Seeing Eden

Have you ever been through something long, hard, and painful?

And then, noticed that you found beautiful things more beautiful?

Now I don’t want to sound like an inspirational subscription service here. It does ring of triteness. But seriously, I was thinking about this during a walk this week.

I honestly don’t remember six years ago being as dazzled as I am now by the verdant green leafage that ballets in pointe backbend; being romanced by the royalty in the purple flowers spread throughout the foliage in my back yard; being astonished by the artistic detail of tiny green leaves that flutter on trees.

I don’t remember ever wondering if birds sing only when I can hear them, or if they also sing when I ignore them. Do they sing only when they are reminded of Eden by the lush plant life that rises in spring and early summer? Or do they also sing when our surroundings bear the mark of a desert in August?

Spring has a shock and awe effect when it comes right on the heels of the dead, lifeless drone of winter. For me, today’s drop-dead gorgeous surroundings stun me; perhaps because they’ve been contrasted with the fog that has clouded my vision while walking through chronic pain.

But further, hard things mysteriously seem to clear the scales off one’s eyes that once veiled beauty. Somehow, the process of walking in darkness opens the curtains that cover these eyes. Before, one sees feigned beauty, after, one sees authentic beauty. I wonder if we need the cold-hearted winter to open our eyes to spring.

Today I try to imagine standing in Eden; standing not only in breathtaking beauty, but also being able to see it for what it is…authentically beautiful. Eden has been wrenched by the effects of sin; but yet, God in His extravagant grace preserves some of its beauty for us to see. Maybe by gazing at it after a harsh, cruel winter, we can begin to envision what the winter of life will do for us; open our eyes to see the authentic beauty of the new heavens and the new earth.

Have you ever gone through anything long, hard, and painful? Or are you there, right now? All triteness aside, your eyes are being prepared to behold real beauty.---alg

Nerve Endings

Have you ever wanted to take a vacation away from yourself?

About three years ago, I began surfing on eBay, trying to find a new neck. The one I have and I were at odds. 

Years of unsuccessful searches in web stores; various doctors, dentists, chiropractors, 3 different physical therapists, 3 different massage therapists and pain medications paved the way to the Holy Grail of Those Paid to Hear People Complain about Pain – the pain management doctor.

“Amy, you have overactive nerves”. He explained that normally, upon an injury, nerves fire pain signals, but then quit doing so as the wound heals. “This is called acute pain. You have chronic pain. Your nerves don’t quit. They keep firing pain signals without any reason, at least that we can see”.  The anesthesiologist-turned-pain-doctor then took out his needles and gave me two cortisone injections. “This may help settle the inflammation and will be all you need, but mainly, I’m using this to make sure we find the right nerve that’s wrecking havoc.  Then we take out the big guns”. I did get the big gun – a denervation. A needle is inserted near the naughty nerve, and sends a radio frequency signal that burns, or stuns, the end of the nerve. “This should give you about 6-24 months of relief. The nerve will grow back; nerve endings are that smart”. Since that time, I’ve had an additional 15 cortisone injections and 3 denervations. He’s right; they do grow back.

The sad thing about all of this drama is that I don’t have a good story to go with it. “Did you get in an accident?” is the question every new medical professional asks me. The only trauma that came to mind was the horrible flu I got six years ago when I vomited my lungs out.  Truthfully, I think this is the sort of thing that happens to people that have atrocious posture (as evidenced in the 1988 Hot Springs High School yearbook), a desk duff, a perfectionist neurosis, and those that also have overactive nerves of the mind.

I would love to take a vacation from my pain in the neck, but honestly, the nerve endings of my psyche are often more bothersome.  I’ve had the same symptoms for years: I overanalyze every living thing and every dead thing. I try to find meaning in inanimate objects; I perform autopsies on them to discover the cause of death, and try to decode the DNA of polyester stuffing to find the essence of life. I squeeze a water-soaked rag until every last possible drop of spiritual insight-however skewed- has dripped.

One would think this would make for a quite joyful existence; being able to find a philosophical pea under every lifeless rock. Actually, it makes me crazy. My intense personality not only finds the meaning of life in culverts, it grieves every good thing that passes. Normal changes of life that others let roll of their backs will take me 20 years to mourn. I have a neurosis of over-thinking.  I have no precipitating event except being born – no good story to tell. The mental nerves just keep firing signals with no known reason. This, also, makes me want to take a vacation from myself.

If there were a denervation procedure available for the mind (one without the crippling side effects of drugs and alcohol) I would try it. But, until one is tested and available in the heartland state of South Dakota, I’m afraid this blog will contain the shrapnel of the neurotic explosions of my psyche – my vocabulary vomit. My family is tired of bearing the burden; I need another outlet for expressing my quirky conclusions.  If your nerve endings aren’t as sensitive as mine, you might be able to tolerate reading it.

But then, every so often, you’ll probably need to take a vacation away from it.

Dandelion Paper

My Maddy spoke of yellow spring flowers she loves

“Dandelions?”, I asked.  “Yes, those!”  she replied.

Nine of them emerged in our yard

They rose, though we tried to mummify their seed

Their yellow florets fascinated with the sun

Fascinated with its honey-drenched rays

Who decided dandelions are despised

The yellow flower that mimics the sun?

Who first whisked them with a blade?

Whose dander kills them with poison?

Who decided a lovely thing a bad thing?

Medicinal dandelions, agents of healing

An impetus for fruit ripening

A well for less hearty flora

I walked by a lawn dotted with dandelions

Rain-green lawn, bright yellow spots

Dandelion wrapping paper

A gift given to those who at first think a lovely thing a bad thing

Pain, more pain leads to letting go

A gift wrapped in dandelion paper

Loss, loss that leads to a legacy lived

A gift given to those who at first think a lovely thing a bad thing

A torn heart grows tendrils; tendrils that climb and grip its steady support

A gift wrapped in dandelion paper

Pain, loss, broken heart, fruit born

Dandelions, the Hastener of fruit ripening, the Well for weak flora

A gift given to those who at first think a lovely thing a bad thing

A dandelion sprouts uninvited, its seeds stronger than man’s control

The Seed, a gift; unwanted, still given

A gift wrapped in dandelion paper

Dandelion-dotted fields line the road

Rolls and rolls of dandelion paper spread by their Maker

The Giver covers the earth with the shoot from the seed

A saffron Rose of Sharon

Bidding all to see

The Gift given to those who at first think a lovely thing a bad thing—-alg

A Nude Song

Have you ever have the urge to shed your clothes in church while singing?
I haven’t – well, not exactly.

But a few Sundays ago I wore a turtleneck to church as we sang “…Sing a New Hallelujah”. I desperately tried to think how this might apply to my cuckoo life. I imagined myself inserting these words to the same tune:

“Lord, I am so glad that as I sit here in church, I don’t have the uncontrollable urge to walk up to the 4th row and strangle the person who sits in the 3rd seat over like I did last Sunday. This is a new way to thank you.”

I was trying to interpret these words in a way I could understand them that day. I don’t mean any disrespect here, but worship choruses just aren’t doing much for me right now.

We call them by many names –praise songs, worship choruses, worship songs, praise AND worship songs. What do those phrases really mean anyway? I asked my husband how we know if a song is a “praise and worship” song. He said we’d know it is if it’s in the “praise and worship” catalogue.
Since worship is really the act of declaring God’s worth, it’s not limited to music. We can declare God’s worth in many other ways. Therefore, “worship music” isn’t a good moniker. Since “praise” means an expression of approval or admiration, “praise music” would be a better descriptor, but not perfect, since this encompasses music from many other genres. Really, I think “praise and worship” music most often refers to songs sung together in church.

So why do they taste stale to me right now? I think maybe it’s because some are painted with brushes dipped in happy paint, and lack the muted tones of honesty. And it seems so many of them are constructed with homogenous river-rock words drawn from the same 5-gallon bucket. This is my honest perception; it could be that my palate is dulled by a spiritual cold, or it could be my palate just craves spicy foods.

In Ephesians, Paul tells us to “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19, NIV).

Paul is telling us here that he wants us to use music to express our hearts to each other and to the Lord. For some reason God finds this language important. He mentions different dialects here – psalms (songs taken straight out of the book of Psalms), hymns (the antique rendition of a modern-day praise chorus), and spiritual songs. Pneumatikos is the Greek for “spiritual” here, which means, in short “relating to the human spirit, or rational soul, as part of the man which is akin to God”. This sounds like a broad category – it suggests it’s something from deep down in the heart, which has emotions spanning joy to grief, and is creative just like God.

Blueletterbible.org includes commentaries by David Gutzik’s, which I like. Here is his insight into this scripture:

(Regarding) “ ‘Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs’: This variety suggests that God delights in creative, spontaneous worship. The most important place of us to have a melody unto God is in our heart. Many who can’t sing well have the most beautiful melodies in their heart.

The emphasis is more on variety than on strict categories. ‘We can scarcely say what is the exact difference between these three expressions.’ (Clarke)” (Emphasis his)

Perhaps the variety of music is the thing to take with us from this scripture. Perhaps it pinpoints one reason I tire of the focus on modern-day hymns in church-services. Maybe I think a bit like David. One minute I don’t have enough good things to say to God, and the next, I bewail that God is unfair, and bemoan to him how hurt and frustrated I am. Are we skipping over these Psalms in church, focusing on the positive ones? Out of the “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” we are to sing, are we sticking to the ones layered with sweet frosting? I often crave for an honest expression of someone’s hurt, or their frustration, followed by a description of where God is in all of this for that person. Are we featuring songs of triumph, leaving out songs of lament? Are we singing only “to Him” and forgetting to sing “to one another” out of artistry and honesty, like God tells us to do?

I realize that those who write music intended to be sung in church have a tall order to fill: the songs must be easy to sing; meaning, has a tune that’s easy to remember, written in mid-range, and follows familiar chord progressions. Hats off to those who have written very creative songs while staying in these boundaries. And a toast to those very talented and dedicated musicians who spend countless hours every week preparing to lead us in these beautiful songs. But can we go beyond those boundaries? Can we weave in music that was born out of the depths of inventive souls; and those out of souls that are sad, searching?

The Evangelical movement’s anthem has been to move away from reciting liturgy, because it can become rote – words that are repeated so many times they lose their meaning. The modern worship chorus has taken its’ place, allowing for a heart-felt expression of love for God. Good intention here; however, for me, worship choruses have become more liturgical than the liturgy they were replacing. Do we clothe our hearts at times, using worship chorus as the runway to say what we ought to say, what looks good and what’s in style, but not what’s really in our nude hearts?

I am a worshipper that wants candidness and originality in music, and, as a musician, I want to offer it. But, the church seems to be content with easy-to-sing-along choruses. “Sing to the Lord a new song!”, David writes, as an expression of gratitude for something new going on in his passionate yet distorted mind. I am proposing a twisted twist: “Sing to the Lord a nude song”. No irreverence intended here. I’m suggesting singing a new song that is honest, using real words that flow from our warped, confused, and off-kilter minds. Fig leaves weren’t God’s idea; it was man’s idea to manufacture masquerade-wear and Prada purses.

Can we remove our music makeup and bare our buff souls on Sundays?—alg

The Place of the Vines

This is a piece I wrote quite a few years ago after the death of my lovely grandmother. I’ve never posted it here because it’s lengthy, but am doing so today in the spirit of Mother’s Day. Each year my gratitude grows for my mother, grandmother, and aunties that taught me I have value apart from what I do. 

Red. It’s the color of my living room. It’s the color you would have found most in my grandmother’s wardrobe. She loved red. It’s the color of the raspberries I picked with her when I was a young girl. It’s the color of love. Of vibrancy. Of richness. Of sacrifice. As of late, I’ve been painting in lighter hues. I want to go back to red.

I was ten. The place I wanted to be more than anywhere was at my grandparent’s cabin on Edelweiss Mountain. It was an A-Frame budding with character, nestled in the woods. The loft showcased the slate rocks we painted. It had a table where we played Rummy Royal. It overlooked the wood stove surrounded by slate on the lower level. The dining room around the corner was the most memory-rich room. There, my grandfather ate half of a grapefruit and shredded wheat in the morning. There, I managed a restaurant. I prepared and served food off the menu I created, and charged my grandparents a very reasonable price for the food they stocked. There, my family gathered around the large table to laugh. There, I stared out the sliding glass doors and planned my nature tour. There, the 70’s style china hutch sat, which now graces my living room.

But the best part about the cabin wasn’t the cabin. My grandmother and I ventured out every day (sometimes twice a day) to pick wild raspberries. They were sweet, juicy, and great over ice cream. The best place for picking raspberries was down the hill past the first cattle guard. We’d fill our bags, and then start picking wildflowers. The most sought-after varieties were crocuses and bluebells. Also, a great daisy patch blanketed the bottom of the steep hill right by the cabin. If we saw other flowers we liked, we’d pick ‘em and try to identify them in our nature books back at the cabin.

Truth be told, the best part about the raspberries and wildflowers wasn’t the raspberries and wildflowers. It was my co-adventuress. She was the one that took me to the vines. She was the one that intuitively knew the richness we’d find together seeking beauty and fruit. She was a woman who chose well. She chose her family. She chose to listen instead of insisting her opinion be heard. And she chose to invest her time, thought, and creativity into me. I’m nearly forty, and it’s finally dawned on me that she could have spent her time in other ways. She had her own desires. Her own giftedness. Yet, she spent countless hours teaching me to play the organ and coaching me to sing. The baking we did together made flour fly. My grandmother, once a great classroom teacher, was a very attentive Spanish student of mine (although I did encourage her to study more). I styled her hair. We played piano and organ duets. We painted paper doilies. How was she content not being busy with so many other worthy endeavors? It is beyond what I can comprehend that maybe I was part of what she desired. That I was part of her joy.

I want to go back to ten. I want to go back to the cabin. The wildflowers allure me. I want to taste the sweet wild raspberries again. And mostly, I want to be with my grandmother. She’d take me to the vines. This draw I feel makes me wonder: What is it about the place of the vines I loved so much? Maybe, there, I was not seeking to arrange for life. I was simply taking it as it was offered to me. At some point later on, I perceived the need to begin arranging.

Perhaps it was when I turned fourteen. Raspberries and wildflowers didn’t seem sharp enough tools to cut through feelings of rejection and inadequacy. I decided I must search for other tools. I found a few that seemed custom-fit for me and stout enough to combat these enemies: Grasp to perform. Perform to feel significant. Arrange for results. Control to avoid pain. I unknowingly wanted to reclaim the goodness I had there, but found no other option than to begin creating it for myself. What was simply offered me wasn’t enough. At ten, I was nestled in the place of the vines, unaware I was in need of anything else. At fourteen, I mistakenly learned that the place of the vines was only for vacations. I had to learn to live outside that place – in a world that expects a lot and gives little. Where most people live. Where I was destined to live. I had to pack my mementos of the cabin in a bag, and they became buried beneath the tools I began picking up along the way necessary to live outside the vines. The bag was getting heavy.

At thirty-five, I went to see my grandmother in the nursing home. She was no longer able to take me to the vines to pick flowers. Her body was weak, and her mind was failing. She had Alzheimer’s. For five years, I watched her digress. I was slowly losing her. And the place of the vines began to haunt me. Can’t we go back? My bag is so heavy, and so were her eyes. Can’t we go back just for a day? The vines were calling us. There was beauty to discover, a connection to make again. Age and Alzheimer’s tried to keep her from going back. My heavy bag was trying to keep me from going back. But they failed.

My grandmother went to the great place of the vines on November 16, 2005. There, she was welcomed and cherished by the Gardener. There, perhaps, they are scouting the best raspberry picking for when I can join them. There, she paints in red. There, she sees in red. She sees things in their greatest vibrancy. She enjoys things in their deepest richness. There, she not only beholds beauty, but is a part of it. There, the Gardener is rewarding her for choosing well. And what is the reward? I don’t know. Something she desires deeply.

This January was a hard month. I felt crushed from the strain of grasping. I was exhausted from arranging. I cried from the loss of my co-adventuress. In the midst of my cloud of confusion and sorrow, I remembered the place of the vines. That’s where I want to live. That’s where the Gardener is calling me to live. To abide in Him. He is the Vine. I am the branch.

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he
bears much fruit; for apart from me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5 NAS)

It’s the Vine that has always sought me in the place of the vines. My grandmother simply had the wisdom to take me there. It’s the Vine that has always romanced me there. It’s the Vine that always wanted me to stay there, even after the cabin sold. And it’s the goodness of the Gardener that has been haunting me. So, in February, I went back. Not in a way where I can experience it in all of its fullness like Grandma did, but back to the place where I’m taking life as it’s offered to me. The Gardener and I have never left one another. I’ve simply forgotten the fragrance found by just staying in the vines. When I live there, the need to grasp and arrange ceases. I no longer need to create goodness. It’s already there.

My daughter just turned ten. The ripeness of her age beckons my examination. My grandmother chose well. How am I choosing? I’m considering all that she invested in me. Am I squandering it? Or am I investing it in my two daughters? How can I take them to the vines? How can they experience the richness, the goodness? I’m certain if they experience the vines, then decide they must venture out for awhile, they’ll be allured back again. Just like I was.

Today, my husband, my six-year-old daughter, and I went to visit the cabin. No one was there so we could not enter, but we peered through the dining room window. I was surprised to see the same “716” train picture on the wall. And there were the same yellow countertops. What struck me the most, however, was the youngling pine tree down the road from the cabin standing in front of a sea of larger trees with a single red ribbon tied around it. Out of nowhere. Like a gift.

I cannot go back to those days on Edelweiss Mountain, just like I cannot re-wrap and unwrap a gift that was already given and have it mean the same. But I can relish the gift I received: exquisitely tied in red ribbon, so underserved, and so perfect for me that I didn’t even know to ask for it. I can enjoy and nurture the gift that I have often placed on a shelf. And I can pass it on to my daughters.

Now, I think I’ll go paint my toenails red. And ponder the day I’ll get to tell my grandma that the life she poured in me inspired me to go back and live in the place of the vines.

Dedicated to Helen E. Westaby, my co-adventuress

Third Wind

Have you ever thought about the insane power there is behind the number three?

The maker of the universe is made up of three parts.

Thousands of Jewish lives were saved from death because Queen Esther courageously went to the king begged for their lives on the third day.

On the third day, God rescued Isaac from death by providing a substitute sacrifice. While Young Isaac and his father traveled for three days towards Mount Moriah; he was oblivious to the fact that God had just asked his father to kill him as evidenced by his recurrent question “Dad, where is the lamb we will sacrifice when we get to the top”? When they arrived, Abraham, who was likely in a pile of tears, built an altar, tied up Isaac, drew his knife, and then God said “No, don’t kill him”. He praised Abraham for passing this bizarre test, telling him he just needed to know if he’d be willing to give up his only son as a sacrifice. Sounds familiar. A ram appeared in the bushes, which was not only God’s provision of a sacrifice that day, but also a foreshadow of the ultimate sacrifice he would provide on a third day.
The most poignant power of three happened on a Sunday.

“At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb…they found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb…But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of the Master Jesus…Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men…stood there…and said “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up.” Luke 24:1-7 (The Message)

God saved humanity with the sacrifice He provided; with the sacrifice He made. The pinnacle of power was on display when God raised His Son, Jesus, on day three.

There seems to be an exotic power that comes in threes.

Athletes have talked about a phenomenon that comes in twos. When running a marathon and almost to the point of exhaustion, they suddenly find the strength to press on with less exertion. It’s called the second wind. The body finally finds the right balance of oxygen to counteract the buildup of lactic acid in the muscles.

I personally have not experienced this, because the last time I ran a considerable length I was 19 years old and probably stopped for ice cream before this phenomenon kicked in. However, if life is like a marathon, a common analogy which I think is a decent one; I have experienced a second-wind-sort-of-thing after I’ve gutted it out though slumps and then experienced a surprise oxygenation that morphed the mundane into new purpose.

Those of us who have encountered this type of second wind phenomenon may find that this experience helps us persevere through the next downturn – we know as our feet hit the pavement step by step we are getting closer to hitting our stride, at which point things will seem much easier and our minds will be freed to focus on things other than the pain of running.

This was a source of motivation for me until my life starting bringing me the really tough stuff.

Pursuing the carrot of the second wind no longer proved to be enough to sustain me. The drive to reach the second wind was overshadowed by chronic pain and other struggles common to all of us.

You see, the key to reaching the second wind is continuing to run. What happens when we don’t have the will to keep running anymore? What happens when we have lost heart so much that we can’t even see the track through the fog of disillusionment? How do we combat pure exhaustion as we lay lifeless on the track, finding only enough strength to roll over to the edge so that others can run by?

We need a power that we don’t have to strive for. We need one that meets us where we are – on the side of the track. A power that shocks dead, lifeless hearts so they beat again. A power that picks us up and shoulders us through grief, pain, disappointment, loneliness and disbelief. A power that comes in twos isn’t enough. We need one that comes in threes. We need the power of the third day. A Third Wind. A resurrection power that raises us out of bed in the morning when we’d rather hide our aches and pains under the covers all day. One that picks us off the side of the track and carries us awhile so we can feel the thrice-saturated breeze, breathe it in, and fill our lungs with the aroma of Easter lilies, which reminds us that the Third Wind is what’s been sustaining us all along.—alg

Crazy

“Some days I want to talk, some days I want to yell, some days I want to scream!” I could so relate to my brother’s Facebook post last week.

There are some days when I seriously feel like I’m going crazy.

I had a day like that Monday.

From what I’ve read, it’s pretty evident God wants us to cry out in times like this.
So I did.

On my way home from work I cried, and I cried out. It went something like this: “God, I am so sick of my mind feeling so screwed up!”

Except I didn’t say screwed.

From what I’ve read about God, it’s pretty evident He can handle this sort of thing. He is not a prissy pussycat – He is a wild lion. “Crying out” doesn’t insinuate an utterance of controlled emotion; like that of expressing a concern to a boss. “Crying out” means laying it all out on the table – guts and all.

It sounds more like a roar than a purr. God already knows what’s going on in our minds; He just wants us to be honest about it with Him. And his lion-lean stature can handle it.

From what I’ve read about God, strange and freakishly cool things happen when people cry out to Him. Take me for an example.

After spilling my guts, expletives and all, I heard something. Now this may sound a little voodoo but from what I’ve read about God and what I’ve experienced, He does speak to His children. When this happens every-so-often, I’ll hear a voice. Not an audible one; as a matter of fact, it sounds not so terribly different from my own voice, but says things that make way more sense than what I can come up with when I’m going crazy. And then, after the voice silences, I’ll feel like I was just drenched by bucket-full of grace. Now this is what it said to me Monday (I am not making this up): “Amy, you’re ok. I know exactly what it feels like. You are overwhelmed and exhausted, and your mind starts to feel like you’re going crazy. I’ve been there. Don’t worry, you won’t feel like this forever. Just lean into me when this happens; lean hard.”

What? The God of the universe, crazy? Well, no, from what I’ve read about God, He’s the furthest thing from crazy. But I think Jesus might have felt a bit like He was going crazy during a couple of instances I can think of while here on earth. Remember when He was tempted in the desert by Satan? He was so exhausted after this ordeal that angels came to take care of Him afterwards. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, right before going to the cross? He cried out and sweat blood. This sounds like someone that’s overwhelmed with anguish, exhausted, terrified, and…maybe feeling crazy in the most literal and grave sense of the word.

Maybe the craziest thing of all is that He actually went through with it. He went to the cross. He made it possible for you and me to cry out to Him, and to be heard. And it isn’t like baring your bloody soul to a counselor that has only studied your condition in books. He has lived it.

This makes me feel a little less crazy.

Life Jumpers

I was moved by the story of the Japanese workers that are wrestling with a grave choice: to jump into radioactive – drenched areas of the nuclear plant stricken by tsunami to stop massive leaks and prevent further devastation to the Japanese people, or honor the cries of family members begging them not to take the risk. Big money is the sure reward, but the cost is well-calculated in advance: one’s life.
Exposure to the astronomical levels of radiation, even for a short time, is sure to bring death as the result of radiation sickness or cancer.

I am first saddened that the tragedy, which already engulfed thousands of lives, now calls for more. I am sickened when I imagine the agony of the families surrounding those that make the choice. I cower when imagining my yellow response to such an offer.

But, further, I am astounded at those Japanese men that, beyond obligation or duty, want to do this.  One man quoted in a news article expresses, “…….Ordinarily I’d consider it a dream job.” He further states he ultimately declined after his wife begged him not to. What was behind his desire to jump? For those that accept the offer, could money possibly be the strongest enticement?

I am struck by the transcendent will that overpowers life-preservation. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, survival is the first need –before others higher up on the pyramid such as morality, achievement, and respect for others. The will to survive, as is generally accepted in the field of psychology, trumps all other human needs and wants. If this is true, how does one account for modern-day samurai jumpers that choose to sacrifice their lives for their country, for honor, or for some other purpose higher than survival?  This dichotomy eerily paints the picture of life; brush stroking images beyond that of physical body preservation. Life must be more than survival. Human beings must want more than to physically subsist.

We see this tension lived out in everyday life in less dramatic ways – simply holding a job to pay the bills – to survive – isn’t enough. To have purpose, significance; to carry out some mission of honor, these things are our underlying ache as we punch in and out to fulfill the bottom rungs of the pyramid – food, clothing, health, safety. We live in the tension of doing what we must do to survive and further carrying out some higher mission. Sometimes the two have a symbiotic relationship, and sometimes they seem to compete when our jobs don’t give us that sense of accomplishing something which has a higher purpose. Could this be the magnetic force that draws these honorable Japanese men to punch in to such a heroic workday while sacrificing the ability to punch out?

Am I hanging white-knuckled on the edge in the name of self-preservation to my life, or to my death? Must I lose it in order to save it?  It seems the jumpers, although jumping to their death, are strangely seeking to jump to life.—alg

Storyline

Have you ever thought of your life as a story? Or, if English IV was the last time you read a book from start to finish, how about as a movie? Living in a culture that values efficiency and productivity makes it very difficult for us to view our lives as a good novel as opposed to a cost upon which our employers analyze a return on investment. Donald Miller, in his book, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” tells us that a story is “a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it”. I don’t know about you, but if that is what a story is, that is my life…except maybe for the overcoming part.

A story is filled with great scenes that highlight the character; his relationships with other characters in the story; his joys, his desires, his frustrations, his limitations. This helps us understand who he is and what it is that he wants. Doesn’t this kind of sound like the earlier chapters of your life story? You floundered your way through figuring out who you were while living many scenes filled with things that make a great story. You maybe had a tender moment with your father, or grandfather. You fell down the stairs in front of the whole school at a pep assembly.  You cried your eyes out when you lost your 15-year old dog. You fell in love. You got close to people and experienced everything that comes with it – the unexplainable joy of a tight friend and the grief of losing one due to distance or circumstances or hurt that unearths a gap too far-reaching to cross.  And then, you discovered something that when you did it, you felt like you were born to do it.

This is when you start to figure out what it is you want, which is when the movie really starts to get good. You set out on your way for that thing. You pursue it with passion and creativity, sacrificing what you have to overcome obstacles, and then begin grasping it, and finally get to taste the sweet drink of that thing – the thing that makes you feel like you were born to do it. The story builds in intensity as you expand this thing, watch it blossom, drink more of this thing…….and then, the story takes a turn.

A negative turn. The thing gets hijacked. It’s whisked away from you. Or it just sits and molds, and becomes deformed and dries up. Can you think of a scene like this in a movie you have seen recently? If it weren’t for the fact that you know the movie has to end differently in order to sell, you really would expect to see the credits rolling soon because it seems there is no way things will go back to the way they were, or work out the way the character wanted it to. His choices are to overcome the conflict to get the thing he wants or leave the story. That he could sacrifice enough to make it possible to overcome the conflict doesn’t seem possible. Out of strength and answers, it seems the character’s only option is to grieve and move on to a different story. You sense his deep ache, and somehow you can relate to it in your own life.

Do you ever feel like this is the chapter you’re in? The last long chapter? The one where the character knows what he wants, but now is lodged in the cavern of conflict? We may not even think of it as conflict like in an action flick – but remember conflict can be simply a mental struggle. The character wants something, but maybe he is racing against age or wrestling against other things he cannot control. He has thought day and night about overcoming this and ran up against so many obstacles he’s out of the teen-age will to try anymore. He’ll need to live on the memory of the good story that it was, and hope that he can stay satisfied with much smaller things for the rest of his life.

What if your life really is a story? And what if you aren’t the only storyteller in your life? Maybe you’ve got one storyteller that seems to want nothing more than to hijack it, as evident by the deep disappointments you’ve waded through. And then perhaps you have another one that seems to be a force behind making your life a really good story – even if not evident except for the fact that you aren’t satisfied with a bad story.  If you aren’t satisfied with a bad story, there must be a good story, and there must be a good storyteller. One that would die to have stories end where the character has transformed into a better character, has figured out what he really wants, and gets it.

What if your life is a story, and you have these storytellers, and what if you’re in the scene where things have taken a bad turn – a scene that goes on forever, and you’re just basically trying to figure out how you’ll stay sane until the credits roll? What if you’ve confused the “rest of your life” for chapter VI out of X and are blind to the fact that something meaningful is coming; that the great Storyteller is writing in a scene to bring the great things in your life full-circle? And what if the Storyteller knows that your story needs chapter VI for it to be a good story, and that really the main point to the story is how you’ll change in your quest to get what you want? And what if this change in your character brings also a slight change in you want anyway?  What if you are just three chapters away from the part where the character overcomes the conflict and gets what he really wants?—alg

The Day of Melting

I walked amongst the dichotomy of sun-dried sidewalks lined with snow -covered yards.
The air; still slightly crisp but absorbing the sun’s vernal rays
Cars splash into pools of water on roads nearby.
Water trickles sonorously like waterfalls from drain spouts
Snowmen in front yards become disfigured midgets.
The remaining snow shows footprints of where we have been living, playing, working.
Now the snow is melting, running, draining, into small pools on the sidewalks
This is a day of melting.
The lines and patters in the sidewalk that mark our way become clear as the snow and ice melts.
The sun highlights many things we have not seen before, have not noticed.
The sun’s angle still shadows some plant life which remain under snow and yet
It shines on many trees that are beginning to bud.
The ground not yet giving way to green shoots, but voices hope of them
Our tears, crystallized into cold snow; our frigid grief melts
It runs, runs first into small pools and then, into the ocean of grace
On the day of melting.
On earth, days of melting come after longing days of winter
God, I need this day; bring me others
and then
Bring me The Day of melting.
 —alg

From Healing to Redeemed – Part III, Finale of “I’ve Been Slapped..”

No, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go back and re-live my youth, even though I achingly miss so many things about it.  I think what I’d rather do is to go back  and take up where I left off in the many good things that seemed to be cut off too soon.  I wonder if this is why my aches are manifesting now that I am further away from my youth; I grieve as I face the seeming reality that to somehow reconstruct or revive it is not going to happen.

So, I can either decide to live in a depressive psychosis, or I can ask, once again, “What is that I’m really wanting here? Is what I want what I really can’t have? Or, is it something else?” William Hazlitt, an old English writer and philosopher, called youth “A feeling of eternity.”  This hits a nerve. Isn’t it true that what you most loved about your early days is not necessarily what was happening at the time, but that you had your whole life in front of you to experience things you yet wanted to experience and to make right things that didn’t happen the way you wanted them to. I think the ache for my youth is a disguise – what I really long for is to have everything the way it should be, as I see it, and to make right everything that didn’t end up the way I think it should have. And going a step further, most likely what I really want, and don’t realize, is to have all things right; the way they should be, even if my perception of “right” is slightly (but perhaps not far) off. The good news is:  it’s coming…

He will make it all right. Everything. There is a word for this: redemption. God will set us free from everything that’s wrong, and restore everything to the way it was supposed to be; He’ll make it all right. We don’t need to worry that He will skip over the seemingly small things that are important to us; things that happened to us that we’d even be too embarrassed to admit are important to us. He knows about those things. They will be made as they should be. And don’t worry about those things that for one reason or another you think cannot be redeemed.  Don’t put Him in a box. He can. Dallas Willard once wrote, “Nothing irredeemable has happened or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God’s full world.”  Philip Yancey further writes, “God has promised that even the scars we accumulate on this fallen planet will be redeemed, as Jesus bodily demonstrated to Thomas.”1

You know what’s strange? I don’t think God divides my relationships or my experiences into youth and non-youth. To Him, the God beyond time, they are all now. When He redeems them, we won’t miss them, because they will be happening and enjoyed now! The past, future, and present will be made the way they should be, and we’ll get to enjoy it all at the same time. Youth – the feeling of eternity; of having one’s whole life yet to live, will finally be recaptured and lived forever.

So how do we make the leap from “Don’t cry that it’s over” to “Smile that it happened?”  I don’t know about you; I don’t know if I ever will – completely -in this lifetime. God may choose to give us partial redemption here on earth, or we may need to wait until God’s full redemption. Either way, we must grieve what we grieve. In this, He will give us healing even here on earth – healing while we wait for full restoration. I will cry, and on good days I may smile. But one day, the leap we’ll make will be even better – from “Don’t cry that it’s over” to “Smile that it’s happening”.—-alg

1 Both excerpts taken from “What Good is God”, Philip Yancey, 2010
As always, I cherish your thoughts – even brief ones. – amy

From Slapping to Healing

I continue to wonder what in the world hit me.  I didn’t see the sock in the gut coming – the sudden sock of grief. Last week, as the ache began to subside, I began more to ponder it – the ache of missing ones’ youth. Why do we miss it at times? What triggers occasional socks in the gut?

Your responses confirm I’m not alone in this. An unexpected catalyst brings emotions flooding in. Call it a funk, a momentary mid-life crisis, an unwelcome attack from the enemy – whatever you will – it’s real. We are not making this up.

Unexpected emotions always trigger lots of questions in my mind. Since when did our youth become so clearly differentiated from our non youth – our youth defined by moving away from all we were once close to? No longer lived but only reminisced about? When was it that people began to move away from their families and those they grew up with? Before this, how did they distinguish youth from non-youth?

And then, what is it that we really miss about our youth? Philip Yancey says “Grief proves love”1. In this case, love of what? Certain people? Freedom? Innocence?

It seems clear there is a thing, or things, to be longed for in our youth, and at the same time, many would say (including me) that I wouldn’t want to go back. I certainly don’t want to feel as gangly and awkward and self-conscious as I did. Youth serves as a stake in the ground that measures the growth we’ve had as a person. Most days we like who we are now more than we were then. We are more comfortable in our own skin; more confident, more forgiving of others and ourselves. And therefore, our relationships are more meaningful. This week it dawned on me that as I was missing people from when I was 18, many of my closest, most solid friendships are those that formed after I turned 18. Those people came along after I made my first step away from the stake and grew with me between mile-marker youth and mile-marker non-youth.

So if nothing else, I think I’m settled on the need, the health, and the richness to be found in moving on. I just want to know where the ache originates, and where to file it when it comes. It doesn’t fit anywhere, it doesn’t make sense. It just seems to be a rude intruder that causes confusion and unsettledness. How can I change my perspective on the ache so that it is less disturbing?  So, I ask more questions…

How does God see the ache? And, is this what God intended? Did He set us up for the ache? Is this grief a normal part of our journey as we mature?  Does He see a distinction between youth and non-youth? And, will the youth we ache for somehow be redeemed? Recovered?——-alg
1  Philip Yancey, “What Good is God?”, 2010

Please sound off! Even if I don’t know you, I’m interested in what you have to say. It’s good to wrestle through tough topics with others.

I've Been Slapped in the Face"book"

I am a self-professed Facebook snob. A Facebook snob who was on Facebook all last week. I “friended” about 20 people I knew before I turned 20. And now, this week, I am grieving my youth.

My non-youth is great. I have no regrets about big decisions I have made. I couldn’t have picked a husband better suited for me. I have two healthy bright, beautiful and fun daughters. I have challenging work in my field of study. I have good friends and my extended family nearby. But still,
I grieve my youth.

And I can’t figure out why.

It’s not that it was better then. Or happier then. But a handful of memories formed lumps in my throat this week.

Singing in my grandmothers’ chapel.

Pizza Hut after swing choir concerts.

A summer romance.

Singing at my home church over and over again.

College choir trip to NYC.

Hanging out in a good friend’s dorm room.

Dr. Seuss says “Don’t cry that it’s over; smile that it happened”. Nice thought. This week, the fact that it happened isn’t consoling me. You see, I am glad it happened. These things are what make for a good life lived. But today I can’t stomach the fact that they are gone. We must move on to experience better and richer things. I agree. But I don’t want to have to lose the good things from the past in order to experience the new.

I want to take them with me.

I want to talk to my grandparents. I want to tell them where I hurt; what I’m terrified of, and to know that just because they are in the room it’s all going to be ok.

I want to sing.

I want to sing in my hometown church, where the mic was always open and good encouragement kept flowing.

I chose my high school friends well; now we are scattered all over the country. I want to talk to the guy I found myself in serious like with one summer, because I don’t like that good friendships die just because we must “move on”. Sure, Facebook is great. But “re-connecting” on Facebook leaves a lot to still be missed. I grieve the loss of these relationships in real form.

And I grieve that I’m so far away from them in years. When I was 30, I didn’t grieve them. I was happy and engaged in building my non-youth life. That they were a loss never crossed my mind. There was a whole lifetime ahead of me to recapture and revive these things. Therefore, they really weren’t a loss.

But now
I’m 40.

I fear the reality that it is possible I will never recapture
these things. Now, they are a loss.

And this week, I really grieve them.

On Wednesday, I all but demanded of God that I understand why this is bothering me so much now. To understand why, in the middle of a good life, in the middle of February; these things are haunting me.

Perhaps it’s because everyone is down in the dumps about something in February.

Perhaps I haven’t been engaged in the things I like to do. It’s work, work, work.

Perhaps I need to see my “non-youth” friends more; maybe I’m isolated.

Perhaps next week, God will answer my prayer, and give me the grace it takes to get from
“Don’t cry that it’s over”

To

“Smile that it happened”. —- alg

Please sound off.
What do you miss about your youth?
How do you get from “Don’t cry that it’s over” to “Smile that it happened”?

The Weight of it All

I want to weigh more.  I think I’m on the right road with my current diet. I start out my day healthy: two pieces of whole wheat toast in the morning; low-sugar jelly with no butter; yogurt with a banana or my mid-morning snack, a Lean Cuisine for lunch. Then, I begin compensating for any sleep lost with some sugar. Hopefully I have some chocolate on hand. Towards the end of the day, when my metabolism starts slowing down, I strategically begin eating chips. Cheese makes any meal worth eating, so, sprinkle, sprinkle. A couple of hours before bed I bring out the serious stuff: a chocolate chip cookie or two, or some chocolate-chip banana bread if I have some on hand. Loading the end of the day with calories seems to be working.

No, my BMI chart doesn’t suggest that I should weigh more. Nor does my on-the-edge cholesterol levels or my family history loaded with hypertension and heart disease. It’s basically my daily routine that whispers (some days screams) the suggestion to me. Allow me to illustrate the routine if it isn’t clear to you: Get out of bed, drop the kids off to school – watch stuff fall out of the van at both stops – then head to work. Tour Rapid City between pick-ups and drop-offs for my kids’ activities, go home to the wreckage left from getting ready that morning, then, as my friend Debbie would say, move stuff around the house. Stare at the refrigerator wondering if any still creatures might come to life for dinner, then do dishes, laundry, math games. The final curtain call: tip over into bed. Then, start again the next morning.

I want my life to weigh more. Can this drab, ordinary routine be the context for greatness? For weighty impact on others? Can touring Rapid City change things, touch others’ lives? I know, I know.  I can use this as valuable bonding time with my kids because they are a captive audience, but what if they aren’t speaking to me that day? Or what if the drool running down the side of my mouth is the only fount of spiritual wisdom and guidance that is springing forth that day? Perhaps this points to my lack of exercise, but have you ever wondered what the lives of those that marked our world with magnificence looked like?  Really? Soccer practice, math games, kitty litter? Office jobs, errands, grocery shopping?

Consider what Paul has to say in 2 Thessalonians 1, 11-12: “Because we know that this extraordinary day is just ahead, we pray for you all the time – pray that our God will make you fit for what he’s called you to be, pray that he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something”.  (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, The Message)

Notice, there’s a twist. It didn’t say, “Pray that your good ideas and acts of faith will be great enough to amount to something”.  It said, pray that “he’ll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something”.  Now I don’t really understand what this all means. But doesn’t the text seem to suggest that, without His energy, acts of faith are meaningless? Could it be that the acts he’s referring to are somewhat ordinary in nature?

I have pondered this subject during many a van trip. What if my good ideas aren’t very good? What if my acts of faith are somewhat…faithless? How does all of this add up to something that makes a mark? Really all I can come up with is this: it seems to me that greatness isn’t about doing great things. I’m not even convinced of the maxim,  “Greatness is about doing small things in great ways”. I think, somehow, God makes great out of ordinary things. For some reason, He uses ordinary things as building blocks in His kingdom. Somehow, they have weight.

Consider the English language. Its building blocks are ordinary markings on a page – ink blobs – that mean very little until someone breathes into them. Makes sentences out of them. Puts emotion into them. Uses them to communicate something meaningful.

For some reason, God has chosen ordinary things as the characters in His language. Simply put, He uses ordinary things to get things done. He uses them to talk to people. To show people what He’s up to. Van trips “a”. Peanut butter cleanups “b”. Dishes “c”. Kitty litter “d”. Fixing a printer jam “e”. Complimenting a co-worker on her new blouse “f”. Treating the restaurant waiter nicely “g”. Finishing the sales report at work “h”. Listening to a friend vent about problems “i”. Making a meal for someone laid up from surgery “j”. God breathes into these things, and he makes sentences out of them.  Uses them to communicate something meaningful. He makes them amount to something. Something that has weight.

We know the letters of the alphabet well, but how do we see the sentences behind them? How do we reconcile the discrepancies we see between the drab and the magnificent? Perhaps God doesn’t see the same discrepancies we do. Perhaps it takes faith to believe that the mundane matters. Bucket loads of faith. Way more than I seem to have on hand most days. The text does suggest there is some sort of asking involved- praying that the daily drab will morph into significance. Perhaps asking has the mysterious outcome of adding weight to our lives, but as importantly, producing the ability to see the weight our lives have with His energy at work.

I think it’s time to put away my bag of chips. I guess there are better ways to gain weight.  Besides, I have to run my kids to choir practice.

©2010, Amy Gusso

Holiness

Holiness. The more I get to know God, the more I think differently about what that word means. At one time, it meant a threatening, confining perfection that hangs over my head like a vaulted ceiling I can never reach. The more I learn about the boundless grace of God, the ceiling disappears into thin air. I look above me and all I can see is sky. Stars. I see His glory. He erases the ceiling, so I can begin to see Him for who He really is.  He erases the ceiling, so that I’m not constantly reminded of all that I am not. He erases the ceiling, to show me that He sees me. Intimately. Even when I am enticed by other lovers.  Holiness. The kind of love that is so void of pride, it’s a vacuum. The kind of love that is so absent of self-protection that it pursues me, though I am an adulteress. The absence of pride in this holiness thinks nothing about alluring me again, and again, though I betray Him. That’s holiness.

“Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
“I will go back to my husband as at first…”
Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her…
“In that day,” declares the LORD,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’”

(Hos. 2:6-7, 14, 16 NIV)

Dog Blog

About three years ago, I spent a solid week on the internet trying to figure out what happened to Jack. Within a matter of hours, he spiraled down from the Jack we know to the Jack we no longer have. My husband, Bud, witnessed his horrific death. He howled, gasped, bled from the inside, and finally, at the vet clinic, breathed his last.

Jack was a chocolate lab whose character was built in part on the affectionate jesting of others; particularly, Bud’s hunting comrades. His dwarfish stature caused people to wonder if indeed he were part wiener dog. Nonetheless, he had our affection and gave us his, and held the highly esteemed role as my husband’s hunting companion.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was welcome to grace us with his licks, step on our feet with his sharp, heavy toenails, and wait for us at the sliding glass door until he was an old dog. Of course, his body warned us of the possibility he would be arthritic and house-bound when he was middle-aged, but he needed to do nothing more to earn our willingness to just simply let him be with us during those years, and to pass the field baton to a spry younger dog.

My daughters asked me if Jack went to heaven. I guess it’s the same question adults wonder but only kids ask (thank goodness they do so we don’t have to). I saw my friend and pastor, Bill, the week after he died and admitted my sadness, and asked him what he thought. He concurred with my uncertainty, as God chose not to specifically reveal that to us. However, he led me to Romans 8:18-23, encouraged me with what it might be saying, and I began my own quest for answers. Now, please keep in mind, first of all, that I never really found any. Secondly, I am no theologian. I don’t even have a gold star for following a “read the Bible in one year” plan. I’m just a person who lost her dog and, when no one was looking, cried my eyes out. This is just my way of reaching for a Kleenex. I’m telling you what I found. You draw your own conclusions.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:18-23, NAS)

That’s a mouthful. What on earth does that mean? My guess is very few fully understand it.  But I started doggy-digging around, all the way back to the time animals came on the scene. In Genesis, God made the heavens and the earth, the beasts, and then us. He commissioned us to name the animals and to rule over them – to be responsible for them. And He saw that it was good. Nearly a split-second later, Adam and Eve ate the fruit that was forbidden them, giving teeth to their belief that they were more fit than God to rule the affairs of creation as well as their own. And so, God cursed the woman and the man, and cursed the ground, and all of creation was affected. In order for us to still have some dominion over it in our fallen state, it had to be brought lower (I guess this explains a lot). The entire animal kingdom was affected. “For the creation was subjected to futility not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it (Rom 8:20)” The Greek word used here for “futility” is mataiotēs, meaning “depraved, frail and lacking vigor”. “Vigor” is the last word I would use to describe Jack on that ugly day.

It sounds to me like this wasn’t the way God intended it to be. We were meant to live in Eden together: beast in perfect relation to man, and man in perfect relation to God. Man messed it up, and animals suffered as a result. Maybe this is why it’s so dang hard to lose an animal. And maybe this is a clue to why we domesticate them. Perhaps we are attempting to restore, at least in some small way, what was lost here. But when they die, we don’t know what to do with it. We feel the heavy cloak of sadness, but we don’t know where to hang it. We know, through the work of the cross, we will be saved, restored from our futility. What about the animals?

Rolling over to Romans 8:21 again:

“…in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

The Greek word for “creation” as is used here means “all created things”. We are told in Genesis that “all created things” includes animals.  Fr. John Dresko, priest in the Orthodox Church in America, encourages us with good news, and says it like this: “Animals, indeed, the whole world and all of creation, will share in the coming again of Christ and the eternal reign of the Kingdom of God. The corruption that they face because they exist in this fallen world will be washed away in the re-creation of the world in Jesus Christ.” ¹ Isaiah gives us a glimpse of this day of redemption for us:

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.  The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.  The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:6-9, NIV)
Ah, it sounds like the way He originally meant it to be. Restoration. This helps. But still, what about MY dog? The one I lost? Now, I realize I’ve already put myself out there getting this far; perhaps too far, but indulge me and let me take it a step further. Is there any reason “all created things” couldn’t include the animals we love? The animals we bonded with? The ones we knew by name? The bible doesn’t say anything to the contrary. It just doesn’t tell us this specifically.

Interestingly, C.S. Lewis took some liberty on this subject and argued, albeit controversially, that animals achieve resurrection by being caught up in the lives of their human masters.  His suggestion, in short: man is subordinate to God; animals subordinate to man; and therefore, their destiny – their “redemption” – is related to their human master.

In one of my favorite novels, “The Great Divorce”, C.S. Lewis describes a scene in which he and bus-mates – new arrivals to heaven – come upon woman who was being honored in heaven for her earthly service, surrounded by her children. In addition, they notice something else:

“What are all those animals? A cat, two cats-dozens of cats. And all those dogs . . . why, I can’t count them. And the birds. And the horses.”
“They are her beasts.”
“Did she keep a sort of zoo? I mean, this is a bit too much.”
“Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in      Christ from the Father flows over into them.” ²

Did C.S. Lewis go too far in this illustration? Take too much liberty? I don’t know. But I do think it’s interesting that God left this unmentioned. It’s almost like he was hoping we’d have these discussions – hoping we’d let our imagination run wild – and was curious about what we would come up with.
Still, that seems like nothing more than a cruel experiment on the heels of losing a pet you love. Does He enjoy watching us drown our sorrows in the dog dish, lapping up what water remains to soothe us? Why didn’t He just save us from the confusion?  Why hide His intentions? Here are my half-baked thoughts that formed in the midst of this digging: Perhaps he didn’t mention it because it makes us rely on His character to fill in the blanks. It forces us to trust in His compassion, His love, and frankly, maybe His own yearning to make things right with His own creative work (70 breeds of cats? And 157 breeds of dogs? Who else could come up with this?) And, it makes us ponder restoration. Does heaven mean we are beamed up from a world we are familiar with, to a new world with harps, clouds, and heaven forbid, poorly-written praise choruses that never end? Or does it mean more than that? Perhaps restoring everything to the way He had intended? Eden to fallen earth, fallen earth back to Eden. Is this the kingdom of God? Perhaps our pains are clues to what heaven will be like. Whatever hurts us is something that wasn’t meant to be. Something that will be restored.

I can think of one other possibility. Yesterday, my oldest daughter turned 13. “All” she wanted for her birthday was to adopt a cat from the animal shelter. Since losing Jack, the stork brought us a black lab, Gunner, and our very first cat, Molly. We (meaning Bud and I) felt our animal family was more than complete; that we were animal-sterile, and so we told Megan that another one was not possible. Being smarter than the both of us put together, when asked what else she might want for her birthday, she replied “nothing”. No gift, no party. Nothing. The day before her birthday, her sly plan worked its magic on Bud. He caved; then I caved, and we began planning the surprise. I took the girls to the spa; then Bud showed up with a poster wrapped in ribbon. It had a picture of a cat who was saying “Please adopt me. My mom and dad said it was ok if I come and live with you”. It really was worth the look on her face. “Really?” she kept saying. Maybe, just maybe, God hides his intentions because it’s supposed to be a surprise. Maybe the restoration of the animals we love is something He’s got up His sleeve. A parent usually has a pretty good idea of what makes his kids light up, and really does love to knock their kids’ socks off by surprising them with it.

So what if we speculate and are way off the mark? Does it really matter? For years I was tyrannized by the fear of being wrong about what the Bible has to say about things. Honestly, I think the Bible’s main purpose is to show us who God is. Certainly there are things He is clear on, and that are non-negotiable. But when get to know Him ever so slightly, we find out that He is wild and full of mystery. Just when we think we have Him figured out, he bucks our neat, tidy conclusions off his bare, un-saddled back. He is the inventor of imagination.  And I have a hunch that it flatters Him when we use that imagination to dream a little in places where He has left things unclear.

Last week we watched the movie ‘Spirit – Stallion of the Cimarron”, and I admittedly let that imagination gallop. Spirit is a wild young mustang who is taken captive by soldiers settled on the American frontier. He meets a young Lakota boy who is tied up to a stake right next to him. The soldiers were trying to tame both of their relentlessly free spirits so they could be put to good use. During his captivity, Spirit is forced into harsh, back-breaking work in pulling a locomotive steam engine over the hill to meet its new tracks. The horse and his young comrade both yearn for their homelands and search out their freedom and together. At the pinnacle of the movie, they break free. The scene takes place in an area much like the Grand Canyon. The soldiers chase Spirit, with the boy on his back, all the way to the rim of a steep capped dome. The horse stops, breaths giant gusts out of his nostrils, closes his eyes in solid determination, and then leaps over a giant gorge, stretching to the edge of another steeped-walled canyon. The boy yelps as they fly over the gorge, and they land together in a heap on the other side, winning their freedom. Maybe this is a picture of what’s happening with our animal comrades. Maybe together we are “groaning”, breaking our backs pulling heavy loads while we search for our freedom and long for our homeland. Then, at different times, we reach the pinnacle of our story. Surrounded on every side, we leap over the canyon and land on the other side together, in a pile – slobber and saint.

So how do we leap from our rim of sorrow, face-down in the dog dish, to solid ground, where we are ready to welcome a new animal? A place where we are willing to get attached to – then lose – another one? Well, we use our imagination, that’s how. Right now, I’m imagining Jack sprawled out on his heavenly deck, drooling as he smells his next buffet cooking – and waiting for us to land. Bud and our girls agree.

This canine-feline-equine musing is nuzzingly dedicated to Jack, Jazzy, Dee Dee, Zak, Tanner, Junior, Chelsea, Jiggs Sr., Brandy, Dixie, Zoe, Cisco, Koobie, Annie, Spunky, and Sweet Bay.
Endnotes:
1. Dresko, Father John (Priest in the Orthodox Church in America, and President of the Alumni Association of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary): Excerpt from Father Joe’s blog:
http://fatherjoe.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/do-dogs-go-to-heaven/
2. Lewis: C.S., The Great Divorce, 108
3.  For an interesting read on the topic, visit   http://www.emmitsburg.net/tumc/pastor_wade/2005/pets.htm

Lord of the Flies

The ground feels soft. My feet feel heavy. I cannot step away.
The earth begins to open. A patch of murky green grass becomes a patch of black mire.
The mire dissolves into nothingness; black nothingness.
My left foot in the black nothingness; right foot still on ground. I begin to lose my footing.
I feel its gravitational pull. It’s a terrifying pull. I don’t want to go down this time.
I’ve been here before.
It’s the dark cavity of depression, and I start sliding in. Both feet this time.
Sliding,
now falling.
Falling down the black hole.
All I see are mixed shades of gray and black. And the vertical lines of movement as I fall.
The depths of this hole are abysmal; I know I could go further. The sides are narrow; I am claustrophobic.
I gasp from breathing in the thick fog of emptiness.
I extend my arms to reach up. I need a rescue. I feel for the texture of a rope.
I need a lifeline.
But my hands are so slippery. I fear my hands are so slippery that if I were offered one, I wouldn’t be able to grab onto it.
Besides, does anyone even know I am here?
Falling,
falling,
now sounds. Flies. They buzz and hit my skin. They irritate. More of them, more of them. They gather around my hands.
I move my hands and notice they feel sticky. Gluey. Flypaper. Covered with flypaper.
I feel slight warmth in my hands, now slight pressure. Not a rope; a hand.
Now a gentle pull in my arms.  Slow upward movement.
Now tiny glows; luminous specks. And sounds. Not a buzz like before, but a calming whir.
Fireflies flickering. Emitting hope.
©2010, Amy Gusso

Beauty Interrupted

Last weekend I had the unexpected joy of hearing the North Dakota State University Concert Choir sing. They did a joint concert with the Rapid City Children’s Chorus, with whom my daughter sings.  The audience was comprised mostly of parents, grandparents, and younger siblings of the kids in the Children’s Chorus.

The Children’s Chorus opened with an impressive performance.  An intermission followed, during which I scanned the program of the NDSU Choir, finding only a small handful of college choristers on the roster who were not music majors. For this reason, they were bound to be good.

The chorus immediately captured me with their swells of pianissimo to forte; forte to hushed pianissimo. From the “Singet frisch und wohlgemut” to “Here I Am”, the luxuriant sound flowed like a rich caramel macchiato latte. My emotions crested as I was caught up in the memory of singing with the South Dakota State University Concert Choir over 20 years ago. I was hypnotized by the exquisiteness of their music and the hope in the words they were singing. It was ethereal. Except… it didn’t happen quite like that.

All the stuff about the luxuriant sound, the caramel macchiato latte, the exquisiteness of their music – that’s all true. But the cresting of my emotions did not happen in the form of a smooth, glorious rise, as in the rise of a wave, followed by sprays of water that reflect the noon-day sunlight. Instead, the waves were choppy, thrust by wind gusts. In reality, it went a bit like this:

A capella, vittorioso, Key of D: “Children sing all together, Praise the God of heaven, our need He has recognized, (kid #1 whines)  and his dear Son sent from above, that we might praise Him (kid #1 screams, heads start to turn) here on earth. Praise we with love (grandpa #1 coughs loudly) and thanks (father 1 leaves the theatre, door slams behind him). Sing a new song to the Lord (kid #1 screams again, more heads turn). Praise him (kid #2 joins in) from the bottom of our hearts (kid #3 drops his toy truck on the cement floor), with one accord, and hope freely that to him (mother #1 whispers loudly telling kid #1 to be quiet) our service might be (kid #2’s screams turns into a wailing cry) a pleasure.”
For the love of SAM and all things good, if I was going to have any hope of experiencing an emotional high in the next hour, I needed to take action, quickly. I had three basic choices, as I saw it. One: Strangle kid #1.  Two: Strangle mother #1.  Three: Strangle both, in addition to kid #2. While mulling over my choices, it became apparent that all three might be a bit un-lady-like. The situation probably called for a more respectable course of action. So I left my seat and found one up close, hoping to hear better. Little did I know I sat down right behind kid #3, whose was chewing on loud snacks and moving from seat-to-seat, dropping markers.

Doesn’t it seem like that’s how beauty is in our lives? It comes, and then, it is interrupted. It washes over us, and then it’s gone. Beautiful sounds are interrupted by screaming kids. The concert of your favorite artist takes you to another place beyond this world, and for two consecutive hours you believe everything really is glorious. Then, you gather your belongings, make your way out to the parking lot with swarms of people, and fight traffic to get home. A vacation to the ocean is full of relaxation, warm sun, and beauty as far as the eye can see, and then, it comes to an end. It’s back to work.  A beautiful experience that begins to fulfill a life-long dream is cut off. Beauty is interrupted by disappointment; disillusionment. A beautiful relationship is cut short by change. People move away. A treasured relationship can be interrupted; damaged by anger, by disease, and ultimately, by death.

Where do we file regrets? The ache from a rhapsody that rises, then comes to a halt? Broken relationships? Dashed dreams? They don’t fit on 8 ½ x 11 sheets of paper, and therefore, we can’t just store them in a filing cabinet, away from plain view, with labels like “ Regret”. “Friend that moved away”. “Disappointment #1”, “Grandmother that has Alzheimer’s”. They have odd shapes. They are jagged, sometimes caked with mud. They don’t fit anywhere. Each interrupted, broken piece of beauty is like a broken piece of colored glass with rough edges. We feel pain as the glass breaks, and then we ache over our inability to mend them; resolve them, to resume the songs they represent. Since we can’t fix them, and we can’t file them, we often throw them in the trash so that, finally, we can put an end to staring at their brokenness.

But we are not so clever.  Even as we think they are being safely whisked away, to the junkyard, forever out of site, God snatches them in secret. He keeps them. Protects them.  Watches over them. You see, He is the master stained-glass craftsman.  One day, we will be His apprentices, learning the craft of stained glass creation and restoration. He will retrieve these pieces from safekeeping and hand them over to us so that we can begin building. In their disjointedness and jaggedness they are the perfect shape to create a window that will display an amalgamation of the broken, unfinished pieces of our lives.  We won’t have to force the glass pieces to fit together. They will eerily interlock to form an unexpected, breathtaking beauty. That regret will fit perfectly with that disappointment; that loss with that heartache.  Using putty and solder, we’ll work right alongside our loved ones, perhaps helping one another; turn our broken pieces into beautiful works of art. At last, we will get to see, in visible form, their interwoven purposes.  It will be the ultimate display of God’s ability to turn brokenness to beauty. Beauty, interrupted. Beauty, restored. Rhapsody resumed.

Epilogue
In a week we celebrate Easter. It’s the ultimate reality of beauty broken, beauty restored. The beautiful life of Jesus, cut short. Broken. Jagged. The disciples didn’t know where to file this reality. It wouldn’t fit anywhere that made sense; nowhere that would alleviate their devastation. But God, using the same power that restores our brokenness, restored Jesus’ brokenness. This restoration is now what restores us. The new resurrection reality doesn’t fit nicely in a filing cabinet either. It isn’t well-stored. It’s well-lived.  Have a blessed Easter.

“May God, who puts all things together,
makes all things whole,
Who made a lasting mark through the sacrifice of Jesus,
the sacrifice of blood that sealed the eternal covenant,
Who led Jesus, our Great Shepherd,
up and alive from the dead,
Now put you together, provide you
with everything you need to please him,
Make us into what gives him most pleasure,
by means of the sacrifice of Jesus, the Messiah.
All glory to Jesus forever and always!
Oh yes, yes, yes. (Hebrews 13:20-:21, the Message)

Jesus Wept (Oklahoma City Tragedy)

Today, April 19th, marks the 15th anniversary of the tragic bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Last fall, my husband and I visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial (we had flown to Oklahoma City to see a U2 concert in celebration of my 40th birthday). Neither one of us were prepared for the poignancy of that experience.

The memorial stands where the federal building once stood, and encompasses the surrounding area that was ravaged by the attack. Our first trip there was at night, and our eyes were first captured by the illuminated “9:01” engraved in the concrete entrance gate. Beyond the gate, on the left, we heard the sounds of gently flowing water. A pool serenely spans the length of the opening gate and the end gate, which is illuminated “9:03”. The water bridges the heart-wrenching chasm between the innocence of 9:01 and the terror of 9:03. Its tranquility competed with sharper emotions I felt, evoked by images my mind could not set aside – images of rubble, cries, blood, brokenness, and grief that once stood here.

On the right, an eerily lit field of 168 chairs speaks unceasingly of the lives lost that day. Nineteen of these chairs were smaller than the rest. Their voices spoke with softer, higher tones. Children. We left that night solemn, contemplative, impacted.

In the morning, we came back in the daylight, and could better see the fence that guards the edge of the memorial, running parallel to the busy downtown street. It was originally installed to protect the site, and for years collected mementos of mourners. Now, the nearby museum holds most of these tokens in safekeeping, but the fence is still full of items left from recent visitors. These mementos hold various shapes and colors; wreaths, shirts, jewelry, hats, pictures, poems; all communicating the kaleidoscope of human emotions that surround the devastation, even today, fifteen years later. We left our memento in the adjacent children’s area, with chalk, on a chalkboard, next to other expressions of love and grief, “With love, from the Gussos”.

We left the entrance gate, walked across the street, and came upon the site that affected me the most. It was a statue of Jesus; head bowed down with His hand over His face. The stone beneath was engraved with three words: “And Jesus Wept”. As we studied the site it became apparent this was not part of the official memorial; rather, a display on the grounds where the parish house of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church stood prior to the blast. I am grateful that someone anticipated my deep need for this final piece of communication.

You see, the memorial beautifully displays how ashes can morph into beauty, how love transcends all tragedy, and how hope cannot be destroyed by evil. We have been assured that God can make good out of painful circumstances; and that pain finds profound purpose in Him. But we still need to know that He weeps. That His nerves connect with ours, and feel our stabbing pain. That pain is not His wish. Death was not of His design. Just as He rose Lazarus from the dead; and it accomplished great purpose because many were saved because of this miracle that bore witness to His nature, He was still deeply moved by Mary’s sorrow. So, He wept. Two words, one verse; so simply, so strongly states what we need to know. “Jesus wept. (John 11:35 , NASB)”

View pictures of the “And Jesus Wept” memorial at:
http://dcmemorials.com/index_indiv0004101.htm
Official site of the Oklahoma City National Memorial:
http://www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/