One of the things I most love about my faith

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:8,9

Since the beginning, God has wanted a relationship with his children. He never intended to create us and then leave us alone. This verses suggests to me that God was in the habit of visiting Adam and Eve often, daily, maybe more than once during the day.

He has been seeking us ever since.

He came to Cain after he killed his brother. And He searched the earth looking for a righteous man and found Noah. Down through the ages he has searched.

Abraham……Samuel…..Moses……David……Peter…….Paul……Lori

And he is seeking you too.

Do you hear Him calling?

This is the thing that still astounds me, still amazes me, still thrills me. And it never gets old. I serve a God who wants to know me intimately. And you too. He is not content to sit back and observe. He is a God who has always wanted to get right in the middle of our lives. He is not afraid to get into the down and dirty, nitty-gritty details. None of them surprise Him.

He is delighted, concerned and interested in all the little and not so little events that happen throughout our day, and he loves it when we share those with him!

And my friends, if you are a Christian and that fact doesn’t still absolutely blow your mind, something is wrong.

What would your husband, wife, best friend, child, think if you never asked them about their day or told them about yours? They want to know about what excited you, what thrilled you, what made you sad and you want the same consideration.

This is hands down, absolutely one of the best things about being a Christian; to know that I have a God who is present in each and every detail of my life. I can’t imagine not being able to share with Him throughout the day. I hear a beautiful piece of music and I say…..”Wow, God, thank you for that. Thank you for people who want to use their gifts.”

Every breath can become a prayer and when you have practiced this long enough it becomes second nature to praise Him, to cry with Him, to share laughter with Him.

To share your everyday life with Him.

I encourage you to bring Him in to every moment of your day today. The wonderful ones, and the not so wonderful ones. You won’t be disappointed.

He wants that.

It’s what I am most grateful for today. It’s been a tough week, but He’s still here.

Still listening to the whispers in my heart.

Psalm 139 and 3/4

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

He has indeed called us Heavenward. And even as we battle down here we are thinking of that hereafter, that future time where the cares of this world are but a lost memory.

And as I lay awake in the dark tallying up my worries, thinking about all the things I wish I could fix but can’t, I write my own Psalm and call it 139 and three-quarters.

For the umpteenth time, I give Him my laundry list of things, those that He already knows about me and I feel it float Heavenward as He assures me He loves me anyway, again.

When sleep is snatched away by the cares of this world, I pray in the wide awake moments before dawn and I feel the peace of my home surrounding me like a cloak. Though worldly sorrow nips at the edges of my heart, the hope of His peace seeps in and around it like Holy smoke. This is the prayer I pray:

“Bind us together Lord, bind us together with cords that cannot be broken.”

And then I think of the sock that made its way into my suitcase. Her little sock.

I don’t know how it got there, but I am glad it came back with me.

I think of all the pictures I didn’t take, and how my camera never left its bag. And how I couldn’t care less because what we had instead was much more beautiful.

I thought of how we hid every possible place in the house and how she covered her eyes and counted and giggled as we crouched together in the dark closet while my Dad looked for us. She still hasn’t got the part where she is supposed to stay quiet while she hides, and that makes it all the more precious somehow.

Years from now, I will remember how we all collapsed on the couch after we were done, and how Mom came in and asked what we had all been doing to look so exhausted.

I thought of how I put swim goggles on along with my wrinkles and flat hair and went all the way under the water because she wanted to see me under there with her. I can still hear her shriek of excitement, “You too, Nori!”

It was also a weekend of some firsts. She sat down beside me on the couch with a book and let me read to her, something I have dreamed of ever since she was born. It was like a mini miracle. And how she wedged herself into the couch close by me, wanting to be right by my side all weekend long.

We went to the store together and she helped me shop. Another first. Store was always a scary place for her before.

No, I didn’t get one photograph of fall, not one red leaf, not one landscape of how the morning mist lay in the vineyards, and not the one of the old barn I saw either. Sometimes life just can’t be freeze framed, it has to be lived. The leaf you see is one I took a year or so ago.

This was not the time to chase the perfect shot. It was the time to savor, and treasure, and corral that which there is never enough of.

Time.

That’s what the sock reminded me of.

And looking at it now, I’m smiling as big as the face on the sock because when I look at it, I can still hear “You too, Nori!”

Sometimes, Heaven’s a place you can find here. It’s in the love shining out from the eyes you leave and come home too.

God’s way of saying He loves us.

Small Blog Break

I will be gone for a few days to surprise my niece with a visit……..We will spend time doing things like this…….

I am anticipating her smile and shriek of joy at the airport. (and mine)

I intend to pack a lot into three days, and now that my kitty is better, I can feel better about leaving. He has been sick, and as you all know, when pets or kids or anyone you love is sick, the world kind of stops.

So, with camera in tow, I head off to California this morning with a lighter heart.

I will come back with more memories and hopefully lots of pictures of bright fall leaves, which are pretty much scarce here.

Posts to follow……

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:3

When you no longer recognize your church

It is a relatively modern phenomenon. One church, several locations.
Here’s how it works. It runs a bit like a corporation; with one main Pastor or CEO who runs the show and several co-Pastors who man their individual “Campuses.”

The way it happened in my last church was that our Pastor retired and another Pastor came in, one who already had a church in a neighboring town. All of a sudden we had a real live Pastor twice a month. The other time we saw him via a video feed speaking from the other campus.

The first time we went, it was so slick and polished and coordinated and pre-packaged…….and fast, we wondered if we had actually just attended church. Instead of speed dating, we were speed churching. It was like church drive-by.

We left. There was no more spontaneity, no more prayer for needs in the service, no more holiness. More than anything, I didn’t feel the Holy Spirit there anymore. It was like he packed up and moved out.

It’s really hard to get God to work in a constrained and prepackaged formula. The Holy Spirit needs room to breathe, room to work in and through His people. He doesn’t stay where He isn’t welcome.

Now it has happened again. Our church building was sold out from under us by the developer and almost overnight, we had to find a new home. The church that was interested in buying it backed out when they found out we didn’t even have a clue the building was up for sale. It was a bad deal all around.

Another Pastor who already had three “campuses” in other towns, offered to let us continue, but under his church name, and as part of his church organization. We were now the East Valley branch.

There is only one problem with it. We are unrecognizable from what we were before. We are them now, which to some people is just wonderful. Our Pastor is still the Pastor, sort of, but he doesn’t speak, he just introduces the other “hosting Pastor” who does his talk via video. I assume he will get a “turn.”

So this past Sunday was our make or break Sunday. Will we stay or leave. And we decided we will leave.

I think it is safe to say that we had both already decided when we heard a song by Stevie Wonder filtering into the church coming from the stage where we used to hear praise music. Nothing against Stevie Wonder, I love his music, just not to open a church service.

And when we saw the flat screens projecting, not church messages, but football scores, and an actual game, I got a vision of Jesus and the money changers in the Temple. I pictured him with a baseball bat bashing out the screens. This is the question that has haunted me ever since.

Have we gotten to the point where we really want more world in the church instead of more church in the world?

And someone kidnapped our outstanding music group with another guy who smiled a little too much and sang every song in a monotone. Elaine leaned over and whispered that “all that was missing was the mosh pit.”

Communion is also done differently than any church I have ever attended and I have attended a lot, in just about every denomination. The plate is passed and you eat and drink the elements right then before you pass them on.

It’s craziness. People trying to pass and balance, hurry and not spill looked more like people doing oyster shooters and shots of vodka than communion. By that time my sense of humor either saved me or failed me, whichever way you want to look at it. I had to bite the sides of my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Where is the holiness, where is the reflective pause? Where is the feeling of community where we all gathered at the table and received it together.

Am I missing something?

The “talk” was short, and meatless. I felt more like I had just been to family counseling session than church. He had some very good points, and he smiled at the right times, and looked sympathetic and humble at the right times. He spoke like he has been through the Dale Carnegie school of public speaking…….more than once.

And again. There was no “altar call” and if that is just too evangelical for you, no time for “a decision.”

We will be looking for a new place of worship, needless to say.

And it makes me sad that once again, we have to do this. But do this we will. Because I believe in the church more than ever. Both as a body of believers and as an actual place to go.

I don’t need it relevant.

I need it real, and full of Jesus and some imperfection please.

If anyone is reading this and loves all the changes taking place, please don’t be offended. These are my thoughts and mine alone. I am sure the Pastors and staff are all wonderful people and want to do what is good for the community and are following their hearts. There is always the possibility that I am way off base with my synopsis of the way things are. I am by no means any kind of spiritual health meter of churches.

And yet, when it’s all said and done, each of us has to go where we are fed.

And my prayers, you can be assured, are with you always.

I would be interested in comments. Has anyone had similar experiences?

Parable thoughts

Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ Matthew 25:19-22

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. 1 Corinthians 3:12-15

When I read a certain Bible passage, first I pray for the Holy Spirit’s help in understanding and interpreting the verse. Then I use my study guides to help me consider the context, in other words, where the writer was coming from and what he was talking about in the previous verses.

Even at that, I can still muck things up by over complicating it.

In reading these two passages, I did what I do most of the time. I insert myself in the story and I ask myself some questions:

“Which one am I, really?

“Which one does God see me as?

“How do others see me?

I imagine myself standing before Jesus on that day, hopping up and down on one singed foot…….”Well, here I am Lord! I barely escaped the flames but I’m here, whew!” And then with an almost imperceptible shake of His head and sadness in His eyes, He holds His arms out to me anyway.

And then there are the talents……all those gifts He gave me that I clung to in fear. That I held deep inside. Those things I was afraid to share with others…….that light I didn’t let shine for fear of failure. And those I buried in the backyard trying to them safe instead of giving them out so He could multiply them for me.

When it all comes down to it, we are extremely hard on ourselves. And the reason God put all those things in the Bible is not to make us feel terrible about ourselves, but to spur us on to action. To encourage us.

He wants us to see that while we see only our failure, He sees where we have succeeded in Him.

He sees those times we seem to think nothing of. Those times we prayed for hours, faithfully each morning. Those times we passed the grocery cart to the next person and smiled. The time we were a peace-maker at work. Those times we were obedient by picking up the phone to encourage a fellow believer……

When we stand there before Jesus, feeling very much alone, maybe feeling maybe a little bit like the cowardly lion before Oz?

I believe He will say: “Who are all those behind you?”

Then we will look…….and He will remind us of all those times. And all those people.

Maybe you are not Billy Graham. And maybe, like me, you don’t preach on street corners. But you do love God, and you do share that love with others. And your talents too.

And just maybe, that one kindness you do today will be that last barrier that you remove, that last thing standing in the way of someone else’s salvation.

You just never know.

For the love of the game

Back when I was growing up, my Mom had a special friend. Her name was Lorna Mae. Lorna originally came from Kansas and I think her husband Dale did too. They moved to California and lived on the street next to us. Lorna was a saint, and I have no qualms about saying that. She was one of the kindest, sweetest people I have ever known.

Lorna and her husband were staunch baseball fans. On game days, they would all pile into the car and go to see (to use Dale’s vernacular) “them A’s play.” Meaning the Oakland A’s that is. “Why, Haeeellll,” he would say to my Dad, “We got up early and Doug-brian-scott-roxanne-lornamae and myself went down for hat day. I still can’t think of them all without running all their names together. Though they had four kids, all names morphed into one on game day.

I know my Dad feigned interest. He didn’t care much about baseball, having been a “leather head” himself back in the days when football wasn’t “sissified” like it is now. A good game was not only when you won, but if you got through the game without serious injury or death. He didn’t think baseball players did all that much. “They’re not athletic,” he said, “and they just stand around chewing and spitting.”

Dale loved the game of baseball so much he actually bought and installed a professional pitching machine in the backyard. A couple of his sons actually were pretty good.

Dale was also a bit on the gullible side. My Dad once told him the model airplane they were flying came out of a Wheaties Box. “Noooo kidding…….” Dale said, shaking his head.

But back to Lorna. Lorna’s house was neat as a pin and you could have probably eaten off her garage floor. She hosed it out regularly. Lorna babysat other people’s kids during the day in addition to raising her own, like my Mom did. The whole family also cleaned Doctor’s offices at night for years.

When I was in High School, Lorna gave me rides to school on rainy days because my Mom didn’t have a car and neither did I or any of my friends.

When her kids were grown she got a job at a local business where I know she won everyone over with her work ethic and kind heart.

And it was at that same job, several years later that she started getting headaches and dizziness. She also started laying her head down on her station in the middle of the day. Her co-workers were alarmed because that was not like her at all.

Doctors discovered a brain tumor. After brain surgery, chemo and radiation, and many trips to Mexico for alternative healing, (Dale, to his credit, didn’t give up) Lorna went to be with Jesus. I know He personally welcomed her home with open arms.

I was around 28 or 9 when I went to my first major league baseball game at Candlestick Park, to see the Giants play. I was captivated. I discovered the joy and the magic of the crack of the bat……being at the Ballpark and having a hotdog in a steamed bun that cost too much. And I thought of doug-brian-scott-roxanne-lornamae and dale.

And I have a feeling Lorna was smiling from Heaven.

When I moved here, I was excited we had a major league team and I took my Dad to a game when he was visiting. He got to see Randy Johnson, the Big Unit, throw a one hundred mile an hour practice pitch in the bullpen right below us.

He just shook his head in disbelief. He never forgot it.

And Lorna was smiling.

The Gravity of it all

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. John 3:17

I recently went to see the movie Gravity and I loved it. The views of Earth from space were stunning and they almost moved me to tears. Only two actors were used during the entire movie and it not only held my interest, it captivated me. Parts of it took my breath away, literally. I found myself wanting to take big gulps of air, especially for Sandra Bullock who was dynamic.

Watching this movie, watching our Earth from space made me see us how God must see us. I felt for us, I did. All of us with our piles of idols……our pack of worries and heartaches, our problems that seem so hugely monumental. Well, they are to us, anyway.

And I guess they are to God too, because He saw our plight. He saw our great need for a Savior, even when we didn’t see it ourselves.

And all these things that seem so big to us, so unsolvable, so wondrous, so lasting, are less than a breath to God.

I saw us as He does, as a people and a planet worth saving.

And none of the things we are so worried about right now today will matter in 20 years. They may not even matter next week.

Thank you God, for sending us a rescuer. A redeemer. Help us to know that even if we have no idea how we are going to solve our problems today, that somehow we will be okay.

Because you are here. And you promised never to leave or forsake us no matter what.

this photo is a digitally enhanced negative taken from 1972 Apollo 16 by Royce Bair/IronRodArt, some rights reserved

Just follow the rules and nobody gets hurt

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6

Help, Lord. The day has barely dawned and already I called someone on the freeway an A– (I bet you can fill in the blank)

He was clearly not following the rules. He was supposed to wait his turn but he thought he could sneak past on the right.

Everywhere you go, people are breaking the rules. Taking shortcuts, cutting corners. Cheating. It’s a worldwide epidemic. And just about every problem you can think of can be traced back to this one thing.

Someone wasn’t following the rules.

My water heater sprung a leak because the installer used cheap connections and the wrong piping. It was okay…….we were watching it. Then one morning there was a river in the backyard and now we are walking on a floor that is warped due to water damage underneath.

He thought he could cut corners.

My internet has been down for 2 weeks due to someone switching lines at the clubhouse. (We think) It was working great, and then the cable people were working on the box and it all went bad. You could hear the static in the line. We found out yesterday that if they find a line that is good (ours) they switch it with a line that is not good. Since we had our land-line disconnected they probably thought no one was using it and that’s when they swapped it with someone else’s.

At least, that is what we think happened. All evidence is pointing in that direction.

Someone took a shortcut. Instead of installing a new line they stole someone else’s.

Not following the rules, clearly.

God gave Adam and Eve one rule and one only.

Do NOT eat from that tree. “You can have every other plant,” He said. There were probably hundreds, thousands to choose from. Every kind of luscious fruit or vegetable you could ever want, desire, dream of. But there was something about that one. And I have a feeling they tasted much better than what we get now.

But that tree, there was just something about it that was so attractive. It was forbidden. It was there. That low hanging branch was just too good to pass up. It looked better than all the others. And there was that beautiful creature with the smooth voice that sounded like one of those guys on the late night Jazz station that made it even more appealing. He sounded so right…..so logical.

Then there were those 10 other rules.

Turns out we weren’t any better at following those either.

But thanks be to God. In His wisdom, He knew He needed to show us how utterly we fail without Him.

That part is still true today. I fail everywhere I turn. I disappoint people and myself every single day and so does that guy on the freeway. He fails too.

Maybe he was late for work. Maybe he just made a hasty mistake.

Maybe we all need to cut each other some slack. The same slack God used for us all.

Help me God, to be more patient. To learn to extend more grace. Thank you for loving us all and sending a solution to our universal problem. He followed all the rules perfectly because He knew we never could.

Thank you Jesus.

Short posts these days friends…..until I get my internet back at home. I am posting on the fly.

Why it’s good to take a break from the computer

Trying to keep up with all the activities associated with blogging and social media sometimes makes me feel as worn out as this woman on the bench. Sometimes I pull away voluntarily, but sometimes, like recently it’s a forced break due to circumstances beyond my control.

After disconnecting the land-line, we decided to have another more improved line installed for internet access only. It won’t be installed until Monday. So…….I have been sitting it out from the sidelines. I have posted a few times from work but at home I have only been dipping in and out, via my phone.

It all gets so exhausting. And sometimes I look at the Facebook ticker tape and it looks so darn loud and busy, almost as if it’s screaming at me. That’s when I know I need to take a break.

So I have been doing some other things instead. I have been taking bike rides, and I even wrote out some note cards for people just because.

I have been observing, a lot.

I talked to my Aunt last light instead of getting on the computer and we laughed over the phone about things going on in her life and mine. I could hear that she really appreciated the call, and I was blessed too. She amazes me. At 80 she sounds as young as she did at 60. She goes to the rest home three times a day to see her husband who will never come out. She calls it her part-time job and it makes her happy to be there for him.

She has a lot of courage. My Mom says when she was a girl she refused to ride the bus to school so my Grandpa bought her a Victory bike and she braved mean country dogs that chased her. She rode for miles to and from school. She had her tonsils out with no anesthesia, and she is a breast cancer survivor.

We talked of Heaven and how we will all be together once again, and whole……..and how He will wipe our tears away forever. No more cancer, no more dementia, or Alzheimer’s, or death.

Or computers, I guess.

Somehow I don’t think I will miss it then.

photo courtesy of creative commons, some rights reserved.

Rediscovering an old friend

This weekend, among other things, I went on a bike ride. I felt like I got an old friend back. Maybe it was my imagination but I felt like the bike was happy too, after being locked up in a dark storage unit for so long. I never realized how much I missed it. It’s kind of like low-level flying, and you can cover so much more ground gliding than walking.

Before long, I lost myself in the rhythm and bump of the tires going over the road, hitting the cracks in the sidewalk.

It’s kind of like meditation on wheels.

I rode around in the neighboring park…..it’s always good to see how the other part of the world lives.

I got some waves and some good mornings from people doing outside things, enjoying the morning air. I introduced myself to the neighborhood feral cat. I know he was feral because he watched me with interest but then hid behind a shrub when I got too close. I named him “Smudge” for the gray blotch he had right below his (or her) nose. I will watch for him next time I am over there.

As I relaxed into the rubber tire rhythm, memories washed over me of other rides I have taken throughout my life. We have a long history, bikes and I. They were part of our culture, back in the day. For a long time our family only had one car, so we got to know our bikes really well.

I learned on an ugly spray-painted hand-me-down that belonged to my cousin. Then, the magic year I turned 10, I got a bright blue Schwinn all my own. I still remember that first magic ride on Christmas morning. I have a picture somewhere, a side view of my snaggle-toothed smile as I cruised down the driveway, my new synthetic white fur coat with the silver buttons flapping in the cold air.

We were buddies that bike and I and I got to know every rattle and squeak intimately. I felt like it got to know me too.

When I was in Junior High I got a sleek, Gitane ten-speed. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I had chosen a brilliant metallic aqua-marine blue and when it glinted in the sun, it took my breath away. My friends and I rode in a herd, all over town. Most days I rode it to school. All the way into High School, in fact. (No, I didn’t have a car), most kids didn’t back then.

I could ride hands free on that bike, steering with a slight lean in whatever direction I wanted to go.

When I got that bike, my Mom inherited the blue Schwinn. Oftentimes, it was her only mode of transportation. I still remember her riding off to the store with her purse hanging from the handlebars, and every so often, one of the smaller kids she watched riding in the basket.

Don’t act so shocked. Times were different then, we didn’t wear helmets either.

We also took our bikes camping in Yosemite and even now when I ride, I can close my eyes and hear the echoeing cries of Stellar’s Jays as I breezed along, ducking for low hanging pines. I was always so excited for those tires to hit the ground, so I could explore and reintroduce myself to the trails I knew so well.

For those moments, I felt like God had given that particular stretch of earth to me as a gift.

When the mountain biking craze hit back in the early nineties, I got a special Birthday gift, a Raleigh cross- over mountain, cruising bike. And yes, I wore the geeky helmet and the padded bicycle shorts.

That’s the bike I took when E and I did the Tour Le San Francisco bike run. Now that was an adventure. There was every genre of rider and bike you can imagine, from old clunkers with boom-boxes bungied to the racks playing opera, to high-speed power racers who did the ride once to warm up and again just for fun.

And there were several people and groups in costume. It was San Francisco after all.

The serious racers whizzed by like greyhounds while the rest of us concentrated on not falling into each other and sucking air on the hills. They closed down part of the city for that race, and I’ll never forget riding through the winding streets of San Francisco and all those bikes spilling out onto the Pacific Coast Highway, the ocean opening up before us.

That view alone made laboring up all those hills worthwhile.

It’s that same bike I am riding all these years later. It has a few nicks and scars but to me it’s just as beautiful as the day I brought it home from the shop. And each time I ride it, whether it’s just to get the mail or around the block, all those other rides and memories come right along with me.

Friends forever.

Lori's Prayer Closet

"And when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done is secret, will reward you……"Matthew 6:6