a performance were because although there were wonderful moments in all of them, secretly my imagination took liberties went a step further than reality. As great as many experiences have been there was usually a bit of “Is that all there is?” when they were over.
Solomon said it first in the book of Ecclesiastes, the book that epitomizes is-that-all-there-is disappointment and the limits of human’s wisdom and logic. He wrote, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” and “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” (He ends the book of his experiences with this: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”)
Peggy’s song repeats Solomon’s observation of vanity:
If that’s all there is my friend, then let’s keep dancing.
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball, if that’s all there is.
Peggy’s song also dared to address fear of the final disappointment:
I know what you must be saying to yourselves.
If that’s the way she feels about it why doesn’t she just end it all?
Oh, no. Not me. I’m in no hurry for that final disappointment.
For I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you,
when that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath, I’ll be saying to myself,
Is that all there is?
Perhaps disappointment is our greatest fear. Perhaps this is what motivates so many sermons and pop theology books. They are less about hope and faith than the pragmatic guarding of our hearts against the possibility of disappointment. Like King Saul before his first battle we take things into our own hands when it looks like God may not show up in time to make our party a success.
I think the best moments in my life have been surprises:
-coming around a corner on a logging road to see an entire hidden valley of golden tamarack aglow in low evening sun,
-my wee little grandson this week, bringing me a grocery store flyer and pointing to a photo of watermelon to show me what he wanted when he is too young to have the words (Yes, I gave him some.)
-my “barren” daughter announcing her pregnancy
-my precious son, held prisoner in a dark basement of depression, coming up the stairs into the light saying he wanted to be baptized
-my four-year old grandson telling me he had a dream of sitting on Jesus’ lap and being hugged and hugged and hugged
-my husband covering my desk with Lindt chocolates on our fortieth Valentines Day together
-hearing a voice say “Run!” when I was up in the woods praying, then discovering that when I dared to attempt it the asthma and arthritis that had crippled me for so long were gone
-my mother with a broad smile and look of recognition on her face toward someone we could not see as she stepped into eternity from her hospital bed
-and so many more.
I believe this is not all there is. I believe God gives us promises that will not be disappointments. I believe that my imagination will not spoil the surprises he has for me because I am not capable of going a step beyond the greater reality. My imagination is no match for his.
“Is that all there is?”
No! Not by a long shot!
Now to him who by his power within us is able to do far more than we ever dare to ask or imagine—to him be glory in the Church through Jesus Christ for ever and ever, amen! (Ephesians 3:21, 22)
Oh, dear children of mine (forgive the affection of an old man!), have you realised it? Here and now we are God’s children. We don’t know what we shall become in the future. We only know that, if reality were to break through, we should reflect his likeness, for we should see him as he really is! (1 John 1:3)
Share this:
Dappled things
Photo: Lungwort and bee
Being a bit of a dappled thing myself, I have long appreciated this poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Pied Beauty
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Share this:
He restores my soul
Beside the creek in the cool of the evening
I have joy.
For many years I could not say that. The best I could do was say, “I’ll be happy when…
when this course is over,
when I have a driver’s license,
when I am married,
when this baby is born,
when tax season is over,
when the swelling goes down,
when I get my Dad settled in his new home,
when the bills are paid,
when the house is clean and organized,
when my kids are doing well,
when their bills are paid…”
There was always a reason to postpone enjoying the moment, something that still needed improvement, some potential disappointment that needed guarding against.
I used to think that when I managed to finish everything on the job list I could reward myself with feeling a little joy.
I rarely finished the to-do list -and never finished the worry list. That list I took to bed with me.
Jesus said his burden was light.
Mine wasn’t.
I lumbered from burn-out to burn-out and laboured under thick layers of guilt.
In a dream, the Lord showed me a heavy suitcase. It was full of things that needed prayer. He said sometimes I needed to set it down. It would wear me out if I carried it all the time. Sometimes I needed to leave it with him, walk away and enjoy the scenery.
In a way, that is why I took up photography and painting. They make me pay attention and become more aware of beauty. The evening light does not wait until the paperwork is done and the hedge is clipped and all the hungry people in the world are fed and all the sick are healed.
Sometimes on this journey we need to leave the heavy stuff and the “whys” in his care and sit by the stream in the cool of the evening and allow our souls to be restored. Right here, mid-crisis, in the hidden grottos of the valley, with all of the threats and fears and opposition looking on like jealous, ravenous beasts, God prepares a place of rest and safety and refreshing for us.
I am learning (slowly) to set the suitcase down, step into the joyful freshness of God’s presence and allow him to restore my soul -in that infinitely tiny and infinitely spacious moment called “now.” That’s where the battle is won.
Thank you, Lord. You are good.
Share this:
Outside the fence
photo: Poppies growing behind the fence
Sometimes the organizations we form to celebrate connections end up separating us.
I realized this in the first grade, the day our friend Diana showed up at school after lunch with her short pixie cut hair full of bobby pins trying desperately to hold tiny braids together. It looked ridiculous. Earlier that day four or five of us were walking arm in arm in arm as little girls do, in a kind of six year-old chorus line. We were members of the French braid club. We had all worn braids that day and formed a band of sisters on that basis. I hadn’t noticed until Diana returned from lunch, that our basis for commonality excluded a sweet girl we all loved.
I think denominations are like that. At first we are excited about finding we share common beliefs with others and form First Church of the Tidy Braids. Do we have stories! Sometimes we are so busy rejoicing in finding each other we don’t realize our denomination has excluded some lovely people with short hair.
That which was meant to bring people together ends up keeping people apart. A denomination formed around a common experience or emphasis may at first be a sheltering, warm, encouraging place, but within a generation or two it attempts to redefine what it means to be “in” or “out” of the kingdom of God.
I took a photo of these poppies growing behind the fence as the last light of a slow summer day highlighted their beauty. I don’t have any poppies inside my garden. I wish I did.
Share this:
Allaylloollah!
Photo: grandparents
I was with my daughter when the doctor who performed emergency surgery to save her life, in a tiny hospital on a tiny Caribbean island, told her she would probably have a lot of difficulty having children. She had been hemorrhaging from a ruptured cyst. The lining of her womb, that which should have been sacred and set apart to nurture new life, was growing throughout her abdomen and damaging other organs like some blasphemous invader.
My heart ached for her. I had difficulty conceiving myself and I remembered weeping month after month, year after year as disappointment flowed out of my body.
Four years later she called me after a fertility specialist delivered his final verdict to her and her wonderful husband. Too many blockages, too many malformations, too much damage from surgery. A baby conceived by natural means was extremely unlikely to happen. The best he could offer was powerful medication that put her into menopause to slow down the course of the disease and gave her respite from the intense pain. Perhaps someday she might be well enough to try in vitro.
I cried.
She didn’t.
Somehow the two of them had faith that God would hear their prayers. In fact they treated the specialist’s report after exploratory surgery as proof positive that when God gave them a child it would be a miracle. It was officially documented.
A few weeks later while at some meetings in Florida, five different men spoke to her over a period of several days and told her God was giving her “the desire of her heart.” One (named Bob) said he saw “sperm meetin’ egg” and another (named Bobby) even nudged her husband and joked in a Texas drawl, “You know faith without works is dead.” These were not the kind of ministers I was used to.
I had heard about people who were supposedly prophetic and seen reports of those said to be endowed by the Holy Spirit with healing gifts from God, but it was all theoretical. I believed God could do it in His sovereign will, but He didn’t seem to want to much. I have been attending a decently-and-in-order mainline church and some of the stuff she was telling me about witnessing was so far out of my comfort zone I ran up to the hills to pray that they would not be hurt by deception. I was the one who needed prayer that I would not allow my own cultural blinders and judgmental attitude to limit faith in the goodness of God.
Within a month she was pregnant.
The fertility specialist was shocked!
So was I!
Our precious, extremely unlikely granddaughter was born almost exactly one year after the doctor’s pronouncement. There is no doubt in our minds that she is a miracle.
My daughter had hoped she was healed, but the old pattern of severe pain and ruptured cysts began again when the baby was weaned. Her doctor cautioned her against getting her hopes up, saying conception again was unlikely, but suggested that they not postpone trying to have another child if that’s what they wanted. Within two weeks she was pregnant. Our precious highly unlikely miracle grandson will be two years old later this summer.
A while ago our daughter had surgery again to routinely “clean out” more patches of endometriosis. They found none.
Today she and her husband officially announced the expected due date of the arrival of their third child – New Year’s Day. She gave me a gift last time I visited — a pregnancy test with a + sign on it. Attached was a note: I guess you could say we’re addicted to miracles!
It’s the best gift I’ve ever received that somebody peed on!
God is good –and He is still in the miracle business.
As our little grandson would say, “ALLAYLLOOLLAH!”
Share this:
And from the ground there blossoms red
Peony
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
-George Matheson
(Click for larger version)
Charis: Subject to Change 