Archive | abundant life

In which I catch a glimpse of heaven

December 23, 2012

We drove through the mountains in the snow, holding hands over the gear shift. It was an iron-grey day, a cold swirl of a day, and as we crossed the river coming down from the north, a bald eagle swooped down and low right beside our car. As we reached the other side, the eagle lowered one wing, and arched away, benediction rising. We drove to the base of the mountains, past a herd of bison to the log-stacked lodge. Each sentinel pine on the mountain weighed with snow, slender and distinct, there was just a hint of pink to the sky.

There were pine cones and simple jar candles lining the aisle, holly boughs with crimson berries and burlap laid out, paper hearts hanging from bare branches. At the altar the words “Rise to a better story” prophesy in the blue snow light.

It was a gathering of nations there in the snow. First bridesmaids in cream and gold saris, then Tina appeared in her bridal scarlet and emerald and gold sari, jewels through the part of her hair resting on her forehead. Kupa and his friends, his brothers, from Zambia, from America, from Hong Kong, stood at the front, and Kupa’s eyes were not satisfied with seeing, it’s a good idea to watch the groom’s face for that moment when his bride appears, that look will make you believe in love all over again.

We sang praises to God, we cried, we clapped, we fell more in love, each of us, remembering our own wedding days. When the pastor charged them to be faithful and true, love and honour, and they vowed until death do us part, husbands and wives were catching eyes and smiling. Kupa and Tina got down on their knees and washed each other’s parents bare feet with their own hands, speaking blessing and honour and gratitude to their new mama and papa each. South-Indian Christian traditions enriched the traditional English Christian ceremony: sari draped by Kupa, gold cross tied, seven strands woven, and their vows.

When they were pronounced husband and wife, we nearly lifted the roof off with our cheers. India through Dubai to Canada, Zambia through America, and they found each other, and now we’re all here, drinking wine, and laughing, eating, and celebrating with tears in our eyes, every voice a unique accent of its own.

We all agree that this is what the world should look like – a wedding supper, a global family, saris and dashikis, head coverings and hipsters, good food, thumping music, dancing, tears, and the kind of love that works and breathes and shows up.

These are the sacred moments. And the community gathered to say we see you, we affirm you, we’re with you, and may God give you lots of babies, too. Here we all are in the Canadian west, a big crazy family usually scattered across the earth. The dirt on our shoes was from nearly every continent, but we are family by birth and blood and choice tonight.

We were stomping our feet and whistling loud, kissing and hollering out for more kisses, and then we were also sneaking outside to lean over the railings, men draping coats over women while our breath formed in the darkness, all to watch the moon rise in at Christmas.

Driving home, we agreed, yawning, feet aching, yes, right there, that may have been a glimpse of heaven.

Continue Reading · abundant life, friends, journey, love, marriage, moments · 10

In which I hope she remembers, today at church

November 18, 2012

I can’t carry a tune, but I love to sing. Maybe that’s part of why I love to go to church on Sundays: I get to sing.

But I also get to watch my tinies dance, I get to hush and chase our baby across the back of the gym behind the folding chairs, I get to hold my son in my arms and sing the words into his coarse blonde hair. I get to hold new babies and give their worn-out, sleep-deprived mamas a rest. I get to stretch out my arms wide in the worship I always feel when I’m walking in the woods, and I get to show my face to the rafters, throat exposed, unafraid. I get to cry and cry and cry, and sing poetry and promises.

Sunday comes and I am longing for church. (Even the typing of that sentence, let alone the living truth of it, is enough to make me laugh at how God has surprised me, my bluff so completely been called.) But it’s true. I remember my Dad used to say, “I’m in the world all week-long, and boy, I can’t wait to get back with my family.” I feel that way: I feel like I can’t wait to hang out with people who love Jesus, people who long to see God’s kingdom come, and His will, done, right now.

So much of our lives in this world feels like exile, and we’re making a home in a faraway land, and so every time I get to be with my people (because the people who love God, these are my people), it’s a lush oasis in the desert, a refill, a taste of living water, a glimpse of Jesus with skin on.

I don’t think we need an institution and a Sunday to find community, no way; but in this season, that’s how it is for me, and I’m okay with that. I’m welcoming the strangeness of it, and rejoicing at the gift of home groups, Sunday afternoon potlucks with chili and soup and the Spirit. Today, I signed up to teach Sunday school because my daughter asked me to do it, and I figured I better say “yes” because all too soon, she wont’ want me teaching her class, and so today, I’m going to show up. I start in a couple of weeks. I remember how my mother handed out crayons in my own Sunday school class, and something feels right about this decision.

I need the Church, in all its iterations and changeability and failings, I need community in all its difficulty and brokenness and beauty.

I need it because being friends on Facebook isn’t enough when you’re really supposed to be family, and a text message isn’t the same as wrapping your arms around each other, and boldly going to the throne of Grace together, breath to breath.

A song on my iPod isn’t the same as singing at the top of my off-key voice in a crowd as my friend sings the songs of my faith, it’s not the same as stomping my own feet, and a podcast isn’t the same as community preaching, eye to eye with your friends. And commenting on blogs isn’t the same as face-to-face conversation, it’s hard to call someone a heretic to their face.

And talking about or reading about or studying community, and grace, and the radical act of staying put for once in our addicted-to-change, afraid-of-commitment culture, and embracing mess and noise and family and prayer and friendship, well, it isn’t the same as living it in our real walking-around lives, is it?

And so this morning, I get to sing.

And I get to taste the salt of my own tears, and hear, with my own ears, my voice proclaiming the goodness of my God. And I get to pull out my old hankie and press half-moons of mascara into the worn cotton, because it’s so true, He’s been so good to me, and I can hardly breathe for His faithfulness, so I exhale, at long last, exhale.

I get to be reminded of my freedom, and his love and mercy, and then, right while I’m singing, today, bless the Lord oh my soul, my six-year-old, my Anne-girl, she reaches out and holds my hand.

She’s always watching me, and she’s watched me worship for her entire life, and today I could see her, marking this moment, and I thought: if there is one memory she has of me, please, God, let it be this one.

Let her remember this Sunday in a school gym, with a bunch of other misfits, we’re all longing for Jesus, we’re all longing to be seen. Let her remember how we had breakfast and I yelled at everyone for the mess in the house, and I put a stew in the crockpot, and we arrived late at church.

And let her remember how I cried my mascara right off, and how I was such a gigantic mess in my real life but I kept trying anyway because I had stars in my eyes, wild in love, and how I sang too-loud, and clutched my breast with relief at being reminded again how He is faithful. And let her remember that He is enough, because He was enough for her crazy imperfect mama.

And at that moment, then my Anne, she squeezed my hand, and smiled at me, tenderly, like she knew me, like she gained part of her woman-soul before my eyes, and she started to sing right out loud, our voices rising together, her eyes never leaving my tear-stained joyful face.

Continue Reading · abundant life, Anne, church, community, faith, journey, moments · 38

In which I’m practicing

September 17, 2012

I have practiced cynicism, like a pianist practices scales, over and over. I have practiced being defensive – about my choices and my mothering, my theology and my politics – until I was on the offense. I performed, with repetition, outrage and resentful anger, the victim of someone else’s god, I was jumping, Pavlovian, to right every wrong and defend every truth, refute every essay, pontificate to every question. I called it critical thinking to hide my bitter and critical heart, and I wondered why I had no real joy.

It didn’t take long for my proficiency in cynicism to become obvious to others. My aptitude didn’t take a lot of work, I’ll be honest, it seemed to come rather naturally to me, maybe I was a prodigy. I practiced poking holes, deflating arguments, identifying the pill in all of the jam. My response to it all was, “yeah, but…” and I set up my piano on the border between Funny and Mean, playing sarcastic scales in the name of wit, you might be surprised by how much snark you can fit into 140 characters. And over and over and over again, I practiced and practiced, but no one liked to hear me play.

Give me just a moment here, follow me outside. I’m done with this grand piano, with this glossy stage, with the concert proficiency at Being Right, I’m ready to be Beloved instead. Here, now, let’s head for the Canadian wilderness together, I’ve got just the spot in mind, and wouldn’t you know it, out here, in the sunshine, there’s a battered old thrift store piano, just for me.

Read the rest over at A Deeper Story….

P.S. Did you notice that A Deeper Story has redesigned and expanded? There are two new channels: A Deeper Family and A Deeper Church. I love them.

Continue Reading · A Deeper Story, abundant life, community, faith, Guest Post, journey, music · 4

In which he wouldn’t do anything different (neither would I)

August 28, 2012

I can’t seem to bring myself to church more than three weeks in a row. On the fourth week, I wake up, and think, yeah, I’m so not going. I like to take Sundays off now and then from church, and I’m not sure that it’s as holy as recognising that the Lord made Sabbath for us, not the other way around, or if it’s because I’m just tired out from a full week of people-stuff, and I just want to go all pseudo-hermit, have a bit of worship that looks like soul-care. Even though I’m a proper church-goer, a provider of covered dishes, I don’t have an illusions about myself, I know I still like a bit of room, so I make that room for my own self, no one else will do that for me, I’ve learned.

I spent the morning in my kitchen with Evie while Brian took the older two to the garden and Home Depot. I turned on the soundtrack of Midnight in Paris, and I made a roast chicken and summer garden veggies for my friend – she just had the sweetest little baby girl. Sometimes the only ministry I can manage is the ministry of good food.

Then I gave my own family waffles and sausage for supper because I was tired out from all the healthy cooking. I hoped I wasn’t a big old metaphor for putting ministry first, but I was comforted by the knowledge that Joe would eat his body weight in sausage if I let him, and really, it’s just what they like, and honestly, who cares?

Evelynn sat on the floor while I cooked and danced and sang a bit off-key, she was banging pots and pans, and I kind of laughed because, you know, I always use that metaphor for calling others to freedom and wholeness, that image of myself standing in a field, calling everyone outside with kitchenware, truly appeals to me but, hey, did you know, that’s actually really noisy and obnoxious in your own kitchen? She’s a table top climber, she’s a for-the-fun-of-it shrieker, she’s a go-getter, a boundary-pusher, a look-you-in-the-eyes-right-while-you-are-saying-no-darling-and-do-it-anyway girl. I am always running with her, my mother thinks she’s a three-year-old trapped in a 16-month-olds body, and sometimes, when I see that intelligent and saucy look in her eyes, I’m inclined to agree. And then fast and pray about those pre-teen years, Lordhavemercy.

Brian spent the afternoon on a project with Joe. He has a big fold out work bench that he made for himself a month or two ago. It’s the project that I mentioned here in this [love looks like] post. (Brian is quite tall; the very first thing everyone says when they meet him is: “Wow. You’re tall.” So all the benches and counters and sinks are at least a foot too short for him.) He built this workbench that comes up to my shoulders, and it folds back into the wall like a murphy bed. Joe adores it, and so on Sunday, Brian made a little one, absolutely identical, for Joe. I couldn’t tell who was having more fun, Brian or Joe, but they were working together, making their own kind of art, Anne riding her bike, exploring, and I’ve noticed my tinies just like to be with us, it doesn’t matter what we’re doing, they just like to be there, and there is no greater longing of their hearts than to help, let me help, let me be a part of it all.

People keep asking me about my book writing. I have nothing to say other than: yeah, I better get on that, eh?

Then I made blueberry crisp. And organized the closet.

A few weeks ago, Brian lead a baby dedication in our friend’s backyard. It was so beautiful and regular, just a gathering of their friends and family, the many littles running around, swinging on the tree swings, while the adults visited and stood around. Back when Brian was a pastor, he would fold his Bible in half and stuff it in his back pocket, so that he always had it with him, and when he loped up to the stage to preach, he just reached around for his Bible and opened it up. I watched him in the backyard, with our friends, my sister was there, too, and he prayed, welcomed everyone, then he easily pulled that creased Bible out of his back pocket, an easy movement I hadn’t seen him perform in seven years, and some part of my heart didn’t fit in my chest any more, it was good – and sad – to see. He blessed that wee new girl, and her family, and it was that moment when the quiet unassuming one is revealed as their true identity in the movie, he’s still a pastor, still a teacher, even after all of the deconstruction and pulling apart and rebuilding of our faith, and our understanding of church and go-go-go-programs on the premise of compounds and build-it-they-will-come, coupled with a new understanding of vocation and ministry, even with his business acumen, and the new normal life in the secular marketplace. But I can’t deny it, who ever could? He’s meant for this work, he’s a pastor, a teacher, a spiritual director, and there was something so good about seeing him in that role, in that office, for just a few moments in the backyard. Something good, and yet it made me sad.

I mentioned this to him that night, I said, “Don’t you miss it? What do you think? Should we make it more of a priority to pursue some official kind of ministry life again?” And so, for the millionth time, we talked it through, and we yelled at each other, then: ssshhhhhh! the tinies are sleeping! and eventually, he was laying stretched out on the couch, his arm flung over his eyes, we needed to go to bed by now.

“I miss it, sure, Sarah, and I yearn for it, and I hope I do it for the rest of my life, someday, but today was today, and it was wonderful. I built a work bench with my son, and I wouldn’t do it anything different,” he said. “If all I ever do right in my life is love those kids down the hall, I’m satisfied, can’t you see?”

And what can you do then, but go to bed together, it is enough, and this is glorious, and I brushed my teeth, he opened the windows wide, we like fresh air, and I kissed him kissed him kissed him under the red Ikea duvet.