Seek boldly.

Journey courageously.

Work diligently.

Sacrifice valiantly.

Suffer willingly.

Persist relentlessly.

Share extravagantly.

Serve compassionately.

Love fearlessly.

Live intentionally.

Give thanks unceasingly.

We are all but pilgrims and strangers upon the earth.

Happy Thanksgiving from the House of Antique

I will share this story with you now so that I might dispel any notion you may have that I am perfect, so that you might feel better about your own short comings. Or maybe I just need to confess.

If there is a single struggle that defines my life (and oh if only it were just ONE) it is the constant inner-battle between wanting and not wanting stuff.  Within the space of two seconds I can swing between feeling sickened and burdened by the sheer volume of my stuff to wanting more of it.

So then, the other day I was at Wal-Mart and I was not in a fine mood.  I was just sort of feeling mad at everything for no particular reason.  My cart was all wobbly and really annoying and that was making me mad.  I didn’t like the way my jacket fit and that made me mad.  People were in my way and that was making me mad.  They didn’t have the two things I specifically went to the store to get and that made me mad.  Like Little Critter, I was just so mad. I probably had those two little squiggly vertical lines above my head that you see in cartoons.

But mostly what was making me mad was that everything just seemed really expensive and that was energizing the Want Team.  The Want Team are a bunch of bullies really. They taunt me and poke their bony fingers into my tender self-esteem.  And they are a pack of liars too.  Meanwhile the Not Want Team was off snoozing somewhere.  Like some sort of bulimic shopper, I put stuff in my cart only to talk myself out of it and take it out two aisles later.   Which then made me feel resentful and sorry for myself, and you guessed it, mad.  (Sorry Wal-Mart employees for the Rubber Maid containers, lemon zester and Christmas placemats you found in with the women’s socks.)

Weary of the battle, I gave up and decided to head towards the checkout with my coffee and few other things and head home. As I headed down the big center aisle toward the front, I looked up from my dark cloud to see a young woman pushing a cart towards me.  In the seat of the cart was a little girl.  An older woman walked alongside her, perhaps her mother.  The woman pushing the cart was radiantly happy.  She was enjoying her little girl and chatting happily with her mother.  She was not taking stuff in and out of her cart like a crazy lady, stuff that would ultimately rot away or be eaten by moths.  She was not mad.  She was not mad at all.  She was a picture of  joy.

As I passed her I tried not to stare at her Prednisone-puffed face or the tell-tale dew rag she wore on her bald head.

I wanted to cry.  Not so much for her, but for me, for my sorry state of being.

I offered up a prayer for her as she passed, a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessing that she was to me, for being the slap in the face that I needed in just that moment.  I prayed that God would look upon her with favor and restore her completely.

I went to the store for groceries, but left with what I really needed — a cleansed perspective.

Chalk one up for the Not Want Team who rallied from behind — thanks to the lady in the dew rag.

Yosemite is one of my favorite places on the entire Earth.  It’s a place where my love for God and geology intersect.  In these exact coordinates in the universe, God and Earth are exposed and revealed in such a way that they are both breathtakingly clear and yet all the more mysterious.  In his book, A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking says that when we understand eternity, then we will see the face of God.  In Yosemite, I come as close to that as anywhere I’ve ever been.

A month or so before AD and I married, we hiked Half Dome, which is that huge “half dome” shaped granite rock you see in the distant background.  When we set off on the hike, I didn’t really know if I could make it because it’s a mostly vertical, 20-mile round trip, give or take.  But I decided that day that I would go as far as I could go and when I could go no more, I would go back.  So I would go as far as I could go and then I would rest.  And then I would get up and go some more. And eventually we made it.  I recall that it took about 12 hours, maybe more. Such is life, one step at a time.

As we walked along that day back in 1998, not fully aware of what was ahead for us, not knowing if we would make it to the top or have to turn back, we imagined that some day we would have a little boy or girl and that we would take them to Yosemite.  There has been a lot of stopping and resting along the way in those past 12 years, but on this trip, that dream came true.

The other day I was on my way to pick up Sean from school when I saw a man bent over on the sidewalk.  That is not something you see around here everyday, so it caught my eye and I slowed to see what was going on. And I couldn’t quite tell.

I couldn’t tell if he was having a heart attack and had dropped to his knees. I couldn’t tell if he had been jogging and was winded.  I couldn’t tell if he had stopped to examine a bug or perhaps he had just stopped to tie his shoes. But something about it sent my antennae up. Something was not quite right.

But I was running late as usual, so I didn’t stop.  After I retrieved my child from school, I circled back to see if he was still there.  He was, so I slowed and rolled down my window.

“You doin’ okay?” I called towards him from a safe distance.

He looked up, surprised.

“Yeah,” he sighed.  Then, “No. Not really.  I’m having a really bad day.”  He sounded tired, not so much in body but in spirit.  A fatigued spirit is the worst kind of tired; no amount of sleep or vitamins can restore a weary soul.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said sympathetically and empathetically. I’ve had a few days in my life where I’ve wanted to collapse in a heap on the sidewalk and cry.

“You wouldn’t have a cigarette, would you?” he asked from the sidewalk.

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t,” I said.

I look in my rear view mirror.  I can see Sean looking at the man through his rolled up window.  He is taking it all in with curiosity as though he is watching a movie waiting to see what will happen in the next scene.

Without any cigarettes, I could see that there wasn’t much beyond sympathy I could offer him, so I promised that I would send up a prayer for him.

Offering to pray for someone is a risky thing, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t do a whole lot of that sort of thing, particularly with strangers, but there was something desperate about the way he was hunched over on the sidewalk that evoked an upwelling in my heart and a desire to do something to relieve his burden in some small way.  He could have told me where to stick my prayers, but he didn’t.

He smiled just a little. I thought I saw a glimmer of hope, a tiny spark.

“Thanks man, thanks for stopping, thanks for checking on me, thanks…” he rambled.

“Hang in there,” I said. It didn’t quite convey the encouragement I wished for him, but it was all I could think to say.

He cut such a sorrowful figure standing there that I couldn’t help but to wonder what it was that had brought him to his knees on a sidewalk in the middle of the day.  I could think of a hundred things, maybe a thousand.

As I pulled away, Sean asked how we were going to pray for him.  “We don’t even know his name,” he pointed out.

“That’s true,” I said. “We don’t know his name and we don’t know what is troubling him, but God does.”

As we drove home, my little boy and I prayed for a man on a sidewalk.  It was all we could do.

Yesterday I was eavesdropping chatting on Twitter and I saw that my friend michaelsownmom was talking about how her little boy waved and shouted a greeting at a woman who was walking down the street, but the woman didn’t respond. And understandably, that bruised his feelings just a little.

I replied to her that my six-year-old does the same thing – if someone is walking down the sidewalk in front or behind the house, he’ll stop what he is doing and holler Hi There! and wave with his hand high in the air, sometimes until they are clear out of sight.  I added that I really have to fight the urge to stifle him, but really, why?

MichaelsDaddy chimed in that he sometimes feels like he needs to protect him from the rejection of those who won’t respond in kind.

I think every parent can relate to that, the overwhelming urge to protect our babies from the hurts and rejections of the world.

If I am to be honest though, I think one reason I want to temper Sean’s enthusiasm in shouting greetings to all who pass is because, for reasons unbeknownst to me, it’s a little embarrassing. We tend to not do that kind of thing much these days and our world is probably a little darker for it.

But like MichaelsDaddy, also known as Tom, I too want to protect my baby from those who won’t acknowledge him or respond in kind.

But the cold reality of life on this planet is that there will always be a steady stream of rejection to be had.  So, from a practical standpoint, why not start practicing now?  Why not get used to rejection from complete strangers so that way when he grows up and is on Twitter and gets notice of 14 unfollowers, it won’t hurt his feelings. As much.

But immeasurably beyond that, to stifle him would be to counter the exact thing I’m trying to teach him – always reach out, always extend kindness to others,  even when it is not acknowledged or returned.

About 14 years ago, I bought a huge, down-filled, ridiculously expensive Henredon sofa. I had it made in this exquisite blood red damask fabric and it was a vision of beauty for all who laid eyes or butts upon it.

Luckily, I bought the sofa before I met AD because he would never authorize that kind of spending.  Not so lucky is that it never occurred to me that once you spend that kind of money on a sofa, you are loath to ever get rid of it. And trust me on this:  There is not a sofa on the planet that you will want to keep your entire life.

Well why not just get it recovered you might ask? And that is a reasonable question. The problem is that I could buy a brand new sofa and maybe even a few other things for what it will cost me to have it recovered.  It will require a substantial outlay of cash and outlaying of cash is just not in our immediate or foreseeable future.

So then, right now I have a formerly glorious red sofa that has turned a sad shade of pink from the sun and suffers a terminal case of thread rot. And if I may be honest, the giant expensive, formerly glorious, now ugly sofa is really getting on my nerves.  Every time I walk through my living room, it pains me to look at it.  It is the Norma Desmond of the sofa world.

Last week, as I was pulling into the neighborhood I saw a Thomasville truck in front of my neighbor’s house and two men were hauling in a houseful of brand new furniture. I slowed to gawk at the spectacle of it all.  And I may have pressed my nose against the car window and drooled just a little.  I coveted. Oh yes I did. I coveted with a vengeance.

With a heart drenched in envy, I continued around the block towards home, driving past the house of a woman whom I only knew in passing. But she doesn’t live there anymore. She lost her battle to cancer about this time last year leaving behind a husband and a ten-year-old boy.

Maybe she left behind a really nice sofa.  Or maybe hers had thread rot too. I don’t know.  But either way, it didn’t matter.  She left it all behind.

* * *

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.   Matthew 6:19~21

In his famous poem Ode to Immortality, Wordsworth wrote that our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.

I’ve always loved that imagery. I love the idea that at one time, in some unknown form, we dwelled with God, that we communed intimately with him, knew every line in his face, the softness of his hands, the sound of his voice, the warmth of his embrace.

And then we were born.

No wonder we come into this world wailing.

As we are awakening to a new world, we are dying to another.  Every minute of life carries us further away from whence we came; the older we get, the less we remember of it.

Last Sunday evening during Children’s Bible Hour, the children were asked to draw a picture of God.  Sean immediately got to work. There was no question in his mind what God looked like.

The teacher called him to the front of the class and asked him to talk about his picture.  He held it up and told an audience of 30 or so children with confidence that he thinks God is a happy face in the sky with a beard and some swirly lines.

The teacher nodded and said with a sigh that he was sure there was a message behind his picture. Sean shook his head. “There’s no message behind the picture,” he said and then he showed the teacher the back of his paper.  Blank.  No message.

The next day, as we were eating breakfast, I saw the drawing at the end of the breakfast bar. I picked it up and looked at it again.  I asked Sean to tell me more about it.  “Well,” he said pointing his fork, “The smiley face with the beard represents God and the swirly lines are a gust of wind.”

I was intrigued by the idea of God as a gust of wind.

As I looked at the picture, I thought of how many times God has drawn near to his people in the form of wind – sometimes in a violent gust like in Acts 2:2 and other times as gentle as a whisper as in 1 Kings 19:12.

I thought of how the Greek word pneuma is used to mean both wind and spirit and how the Hebrew word ruah is used to convey both wind and spirit but also breath – the very essence of life.

And then I thought that maybe he has not yet travelled so very far from whence he came.

And I wanted to stand just a little bit closer to him.

* * *

More esoterical musings on the nature of God from my She Speaks peeps over here.

Busy today. Another excerpt from my speech.

* * *

I think most of us recognize the material blessings in our life, that we live in a wealthy country, that all of our needs are met with abundance.  Some of us have a little more, some of us have a little less, but all of us are well off by the standards of the world,  so it’s not too hard to be grateful for our stuff.

I do think however that we forget to be grateful for something far more valuable than our stuff, and that is our time. We all assume that we will grow old.  We’re all going to live to be a 100, aren’t we?  But you know what? None of us are guaranteed another day.  There’s no guarantee that we’ll even make it to the end of THIS day.  We all know that.  But few of us really live as though we know it.

I recently read the story of a man who knew his days were numbered.  He knew he probably wouldn’t  live to see the next season. And what struck me in his story was the gratitude he had for each new day, even though he suffered tremendously and was dealing with a lot of anxiety.

When gratitude becomes the frame through which you view the days of your life, when you can wake up every morning, thrilled to greet another day in whatever condition you find it, then you open yourself up to experiencing joy in it’s purest form. Your sense of well-being is no longer dependent upon external things which are little more than vapor.

What I hope and pray for anyone who has read thus far is that you can learn to do this without a prodding circumstance.

Gratitude’s partner is contentment, and together they combine to give you this sense of fullness and completeness that we call joy.

There are two nasty habits that kill contentment.  One is not living in the present and the other is comparing yourself to others.

Contentment is found only in the present, in this very moment on this very day. If you are spending time regretting that you didn’t have the perfect childhood or thinking about how good life will be when your kids can finally walk/talk/get out of diapers, you are robbing yourself of contentment.

The other contentment killer is comparison. You can always look out your window and see someone who has it better.  Comparing yourself to others encourages you to focus less on what you have and more on what you have not.  Comparison allows discontent to take root, choking out gratitude and joy.  Nothing good comes of comparison.

And here’s the thing about gratitude and contentment – the only person who can rob you of these things is you.  No one but you.

So then, gratitude leads to contentment, contentment leads to joy and joy leads back to gratitude. And at the center of this cycle is peace.

The wise King Solomon wrote, “He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.”

Joy is being occupied with gladness of heart.  Joy is living in the moment with gratitude and contentment.

I’m off to do car stuff and school stuff and other stuff today.  This is an excerpt from a speech I gave a while back.

* * *

There is a verse in the book of James that says, “Consider it pure joy my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds.”

Are you kidding me James? Pure joy? In trials? Seriously?

I have always struggled with this verse because I can’t imagine that I’m supposed to feel joyful when the world is trying to whack me upside the head, as it seems to like to do.

If I were to pick nits,  it says “consider” it pure joy. It does not say “feel” pure joy.  So if you are not feeling pure joy in the midst of your struggle, you are off the hook. Not required.

The joy is not in the trial itself, but rather it is the bi-product of the struggle, of working through the difficulty.

There is joy in the opportunity to grow spiritually in the midst of turmoil, joy in the eventual victory over the difficulty, and I think most especially, joy in the deepening of support relationships as you make your way through the hardship.  The people who come to your aid and stand beside you and gather you up are comfort and joy embodied.

And I submit to you, from my own experience, that the joy that comes from difficulty, when it comes, is life altering.  It is terribly sweet and lasting and becomes a part of who you are and how you view the experience of life here, and hereafter.

Is there joy in losing a spouse or a child or a loved one, the worst kind of trial?  No. Absolutely not.  But there is joy in the memory of the beloved that remains. The person may die, but the joy remains. Having said that, I know first hand that grief can numb you to that joy for a long time.

Joy in difficult places is like childbirth — after tremendous pain comes a tremendous and life changing joy.

Antique Daddy and I have been saying bedtime prayers with Sean since the day we brought him home from the hospital.  It’s our routine. It’s what we do.

Those early prayers were often desperate pleas for help and grace and mercy.  We had no idea what to do with a four-pound baby.  We were terrified.  We felt so very small in the bigness of the task we had been given.  We felt as though we had been sent out to fish the Bering Sea in a row boat.

The other night as I settled Sean for bed, I pressed shut the book I had been reading to him and set it aside. I knelt beside his bed and asked him if he would like to lead the bedtime prayer.  Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t.

This time he turned his head to the wall and didn’t respond.

“Sean?” I asked again,  “Will you say the prayer tonight?”

After a long pause, he turned towards me.  His eyes were shiny with tears.

“I don’t want to,” he said, his voice quivering.

That was unusual.

“Why not?” I asked, concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m scared,” he said quietly.

“Scared?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “I just feel so… small.”

A big tear rolled down his cheek onto the pillow.

I sighed.  He gets its.  In the shadow of our mighty God, we are indeed so small.

I leaned over him in his tiny bed and blanketed him in a hug.  I prayed over him and thanked God for my wise little boy.

I prayed that he might always view his God through the lens of humility and awe; I prayed that he might always feel so small.