5 Reasons I Blog

My new friend Aimee, over at Living, Learning, and Loving Simply tagged me to share the five reasons I blog. So . . .

1.) Blogging keeps me motivated to write regularly for an actual audience who has likes and dislikes and shares them freely.
2.) When I'm writing regularly, I have room to explore ideas that help me grow as a follower of Jesus. And it's good to share what he's doing to redeem this lowly life.
3.) If something is helping me grow, it might help someone else grow too. So I share those things here.
4.) I've "met" a lot of new people who like to dialogue and think about things like I do.
5.) I can share the everyday parts of life with the people who don't live right here with me.

Now for the rest of you reading this who have your own blogs, why do you do it?

Still winter . . .

It rained a little bit over the weekend. The precipitation, combined with warmer temperatures over the past few days, has revealed patches of grass we haven't seen since early February when the snow started falling. The grass isn't really green. It's more like a mustard color. But being reminded that the grass is still there, waiting to awaken to new life, gives me hope that Spring is coming.

This time of year can be hard. As much as I am looking forward to Spring, we still have a good chunk of winter to get through. The thermometer may eek above freezing during the day, but it dips back down at night. And though the days are gradually growing longer, too often the sun is hidden behind grey clouds. And the trees and bushes are still so brown.

Preparing our hearts for Easter, with images of resurrection and new life, seems more like a Spring ritual, but in fact, Lent always starts in the winter. For centuries, the date of Easter has been marked by the first Sunday after the full moon on or after March 21, the Spring Equinox. So Easter always falls in Spring, but Lent has been relegated to the shorter days of winter, when the ground is still frozen and life is still hidden.

Though Lent transports us to resurrection, it begins with death.

This connection with nature and the seasons can tell us a lot about what it means to prepare ourselves for Easter. Lent is a time to draw into ourselves, to face our sin and its entanglements, and to let them die. It's a time to recognize our lives for the wildernesses they really are, seeing with fresh eyes the barrenness and emptiness of what we normally find so satisfying. And it's a time to once again proclaim that if we have only Jesus, we have all we need.

Make no mistake, Spring is coming. Everything around us will soon be teeming with life again, and Lent will usher us into this new season. But we are being led slowly, our hearts thawing and softening on pace with the earth. When the seeds of resurrection are planted in our hearts once more, they will flourish and bloom with joy.

"I tell you the truth,
unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains only a single seed.
But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
The man who loves his life will lose it,
while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me;
and where I am, my servant also will be.
My Father will honor the one who serves me."
-- John 12:24-26

Lenten Beginnings

I am new to Lent, as many of you may be. Oh, I've heard of Marti Gras and Ash Wednesday. Over the past few years I've even fasted during the 40 days before Easter--usually I give up TV or chocolate. One year, when I lived in Chicago and attended a Presbyterian church, the pastor urged us not just to give something up for Lent, but also to take on a character quality of Jesus. You know, trying to be more generous or patient.

But though these all are Lenten activities, I've really never taken on the posture of Lent. I haven't entered the wilderness, like Jesus, to let my faith be tested and to set myself apart. And even as I'm writing about it, I know why I continue to be new to Lent. Wildernesses scare me. This year, though, I am ready to learn more about what it means to seek after Jesus as he was preparing to die. I'm ready to be a Lenten Christian.

Just like Advent, Lent will be a season of expectation. For those who journeyed with me back in December, we spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to wait on, for and with Jesus. The waiting sometimes felt hard, but more often than not, Advent waiting was exhilarating.

But Lent waiting will be different. Though ultimately we will celebrate the power and glory of resurrection on Easter, to get there, we have to go through the agony, misery, and loneliness of Gethsamene and the suffering and death of Golgotha. And even before that, we have to go to the wilderness.

Will you go with me?

I will be posting daily Lenten meditations over on my website. Just click on the Lent link to the left when you get there. I also will occasionally post some of the meditations here, on my blog.

Narcissus Gone Wild

I couldn't get over the irony of seeing my narcissus all sprawled about in my living room over the past couple of weeks. Talk about the need for some "smallness of scale."

Interestingly enough, as long as my narcissus stayed small, it was beautiful. The blooms were tight, yet delicate. The fragrance left something to be desired, but it could not be ignored (what a well-named plant!).

Didn't take long for the narcissus to move beyond its healthy boundaries toward a path of self-destruction, though. It's not pretty anymore. The blooms are drying up. It doesn't even reach for the sun anymore when I rotate it. My narcissus got too big for its britches, and now it's paying the price.

Interestingly, I was at a friend's house where she had a whole pail full of lovely narcissae. They were still going strong, but not because of any limitations of their own. They were trying to go wild, but she had reined them in with some stakes and twine. Imposing a smallness of scale on the flowers has given them a longer life.

Is it too late for my narcissus?

Jesus and the Snowstorm

Like many of the rest of you, here in Indianapolis we had our biggest snowfall of the year a couple of days ago. And throughout the week of slipping and sliding on the roads and getting bootfuls of snow in the back yard with my dog, I've realized a few things.

For one, the postal service isn't nearly as scrappy as their slogans make them out to be. "Through rain or snow or sleet or hail" probably applied back when they delivered mail on horses, but I haven't received even a piece of junk mail since Tuesday.

Also, shoveling fresh snow is MUCH easier than shoveling snow that's been plowed off the road and dumped in front of my mailbox. (I've shoveled out the mailbox three times, and still no mail!)

The other thing I've been thinking about this week is how much Jesus must like snowstorms.

--

Funny thing about the weather, it gave everybody something in common for a couple of days. People I barely know from work were wishing me safe travels home. The guys who delivered my new washer and dryer expressed concern that I was warm enough in my house. Everyone I know shared stories of shoveling out the sidewalk or driving in the sleet. We compared commute times and memories of previous snowstorms. I was on the phone off and on all day, checking in with friends and family.

Jesus likes it when we're all talking and taking care of each other like that, sharing things in common. And these incarnational moments, when we experience for ourselves what others are going through, help us become more like Him, more patient, more loving, more at peace with ourselves and others.

My friend Maria is from Puerto Rico, though now she lives about five miles from me. When I saw her the evening after the big snow storm, she was laughing about the conversations she had had with her family back home. "All they can say is 'don't drive in the snow,'" she said, "because they don't know what it's like here." We laughed, thinking of all the things about snow storms you wouldn't know if you'd never experienced one.

And it was about that time that I started thinking of Jesus. Just like trying to tell someone what to do in a snowstorm without experiencing one for yourself, He didn't want to tell us how to live in the flesh without experiencing it himself. So he became a man and dwelt among us. And just like I can sit with friends at dinner sharing common stories about snow covered mailboxes, now Jesus shares things in common with us in all of life.

Jesus knows laughter and celebration, weeping and mourning. He's been disappointed and ridiculed and frustrated. Physical pain is not foreign to him. Neither is heart ache or despair. Yet he also knows the joy of a good conversation and a satisfying meal. Jesus knows.

Yeah, Jesus probably likes a good snow storm . . . about as much as he likes storms at sea! And walking on ice would be a whole lot easier than walking on water!

Smallness of Scale as I See It

Over on Seedlings in Stone, LL Barkat has been talking about Smallness of Scale based on a Wendell Berry essay she has been reading. She challenged us to think about this issue with her, so I decided to give it a try.

First, here's the starting point from Berry in The Gift of Good Land, where he talks about the mountain farming of Peru.

"For those fields hold their soil on those slopes, first of all, by being little. By being little they protect themselves against erosion, but their smallness also permits attention to be focused accurately and competently on the details." (p 26)

"The fields have to be the right size; to make them too big would be to destroy them....What I was thinking, then, looking down at the little fields of the Andes, was that the most interesting, crucial, difficult questions of agriculture are questions of propriety. What is the proper size for a farm for one family in a given place? What is the proper size for a field, given a particular slope, climate, soil type, and drainage?" (p.43)

I've been talking a lot about small things already, being faithful with the little so we can be entrusted with the big, finding our small place in a big cause, and doing so by finding a small place to start. In all of these ways, we prosper by narrowing the focus.

I started learning these lessons about five years ago when I first was stricken with an unexpected illness that left me paralyzed for several days. I made a miraculous recovery, but over the next three years had three more major hospitalizations, each time temporarily paralyzed. Doctors determined it was immunologial, most likely lupus, and thanks to the grace of God through a very effective drug, I now live a mostly normal life.

Through the process of being in and out of the hospital, going through weeks of physical therapy and greatly reduced physical strength, I learned the value of small. During the first illness when many of my doctors believed I would never walk again, a small wiggle of the toe one morning was a major victory. I came to greatly appreciate just getting out of bed on my own each day, and when I was finally able to go back to work, it was a gift.

The Lord also used this illness to shrink the overall scope of my life. Until that time, I had unending amounts of energy and ambition, with little focus. With the sky as the limit, I couldn't rest until I was able to fly. After the illness, and to this day, I now have a lot more boundaries. Ironically, too much activity, not enough rest, and too much stress (the hallmarks of my previous life) actually leave me headed in a bad direction physically. I balked at these limits at first. Now I embrace them.

Knowing I can't do it all, I am more discerning about how I do spend my time. This smallness of scale is helping to refine my life in a way bigness and broadness never could.

What are your experiences of the smallness of scale? How has your life been "expanded" by having narrower boundaries?

In the Corner

Recently, a new friend was telling me about her 30-year career cleaning houses. It wasn't a job she grew up wanting to do. As a single mom, she kind of fell into it as a way to support her daughter.

At least that's how she thought of her job until about five years ago. At that time, she was really struggling to know why this was the life the Lord had for her. She was bending down in a corner of someone else's bathroom cleaning up cat hair and suddenly it dawned on her. God could see her even in the corner. He knew where she was, and what she was doing. And in fact, he was there with her, guiding her and comforting her. Being in that corner was God's calling for her life.

I have thought of this story every day since I heard it, especially yesterday as I was working on a Bible study of the Sermon on the Mount. We are just beginning to study what I now think of as the "secret passages," where Jesus tells us we are supposed to pray and give and fast in secret. In the text of the Bible study book, the author brings up Hagar, after Sarai kicked her out of the house. The Lord came to Hagar when she thought know one knew where she was, and after that, she referred to Yahweh as "El Roi," the God who sees.

It's hard to be in the corner, believing we are all alone. Either we get discouraged and disallusioned, wondering why we ended up here in the corner. Or we get defensive and deceptive, feeling more like we are "being cornered" or "being sent to the corner" than just "being in the corner." And in both cases, oh how good it is that God sees us.

Knowing God sees us in the corner, we understand that he has a good purpose for having us there. And he wants us to respond with holiness and integrity, even in the corner. And just like my friend, it's actually God's call in our lives that often lands us in the corner.

Ever felt like you were in a corner? Ever realized that God sees you while you're there?

"[Hagar] answered God by name, praying to the God who spoke to her,

"You're the God who sees me!

'Yes! He saw me; and then I saw him!'"

-- Genesis 16:13

The Year of the Slipper

It's been a hard year on slippers at my house. I keep the heat low because I'm trying to save both energy and money. My house is a little older, so it's drafty. And the principle of warming my body instead of warming the whole house is pretty intriguing. As you may be able to tell, I'm going through a lot of slippers.

Everytime I put on my slippers (and believe me, with my thermostat set at 60 degrees, I wear them a lot!) I am reminded that whatever our goals are, there's always a place to start. Goals like saving money or reducing my environmental impact can be overwhelming to tackle unless I have a place to start. For me, I can start doing both by wearing my slippers.

In my previous post, "Thing Globally, Act Locally," I talked about finding our place in a cause or movement or place that is bigger than ourselves. But even breaking things down and finding a niche can be daunting without a point of entry. Sometimes, we just need to think about that first step.

Here are some ideas:

1.) Recycling: Just start saving one thing, like soup cans or toilet paper rolls.

2.) Reading the Bible: Just start in Matthew and read one chapter of the New Testament a week.

3.) Saving money: Just start by saving one dollar a week.

4.) Eating healthy: Just start by cutting one portion a day in half.

5.) Loving our neighbors: Just start by opening the door for someone.

And if you're still having trouble, let me know. I'll loan you a pair of my slippers.

Think Globally, Act Locally

Sometimes, in the face of trying to preach the gospel to all nations or save the earth from the global warming or eliminate world poverty or foster peace in the Middle East, I feel a little small and inadequate. (Understatement of the year!) Ever feel that way yourself?

Most of us want to be part of something bigger than ourselves, but the very bigness of it sometimes makes having a meaningful contribution a little challenging. Heck, I feel this way at my own church a lot, being just one person among a congregation of more than 3,500.

The answer, of course, is to break it down, creating small attainable goals that join with everyone else's small attainable goals to effect real change. Occasionally a visionary comes along who has a big enough influence and a large enough wallet who can make a difference on a global scale (like Bono or Bill and Melinda Gates), but even then, their contribution is only as good as the millions of people they motivate to take action. And most of us fall into the "millions of people" category.

When we break it down, we realize that the best thing we can do for global warming is ride our bikes sometimes instead of driving the car (eliminating America's addiction to fossil fuel happens one commute at a time). To save the world, we have to meet our neighbors (you don't even need a plane ticket). And if there is ever going to be peace in the Middle East, it's going to happen only when you forgive your best friend from college.

Here's how Wendell Berry says it:

"One cannot live in the world; that is, one cannot become, in the easy, generalizing sense with which the phrase is commonly used, a 'world citizen.' There can be no such thing as a 'global village.' No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it. Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity. We thus come again to the paradox that one can become whole only by the responsible acceptance of one's partiality.

"But to encapsulate these partial relationships is to entrap and condemn them in their partiality; it is to endanger them and to make them dangersous. They are enlivened and given the possiblity of renewal by the double sense of particularity and generality: one lives . . . at home and in the world. It is impossible, for instance, to conceive that a man could . . . love his own place in the world and yet deal destructively with other places."