Recovery

We are all in recovery…..

“You can kiss your family and friends goodbye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world, but a world lives in you.” Frederick Buechner

Yes indeed, even if they are gone from this world. Recovery seems to be a big issue now, there are reams of writings and data, and the library is filled with books on how to stop one bad habit and replace it with something healthier. I wonder, did anyone even say the word a century ago? I think mostly they were too tired at the end of the day to even wonder about the word, let alone the actual thing itself. I think of my grandma and grandpa coming to California, starting over after leaving their farm, animals (some of whom they thought of as friends), not to mention their little girl’s grave. If anyone needed recovery, certainly they did. But they just buckled down, worked hard, learned English as their second language, and carried on. I have grown up listening to the stories.

And I am proud to carry some of their DNA. I wonder, how much of those experiences have carried down through me, buried in my own DNA. I like to think there is a strength I have borrowed from them. There are also other things floating around, the not so good things. On my paternal Grandparents side there was alcoholism. My Grandpa recovered, my grandmother did not. I carry some of that DNA as well. I have battled my own love of alcohol with several come to Jesus moments over the years. Counselors say that we need to know our weaknesses, keep a journal. Write down when you want to drink, get angry, eat compulsively. I know one thing, addictions can kill body, mind and soul. They want to obliterate the best that God wants you to be. Paul says this:

O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” Romans 7:24,25 KJB

So, we are terminally ill without Jesus. You can read all the self-help books you want; and sometimes they do have their place but ultimately, they turn your mind inward and get you to focus more on yourself. What we need is something bigger than ourselves. I concede with the Apostle Paul that unless I have Jesus, who is the only one who truly never gave into temptation, I have limited success in this life and none in the next.

I am one of those people to whom a party is not good news. I immediately stress out in mixed groups. If there was alcohol served, I was slightly relieved. Then I made sure to have a drink before I left for good measure. Now, thanks be to Jesus, I still get anxious, but I pray instead.

As I do most times, before I got to sleep last night, I thanked God for the roof over my head and thought of those nearly under the freeway sleeping in the dirt in the midst of their own garbage. It’s epidemic here in California. It’s so easy to play the us versus them game. I am guilty of that. I wonder why able-bodied young men choose the streets and addiction rather than just getting a job. “But God,” I prayed, “Help me to not see them as just the sum of their parts. Not just people who steal and throw garbage everywhere, but people that have gone wrong.

Just like I’ve gone wrong so many times in my life. Just like we’ve all gone wrong. It would be so tragic is there was no remedy. But there is:

Hand Jesus your life. You will never regret it. Trade the band aid for the Cure. It’s not easy, but its effects have immediate and eternal ramifications. Message me if you want to know how. Believe me, I’ve been there.

“But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:57 NLT

Walking Dust

“My hope is in what the eye has never seen. Therefore, let me not trust in visible rewards. Let my trust be in Your mercy, not in myself. Let my hope be in Your love, not in health, or strength, or ability, or human resources.” Thomas Merton

Ash Wednesday reminds us of our universal frailty. At lease it should. We are all just walking dust, after all. Our waking lives are filled with equal measure of it. Frailty, that is. Being human means that in every given moment we can simultaneously feel “blessed” or “stressed” beyond measure. Haven’t we all felt that shadow of “dread” that can come upon us even when things are going well? It’s like the feeling of falling mentally. For those of us who feel the very real feelings of social anxiety it’s kind of a normal state of mind. It can be considered a weakness, but for me, it amplifies my dependance on God. I guess that’s kind of what the Apostle Paul felt about his particular “weakness.”

The Bible doesn’t say what that weakness is, but it’s been fodder for speculation in many discussions and Bible studies. Going back to Ash Wednesday, I like the tradition of wearing the ashes outwardly, although I have never actually gone to a church that supplies them for application. Most Protestant Churches don’t offer them, but maybe they should. I tend to wear mine on the inside.

I have recently had my anxieties amplified by going without alcohol for 30 days. It’s a bit like having the band-aid ripped off the rough edges of life. It was something I felt I needed to do for a time, after being prompted by lots of introspection (and prayer) brought about by the Bible study I started earlier this year. It was hard. Day 3, I was wondering if I could actually pull it off. A genetic predisposition of Alcoholism ran from both Grandparents on my dad’s side. My Grandmother died at a young age resulting from a love of the bottle, and my grandpa quit after being given an ultimatum by his second wife. It was a deal breaker, and he quit forever, to his credit.

It skipped a generation and landed on and my brother and me. We both shared a love of drinking. My brother died unexpectedly in 2023 as a result of many health issues, some of them accelerated by excessive drinking. So, this has become a part of my journey at this (late) time in my life. Better late than never, I guess. It was time. One my own personal thorns of the flesh that needed to be put to death. We are all in good company. Even the Apostle Paul wasn’t exempt.

As Paul said of his personal “thorn in the flesh”:

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Cor. 12: 7-9

So, this can be encouraging, whatever your weaknesses are. No one gets out of this life alive. But as Christians, even in the midst of our “ashes” we can be encouraged. For when we are weak, Christ’s resurrection power rests on us! I don’t know about you, but as I get older, I am more confronted with more and more weakness.

Today, I wear my ashes inside, carrying about the dust of immortality. Always, carrying about in my flesh the knowledge of how close I came to the licking flames of hell, but also knowing I have escaped it only because of the Cross and the terrible road Jesus walked for me.

This my friends, is cause for celebration. Easter is coming. And in the midst of this life, we can have joy unspeakable and full of glory!

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not even see Him now, you believe and trust in Him and you greatly rejoice and delight with inexpressible and glorious joy, 1 Peter 1:8

This Pandemic

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At first it was kind of like a snow day. A little euphoria, our Spring break extended. School was put off, then cancelled for the rest of the year. It felt like a small taste of retirement. Hey, I had free time to do all the things I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. And books. I had books. Then the library closed. And our favorite places of business. The sidewalks emptied. And people got this virus here in the States and some died. It got more real.

Time stretched on, and I discovered to my surprise that I really liked Suduko. Easter came and went and it was nothing like any Easter we ever had, because there wasn’t one. Of course in the biggest sense there was. And maybe because of the way the world  was this year, the Resurrection felt even more meaningful because the life as we all knew it here had kind of died.

One day we found ourselves in an unbelievably long line (seniors only) at Costco. People pushed their carts Zombie- like, masked and unmasked alike. The line undulated like a snake around and around the parking lot. We all shuffled along looking a little bewildered. We got behind a talker in a tank top, adjusting his mask between words all through the line.

I think it was around day 28 of lockdown that it all came crashing in for me. A kind of bleak despair. It stopped being fun many days ago. The endless rules, and the endless news. The not knowing what or who to believe. As someone who is a bit on the antisocial spectrum of reclusiveness anyway this was coming too naturally for me and I didn’t want to surrender to it.

I can’t help wondering how many families and businesses will still be intact when this is all a memory? I hope and pray they will come back stronger than ever. As for me, I’m ready for open signs and full parking lots. I’m ready to actually go to church (maybe without the shaking hand part.)

Despite all this, there has been good. I think we have remembered how to be kinder and help each other out like good neighbors used to. Trips to the grocery store for those home bound have turned into reconnaissance missions.  Just taking a short drive has felt like being sprung from prison or military leave.

Something of this time I hope will remain. The forbidden luxury of hugs and closeness that I don’t want to take for granted anymore. The rhythm that is life has slowed for us all and that’s a good thing. But while slowing is good, stopping is not.

It’s time to get back to business because this is hurting us in more ways than one. Americans were meant to thrive, it’s what we were built on. So let’s wear our masks, wash our hands, and get to work. It’s time. Quarantine the ones who are sick and let the rest of us live.

Let freedom ring again.

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This is the mysterious thing about prayer.  It often happens even when you’re not intentionally trying to pray. It’s like riding a bike. If you thought about everything that goes into it you would probably not get yourself down the road. It’s like the other morning, wide awake at 2:00 AM. “I should pray,” I thought. “Why can’t I be more like those “Holy” people who get up and pray and seek God in the middle of the night instead of finding something to eat or drink or read?”

And this is the crazy thing. I got up and started talking to God about just that. Sometimes the best prayer sessions start when you’re not even trying. You’re just talking to the God who created you. Who knows us better than we know ourselves.

It’s reawakening to the knowledge that as believers, we stand saturated by Grace.  And that Grace never leaves us. Not even when we feel undeserving of it. We know we are undeserving and that leaves us breathless with thanksgiving once again.

This is the intimacy the Psalmists knew:

In the morning O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” Psalm 5:3

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.” Psalm 13:5

For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.” Psalm 116:8

And my favorite:

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thought from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with ALL my ways. Psalm 139:1-3

I like to think prayer is what happens while we’re making plans to pray. You don’t have to have just the right setting or the right moment. The time is right now, today. In every moment; every time we thank Him for the weather, the birds, our health. Prayer is giving words to our very breath, as Acts 17 says: “In Him we live and move and have our being.”

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted and it feels good. If I can only move one person closer to knowing God with my words, then it’s all worth it.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

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Everyone knows me knows that I have a long running vendetta against spiders, (except Charlotte). The first time I read Charlotte’s Web was the first time ever I was exposed to a heroine that was a creature that I had loathed all my young life. And I saw her as pretty with eyelashes, that’s how the artists portrayed her anyway. As the story unfolded I saw Charlotte as good, saw her spinning away prettily in her web the words that would save Wilbur.

This one was small, almost microscopically as he brazenly walked across my robe. I must have collected him (or her) outside and they hitched a ride. Because it was so small I deemed it worth saving. What is it about something shrunk down to a minimal size that renders it helpless. Had it been enlarged by about 10 times I would have called for its destruction in haste. But it was so small, and so vulnerable.

It was trying to spin a little web, away out of its trouble maybe. Maybe it sensed disaster looming. It sunk down into my pocket and I tried to get it to attach itself to the Kleenex I offered as a lifeline. No go. Then I got a straw and poked it down towards it and it climbed aboard. Victory!

I took it outside where I thought it might flourish, left it on the tomato plant outside. I felt I had done what God would have me do. I guess maybe I felt like maybe He feels about us. My heart was moved by a creature so small that it needed my help to get it back to where it truly belonged.

I don’t know about you but I need help each and every day to get back to where I once belonged. In my heart, in my soul, in my mind. All of us feels the loneliness that rocks us to the core at times. It’s the inborn sense that things just aren’t right and we need Someone bigger to reach down and help restore that feeling that we are truly on our way Home. Or at the very least, stumbling in the right direction.

You see, no matter how shattered we may feel today, God is in the process of making all things new. We serve a God of restoration. Everything we are going through right now will someday make sense. In the forest of Mirkwood it’s so dark you can’t see the sky but that doesn’t mean the sky isn’t there. (Read Chapter 8 of the Hobbit) It is, you just have to climb a little higher to see it. Look up my friends. Look for the shaft of light in your particular forest today. It’s Hope, and it’s always there. He’s always there.

Problems, like spiders,  can all be shrunk down to minimal size in the light of God’s Presence in our lives. He is in the process of putting all the pieces back together again. Everything in this whole crazy mixed up, messed up world. That includes me and you and everyone we care about.

The Writing in the Sand

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Where are your accusers? That was the question Jesus asked the woman who was caught in adultery. I’ve wondered all kinds of things when I’ve read and reread this story. This time it became more alive to me. I could see Jesus there……hear the stones thudding against the ground……..one, then one after another. I saw the dust fly up in my mind when they hit. I put myself in the woman’s place. I wondered where the man was?

We wonder don’t we, what Jesus wrote in the dirt. He did it twice kind of bending down almost as if He was pretending He didn’t hear the question. We’ve all done this from time to time. Someone asks you something and you don’t want to answer right away or maybe at all. You look off into the distance, look down at your hands…..sigh heavily. I think maybe Jesus did sigh heavily as He stared at the ground and moved his finger through the dust.

Where are you today? What guilt are you dragging around that you long to let go of? Where do you fall short in your accusers eyes and who are they? Is it a parent? An adult child? Yourself? The Church? A world that has dashed you into the rocks one too many times, one too many waves of grief……pain……loss.

The week is over and where are your accusers? Maybe it’s you telling yourself how you just don’t measure up against some standard you put on yourself. God doesn’t see us as failed experiments, friend, and neither should you. If it was you they dragged in front of Jesus that day with their fingers of blame the result would be the same.

The writing in the dirt, that line in the sand is for all of us who fall short, and we all do, everyday. Romans 3:23 kind of gives me hope: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Maybe on this Mother’s Day you are remembering a Mom who made you feel like you never measured up. Maybe you aren’t a Mom and others made you feel less than because of it. Maybe they even made you feel that because you never were a parent you don’t have the capacity to love fully. Don’t let that lie sink in. The stones of your accusers are falling like rain.

Here is a truth: there is a little mother in all of us. It’s how we’re designed. We are made in the very image of Who birthed the world itself. That is not to minimize the importance of good Mothers everywhere, but to bring us all up to where and how God sees us as individuals.

Embrace this simple truth today: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” It’s a good day to be released today. To forgive and be forgiven. The air of freedom is there. Take a deep breath and remember that there is room at the base of the cross for all.

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:5-6

 

When even the ocean is not big enough……..

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Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

I stood at the shore and waited for that feeling……..that eraser, elixir that would make all the present circumstances melt away. But it occurred to me that sometimes even the ocean is not big enough to do that. Even if it were fresh water and we were dying of thirst, it could save us but we would still thirst again, just as Jesus explained to the Samaritan woman at the well:

………but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.

But nature has always had a way of making God close for me, and I relaxed and let it do that. I looked hard at everything, and we ate good food and had some wine too. I foraged for shells and saw some magnificent patterns in some sand dollars and drew them in my book. For me, the ocean is God’s way of saying, “Here you go……explain this one.” And all I can say is that He is bigger than everything, even anyone’s problems including my own.

Even when it feels like the small things you do are like dumping a cup of water into an ocean of grief, God is the multiplier. When it’s all you can do, He makes it more than enough.

I am finished with my one year commitment to LOEL center and this weekend is the start of a little break before I begin the next phase of retirement. I am still a little ways off from Social Security and so I work for at least three and a half (counting) more years.

Sometimes I close my eyes and remember how my room looked from the right, and from the left. When I felt like everything in my life was secure and I had the umbrella of a big company over me. But maybe that was an illusion. I still have God over me, over us.

And this place by the river is truly a tremendous blessing. It is feeling like home  I am learning here to take one day at a time and receive it with a grateful heart. Maybe that’s what God is trying to tell me, that I don’t have to have everything mapped out and planned. How many people can walk down to a river in the morning after all?

The four days at the beach did its magic. I will remember the boat ride through the slough and our walks and so many birds this year, more than we’ve ever seen.

For a little time we were suspended:

It’s easy to think that at 3:19 AM it’s just us here alone in this place and I want to remember the peace of this moment. The staccato seal barking on the pier, the seagull I just heard. Even though it’s chilly I always crack the window to stay in touch with the ocean so big and still out there like God. Each drop of time is precious. An engine starts nearby, a night fisherman going out or coming in. You fighting off a cold nearby, fighting for breath and Briggs purring in my ear with his paw on my shoulder. Just is just us down here God, don’t forget us. Just beyond, over the bridge is where we left some of E’s parents ashes. The ocean breathe in and out, until God says “No more.”

And when we pulled back into town we put everything back on like a heavy pack and I have to remember Jesus other words, just before He went to the cross:

I am leaving you with a gift–peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.

And I think of Him on that terrible cross taking on my sin and the sin of the whole world and I know I can trust Him.

 

A Million Avenues

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“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen for His own inheritance.” Psalm 33:12

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” Revelation 7:9 

It’s a miracle really that any of us seeks or knows God. Navigating this faith journey is a great mystery. What makes some of us look up, look in, look outside of ourselves to something or someone bigger than we are? God placed within each of us that need and desire. What do we fill the vacuum which C.S. Lewis so aptly describes as “God-sized?”

He calls us, each of us, if we listen. He uses a million avenues to do it. To me the “no-brainer” is nature, but that doesn’t work for some. They can explain that one away, but I can’t. To watch the redwoods glow red as they filled up with sunlight this morning was Holy and I can’t deny it. I don’t want to either.

The nation God is talking about is not any country here on this earth. It has no boundary or border or President. Its origin and beginnings were already established in the mists of Creation as God’s Spirit moved along the waters. He already had me on His easel. There was a place for me there. That astounds me.

This year has brought big changes in my life. I am continuing to deal with anxiety and clouds of depression that come. There is a weight on my soul such as I have never felt before. I am no longer fighting it, but am trying to rest in it. I don’t know why but I somehow feel it is a necessary season and it will pass.

I am very blessed to have a wonderful confidant (Elaine, yes you) and support here on earth and I know God hasn’t left me. I stand on His word and the Holy Spirit who resides in my heart. I am sealed for the day of redemption. (Signed sealed and delivered, but still a work in progress.)

I rest between the brilliant flashes of beauty He gives when He knows I need them most. They leak into my soul and reassure me that all is well and all will be well. They are like the stones you use to cross a body of water, you don’t look at the swirling water but give your concentration to the individual stone.

Life continues to be good.

As I listened to David Nevue this morning in the quiet hour of 6:00 I saw a spot of sun rest right on the doorknob of my Aunt’s house and it reminded me of the verse where Jesus says He is standing at the door of our heart knocking to come in. If my writing causes even one person to look toward Jesus, then I know I will have used my gift right.

Look up friends. God never disappoints.

Butterflies and Caterpillars

 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:16,17
I was reading something  in a book titled, Classic Christianity by Bob George that struck a chord with me the other day. He was talking about how we walk around defeated because we have failed to recognize who we actually are in Christ. I think there is some truth to this. Sometimes in our efforts not to appear better than anyone else, we walk around like caterpillars instead of the butterflies we are. Who ever heard of a butterfly walking around in the dirt when they could easily fly, in fact, were made to fly?
I think there is a danger of identifying so readily with sinners that we fall into sin ourselves. Many people who continually talk of divorce end up divorced. It’s a delicate balance. Jesus was the master at this.  He was equally as comfortable in His skin in the Temple or at the home of “tax collectors and sinners.” Neither atmosphere changed who He was, and yet He made Himself approachable to Chief Priest and Prostitute alike.
While the Apostle Paul was fully aware that he wasn’t exempt from falling into sin, and that many times he was unsuccessful in his efforts to do the right thing, he also never forgot who he was in Christ. He didn’t live a defeated life! He didn’t let his failures keep him from what He knew was sure victory at the end of the race! He kept his eyes on the prize.
We hold within us the power of Almighty God in the form of His Spirit……..the same Spirit that moved across the waters before creation…..also the one who raised Jesus from the grave and broke the power of sin and death forever….That Spirit!
We should never forget what Jesus has saved us from, but we should also remember that when we rose up out of that water from Baptism, we became a new creation!
So enjoy your flight today……and as they say on every flight, feel free to move about the cabin…..

Words

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The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they pour forth knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out to all the earth, their words to the end of the world. Psalm 19:1-4

There is a time when silence has its own magnificent language, you can’t adequately explain a sunrise, or a full moon rising over the earth. You have to see it, and once you see it you have to answer the question: “Who did this?”

I love words. I love the art of crafting them on paper. I love reading what talented writers write. I use them to try to capture my feelings which are much of the time tangled and twisted inside me.

Writing is my way of making sense of my world and the world around me. They are necessary to use them to have good relationships with people, especially the ones we care about. But sometimes I wish we could just read each other’s hearts and know each other’s pain and struggles without all the words because sometimes words just aren’t adequate.

We could just sit in the silence like you do with a dear friend watching a sunrise. You know that feeling when at the same time you have that sharp little intake of breath when you see it…..”Oh…..” “Wow….” “Will you look at that?”

I could receive your heart and you could receive mine and all would be clear, nothing confused, like a sunrise. And we would say….”Oh….” “Yes…..” I see you clearly now. I understand.

And all would be well.

When we pray, something kind of like that happens. It’s something miraculous. As Christians, we reach out to the Holy Spirit of the God of the universe. We reach out on behalf of each other when we don’t know what else to say because the Holy Spirit knows the canvas written on each of our hearts.

He speaks with groanings too deep for words to the Father about us. He knows we don’t have the right words, but He does. He always does.

Prayer for today:

“Lord, I give you everyone in my circle today. Give us all the peace that passes understanding. Give us new strength for this good day, for they’re all good days because you are here with us. Help us to help each other in the right ways. Get the clutter out of our hearts so that we can see you and each other more clearly. Help us to love one another with Your love. Thank you for words and thank you for sunrises and sunsets and all this beauty around us. Help us never forget to notice it. Tamp out the worry and fear that threatens to overwhelm us at times. And help us always to know the future is in your hands not ours.” In your Son’s matchless name, Amen.