Streams of mercy... that I want to share with you.

Sweet small town of happy respite: Waxahachie. Did you know places like this still existed? I did not. And I’m so glad they do.

Sunflowers and skies heavy with coming rain; let's go to the fireworks..!

June was hotter than July is turning out to be. Is this normal?

We walk to farmer’s market on a Saturday; ten or twelve little booths along the small town square. Courthouse clock chimes nine. Book sale at the old historic library. We ooh and aah over old children's books, and wonder what the research-on-the-internet generation will miss by not having illustrated encyclopedias through which to flip and be transported...

We walk, and that means we get to have our vision bathed in green green green; the trees are blossoming , looks like…a Pennsylvania May. Cooler weather makes me see things I might normally not see…

It’s nice to chat with the man who grew the tomatoes you are buying. He tells us about 300 varieties of lavender, and going to the Texas lavender festival. “We had lavender and lemonade,” he says, and his grandson gets a bag out for tomatoes…

I see three people I know at one intersection of the 4th of July parade. But you don’t need to know anyone to have someone to say hello to. Everybody chats, and smiles. Two trailers full of World War 2 veterans ride by. We stand and clap.

Making a pillow cover from an old shirt... I find I have a lot of mending and projects piled up from years of busyness and coming and going…I'm not really capable of most of them, but it's delightful to try. And to get help. ...

An outing to the Vintage Market down in Forreston – it’s the only store there, really. John talks about old jazz, and Barbra talks about old clothes, and they knock twenty dollars off the price of whatever you are buying… and send you off with three CDs of great old music.

Comforting and being comforted. I think they know us at the Starbucks by now. By face if not by name. Iced coffee. Hazelnut…
I made a layer cake that slumped, but was delicious. Pineapple. !

'Bright Star' and 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' and many episodes of M*A*S*H. Writing thank you notes…

A wonderful book (Peace Like a River). Octavius Winslow.
Ballet beneath the stars on the grass in Fort Worth.
Dear friends. Sad soccer games. Bemoan the results with friends across the globe on Skype. This is the glory of the World Cup.

Parents, grandparents. Loving them. Sharing a few stories. Mostly being here together, now.

Looking back and looking forward. Photos of Jacare and tears for the streets. Plans for the Bronx, and great mysteries, too. Hurting and praying, trusting and hoping.

And packing lots of boxes. Because who knows when you might need this book or blanket?

These four weeks have been very different from the last four months. Those months were, too, sweet. For blessing comes in many colors.
They interplay and fade and grow, take turns in a human life. , no one less real than the others.

I won’t be staying here—it’s not my call-place; that makes it, really, all the dearer now. The Wood between the Worlds, you know,
is a world itself, too.
( Remember Aunt Beast in A Wrinkle in Time? And the planet Ixchel? (no, I didn’t remember the planet’s name on my own. I had to look it up.) )

I’ll just say thank you.
Thank you family, thank you friends. Thank you, Lord, for places that, for a time, are pitchers full of sweetness and reminders of tangible good. What grace it is that pours them out, for a while. faint echoes of great things to come. Call for songs of loudest praise.

Pena pena penissima...

just
unbelievable.

all that yellow and green .
all those weeks of preparation .

did you watch? it was painful.

A conversation with Vinicius.

"They woke us up there in the square and gave us three options.
They said we could have an arm cut off, go to jail, or be beaten.
I had to work later, so I said they should beat me."

He's barefoot, limping, and bruised. He's about 18. Skinny. He lives on the streets, sleeps on the streets. His girlfriend just had a baby. A beautiful baby boy.
"Vinicius, do you guys know which ones are 'good cops' and which are 'bad'?"
"All police are the same to me. One who's good one day can turn bad the next day. And one who's bad might be fine another time. Some of them come in talking. But some of them come in beating... They're all the same to me."

-- ( do a google image search of "dormindo rua" to see what millions and millions of Brazilians see every day. )-

observe-and-absorb.

bought a drawing (not of this particular painting) on Sunday afternoon, by this man, an artist on the streets of Santa Teresa, here in Rio. He had such in-depth, interesting explanations of all his pictures and the symbolism in them... thought you might like to see.
This one is called 'Invasion.'

More gunshots yesterday, in the favela across the street this time, not ours. Pray for mothers and children.

sweeping it under the rug. ... ?

In the neighborhood. (watch the video.)

So, these train tracks are one of the saddest sights of my everyday in Rio. I cross them daily to leave or enter my neighborhood. And as the reporter says in the video, these crack users are children, women, pregnant women, men... all kinds. Yesterday, a tall man lying on the sidewalk just outside the favela entrance, with a big stuffed Pooh bear by his feet... comfort? I see dozens of bodies on sidewalks, every day. I look at their faces to see if they are people I know, kids I have hugged. They usually aren't. There are just so many. ...

The reporter also says that the spread of addiction is moving much faster than the government's efforts to deal with it. Only four shelters for addicts in the city. Users are rounded up, brought in to the police station, and let go again. What's the point?

And,

ladies and gentlemen,

the world is coming to Rio.

2014, World Cup. 2016, summer Olympics. What's to be done?

There are rumors among the street people here in Rio (and I must say, their rumors about the government’s dealings with them have a way of proving true, or close to true)

that a giant prison is being constructed on the nearby island of Ilha Grande, a tremendous ‘shelter’ where all the ‘harvested’ street dwellers and crack addicts will be thrown over the years and months approaching the World Cup and Olympics. All of them together. All of them away from the eyes of the world and the media, on an island accessible only by boat and plane.

Imagine all the ‘crackheads’ without their crack, all the street kids tossed in with the adults, with the dealers, kingpins with petty criminals…if this place is real, it will be a hell on earth for those inside. Who would agree to work at such a place? What kind of help will be offered the inmates? … Please, when you see any features on the upcoming World Cup or Olympics, write to local, national and international newspapers, magazines, and websites, urging them to investigate Rio’s preparations. It doesn't have to be a long, complicated letter. Just ask what's going on. Ask them to do their jobs. Don’t let these things go on under the table.

Don’t let them be done violently and at the last minute. The bodies I see on the sidewalks…these people are lost. And, yes, they are criminals. But they are people. The world's arrival here could be an opportunity for well-planned change. For hope, at least for a few caught in the ditch of crack addiction, wandering the streets. Do whatcha can. Please, write, and

pray.

All you servants of the LORD, who minister by night in the house of the LORD . ...

there are times when
dirty feet
make me weep and weep and
why,

in a 'Marvelous City'
and in a week full of goingscomings goings again,

Why, after a hundred--more--poignant faces touch
my heart and meet my eyes;
Why, with a thousand other stings to feel,

Why is it only feet I see --

hardened, tar-stained, brownandblack ;

cut up and sticking out from skinny legs tucked in
to dirty t-shirt or under lintmade blanket.
?
and why are they walking

in this world
along a path I can't remove them from. ?

your feet are haunting me.
I'm awake, I'm asleep, they are before mind's eye, before
my eyes.

I can't stop crying for your feet.

****************************************************************************

Há vezes quando
pés sujos
são suficientes pra me fazer chorar, chorar e
por que, numa Cidade Maravilhosa,
e numa semana cheia de idavoltaidavolta ida de novo,
Por que depois de ver cem -- mais -- rostos tão inesqueciveis
que tocou meu coração,
por que com milhões de outros arguilhões pra sentir...
Por que só vejo pés,

pés duros, manchado de pinche, marrom-e-preto...
machucado,
e ligado as pernas magrinhas,
pernas apertadamente escondidas numa camisa suja
ou em baixo de uma corbetura cinza. ?
Por que estão andando neste mundo

pelo um caminho do que não posso os tirar .

?

Seus pés estão me assombrando.
Estou acordada, estou dormindo, eles estão diantes
dos olhos meus.
Não consigo parar de chorar
para teus pés.

Perspetivo Trans-Cultural.

The vision-clearing benefits of ignorance.

Undistracted by the many mixing colors of accent, dress, contextual clues,
All focus pointed, piercing, in

to Heart.

The work of simply understanding
Crowds out other clues and colors,

till all that’s there is Soul-- a soul,

Regenerate

Or not.

In step with its dear maker

Or apart.

And that is all you see.
And you know not where you stand in this strange world, How you, the alien, look through those dark eyes,
But you do know what you’re there to do. And you know what is still true,
And so that’s what you say. And so that’s what you do. And watch Him work,
That’s all.

You miss your language. Miss the colors. Nuanced. Funny. Intricate filigree weavings and pretty details.

But you know you’ll also miss the blunt, bright colors that your simple-d eyes see here.

And you pray to keep the tautness , the intentness, the constancy of focus, simple story : Lord and creatures, lost and found. You’re ready to tell it, to all who’ll hear. To all who’ll hear.

Get ready, urban hipster. Get ready, vagabond or doctor. It does not matter how you speak, or dress, or look at me. It does not matter where we are. I know, by the grace grace grace of God, Whom you need , Who’s seeking you.

And will fulfill my Father’s wish to speak that out to you, in love and truth.

where to stay. This... is very important.

To be at rest in thankfulness, and nothing else. Thankfulness for my salvation, resting in my utter inability to pay, my utter poverty, and His utter grace and utter love.
Does it sound simple?

It seems that I am wired to worry, analyze and reconsider. I don’t think that’s what I’m doing, but it is. This constant haze, mist, of ‘what, then, am I to do?’ hangs, drips, inside my head. To see the mist dispersed and sit instead inside the pool of ‘It is finished. He has done it.’ … takes surrender. Means surrender. Takes stopping my planning – for ministry, for relationships, for cooking, for writing, for a moment – even a moment – and, instead, accepting as ALL-sufficient the gift of righteousness
in Christ. I long, oh, Lord, to live in thankfulness instead of in Attempting. Perhaps not attempting to earn pardon or favor, but a constant consciousness of attempting to see you right, to hear you well, to act optimally, and questioning if I have succeeded. If I am, even now, succeeding. How is it…we can know that salvation is free, and then be eaten up by acidic worry that we are not accepting it and living it correctly? Or enough.

There are so many books that, meaning well perhaps, tell us what to do, how to do it better, within our faith. So few about the object of our faith. ! The object, Christ, who is our hope.
So few reveling in the Gospel itself. Each author, speaker, Christian, staring at one tree trunk, intently, nose-to-bark, not seeing the green greatness of the forest in which they dwell secure. We ‘move on’ from the ‘basics’ of what’s been done for us to ‘more advanced’ spiritual food: What WE can do. We sing about how much we love Him but forget to sing what He has done for us, and who He is, then wonder if more guitars would help us feel more.
We are children blindly ignoring the lavish gifts of shelter, food, love and family, sure that our game in the front yard is far more important than the dinner waiting for us inside; we play and play out there, play hard until we’re starving, dead, exhausted. We refuse to go in, and lie in the mud outdoors. Home is ‘basic.’ We’ve seen it once before.

Maybe it is my own toxic, inborn pair of perfectionist’s glasses that causes me to see in so many stories of ‘great saints’ this admonishing finger, waving, pointing, saying ‘and are you? And are you?’ … Words that put faith on a scale of weak-to-strong and walks with Christ on a gradient of ‘right-to-wrong.’

I have been freed by the knowledge that I was chosen in Christ before the foundations of the earth,
so far, far, far apart from anything I did or could ever do, or not do, think or not think. All that so pale next to the great and glittering GLORY of His choosing … choosing even me.
I have been freed by the completeness of His work in Jesus Christ. The beauty of a Gospel no man, no power, can change or take away.
I’ve been so privileged to hear that Gospel preached again and again, to see it loved and dwelt within. Pressed into me by hearing and example.

Lord, help me to stop, to stop and push away the garment of worry and analysis in favor of the garment of righteousness. When that garment, YOURS, is really on me, it’s all-consuming. It leaves no space for thinking
about myself.
Lord, guide me gently, or push me flat-out, into Thankful-ness so I’m immersed in it completely, grinning, drenched, welling up with fullness, secure. Every day. Please. Please.
I can’t do this, get there. With You, nothing is impossible.

“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.”
Psalm 62:5-7

midnight.

Boy in the dirt
One bright light overhead
Your mama~s in the bar a few doors down.
You're digging holes.
You're digging holes.

Nearly midnight, here you are,
You and a friend in a pothole in the road.
Your sister's in your mama's lap, where angry words fly back and forth
Over empty cups.
What are you building?
What are you building?
What are you building that she will never see?

Precious boy, I'll scoop you up...
But you're not mine. You are not mine.
10 steps from my gate...
Lord,
what are you building that I will never see?

soon going.

Surreal, fast-coming,
sudden jump-of-worlds !
...... I do better right now when I try
to be fast-moving, too, to match it.

Up and doing,
not still and thinking.

Oh, God,
no way for me to make this good;
but You, You, God, do wonders.
!

A rousing illustration, for a rainy day.

Obeying, suffering, and rising as the Representative, the Surety, the Head of His Church, may we not say, that what He did was not so much His own act, as that of the Church in Him?
He obeyed not for Himself, nor for Himself did He die and rise again, but for His "body, the Church." His resurrection, therefore, was as much His Church's entire release, discharge, and justification, as it was His own.
Then was the glorious sentence of acquittal passed, then transpired the great act of justification. The emerging of the Redeemer from the grave was the emerging of the redeemed from all condemnation. His release from the cold grasp of the destroyer was their release from the iron hand of the law. "He was taken from prison and from judgment," and as He passed out of the court of God's justice, and from the prison-house of death, the Church, purchased with His blood, passed out with Him, legally and fully discharged, exclaiming, as the last barrier yielded and the last fetter broke, "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ who died; yes, rather, who has risen again!" Precious Redeemer! what surpassing glory beams forth from your emptied sepulcher!

from Octavius Winslow's Morning Thoughts . Can you see yourself
running out of the courtroom,
away from the prison?

Can you see all of us, the Church, together?

It's finished. It's finished! May this bring you hope today
whatever dark and trying circumstance might otherwise stake claim on your vision and priority.

dear one,
No matter what you fear,
Christ's work is true.

grace yet unseen, but so certainly there.

[ from Octavius Winslow, Morning Thoughts] :

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Matthew 6:34.

It is a matter of much practical importance, that you take heed not to anticipate or to forestall the promised grace. For every possible circumstance in which you may be placed, the fullness of Christ and the supplies of the covenant are provided. That provision is only meted out as the occasions for whose history it was provided occur. Beware of creating trouble by ante-dating it. Seen through the mist, the advancing object may appear gigantic in size, and terrific in appearance; and yet the trouble you so much dread may never come; or coming, it will assuredly bring with it the "word spoken in due season." In the case of every child of God, calamity never comes alone; it invariably brings Jesus with it.

**********************************************************
He will be more than enough. He always is.

He already knows just how He will be enough in the days to come.

My future housemate, my Jacqueline , has a really wonderful, thought-provoking post up on her blog. Use Google translator, if need be, to read it, even though its translation won't capture the depths of wisdom to which God's led Jac. :)

She writes about the people cited by God as sources of joy to Him, people He holds up as examples in the Word -- Daniel, Job, Noah, David, Abraham, Mary... these Biblical saints all endured times of such suffering. And she contrasts this to the televised 'saints' of today, with all their 'health and wealth.' Their goal is to attract millions of peoples' eyes. The Biblically God-pleasing goal is to seek only His approval. This will look very different from what impresses the world.
God humbled Himself, took on shame, became low, on a cross -- because of this, we don't have to be an eternal source of shame and sadness to Him. He can even be pleased with us! And the path to pleasing Him is the path of faith in Him, and in what He's done.

That faith is so often perfected and made real in lives through suffering.

How rich God has made my life in relationships. Jac, you are evidence to me of His future grace. May we walk the path of Biblical saint-hood, not the world's version.

Amen.

happy new year !

it happened that I spent some of the last hours
of 2009
reflecting on a book by Henri Nouwen.

I was asked to read it and write reflections,
and it's been suggested that I post those reflections, make them findable as part of the Henri Nouwen discussion at large. . . so here it is, my response to Can You Drink the Cup? I'm posting this critique, too, as a statement of hope and of intent : that this year, God's people stand up firmly in the Gospel, in the hope of Christ alone.
A new year, an eternal message; a message that we continue to dwell in and press to make heard: our call is to be the aroma of Christ, to the perishing and to the chosen.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

I've long been blessed and enriched by many of Henri Nouwen's insights about living with disability and vulnerability, and about life in real community. I was blessed by these again in Can You Drink the Cup?, but I find myself troubled by how much Nouwen emphasizes self-knowledge, self-acceptance and acceptance of joy and sorrow without emphasizing the glorious joy to be found in the work that Christ alone has accomplished for us. Some of what Nouwen says in this work is right and helpful, but without the foundational truth we possess as Christians bought and covered by Christ's blood, his words are lacking in the substance and power found only in the Gospel. I realize now that I've often read Nouwen assuming that he shares in holding to that truth. This time, I stood back and realized that the path Nouwen promotes is lacking some very critical emphases of the Way which Christ and the Bible espouse.

The context in which “the cup” appears in Scripture (Matthew 20) concludes that the Son of Man came not to be served by us – not just that we might copy Him by drinking the cup – but to serve! Only Christ had to drink of the cup of dereliction, of God-forsakenness, the cup of the wrath of God. The cup spoken of is the cup of servanthood and of costly suffering, not a general image of “the mixed joys and sorrows of life,” as Nouwen has portrayed it. Nouwen does affirm that the cup includes suffering, but overall, he puts far too much emphasis on us, on our work, going inward to find God there, and far too little on the work that Christ has done! "Holding, lifting, and drinking” the cup have far more to do, Scripturally, with what Christ has done than with what we should do – and while we should certainly seek to follow our Lord and Master, I believe we will do it rightly if we are looking at Him and living in dramatic gratitude for HIS drinking the cup.

"We can choose to drink the cup of our life with the deep conviction that by drinking it we will find our true freedom. Thus, we will discover that the cup of sorrow and joy we are drinking is the cup of salvation” (90), says Nouwen. This is a dangerously incorrect statement. Drinking “the cup of our life” is not drinking “the cup of salvation.” If “living my life to the full” and accepting joy and sorrow mingled in my life are the way to salvation, then there is no real need for Christ at all. This is not the Biblical message. “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified...My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power” (1 Corinthians 2:2,4,5).

I still really appreciate Nouwen's words about weakness and the deep value of people with severe disabilities. I love the stories he shares about friends with what the world deems 'handicaps'-- the way that bravery, vulnerability, silliness, love can transform life, can show Christ, can teach and bless every one of us. I love Nouwen's appreciation for what he has learned from the work of caregiving, the intimacy of spending day in and day out caring for another person's needs, and finding that one's own needs are somehow met in the process of loving. I believe we can learn much about Christ and the heart of God through these labors, through these experiences of love and relationship.

I also am taught and edified by Nouwen's reflections on intimacy and vulnerability: “Nothing is sweet or easy about community. Community is a fellowship of people who do not hide their joys and sorrows but make them visible to each other in a gesture of hope” (63). I agree wholeheartedly with this as a statement about the Body of Christ, the Church, and agree that it's Christlike and Christ-reflective to be vulnerable and honest with one another, to see one another's flaws and struggles, to share in them in Christ. I just wish Nouwen would refer to Scripture and to the Head of the Body more in his advocacy of vulnerability and community; without the saving work of Christ and His powerful life in us now, we may be very open and sharing, but we will be just a bunch of vulnerable, hope-less people, sharing our way straight into the grave.

I'm thankful for Nouwen's affirmation that the long walk of saying yes to following Christ will often feel hard, feel sorrowful. This book affirms that there is something more important than 'easy' and 'hard,' that there is mixture in “the cup.” I'm thankful, too, for the encouragement that the apparent prestige or lowliness of a given person are no indicators whatsoever of whether that person is being obedient, here and now, to the voice of Christ in her life.

I'm glad Nouwen wrote of his experience embracing the joy and the suffering of life; I am taught by his encouragement to seek the joy amidst the sorrow, and to hope for the day when we will taste the joy in full. I wish for Nouwen and his readers the joy that comes from looking at the finished work of Christ on the cross, and the glory of the resurrected Life that alone brings us life. Without this, we have no hope at the end of our own 'cup.' I don't believe it is for us to say “It is finished,” as Nouwen suggests (p.110), at the end of our lives; Christ has said it, and He meant it, once for all—it is His to say, not mine. I get to live my small part, my life, within the joy of that—that finished work.

Because He drank the cup, I can ask Him for the grace and strength to drink my own...but His is the one that ultimately matters. I would rather focus, as I believe Christ intended, not on whether I can drink 'the cup of life,' but on the glorious truth that He drank the cup (hallelujah! !) that I might be reconciled to God. This is my joy amidst all life's suffering.

Happy new year!

A., you're missed, you're missed!

here's to a sweet two weeks for you in the Bronx...

Merry Christmas, one and all!

gutsy guilt.

To the fallen saint, who knows the darkness is self-inflicted and feels the futility of looking for hope from a frowning Judge, the Bible gives a shocking example of gutsy guilt. It pictures God’s failed prophet beneath a righteous frown, bearing his chastisement with broken-hearted boldness. "Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light" (Micah 7:8-9).

This is courageous contrition. Gutsy guilt. The saint has fallen. The darkness of God’s indignation is on him. He does not blow it off, but waits. And he throws in the face of his accuser the confidence that his indignant Judge will plead his cause and execute justice for (not against) him. This is the application of justification to the fallen saint. Broken-hearted, gutsy guilt.

(john piper. here.)

The Bills We Post.

James Thurber, in 'Let Your Mind Alone' :
"I remember that, as a boy of eight, I thought 'Post No Bills' meant that the walls on which it appeared belonged to one Post No Bill, a man of the same heroic proportions as Buffalo Bill. Some suspicious-minded investigator cleared this up for me, and a part of the glamour of life was gone."

*******************************************
The other day, I was Christmas-cleaning -- a good and healthy thing for one to do, scrubbing things all day, aerating dingy corners and swiping layers of yuck off baseboard after baseboard. A song came on, one from a little animated film, a song that once swept me up in childish transport, and I suddenly realized that now, by a series of quite delightful events and encounters, it happens that I actually know the person behind one of the voices in that song. She is very famous, as a voice, and it's an honor to know her, and she is most marvelous... and, funnily enough, I know her.

My worlds of higher-than-me myth and daily meetings have intertwined. The untouchable world of movies and music and swirling story that shaped my imaginings as a child... now I actually know people from it.

Starstruckness is long-dispelled from a mind that's been called to more important things and harsh realities; still, still it curled a brainstring and made me laugh in incredulity to think 'I know that voice! I know that woman.'

When do we make this transition? When do we have to step out of the role of rider-of-winged-Pegasus ( , soaring in the realms of sweep-you-up mythology, ) and into the realm of practical adulthood? Some people never do. Never start thinking critically about what comes out, about what they see: some stay immersed in roleplaying universes for decades, bleary-eyed dwarves occasionally forced to emerge into the bright lights of grocery stores and bookshops, returning as soon as possible to wield invisible swords in dark caverns of computerlight. Some of us wanted very much to become critical thinkers, s t r a i n e d our brains again and again to try to be un-enchanted, when we were children. I remember trying. Trying to understand "People made this!" Watching behind-the-scenes bits and being almost hurt to see how inorganic 'creative' atmospheres could really be. How very unlike the familial story-birthings I thought they were.

I wanted to be free from the spells movie magazines would seek to cast, wanted to be able to look at the truth of things. I'd practice. I'd try to make myself awake. And one bright day, I guess, it must have worked. I don't think it was by my own doing. But I find that I now realize that I will never live in the world of 'White Christmas,' though as I child I took the film somehow as an intimation of things to come--the world ahead, the United States, adulthood, something. ...

Not all I've met had to make this trip. It seems that some always saw stories, films and music as trinkets, as side-items. Take-'em-or-leave-'em. But for those of us with imaginations tuned to some particular height of frequency, it's a jolt we have to trip through.

I've been thinking about this off and on lately, just in sudden clips of nostalgia, wonderment -- I watched 'Finian's Rainbow' with a dear friend who'd never seen it before; I didn't envy her being an adult when she got to see it for the first time. If I'd waited till adulthood, the ochres of those hillsides would not be an indelible part of my mind's eye, my heart's palette.

And I wondered, when does it end, the viewing of things with such intensity? You remember every line of the illustrations in that book you had as a child. The particular blue of that elephant, the richness of the fruit on that painted table. You can recall, if you try for just a moment, every expression on the villains' faces in that old movie, or every look of warmth between Big Bird and the little Chinese girl in that television special. (so dear!)

We wander, as children, unwittingly, under the illusion that something in the world -- not everything, but something -- is as it should be. That someone is in charge of all the decisions. It is the misted perspective that says that people, Some People, know exactly what they're doing, that there are some sort of all-wise, brilliant Shapers, unfallen adults, somewhere in the world ... Even storefront signs, I was thinking the other day... we look at them as children and think, 'that store is supposed to be there. This is the way the world is. Someone wiser than I decided that.' Someone wiser than I.
Now, granted, there are so many wiser than I (especially in the area of setting up stores). But the strange, unspoken certainty of a child that everyone was doing things The Best Possible Way, doing them in the way that I was supposed to learn... is well-dispelled.

How does this happen in other cultures ? It would be interesting to know which realms of life make appearances in this transition from fullbodied trust to hopeful skepticism. Is it an innocent trust in how your village is ordered? Or in your father's stories?
It's a little scary to realize you're part of the adults now, to realize that there's no stable How-it's-Supposed-to-be, but only an invitation to come participate in forming what Is.

(Ah, but we who know the One who created things as they were supposed to be, who made things good, who made good things....

we know that there is a How-it's-Supposed-to-be. Here in this world, it may not show up everywhere yet; it may not be all around us, in every facet of life's aesthetics and organization. But we can go to the Book and see, see and hear, so much about the How-it's-Supposed-to-be.

And we, we're being made how we're supposed to be, every day a little more. )

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. --2Corinthians4:17-18.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. --Romans12:2.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. The myths that helped shape my dictionary definitions of beautiful, exciting, love, adventure, fearful... these old garments served a purpose, for a time. As they've been put aside, as they've grown shabby, threadbare, right before my eyes, the Story of all Stories has welled up big and loud all inside me. By the grace of its Author, who wrote Himself on my heart!

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." What! the whole of it vanity? O favoured monarch, is there nothing in all thy wealth? Nothing in that wide dominion reaching from the river even to the sea? Nothing in Palmyra's glorious palaces? Nothing in the house of the forest of Lebanon? In all thy music and dancing, and wine and luxury, is there nothing? 'Nothing,' he says, 'but weariness of spirit.' ... if you roam the world around, you will see no sights like a sight of the Saviour's face." (Charles Spurgeon. dec. 2's evening.)

No, the pattern for perfect is not to be found in the fabric this world generates. The real stars, the real authorities, the real to-be-trusted are all in Christ. All the shimmering hints of glory in the myths are not to be compared with the golden, glorious Lamb at the center of the throne.

Never again will they thirst
who come make their home in him. !



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Just found and am looking forward to reading: The Christian Imagination


Interested in (books): The Power of Words and the Wonder of God ; The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth; The Children's Culture Reader; Children's Films: History, Ideology, Pedagogy, Theory ; Media and the Make-Believe Worlds of Children; The Gutenberg Elegies ...

But probably won't get to them all, not yet, or to all the ruminations on 'media ecology' (happy gift of a term to twine some things together... ) I'd like to undertake. So enough to say, for now,

take very seriously the responsibility you have to any child you meet; they are in the midst of a delicate process; they are soft clay, developing film, canvases-in-progress.... pray for the children. The media are vanity by their own power. The True message is anything but, and what joy to redeem the media a bit by melding them with most perfect message, as wisely as we're enabled to do.

read it.

insanity and spiritual songs.

shout-out to E.

Looking back with dear roommate E., we compiled a list of 'gifts from New York' over the past year... not all of them done together, and I'm sure we forgot some things but:

Danielson Family, Cryptacize, Dan Zimmerman -- our first outing together, and it was a doozy.
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot (Henry V)
Gypsy
The 39 Steps
Irena's Vow
Mary Poppins
The Phantom of the Opera
Wicked
The Wizard of Oz
The Marriage of Figaro (opera)
Romeo & Juliet (ballet)
voice lessons with Someone Famous.
African film festival
The Earth Room
Sara Groves (twice!)
MOMA (we loved it. Free Friday nights.)
walking the Brooklyn Bridge and the GW Bridge
The Met, many times.
The New York Symphony Orchestra (no, not the Phil.)
Brazilian Day!! (with Lili!)
Museum of the Moving Image
Museum of Folk Art
The Big Apple Circus, at Lincoln Center
Jake Armerding
'It Might Get Loud' -- the movie.
Empire State Building
Statue of Liberty
Ellis Island
'little' things--puppets, jazz, breakdancing, in the subway or at the park. And just wandering neighborhoods together.
High Line Park
Carnegie Hall's high school choir-fest (Jessye Norman spoke!)

we probably forgot a few things. "Dirt Cheap in NYC" books gave us plenty to try for.

But the greatest gifts I got in New York City
were the Eagle's Nest I landed in,
and the Household of Faith that turned into home.
And, E., you.
I am so happy for you in what's ahead.
For you, the first video ever embedded in this blog. Ready? Here we go :

notes from the wood between the worlds. 1.

I've thought much about my tendency to want to see something TRIUMPHED over. Something utterly completed, all won.It's not all bad, this tendency. It's a seed of hope for the ultimate triumph, I think,
which is Christ's -- which will indeed come!! Until then,
We will not eliminate injustice in this world. It won't be done.
But we can interrupt its patterns.
We can participate in interrupting patterns of injustice,
speaking the Gospel all the while--the news that our only real and LASTING hope is reconciliation with God through Christ.
And we've food to feast on, every day, as we walk. The most delicious.


" The ordinances of the LORD are sure
and altogether righteous.
They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the comb."


Last night, I saw a change in eyes that look mostly asleep,
even when they're open.
I saw them snap awake as my grandfather sang Spanish songs he learned
long before I did. I saw him sing out the memories that have lasted,
the ones that were strong enough, important enough.
When people get old, and have less control over what they can show,
I think (sometimes, anyway) you get to see what's really fed them and sustained them.
The deep bass notes of the melody of their lives.

I'm so proud of my grandpa. His bass (and base-) line is prayer. His bass line is Scripture, is speaking the solid hope of Christ,
and his bass line is music that sings that hope into a world-weary spirit. I pray these are the things I'll sing out, too, when everything else I can do and say and be busy about fades away...
and long before.

"No hay Dios tan grande como Tu,
No lo hay, no lo hay..."
"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word...
The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake."

revelators.

"The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems." (A.W. Tozer)... Never doubt that the Gospel proudly preached will prove 'relevant' to the problems of those you preach to.
What we believe about God affects the gait with which we walk, the expression on our face, the rhythm of our every moment, and every moment makes up every day.
I know my gait is not yet fully in step, in rhythm, with the Gospel. With the truth about how God sees me and what He has done for me. Adopted! Chosen before the foundations of the world! I do not embrace all the freedom that is mine. Do you find that as you get older, you do not seem to find your magic niche, as you thought might happen, but rather you see more and more your weakness and limitation?

I was thinking recently about how we are revelators. We are people who reveal. Reveal our God through the cracks in our vessel-ness. Reveal the Kingdom of God here on earth. We do not build it, or make it, or spread it. God does. We reveal it. It's coming. And it's here.

The Olympics are coming to Rio! (RiOlympics?)
Please pray that this will be a vehicle of blessing for the poor. Please pray that this will be a chance to give a voice to the poor. How wonderful it would be to be able to reveal a bit of the Kingdom to the watching world, by the grace of God. Pray for the street people who fear the police. Pray for the police who think 'cleaning up' means pushing around. Pray for administrators on every level, that they would use their power wisely. Pray for favela-dwellers and leaders and their relationships with both druglords and the government. Pray against corruption. Pray for Word Made Flesh in Rio, that we would read the times wisely and take opportunities to step in to glorify our God. I'll live in this city. But I don't understand it yet. Pray for inspiration, and a way I cannot see. God is mighty. God is Sovereign. May His people pray!!

Poverty, the Cantalamessa book-- I did end up having some issues with it, a few points on which I'd diverge from the author's theology and interpretation of Scripture. But. One thing I liked: the way he tied together material poverty and spiritual humility, as they're presented in the Bible: "two contrasting categories of people...on the one hand, the rich-powerful-satiated-wise, on the other, the poor-humble-hungry-small." Material wealth is often used as a symbol of self-satisfaction, putting your faith in temporary things. Poverty is often used as a symbol for humility. This doesn't mean every rich person is really lost, or that every poor person is humble. By any means. But there is a mysterious way in which these things very often weave together on this earth,
and our God is a beautiful writer.
He knows how to evoke truth with imagery, and how to weave stories together to reveal truths deeper than any simple maxim could express. (Though He includes nice simple maxims once in awhile too... )
Scripture is unplombable -- there's always going to be more to see in there!

Sometimes people -- like Israel -- are brought to humble contrition and dependence by being brought physically, materially low. Made poor.
Material poverty can be a powerful gateway to a deep understanding that we are indeed completely dependent. We are debtors indeed. Saved by grace alone, and created to show the glory of His grace.
May all we who are poor, however we are poor, come to seek refuge in the name of the Lord. Salvation belongs to our God, and unto the Lamb.

I've been noticing ways that spiritual and material are very tightly interwoven lately.
Like the miracle of feeding the 5,000, and the declaration "I am the bread of life... I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you." He who gives physical bread and physical life is also the only Source of unending Life. Life and life -- spiritual and physical, capital and lowercase -- they're not as separable as we think, in the end.
Like the new heavens and the new earth.

Reveal the character of God today -- only He can do this in You. You're not building the character, you're not inventing the character. But if He is in you, as people peel back layers, He is what they will see. May this be true of our persons, our work, our homes and our friendships.
The supernatural is penetrating the 'natural' every day; the spiritual is touching and transforming the physical; submit the material to the Lord of All. Watch Him work.