a broken stone...

Audrey communicates simple trust in God on the gritty battleground of the Christian life. Every song on this album breathes peace. God is our resting place; our homeland. We are laid in the house he is building.

life reflection.

God says: He who does not work, let him not eat.

I do: a considerable amount of eating. So far today, not so much the work.

Here's to God's forgiveness and the way forward.

home, sweet home...

I came home from working at the dining hall tonight. I stepped out of view on the porch and rang the doorbell. Caitlin came to the door in a witch's hat and cape, armed with a huge bowl of candy. She made a very cute witch, by the way.

I jumped into view. "Trick or treat!" I said.

Caitlin called me a name... can't remember what. Something mildly affectionate with a hint of exasperation.

But she gave me some Smarties and let me come inside.

Seth had a three page paper to write, so logically, he was hyper. He played a song on the piano about the three girls currently in the house: an extended piano intro, rhyming lines, the occasional ornamental yelp... Caitlin was irritated by this and gave him some candy in the face, and in the back, and in the shoe... she missed a lot from her chair. Eventually he ate some. "The sugar doesn't affect me at all," he said.

The homework takes effect much faster than sugar. I just hope our sanity re-appears as we forget about all those assignments and enjoy the weekend...

pray without doubting

Here is Rev. James Boice's testimony to his congregation, shortly after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Si peccas, pecca fortiter.

Martin Luther said this. I imagine this was his advice to other men like himself: Men conditioned to live in fear of committing a sin without confession. Men who were constantly paralyzed by the fear of screwing up their life. Men who spent their life in perpetual confession, kneeling on a cold stone floor, hoping beyond hope that their prayers would somehow atone for a life of misguided affections and careless words.

If you sin, sin boldly. For me, the phrase brings to mind Dr. Epstein's advice to those who had failed to do their homework. It meant that even if you were unprepared and caught in the act of laziness, now was the time to flaunt it. Now was the time to translate that Greek sentence on the chalkboard, preparation or no.

Grace flows unconditionally. It covers you completely. Sin boldly.

Willfully? No. Bravely, boldly, courageously. This is the same attitude required to tell your dad that you drove his car into a tree. It keeps the soldier fighting under cover fire. Yes, the danger and the brokenness is real. So get up for the millionth time. Persevere. As Andrew Peterson says in a song,

I realize that falling down ain't graceful,
but I thank the Lord that falling 's full of grace.

When you fall, fall with confidence. By Christ's atonement, all your falling is full of grace.

He came for those who needed a doctor. So if you're not sinning, be very afraid. If you sin, have confidence. You are the one Christ paid for. You are the one he came to save. Christ heals our paralysis. He takes the cripple at the city gate, and makes him walk and dance again.

I'm reflecting on this because I've come to a point where the failure seems overwhelming: I've lost friends. I've gotten behind on work. I've said things I need to take back, and complacently embraced the aspects of my character that God hates: pride, self-satisfaction, loudness, polemical attitudes. I suffer the consequences of all these things.

And yet, the call is to move forward. Press on. Keep on fighting. Get up the nerve to talk to your heavenly Father about these things. Live in the confidence that Christ accepts you, and your works. He has prepared good works for you, and you will hear him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of my Lord."

Sin boldly.

Top Two

Heartaches:

1. Mom W is really sick.

2. Brad and Sue Frey's grand-daughter died on Friday.


Mess-ups:

1. dessert for the block party. :/

2. tables and vac at the dining hall Friday.


Songs:

1. "Awake my Soul," Mumford and Sons

2. "Great Glass Elevator," Andrew Peterson


Unexpected Blessings:

1. seeing the Schaefers at church today.

2. cool weather to run in BF.


Fun Times at the House:

1. Buttermilk Falls, swimming, sixty degrees. WOOHOO.

2. The Mysterious Disappearance of Jeffery and Subsequent Water Fight.


Books:

1. The Valley of Vision

2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

But when you fast...

But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

(Mat 6: 16-18)

After one attempt to fast from food, I must admit I was sorely disappointed by the whole experience. All I could think about was food, and how to stay away from it. Being hungry makes me fairly miserable, which meant I felt justified in cutting my mother short every time she talked to me. I also felt the need to "save myself" by not getting involved or helping with stuff. My day went like this: I got up and dressed early. Then I sat in my room and tried to concentrate on studying the Word and prayer. Ironically enough, by about 12:30 in the afternoon my ability to study was completely gone. All I wanted to do was eat and go to sleep.

God is somehow unaffected by a hypocrite skipping meals. Go figure. I've read Isaiah 58 only a million times and somehow missed the point of it--"In the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. You fast only to quarrel and to fight... Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard."

God's fast is a fast of repentance and holiness.

Lesson 1: I fasted without repentance for my sin toward my mother. I didn't even put up a show of fighting my tongue that day. God never rewarded my fast, and I think this is why. Fasting in disobedience obviously reveals a lack of trust in Christ.

Lesson 2: Fasting is an act of faith. It expresses how much I need Christ to work--to make me holy, to save me, to dwell with me from day to day. Fasting is an expression of how much I long for him to indwell us as a church, a community, a nation. But it doesn't make God do anything. God responds as He chooses. Not only does he know my heart--He also has the perfect plan.

Lesson 3: What was the fast for? God doesn't tell us to fast for its own sake. Fasting is an act of mourning--mourning for the return of a Savior, mourning for personal and corporate sin, mourning for the coming of God's kingdom on earth, mourning for God to show himself strong on the behalf of a friend or family member. The purpose of my fast? "I've never tried it before; maybe I will." (Not to overwhelm you with my profound desire to know God, or anything...) Lame.

John Piper's book, A Hunger for God, is an excellent case for the Christian practice of fasting. I tried to fast before I made it to chapter 6. That's the best chapter in the book, explaining Isaiah 58 for our benefit.

With Piper's help, I've identified some potential areas for fasting other than going hungry.

What if I lived a day or a week

without my computer?
without my nightly jog around the neighborhood?
without spending money?

What if I replaced these with a focused time of studying the Word and praying for God to "restore to me the joy of your salvation"? What if I fasted for...

the nation of China?
my friends who suffer from cancer?
the spread of the gospel in my community?
a heart to share my faith in Christ with others?
repentance from my sins and a clean heart?

God does not despise a broken and a contrite heart. I don't plan to put up any sequel to this post, or give any secrets about how to make fasting "work." I'll simply live believing that God has promised to use fasting for good.

I am going to keep practicing. The bridegroom is away, and the bride must go about mourning. I eagerly long for and wait for his return--not just in my personal life, but in the life of the body and in all the nations of the world. Setting aside one or another pleasure demonstrates, in some way, that my soul and body long for something deeper. Nothing in this life--not food, not friends, not anything--can satisfy the ache in my heart to see the glory of God in the face of Christ.

So come Lord Jesus, come quickly!

Wedding Announcement

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head were joined in matrimony at 4:30 this afternoon. Following the ceremony the couple departed for a honeymoon, escorted only by a small cheetah.

The new Mrs. Potato sported a yellow golf hat, bare feet (toned orange), and her largest, whitest set of teeth. Mr. Potato's jumbo eyes and ears engulfed his half-size body. It was a compelling ceremony, as both exchanged vows they had written themselves.

Mr. Potato Head, do you promise to protect this woman from any further damage? Her eyes, her ears, her head?

Do you promise to have children?
(this is her question, Isobel added...)

Then you may kiss the bride.

Loud applause (with an occasional howl of laughter) ensued from all the guests--Camera Man Potato Head, Dad Potato Head, Yours Truly, and two young children. None of the guests have been informed when the couple will return from the Dark Jungle of Doom, where they are now on their honeymoon.

it droppeth as the gentle rain...

Pastor put this into his sermon today.

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.

William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.

Hurricane Alex is still working its way through town. Lots of rain to remind us (among other things) of God's mighty, yet gentle mercy.

communion

The Lord's Supper always leaves me with some new understanding of Christ's love.

Today as always I came to the table with my family. I sat down on the table end, directly opposite the pastor. I heard the words of institution-- "This is my body broken for you; do this in remembrance of me."

And, probably because I was dither-headed and out of focus today, I simply watched the plate come around the table. From my seat I could see the bread come to every person. That simple picture was a beautiful work of the Spirit. At every stop Christ was proclaiming, "I died for Dan. I died for Stephanie. I died for Lisa. I died for Ruth." I watched the private worship and prayers taking place; the bowed heads and prayers; the elbows on the table and closed eyes.

I ate bread with my brothers and sisters, and watched them all chew and swallow. And I thought of how Christ in His mercy saved a whole family. He fills up tables with his beloved guests, and breaks his body for all of us together. Eating is an act of trust; and a reminder to all the family that we are trusting him together. Through Christ we are joined mystical union--with Him, but also with each other, as joints and ligaments built up together into him who is the head, that is, Christ.

the opus of bedtime stories:

Memorial weekend, I told Chris this story, explaining how the power went out:


A squirrel found our power line.



ARNGARNGHARNGH (gnawing sound)



*BZZZZZZZZZZZZT*


KAPOW!

Wee Adventures

Being a full-time babysitter is full of spontaneity and adventure: if the munchkins and I have an interesting idea for how to pass the time, we go for it. As long as it's cleaned up by the time the parents get home from work.

Friday we made a fort in the oldest girl's bedroom: a blanket hung from the rail of the top bunk, spread over to the dresser and the desk, propped up with a laundry basket and chair. Inside this fort we laid down a blanket. And we had picnic lunch inside the fort. Being out of bread, an improvised "hiker's lunch," involving trail mix, apples and oranges, cheese crackers, and peanut butter on a spoon, made up our spread.

I peeled oranges and apples. We told knock-knock jokes (I know 3 besides the only joke they know, which is "interrupting cow." All attempts to compose new knock-knock jokes were declared to be small failures by yours truly.).

Thursday we went out for snow cones. We pulled into the cramped parking lot of Cowboy Corner around 3; it was the steamy, sunshine-y, hits-you-as-you-step-out-of-the-car kind of afternoon. Perfect for snow cones. Moseyed across the pavement to the hut. Tried to look like we knew what we were doing. Isobel studied the flavors indecisively; we got the little guy a blue raspberry. I ended up with a scarlet "cream soda".

Then we sat on the parking block of a vacant spot, all in a line, like very cute and sweaty bums. We taught Shawn how to eat a snow cone properly, while watching carefully for slug bugs and monster trucks. After the mounds were taken off the top of our cups, we walked down a few blocks to a shady picnic table and rested in the shade.

Lunchtime Religion

(Background info: I'm a daytime nanny for 3 kids right now.)

Lunchtime has brought in the issue of praying. The last summer we were together, we didn't pray at lunch because I knew they were Catholic and didn't know what to do. They were little. I didn't want to step on their parents' toes.

This time I decided, what the heck?

I announced on our first day together that I always thank God before I eat, so I though we should pray together before lunch. To my delight, they immediately knew what I was talking about, and were even eager to do this. The older two led us in the Catholic grace (framed by crossing self with the Holy Trinity and saying "Amen"): "Bless us Oh Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from thy bounty, and these our guests (probably added for my benefit) through Christ, Our Lord."

Of course, they immediately noticed that I had no idea how to recite the prayer, much less cross myself.
"You're not Catholic, are you?"
"No, I'm not."
I told them that I knew Jesus, and that's what is important to me.
"How do you pray?"
I have learned a couple prayers that sound a lot like theirs--so while we munched on sandwiches and I cut apples, I briefly recited a Lutheran prayer and another prayer before meals that I had learned as a child. The girls shared a couple prayers they had learned at friends' houses. (They knew "God is great; God is good. Now we thank him for this food.")

What did I usually say at lunch?
(I told them very briefly.)
What church do you go to?
(I casually didn't mention it.)

We've been using the Roman Catholic prayer at mealtimes all week, and I've been saying it with them. I'm perfectly happy to thank God using the Catholic prayer. I'm still working on learning it. I just found it online; which will help, since the kids mumble through some of the words they don't understand.

As a die-hard Protestant, I somehow have no theological difficulty with crossing myself. First of all, I believe in the Trinity. So, invoking the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a perfectly right and proper thing to do. Each Person of the Trinity has separate office, necessary if I am to come before the Father in Heaven. Christ mediates and gives us access, the Spirit teaches us how to pray, and the Father receives our prayer. The Catholic cross is first and foremost a reminder that I rely every person of the Godhead as I pray.

As for the physical act of tracing a cross on oneself: The Catholics (at least officially) find no magic in the sign itself. It is a prayer and a proclamation. The sign of the cross is a physical act which announces to everyone in sight (and to yourself), "I have been redeemed by Christ's death on the cross." It is something you symbolically "wear". They argue that merely invoking the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a prayer in itself.

In his shorter catechism, Martin Luther said that as part of morning and evening prayers, "you shall bless yourself with the holy cross and say:
'In the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.'"

That first year I babysat them (when I didn't pray with them at all), my conscience bothered me. After the fact I recognized that I was very fearful, and as a result, God did not get the glory. On the other hand, now I've claimed Christ and I'm still terrified. I hope these kids will see in me a "grown up" who firmly believes that Christ is the most important thing in life. What they'll actually see is the failure, hypocrisy and compromise that makes up who I am. I stand in a place of responsibility (and therefore judgment), but also in a place of mercy. This gives me confidence. I know God is greater than anything I put in his way. His plans are greater than mine, and his power overrides all my willing or unwilling opposition. Isn't he awesome?

stay tuned.

What are you reading now?

On my stack (not started):

Middlemarch, George Eliot
The Curate's Awakening, George MacDonald
Green Dolphin Street, Elizabeth Goudge
Various youth fiction/teen and pre-teen series. (which may not include "Twilight" books... :P). Suggestions?

I'm putting up book reviews as I go along. Stay posted. First on the agenda: Girl Meets God, by Lauren Winner.

raggle-taggle gypsy-o!

(please follow link above)

I have said goodbye to my senior friends;
Why would I stay when the homework ends?
I'm going where it's dry--
Oklahoma in July!
I'm away with a raggle-taggle gypsy-o!*

(*I have since nominated to road trip with a raggle-taggle grannie-O*. The gypsy is unavailable for comment.)

(*The similarity between Grannie-O's title and that of aforementioned gypsy is completely coincidental and does not infringe on any known copyright which may or may not be held by said gypsy*.)

(*statement made by Grannie-O*'s attorney, 5/5/10)

(*also known as Grandma.)

...

Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis is a beautifully crafted, deeply poetic, meditation on the glory that awaits all Christians in eternity.

Lewis describes glory as God's approval for us, because our deepest pleasure is found in making Him happy. (This is almost the reciprocal side of the WSC, "man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.") Because of Christ, God is infinitely pleased with us. His pleasure--this glory He gives us--climaxes in our oneness with Christ.

There is a beauty and glory shining through our life experiences (a song, a sunset, a movie), teasing us to become a part of it. Right now we cannot. Creation can only taunt us now. One day God's glory will beam through us more gloriously than anything we've ever sensed in the sunset or a song. He will say to us, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of my Lord."

"Am I a good actor?"

I called Christa on her birthday. Here are the topics of conversation, roughly in order:

1. visiting the local tick farm for her birthday date (actually, she hopes for Thai Cafe and the OKC zoo).

2. a discussion of the beloved Jack, Spot, and Racetrack, and whether any of them would taste good with pepper and a dash of lemon.

3. this morning Ruthie said, "Libby's on the phone" when it was really Mutti.

4. Chris beautifully delivered to me the way Mutti said "Hello? Is this Christa?"
(proof that she had indeed been tricked)

5. This led to other ideas. Chris had a long line of "people who wanted to talk to me," including brother Calvin and an anonymous Private Eye who found a body and wanted "The whole truth, ma'am."

Well, Christa, I have to go now. Happy birthday!

I love you Lib.

I love you too.

Hey, Libby?

yes?

Am I a good actor?

Crossfire

(for the people I've loved over the years who suffer from depression or something similar; if you don't like emo-style introspection, you need not read further)

I.
I did not want to exist, so I pretended you did not.

I took you down as I shot myself.

I cried out for help, but I could not find relief. I growled at you from the corner of my soul as I licked the gaping wounds.

I have returned; I am better.
Talk to me, friend, and stay a while.


II.
I was taken down in the crossfire; closed in by an airless, sullen void of burning grief.

I wanted to put an arm around you; but you refused. I wanted to take you out of the corner and into the light of day. The light of day was too terrible.

I can no longer be well; but I forgive you.
I need help, but not yours.
I offer love, but not mine.

heaven working backwards

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing...
Mere Christianity, on "Hope"

I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven,to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.
Preface of The Great Divorce

Twig Adventure

I finally satisfied my curiosity about those sticks that covered the sidewalk last night. Sticks--you know, the thin, gnarly things scattered and clumped along the path as far as the eye can see. They appeared with the leaf-buds and the flowers that were torn from the trees by the hail and rain.

Let's say that you are walking down the sidewalk (or rather, running) in pouring rain, treading sticks and buds with your shoes. Out of the corner of your eye you see a stick begin to vaguely move and before you can stop yourself the same stick squishes under your shoe. You come to a halt right under the thickest part of the downpour and gradually realize that all the sticks and clumps of sticks on the sidewalk are in motion. They weren't going anywhere in particular until you sent them to stick heaven by trampling them underfoot. You curse the moment of insanity when you decided to wear your good running shoes for the entire day.

When an inanimate stick begins to move there are two (and only two) explanations:

(1) this is a new kind of stick that you've never seen on the sidewalk, in Audubon, or even on reality tv, and you are incredibly behind the times;
or (2) (most likely) you are crazy.

For most of us, regardless of the truth, (1) is the way to go. We simply have never encountered these delightful little things before. I've decided to call them rainworms because they magically disappear when the sun comes out.

Don't get your hopes up. There's little hope for sunshine any time soon. I have heard, however, that fish find rainworms incredibly tasty. Let's get some fishing line and head down to the river...

..On second thought, maybe we can just release some fish on the sidewalk instead.

Flowers in the Wind

I sat down at my desktop on a cold chilly morning, searching for immortality on a burgeoning sea of loneliness. Myself and a blank document. Life was, for the moment, quite empty. But my heart was full--full as an ancient bucket dipped in the lake, threatening to spill over or give way at any moment, a floodgate readily unleashed by the slightest jarring motion.

I started to write--every story I could ever remember, every feeling I called my own, every problem that had ever racked my brain. My fingers darted over the keys. They called into being mountains of suffering unsurpassed, wells of joy known to no one but myself, and glories untold. A swelling world emerged--a world more real than all else I knew. It grew and grew. A thousand pages. Five thousand. A hundred thousand. Still the mountains swelled; the wells deepened. Shadows and sunshine gathered over the landscape in sharpening points.

Presently the stories and feelings gave way to a greater consciousness: every poem I could remember, every verse of Scripture I learned as a child, every song I ever sung. I wrote them down--sometimes only three or four lines--the authentic cadence, the tune of my soul.
The words no longer flowed easily--I was grasping at any untold, unshared remnant of myself. I dutifully drilled out the dull statistics of my years, filling in the gaping chasms where my memory had nothing to offer. Academics. Work. Health, height and weight. Eyesight. Awards. Close calls and failures.

There the bucket emptied its last in an inglorious slow drip. The overflowing spring had at last run dry. My life was poured out in entirety. Every story I ever heard, every scene I remembered seeing, every deed I ever did, everything I believed, and every principle that I thought to make me who I was, now no more than a hundred thousand pages--a handful of dissonant themes sown again and again in careless haste until they could be sown no longer.

The Void returned--the great loneliness. I found that I had no desire to read what I had written. It was mere chaff; shed easily as straw in a south wind. I sat still, waiting for the change, the revelation of glory and purpose that I looked for within myself. Instead there was only silence.

Then the voice came, like a whispered poem on a breeze--like the shadow of a great rock under the scorching sun.

All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.