The Light in the Darkness

Ever since Brianna was born, Elizabeth and I have been relegated to sleeping upstairs. This has the advantage of us having an entire floor of the house to ourselves (it’s a 1 ½ story house, so the upstairs is a bit compact). But it has the significant disadvantage of being particularly hot in the summer and cold in the winter. There are also a number of other small items that make it less than ideal—one of which, up until last week, was the lack of overhead lighting in the bedroom space.

There’s always been a ceiling fan in this space, but the only lighting came from a floor lamp and two side lamps on nightstands. This generally hasn’t been a big deal—we don’t spend a lot of time up there and the side lights work just fine as we’re getting into bed. But I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a light on the ceiling fan.

This is one of those projects that you know is a good idea and probably won’t take too much effort, but it’s never a high enough priority to ever get done. I had known in the back of my mind that they make light kits to add on to ceiling fans, but for some reason I thought our ceiling fan wouldn’t be a good match for those and we’d be better off replacing the whole thing altogether—a significantly bigger project.

Winter is particularly dark up there because I place those plastic winterizer sheets over the skylights. This means the shades stay down on the skylights from November until March, and there’s very little natural light. When we tried to pack for vacation a few weeks ago and had everything laid out on our bed, I was having so much trouble seeing what color the shirts were that I was bringing that I decided I had had enough and it was time to get an overhead light in there.

I decided to start with trying a light conversion kit. Turns out it worked just fine. It was pretty slick, actually (though I did need to splice into the main power line because the leads that had been designed for this were dead). When all was connected and the light bulbs installed, I switched on the light. I couldn’t believe how bright it was in there. Should have done that fifteen years ago.

It’s so nice up there now. Sometimes I go upstairs just to turn the light on and marvel at how bright it is. How easy it is to see things. It’s warm and welcoming now. I could envision sitting up there and reading—something I wouldn’t have even considered before.

We see a lot more about the room than we used to. The pictures on the walls stand out. The colors are brighter. We can use the room for sorting laundry and working on other projects. But we also noticed some places that we hadn’t dusted for awhile. There was one spot on the wall behind the nightstand on the outside wall that was actually a little moldy. The spider webs could no longer hide in the shadows.

Every time I go up there now, I’m reminded about Biblical passages on light. Isaiah 9:2 tells us “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” I spent too many years walking in darkness upstairs—it’s so nice to finally have the light. It’s the same with having Jesus in our lives.

John 1:5 tells us Jesus is the light of the world, and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. I flip that light switch on, and the darkness scatters. It doesn’t stand a chance—like the light of Jesus shining in the darkness of this world. The darkness can’t push back. It runs from the light.

John 3:19-21 tells us that light has come into the world, but people loved darkness rather than light. They didn’t want the light to expose their lives, to make their dark corners exposed. They preferred living in the shadows where they could hide parts of their lives. Every time I turn on that light upstairs, I think about the dark corners of that room I can see now, and I remember how our lives are open books to God. How Jesus can see all parts of our lives—even those parts we’d like to keep hidden. 1 John 1:5 says that in God there is no darkness at all—it’s better for us to come into the light. To have our lives exposed. And if we do that—if we walk in the light—the blood of Jesus will purify us from all our sin.

Lastly, flipping on that light and scattering the darkness reminds me of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. “You are the light of the world,” he tells us. “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” We are called to bring light to the world. To shine in the darkness that too often surrounds us. To be the good the world needs.

Here Be Lions (Hic Sunt Leones)

As I sat down to write this reflection, the phrase ‘here be lions’ came to mind and I looked it up. Versions of this phrase (also ‘here be dragons’ or ‘here be monsters’) were written on the edges of maps in the Middle Ages marking unknown territory. Here be lions.

The phrase came to mind, not because I was thinking about medieval maps or unknown territory, but because since early December I’ve been encountering a lot of lions.

It started with a dream a few nights before the women’s retreat – actually a nightmare. In my dream I was at the Hermitage (where we’ve held our retreats for several years and again this year) walking around the property and everywhere I turned there was a lion. Some sleeping, some walking away from me, some hidden behind trees and bushes. Pretty much lions everywhere, and always a sense of danger, though none of them were attacking me.

When I woke up, I thought, “Wow. I guess I’m nervous about the retreat.” And I was – we haven’t had a women’s retreat for a while, December is a busy month, I wasn’t sure how it would go with COVID precautions, etc…. I didn’t think too much more about the dream until I got to the Hermitage and brought my overnight bag up to the apartment where I was staying. I sat down, took off my shoes and looked up to see this picture on the wall. A lion. Not exactly scary, but not safe either, despite the lamb.

When I got home from the retreat, I kept running into images of lions everywhere. Someone posted a picture on Facebook of a frozen weeping willow tree that looked like a lion’s head. The devotional our family was reading for Advent included artwork for each day and the day after the retreat the image was a lion with the Christ child at the center. I looked up from reading one night and noticed a lion ornament on our tree, made by my great aunt when I was really little. One of the kids mentioned learning about the name Lion of Judah as a name for Jesus during Bible class at school. Lions everywhere. . .

I took all of this as invitation to explore a bit. I looked up lions on Bible Gateway – turns out there are a lot of mentions of lions in the Bible – usually negative, with the exceptions of Lion of Judah and the images of the peaceful kingdom in Isaiah. I also decided to re-read some of the Chronicles of Narnia. And eventually, I found myself sitting with this scene from Prince Caspian. The children have been reunited with Aslan (The Lion who is a lot like Jesus), after not listening to Lucy and not going the way Aslan told her to go.

Then, after an awful pause, the deep voice said, “Susan.” Susan made no answer but the others thought she was crying. “You have listened to fears, child,” said Aslan. “Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?” “A little, Aslan,” said Susan.

I read that scene and thought - Susan is me. It is hard not to listen to fears these days, not to let them be louder than the voice of love. I desperately need Jesus’ presence with me with the closeness of breath, reminding me, ‘do not be afraid.’

I’m still running into images of lions, though they are slowing down a bit. Jay treated me to this beer in Florida, chosen for the flavor, not the image on the can.

Peter came home last week with the news that his basketball team had finally chosen their name – the lions! Someone was wearing lion earrings at church on Sunday. And on Facebook today, a dear friend (without knowing about my dream) shared an image of a lion and the words of Romans 8 ‘nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.’

I don’t know why I’m encountering lions so often – it feels a little silly. But I’m receiving them as reminders in these days that often feel like the unknown territory on the edge of the map. Reminders of Jesus’ presence and words ‘do not be afraid;’ reminders that feel as intimate as breath.

Screaming Inside Our Hearts

We received a lot of Christmas cards this year. A few years ago, it seemed the number of cards we were receiving was dwindling each year. Almost as if people were giving up on the practice—perhaps because it was easier to stay in touch throughout the year via social media and yearly cards weren’t so meaningful anymore, perhaps lives had become too busy, perhaps online greetings had replaced the need to fill out physical addresses and write personal notes. But this past year, and the year before that, we’ve received more Christmas cards in the mail again. Maybe it’s a COVID thing—there’s something powerful about reaching out to others in a physical way. A tangible way of saying “I care about you” in a world where we’re constantly reminded of how fleeting life is. 

My favorite cards are the ones that give bullet-point updates on significant moments of the past year—more than a quickly written “Merry Christmas” but not a three-page tome that takes all of the holidays to read. Bonus points if those bullet-points are unusual insights into the other person’s life. And so one of my favorite lines from all the Christmas cards we received was this: “Quote of the year: Please scream inside your heart!”

This came from a family with kids not-too-far-off from the age of our own, so it was instantly relatable. I found myself envisioning the events that led up to this quote being uttered. Picturing the frustration upon frustration that led to scream upon scream, until one person finally had had enough and blurted out, “Please scream inside your heart!”

I’ve found myself pondering this quite a bit, actually. The past two years (has it been almost two years already?!) of pandemic has made the screaming much more frequent. Many days we’re just barely holding things together and it doesn’t take much to push us over the edge. A scream can be incredibly cathartic, and sometimes that’s all we need to reset everything and tackle things anew. After all, it’s important to be able to express our feelings. To release some of our frustration. To give voice to our anger and disappointment and tiredness. That’s why the lament psalms in the Bible are so powerful and important.

But there have been a lot of screams. A lot. Of screams. To the point where at least one member of a family we know can’t take it anymore. And I wonder—is there a “right-level” amount of screaming? At what point do we cross the line? Or should we be allowed to scream all we need to just to make it through the day? Are there special pandemic rules for screaming? Or extra allowances for screaming that we’re given for such a time as this? Is “please scream inside your heart” a sort of middle ground? A sort of “yes, we all need to scream these days, and it’s good to scream, and you should scream…but I can only handle so much of other people screaming, so please do it discreetly”? There is so much I don’t know when it comes to screaming.

But there is one thing I do know. Somehow in the midst of all this, I keep coming back to Hebrews 4:14-16. “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” There’s a lot in these few verses, but of central importance is that Jesus is able to empathize with our weaknesses. He knows what it’s like to be human. He knows how much we want to scream sometimes. And because he is our high priest—because he brings our needs before God the Father and in turn conveys God’s love back to us—we can come to God with confidence. We can bring all that is frustrating us, all that is troubling us, all that is causing us to want to scream before God the Father. And it is okay. And we don’t need to keep it in our hearts. And when we bring it to God, we will be met with mercy and we will find grace. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll make it through our time of need.

 

Two Prayers for the New Year

Friends, I’d planned to write a longer reflection this week, but school is canceled this afternoon because of the winter storm, so those thoughts will wait. In the meantime, here are two prayers that caught my attention for the New Year. I want to spend time this week praying and savoring them both.

The first is from Seeking God’s Face:

Maker of heaven and earth, space and time, entering this new year I put my hope in you, trusting that you will provide whatever I need for body and soul and turn to my good whatever adversity you send me. Thank you that you are able to do this because you are almighty God, and that you desire to do this because you are a faithful Father. Amen.

The second was shared by a friend on Facebook and was written by Jeff Chu:

May you make room for both delight and disappointment, joy and sorrow, and through it all, may you feel the courage to name these things candidly and to navigate them wisely.

May you perceive the beauty around you and within you—in the dance of the sunshine on freshly fallen snow, in the growth of the buds that will soon enough pop up to remind us of the resilience of life, in the swirls and whirls of a flock of birds against a blue sky, in an unexpected burst of shared laughter, in the gift of an offered confidence, in the satisfying savor of a favorite meal, in the complexity of the body that receives that goodness but also honestly vexes you—and may all this stir in you not just gratitude but also wonder.

May you know deep and true rest: rest that enfolds you into its restorative gentleness, rest that fuels you for the road ahead, rest that sings to you a story of grace.

May you sense the possibility of hope.

May you be blindsided by blessing.

May you feel the strong and tender embrace of the God who made you, the God who gave his body and breath for you, and the God who accompanies you still.

May you be attentive to the love that is always with you and for you, recognizing its steady presence, receiving it with gladness, and lavishing it onto a world that so yearns for its justice and its balm.

Amen.

 

Deep and Great

Several years ago during a grief-filled Christmas season my friend Jen shared this poem with me. It’s by Madeleine L’Engle, one of my favorite authors, and the title is ‘First Coming.’ And it seems relevant this second Christmas of the pandemic, as we are particularly aware that our need is ‘deep and great.’ As we celebrate this week, may you be aware of Christ’s presence with you and may your heart sing with God’s joy.

First Coming

God did not wait till the world was ready,

till . . .nations were at peace.

God came when the Heavens were unsteady,

and prisoners cried out for release.

 

God did not wait for the perfect time.

God came when the need was deep and great.

God dined with sinners in all their grime,

turned water into wine. God did not wait

 

till hearts were pure. In joy God came

to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.

To a world like ours, of anguished shame

God came, and God’s light would not go out.

 

God came to a world which did not mesh,

to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.

In the mystery of the Word made Flesh

the Maker of the stars was born.

 

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

God came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Preparing the Way

The invitation to prayer during the season of Advent in Teach Us to Pray is this sentence from Isaiah 40:3: In the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord.

We’ve been saying that sentence before all of our meals these last weeks. I’ll admit that sometimes I raise my voice a bit to begin it, hoping to quiet some of the clamor around the table, maybe even to cut off a few arguments and redirect things.

I came across this poem by Joseph G. Donders in the resource Imaging the Word last week that has had me thinking a lot about the first part of that invitation: in the wilderness.

In the Wilderness

John came out of the desert

to preach in the wilderness.

…

 

The wilderness

he preached in

was his own country.

A wilderness

not coming

from the hands of God,

but from a jungle

caused by innumerable

human decisions

that were

      wrong,

      shortsighted,

      and selfish.

Decisions

that had created havoc

in the lives

of the many.

      It was in that

      jungle

      John preached

      and baptized.

As long

as we think

about John

like that

-preaching

in his own country

two thousand years ago-

his preaching

remains distant

and very far

away.

Let us try

to get that wilderness

and also John’s word

nearer home,

so that it can cut us

to the bone.

 

Let us speak

about the wilderness

in which we live.

And let us think

not only of sin

but of the world

we are accustomed to.

…

 

It is in that forest,

in that jungle

that the word of God

sounds

through John,

saying that once

justice and integrity

are victorious,

the whole of humankind

will be saved,

that Jesus, the savior,

is going to bring

a total difference.

But indicating also

where we come in and

what we should do:

      straightening the paths

      we are walking now,

      preparing a way for the Lord,

      filling the valleys and potholes,

leveling the mountains and

      obstacles in us

and in the lives we live....

 

The poem got me thinking about how we live in the wilderness, and how it is in the wilderness of our daily lives that we are called to prepare the way of the Lord.

 

And then I saw this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in an article on The Twelve: “It is impossible to state too clearly that only the coming of the Lord himself can make ready the way for his coming.... The end of all preparation of the way of Christ must lie precisely in perceiving that we ourselves can never prepare the way.”

 

I hear in this a reminder that it is in the wilderness of our daily lives that Christ comes to us. He meets us where we are and when we receive him, when we say yes to his work in us, it is he who fills the valleys and potholes and levels the obstacles, restoring us, preparing us to be who we were created to be. In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.

Trying Again

It’s been cold this past week. Which means I pulled out my winter dress coat to go to church this past week. Which means I tucked my hands into the coat pockets and found my hand-knit scarf hiding in there, waiting to be found after a summer of un-needed-ness.

I smile every time I rediscover my hand-knit scarf tucked into my dress coat. It’s made from super-soft, burnt-orange alpaca wool imported from Peru. I know this because I knit it myself. Margaret Jager taught me to knit through several of her knitting evenings hosted at church. She patiently guided me through all my mistakes and carefully corrected a few of my more egregious ones. She also gave me a pattern to follow that was not “beginner-level.”

It took me all winter to finish. Between the slowness of my learning-curve and the extra-long length I needed so that the scarf hung at a reasonable length down my torso after wrapping around my neck, it was a big project. I completed it just as the first crocuses were breaking through the snow and stashed it away in the closet for the next winter.

I smiled that first year when the snows came again in the fall, and I reached for my new scarf to wear it in the cold for the first time. It was sooooooo soft. And perfectly warm. And made my neck happy. One-of-a-kind. Definitely worth all of the work.

And so, when Elizabeth had a late-night craving for macaroni and cheese (this was the year we were expecting Emma) I grabbed my new scarf, threw it around my neck, and ventured out on the snowy roads to D&W. I didn’t much understand these strange food cravings—we hadn’t eaten macaroni & cheese in all our married years to this point—but I knew one thing: I needed to come home with mac & cheese. Not because Elizabeth would be upset if I didn’t, but because it was my duty as a new father-to-be.

This was just my second time wearing the scarf. It wasn’t a dress-coat only scarf back then. When I got to D&W, I tucked the scarf in my coat pocket, found the requested brand, and checked out. I returned triumphant with the box of mac & cheese. (And actually, I bought several—just in case this odd craving might strike again).

The next day, when I went to put on my coat, I reached for my scarf. It wasn’t there. I checked both coat pockets. I checked the floor. I went all through the house, turning everything over to see if I set it down somewhere. I went back out to the car and checked under the seat. I checked the pockets of my other, lighter-weight, coat. I checked the pockets of coats I hadn’t worn in over a year. No scarf.

I jumped in the car and headed back to D&W. I retraced my steps. Looked all around in the parking lot. I checked their lost and found… Why, yes, we do have plenty of scarves in this box…Well, no…none of them are one-of-a-kind super-soft burnt-orange alpaca wool with a fun, diagonal design.

I like to think someone picked it up off the floor at D&W and was so impressed with the craftsmanship and quality that they kept it for themselves. Or maybe it was someone down-on-their-luck who was going to be cold all winter long but found this scarf and was able to stay just a little bit warmer. That’d be cool too. Maybe there’s a homeless person out there with a one-of-a-kind scarf.

Except, it’s not one-of-a-kind. Not anymore. After I got over my grief at losing my splendid creation, I went back to the yarn store and found more of the same yarn. And I started again. And again it took me all winter to finish. And again I didn’t get to wear the scarf until the snows started falling again the next fall. And again it felt wonderfully soft and warm around my neck as I wore it off to church for the first time. And this time, when I took it off my neck, I tucked it nice and deep into my pocket. I haven’t lost it since.

The other day at the opening of our Council meeting, we reflected on the passage in Luke 10:1-12 where Jesus sends out the 72. He sends them out in pairs to the surrounding towns telling them to heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near. He includes instructions for both when things go well and when they go badly. If the town is not receptive, Jesus tells them to shake the dust of that town off their feet and move on. Go to the next town and try again.

I once heard this text preached to a group of returning citizens trying to put their lives back together, fresh out of jail. The preacher applied Jesus’ lesson to life in general—sometimes things don’t go our way. Sometimes life seems turned against us. Sometimes bad things happen through no fault of our own. Sometimes we get ourselves into trouble. But when that happens, shake the dust off your feet and move on. Start again. Next time might be better—and if it’s not, shake the dust off again and start over again.

I put a lot of effort into my first scarf. A lot of time. It ended up getting me nowhere. I ended up without a scarf. If anything, I ended up in the hole because I was left with feelings of grief and some bitterness for having lost something so precious to me. But I “shook the dust” of that bad experience off my feet and tried again. And now I smile every time I reach in the pockets of my dress coat.

There are times when the Christian life is like this. We put a lot of effort or time or energy into some initiative, some program at church, some outreach effort, some personal devotional strategy, some relationships we’re nurturing—and then everything turns out for naught, or our efforts seem to get us nowhere, or we feel worse off than when we started, or the person we’re investing in moves away. Shake the dust off, says Jesus. Try again. There’s no promise this is going to be easy. You might just need to start again from scratch.