Even though it seems idyllic at times, most of the time, it’s not easy to rearrange your life in a new place. “Nesting” might be an apt word to describe what I have been attempting to do. I remember many years ago and many times since, when I wrote those lists of what I wanted in my life, a “welcoming home” was always included.

I’m not very good at entertaining, the kind where you actually invite people over ahead of time. I like for people just to stop by. Mitch continually reminds me that people don’t do that anymore. But I have hope in the new house that both will happen without concern about what we eat, where we sit, or even what is said.

Many say they will come visit here and so I’m attempting to build a nest that will be comfortable and welcoming. The guest room has new bedding and towels, an attached bathroom and I can get from my own bedroom to the kitchen without passing by the guest room. All those things seem to say welcome and comfortable.

The notion of “welcome” is not just for guests and extends to Mitch and me too, I hope. I’m old enough to stop saying I’m going to have an instant hot water pot…someday. I have one now. We sat on our covered front porch tonight and watched the rain—another someday event realized.

We’ve met more neighbors in the few weeks we’ve been here than our last two house living experiences combined. Blackberry cake, lemon pound cake, and cold drinks complete with glasses and ice cubes have shown up at our door. There is a man who has taken our trashcan to the street and returned it to the garage every week since our arrival.

Welcoming.

And basically, I just had to show up.

The odd thing is that just this morning I was wondering about God’s presence in this new house. I feel like I’ve been so focused on things that don’t really matter– new things for every room, arranging and rearranging, pondering colors and shapes of the welcome– rather than in nurturing that relationship.

And just as I was typing the neighbor news paragraph I realize again, I have been so fixed on striving to create a welcome to come in time, that I have missed the welcome I’ve encountered.

In Longing for Home, Frederick Buechner writes about the disciples encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24.

I believe that although the two disciples did not recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus, Jesus recognized them, that he saw them as if they were the only two people in the world. And I believe that the reason why the resurrection is more than just an extraordinary event which took place some two thousand years ago and then was over and done with is that, even as I speak these words and you listen to them, he also sees each of us like that. In this dark world where you and I see so little because of our unrecognizing eyes, he, whose eye is on the sparrow, sees each one of us… I believe that whether we recognize him or not, or believe in him or not, or even know his name, again and again he comes and walks a little way with us along whatever road we’re following. And I believe that through something that happens to us, or something we see, or somebody we know—who can ever guess how or when or where? – he offers us, the way he did at Emmaus, the bread of life, offers us a new hope, a new vision of light that not even the dark world can overcome.

 

Even though my gaze has been averted by material distractions in search of real welcome, God’s presence has come and walked a little way on this road —in sweet morsels of cake and care—the bread of life.  No special dishes required.

We had a storm; big winds, hard rain and lots of falling twigs and leaves from the two big trees in my front yard. Yardwork isn’t something I enjoy, especially in the heat. However, the yard was a mess. For several hours I persevered; collecting fallen branches, leaves and twigs that were hidden in the patchy grass. I wanted to stop; I hated this work. I kept bending, gathering and piling the debris.

Even though we’re new to the neighborhood, as I began working, I recognized a stranger knocking on the door of the house across the street. An elderly lady lives there and he was persistent, even opening the storm door and pounding on the wooden door again and again. I considered she was home but she didn’t answer the door.

I found myself attentive to the situation. I wondered. Was she okay? Did she know him? He wasn’t someone who lived in the immediate neighborhood, he looked different than the white middle class folk on this part of the street.

Just a few days prior, the lady next door informed me there had been several break in’s in the area during the past year. She reported that even the mailman commented that there were a lot of strange people walking around. Another reason I thought I needed to be watchful—looking out for my neighbors and myself. The context of suspicion, fear, and assumptions about people that are different than me does matter here— just like the two that passed by in the bible story.

As I continued to work, the man greeted me from across the street as he started to leave the house. “Do you have any work?” He casually asked me as he made his way across the street.

“Sorry, I don’t have any,” I replied, conscious of his movement without making purposeful eye contact as I continued to pick up sticks.

He made his way on down the street in the opposite direction. I felt some guilt that I was obviously doing work that needed to be done. I didn’t know him; his motives, his reputation, his work ethic or skill. I didn’t have any cash to pay him with anyway.

That was Saturday. I had conflicting feelings. I felt right in looking out for my elderly neighbor even though all I did was watch. I felt guilty for saying I had no work, when obviously I was working. I felt suspicious of what I didn’t know: who are strangers and who are neighbors in my new town?

On Sunday, the man’s face became one of the characters in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, the lectionary passage for the day. Not because he was in distress and I was passing by or even because he needed work and I didn’t offer to meet that need.

Joe, the rector where I visited on Sunday, said maybe Jesus described the man in need as naked because it took away many identifiers. Was he rich or poor? Educated or illiterate? From close by or far away? He was another human being in his nakedness.

In my suspicion, based on what I feared and didn’t know, I failed to encounter another human being. It really didn’t matter if I had work or not or the cash to pay him. It didn’t matter if I didn’t know his name or intention or background. Meeting him eye-to-eye, standing up and shaking his hand, sharing names would have engaged him as my neighbor.

Joe said something else that was new to me related to the Good Samaritan story. He said we might consider “neighbor” and “neighborhood” as more contemporary metaphors for the kingdom of God.  That kingdom is among us, when we engage people instead of fears and assumptions.

I helped my daughter move, my uncle died and now I’m back to my regular life, back in real time—that doesn’t stand still like when you are focused on a different kind of time and place. In between those life events just experienced, I realize that unlike my daughter and her husband who are just beginning their life together, most of my life is behind me. Yet I find myself pondering furniture purchases, cautiously contemplating knowing neighbors and wondering how our lives will unfold in this new place we live.

It seems like I would be more settled in at this stage of my life. So reading Luke’s gospel’s words caused me to consider the thickness of my self—and seemingly selfish—considerations.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens; they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse not barn, and yet God feeds them… And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? Luke 12:22-25

 Consider the ravens and the lilies… the bottom line for me is do not keep striving or worrying – it doesn’t add to my life—it takes away.

At all the ages and stages I’ve been through, the same admonition—Do not be afraid… where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

 That is what is deeper than any measure of time I’ve lived or stage of life I’m living into—fear – of what is next or how I’m doing or what is missing.

I continue to struggle to know that truth. Figuring out what I think I need in this house is consuming. The delicate balance between comfort and aesthetics is a challenge I kind of want to bridge. I opted to take down the custom made pink drapes in the living and dining rooms that were functional (and even elegant in their day) for bare windows for now. The ivory drapes I ordered will also be functional and look good (I hope). The trouble is these decisions aren’t simply made for my over-thinking self. They involve pondering, considering, striving, and even worrying. Now, getting new drapes isn’t a transgression in itself but the amount of personal investment I use to make this decision might be. Even though these are decisions to be made; as Jesus reminded folks before the “don’t worry” part, one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions, or even the color of those already hanging in the room.

So, in the midst of my dilemmas over curtains and paint and furniture, the actual Buechner’s words for today, July 8, in Listening to Your Life, were these…

I SHALL NOT WANT, the psalm says. Is that true? There are lots of things we go on wanting, go on lacking, whether we believe in God or not. They are not just material things like a new roof or a better paying job, but things like good health, things like happiness for our children, things like being understood and appreciated, like relief from pain, like some measure of inner peace not just for ourselves but for the people we love and for whom we pray. Believers and unbelievers alike we go on wanting plenty our whole lives through. We long for what never seems to come. We pray for what never seems to be clearly given. But when the psalm says, “I shall not want,” maybe it is speaking the utter truth anyhow. Maybe it means that if we keep our eyes open, if we keep our hearts and lives open, we will at least never be in want of the one thing we want more than anything else. Maybe it means that whatever else is withheld, the shepherd never withholds himself, and he is what we want more than anything else.

Watching and listening to the lightening, thunder, and steady rain from my front porch this evening, my focus shifted ever so slightly. What sustains life is not what might be hanging on the window but the vastness of the treasure that is beyond the window. If only I remember to look.

I have been missing from this blog for several weeks. My daughter got married , we moved to Tennessee, the dog had surgery and extended family have been visiting for over two weeks. Mitch is back in Indiana to finish out his job there and the dog and I are making our way in the new place.

In the midst of all of these events, my uncle is dying. He unexpectedly couldn’t come to the wedding and in just a week his energy has waned significantly. Now, with a mass in his liver, his skin is tight and yellowed; movement is barely possible even with his strong sons and a walker to guide his steps. Yet, he sits for hours just to “be” with us, his family and friends, who come to share this precious time.

The realization that today is really all that any of us have seems nearer but not close enough to keep me from lamenting insignificant things. The remote doesn’t work, there are weeds in the flowerbeds and the knotty pine in the den is getting the best of me.

Those aren’t the substance of relationships that were paramount as family gathered at my Uncle’s house last week. We drove all day to spend a few hours with him. My uncle isn’t a religious man. I’ve never heard him speak of God or the church really. Yet the lessons I learned from him are at the core of forgiveness and being present to one another.

Claris is my dad’s youngest brother. For all of my life, I never remember much respectful talk about him. We saw him at family gatherings and as my dad got older he dropped by occasionally after they both had retired. My dad never had any thing good to say about their relationship; if he said anything at all. But that didn’t stop my uncle Claris from checking in; even helping out when needed as my dad unexpectedly suffered a heart attack and at the same time was diagnosed with colon cancer. My uncle took him to the doctor, mowed his three-acre yard and was always available.

Everyday during the last weeks of my father’s life my uncle Claris sat with us, my two sisters and I, daily. He brought us pizza, infamous blue cheese dressing and special salads from our favorite local place. He shared and listened to stories of our own sometimes difficult relationship with our father; never mentioning the ways he had been shunned, belittled and bullied by my dad over the years.

Once or twice we mentioned the strained relationship and asked why he kept coming. “It doesn’t matter” is all he said.

He never talked about forgiving or forgetting. He was present, not avoiding obvious differences, but simply being in this time that mattered.

I see how that is true for many who were at Claris’ house the other day when we visited. All he could do was just sit and listen and watch other people do the yard work that he loved. He reminded me that you do anything you can for others—even when it doesn’t seem logical– you do it anyway, he said. I realized how he had “been there” and kept up with all us all, showing the patient presence that doesn’t keep score or consider why.

It is that paradox of logic and principle. What seems illogical: the brother who never was taken seriously sitting patiently with his perpetrator respectfully and lovingly; driving 2 days to spend one day with my Uncle Claris, in the midst of moving; these are the right thing. As Buechner says,

by all the laws both of logic and arithmetic, to give yourself away in love to another would seem to mean that you end up with less of yourself left than you had to begin with. But the miracle is that just the reverse is true, logic and arithmetic go hang.

 Buechner is talking about marriage here, but it fits the broader context.

To give yourself away in love to somebody else…is to become for the first time yourself fully…But by holding fast to each other in trust, in patience, in hope, and by holding fast also to him who has promised to be present whenever two or three are gathered together as he was present that day in Cana of Galilee. The impossible becomes possible. The water becomes wine. And by grace we become, little by little, human in spite of ourselves, become whole, become truly loving and lovely at last.

My daughter wants me to come help her move and cat sit for a few days before that. What do you have to do there (where I just moved) anyway, she asks. And I think of the weeds and the knotty pine and the disarray of moving that surrounds me.  I have a new office to set up and meetings upcoming in July. It’s logical not to spend too much time helping her; I just moved too and she lives a few states away.   Claris would say to go, to be the patient presence that doesn’t keep score or consider why. It’s not logical but right.

 

“I had always found comfort in the leaves, in their silence. They were like a parchment that holds words of wisdom. Simply holding them in my hand gave me some of the peace a tree possesses. To be like that-to just be-that’s the most noble thing of all.”

― Silas House, A Parchment of Leaves

And to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge…  

 For the past month or so, I’ve been reading Ephesians 3: 14-21 as a prayer for my daughter who is getting married in two weeks. The plan was to support her and actually to keep my mind on what matters instead of all the little things that I am concerned about that don’t matter. And as usually happens, it has turned into a prayer for all of us, her dad, her brother, her soon to be husband, and me.

For several days, the words about knowing God’s love that surpasses knowledge have seemed really important. I’m struggling with knowing how all the things going on in my life right now are going to turn out.

Henri Nouwen’s idea to change the question is worth pondering.

For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life – pray always, work for others, read the scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be know by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home. In all three parables which Jesus tells in response to the question of why he eats with sinners, he puts the emphasis on God’s initiative. God is the shepherd who goes looking for his lost sheep. God is the woman who lights a lamp, sweeps out the house, and searches everywhere for her lost coin until she has found it. God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home…

I am beginning now to see how radically the character of my spiritual journey will change when I no longer think of God as hiding out and making it as difficult as possible for me to find him, but, instead, as the one who is looking for me while I am doing the hiding. When I look through God’s eyes at my lost self and discover God’s joy at my coming home, then my life may become less anguished and more trusting.         Return of the Prodigal Son (pp. 106-107).

I’m here, in this moment. God is here. I wonder what will happen next.

A way to meet God?

That is what really happens —a moment by moment unfolding of our lives that really isn’t dependent or even remotely related to fretting and striving and knowing.

Letting myself be loved by God in the unknowing.

I’m still thinking about fidelity. And the questions about our lives will always be questions for me—not certainties.  When I consider God’s presence with me, it is wavy, if that can be a descriptor, rather than straight to the point. However, part of that tenuousness is the result of my own wavering and being distracted by wishes and what-ifs. Whenever I think about good things that happen or could happen, I want to think God is part of that; but what about what didn’t happen, for me or someone else? It’s a tricky business, trying to pin someone down to be in control.

Walter Brueggemann,old testament scholar, whom I ‘ve been listening to lately, says,

We all have a hunger for certitude. The problem is the Gospel is not about certitude, it’s about fidelity. So, what we all want to do, if we can, is immediately transpose fidelity into certitude, because fidelity is a relational category, and certitude is a flat mechanical category.

Not certitudes but relationship and mystery.

A few weeks ago we made an offer on a house. It was a house we’d looked at before on a previous house-hunting trip and many times online. Since we live more than 400 miles away from the location right now, I imagined what life would be life in several houses simply from looking at pictures on my computer. From one, I imagined walking just a couple of blocks to work and new friends joining me on the wrap around porch to sit a spell. From another, I imagined the expansive views out the large windows from every room, with the house perched high up on the mountain and expansive spaces for everyone. And then the one we had actually experienced in person; that we eventually decided upon, seemed so right even though it didn’t have a screened in porch or expansive views nor could I walk to work from there.

When we saw all three houses in person, my perceptions changed a bit. I realize (now) that when I was looking at the pictures of the houses online, I imagined what was really not there— the grand conversation on the porches, my family and friends enjoying expansive views and space. The idyllic porches belied the rusty pipes, gold fixtures, and layout that wouldn’t work for our everyday living. The mountain top views distracted me from the grossly outdated bathrooms, 70’s wood paneling, and the winding road that would be treacherous in rain or snow or for walking anywhere.

You have to be there, in that moment, to experience the place more than once to “see” the real house. You have to imagine eating, and cooking, and watching TV, and needing your own space when you are really there and walking around the neighborhood. And even then, there are things you are not sure about; there are things you cannot know about like the sounds you will hear in the morning, which window you will want to look out to see the first light of day, where you will sit when you need to be reflective about that day or get work done.

However the process works (and somehow it does), we made a decision and I wonder how it seems right. And yes, there are fleeting moments when I wonder if it is right.

God works in ways I don’t understand in my life and it is not how I imagine. Or maybe it is someplace inbetween. There is a vague sense of something beyond or even in the midst of my own sensibility, knowledge, and even striking out into the unknown.

This may seem like an unlikely connection, but Buechner’s words about Job and his friends’ assumptions and finding God in the world made me consider how I struggle with where or how God is present.

God is absent also from all Job’s words about God, and from the words of his comforters, because they are words without knowledge that obscure the issue of God by trying to define him as present in ways and places where he is not present, to define him as moral order, as the best answer man can give to the problem of his life. God is not answer man can give, God says. He gives himself…

 So, back to Brueggemann. God is a relationship that sustains and propels us into our lives, not the certainty of a “right” answer. I don’t know how this works or even makes sense—the fidelity of God.

And while these ideas seem paradoxical to me, Brueggemann says,

It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.                                                                ― The Prophetic Imagination

There is a place between the real and the imagined where our lives unfold. And God is there to sit on the porch with me for a spell.

Guide me by your fidelity and teach me your ways...

The idea of God’s fidelity struck me in this excerpt from a prayer I found based on Psalms 25. Faithfulness and fidelity; are they the same thing?  For some reason fidelity seems to be a bit more if that is possible.  God’s fidelity isn’t directed toward me; it casts a wider net.

God’s work and my work and the world’s going on are intertwined; not simply separate duties so to speak.  Even though I am in the midst of the work I do now, new opportunities are beginning to be front and center.  I selected text books for courses I will teach in the fall, put my upcoming position as my workplace on a new project, and am cleaning out files and furniture that no longer will serve us there.

The idea of fidelity reminded me that this move is more than “a job” as always and  a place of possibility for all of us involved.   This place and I found each other and God was in the thick of it.  That’s what God’s fidelity means to me; not that I found a place that is a good fit for me– and this new position certainly is– but also part of God’s fidelity is that I meet the university’s need.  I am the person God sent to them.

Buechner again adds his insight,

We can speak of a man’s choosing his vocation, but perhaps it is at least as accurate to speak of a vocation’s choosing the man, of a call’s being given and a man’s hearing it, or not hearing it.  And maybe that is the place to start: the business of listening and hearing. A man’s life is full of all sorts of voices calling him in all sorts of directons.  Some of them are voices from inside and some of them are voices from outside. The more alive and alert we are, the more clamorous our lives are.  Which do we listen to?  What kind of voice do we listen for?

The dictionary definition of “fidelity” is faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.  God’s fidelity works through all of those: persons, causes, beliefs so that somehow all the myriad of voices and experiences come together. And with a bit of luck and listening, we find that way.

 

 

 

Live in the needs of the day, Buechner writes.

That means today I live in the needs of this day.

I haven’t been taking that to heart, head, or body during the last few days. Moments of fear that I don’t know how everything is going to work in the coming months, scared into the “what if’s,” and sidelined by the realization of what I didn’t think about—those are the needs I’ve been most responsive to; distracted from my everyday routines when I least expect it.

What does it mean today to live in the needs of this day? How do I realistically plan for the changes ahead or do I?  Could paying attention—to what is new, what is challenging, how I am using my gifts, where my water is that includes going to the grocery store, cleaning out clutter that I don’t want to move, grading and  emailing, having lunch with my friend—be what to do?

Yesterday for several hours I was totally immersed in helping a new instructor in a course I’ve taught many times. I had already sent him my recent syllabus and detailed instructions for major assignments. As I responded to his queries in our phone conversation, I realized my propensity for talking too much when asked a simple question. I continued afterward in the written equivalent of “talking too much” to rework what I promised to send him and email a former student for permission to share an example of classwork- more stuff.

Lamenting my perceived mismanagement of my time for this day, I said to my husband, “Why did I spend so much time on that?” The hidden layer of meaning in that question being: there are so many things I haven’t gotten to today and I should have done those.

“Maybe it’s your gift,” he simply said.

It’s so easy to get caught up in things that seemingly don’t really matter or maybe they do matter. How do you know when you are in the midst of the everydayness?

In that span of time when I was engaged with “helping” I wasn’t aware of time being spent nor did I conjure up any fears or what if’s. Actually, I didn’t really think about what I was doing, I was immersed in figuring out how to respond, unconscious of myself, to this person I really don’t even know in this particular situation that happened.

The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God’s things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak—even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. God speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys. 

Don’t be afraid. Maybe that is your gift. Remember and at the same time forget so that you can be fully immersed in the presence of this moment.

 Follow your feet. Put on the coffee. Start the orange juice, the bacon, the toast. Then go wake up your children and your wife. Think about the work of your hands… Live in the needs of the day.

 

 

I have missed some days, but not many, in my Lenten practice of daily centering prayer. It is difficult for me to keep my mind on one word though. Even though my mind wanders quickly, as suggested, I gently remind myself where I am and what I’m trying to do… and it works for focusing me for another minute or so.

Images are powerful for me. Even when I listen to words, it helps me to see the words on the page. So I’ve been trying that out in my centering prayer, not looking at the word, but fixing an image instead of a word in my mind. Imagining God’s hand on my shoulder or a gentle hand in my hand, I can even feel that kind of image and touch.

In the last week the image has been one of keeping my head above water. There is much to consider in my life right now and it seems particularly pressing down on me some days and especially in the middle of some nights. Centering prayer in the middle of the day sets me apart from “real time” into that space that is beyond time as I go about the day.

Metaphors of rivers flowing and streams in the dessert are common in scripture.  I’m reminded of this poem, a Hopi elder prayer, that invites me to consider more.

This is the Hour…

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.  And there are things to be considered . . .

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in right relation?

Where is your water?

Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.

Create your community.

Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for the leader.”

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time!”

There is a river flowing now very fast.  It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.  They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination.  The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.   And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate.  At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, Least of all ourselves.  For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time for the lone wolf is over.  Gather yourselves!  Banish the word struggle from you attitude and your vocabulary.  All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

— attributed to an unnamed Hopi elder , Hopi Nation,  Oraibi, Arizona

I am pushing off from the shore—taking on new challenges in a new place—and right now my head is barely above water. However, the image in this prayer goes beyond that straining to keep myself afloat.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. 

We are not alone and this is holy ground.