Listening to my life…….

He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. He will bring justice to all who have been wronged. Isaiah 42:3

I have abstained from writing about all the current events because I wanted to let my thoughts settle. Listening to all the recent events my mind has felt like an unsettled pond and at the end of a long work week I feel like I can finally take a deep breath and let it settle somewhat. Between the horrific events involving the Islamic militants, Robin Williams, and Ferguson, Mo. it was like my mind just couldn’t keep up. There were plenty of other better writers and bloggers editorializing and I didn’t feel like I wanted to throw my voice into the ring. The ring was noisy and crowded and so was my mind.

Sometimes a writer has to know when it’s right to jump into the ring of fire or stay on the perimeter looking in for a while.

Last night we had one of our summer storms that are common for Arizona but never common for me. Storms are natures way of breaking loose, of showing us we are not in control. I went out to the freeway just before it hit and took a few shots and felt rewarded. I found the Superstitions veiled in a cloak of dust and clouds and God’s promise.

On the other side of the overpass, the sun was making her exit amidst the backdrop of clouds………

When I got home my Dad called, “I was reading Listening to Your Life, he said, do you have it?” I said yes……..then he paused and said, “I wonder if any of us really understands the Bible? We think we do, but sometimes I don’t think we have a clue what it means.” He went on the describe the passage he had read from the entry on February 8 and when I hung up I read it. Here is a partial reading:

When you find something in a human face that calls out to you, not just for help but in some sense for yourself, how far do you go in answering that call, how far can you go, seeing that you have your own life to get on with as much as he has his?

I thought of the sermon by Charles Stanley that I listened to that morning. He was talking about missed opportunities and how many pass us by each day. Then he went on to talk about Peter and how he could easily have said no thank you to Jesus offer to follow Him. After all, he had a livelihood, he had a life, he had a family to support. But something about Jesus made him realize that this offer was not like any other. As a result, Peter is one we recognize as being one of Jesus closest friends and followers. The rock on which the Church was built.

Parallel his life to that of the rich young ruler who had everything. He clung to his life and turned down Jesus’ offer. We never hear what happened to him but the Bible never says anything more about his life.

I believe it pays to listen to those closest to Heaven, children and old people. It pays to listen to your life and those around you. I am listening to mine today as I ask myself how far I am willing to go for Jesus. I give my allotted time and money and sometimes not even that. I don’t always focus on Him while I pray, I miss the Holy moments far too often and I tend to avoid people if I have a choice.

I am that weakest reed, that flickering candle. But my prayer today is “Thank you God, for not letting me go.”

Despite everything, He loves me. He strives with me. He sees me, the girl who gazes on His world with wonder and it makes Him smile that I notice.

God keeps a tally, the scales of justice are in His hands. He’s the one who will set things right ultimately, and that’s a promise. It doesn’t mean we stand back and do nothing, but it does mean that we can’t fix everything. Maybe we just fight the injustice in our own little corners for a start.

As for me, I went as far as that windy street corner up around 120th street and Broadway, and I can see him standing there as in some way he is standing there still. He is alone and making the best of it with his thin, church rummage overcoat flapping around his legs. His one free hand is raised in the air to wave goodbye. It was the last time. “Here and there in the world and now and then in ourselves,” Tillich said, “is a new Creation.” This side of glory, maybe that is the best we can hope for. Frederich Buechner, Listening to Your Life.

I walked in the rain

Last night I did what I always say I’m gonna do when it rains, I went out and took a walk in it. And it was marvelous. It was almost Holy, a Baptism from the skies. I walked once around the park, the silvery cold drops hitting my skin like mercy. That is what rain in the desert feels like you know. Those who have rain all the time just don’t understand what heaven it is.

I walked past all the dark and shuttered houses, and I heard the drops like music on all the metal carports, God’s percussion.

I kept walking as the rivulets of water started to collect en mass and pour down the middle of the streets. Amidst the stream there was a bubble parade and each one caught the streetlights, otherwise I never would have seen them. They were marching onward and I watched as they gathered, pooled and ran down the middle of the street like they were all-stars in a Mr. Bubble commercial.

My glasses covered in drops, I was looking out on a world transformed as though I were looking through prisms……I was the girl with kaleidoscope eyes. It was like when I was very small and would press my face to the glass when it rained, imagining another world in which everything and everyone were made of diamonds.

I wondered at all the quiet houses. Walking in the rain sounds crazy when you are inside looking out, but when you are actually in it, it seems like the most rational thing to do. Ask any kid. Watch them laugh as they turn their face to the heavens, catching drops. We tell them, come inside you’ll catch your death. When they are really trying to catch life.

I came inside. E was on the couch with the iPad and didn’t look up. She is used to my weird notions. She just smiles and nods when I say I’m gonna go around again. And I did.

On the way home I passed by Mama dove who was snug on top of her nest, where she has been for the past month. She peeked out from between the thorns, totally dry, totally safe……

I was soaked and it was wonderful. It was the perfect way to wash off the workweek.

“But if I were you, I would appeal to God;
    I would lay my cause before him.
He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
    miracles that cannot be counted.
He provides rain for the earth;
    he sends water on the countryside.
The lowly he sets on high,
    and those who mourn are lifted to safety.
He thwarts the plans of the crafty,
    so that their hands achieve no success.

Job 5:8-12

photo credit: google images

A Further Benediction

Last night God really raised a ruckus. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed all around us. That’s two nights of rain now. The night before the wind blew my car a little sideways and I had just finished complaining silently about how, “I just know we won’t get a drop of rain out of this.” Just after my turnoff it started. Everything the sky has held back for the past months it released. Instead of turning for the gym, I went home. I have been in flash floods in the desert where rivers of mud wash away roads.

The lightning and thunder we had last night though, that was something. I almost expected to see a seared place out in front of the house where the bolt hit. A couple of times the flash was blindingly close. The cats hid under the coffee table first, then when they thought the world was ending, they both hid under my bed.

I admit, I love storms. Watching a storm is like watching God do some of His best work. You can’t control it or Him. Sometimes we need that reminder. So last night, we watched the sky light up like daylight, and we heard Him play the drums and cymbals and I said a silent prayer for anyone caught out in it.

This morning I awoke to a further benediction, I got to read my devotions to the sound of pitter-patter rain on the roof. Another storm had silently crept in during the night. But this one was gentle and kind.

And now Pandora is playing someone named Helen Jane Long and piano is falling softly around me. Outside the world rages, but in here all is peace.

Last night during the rain I thought something I always think when it rains buckets, “What if it doesn’t stop?” I thought about Noah and the ark and how he must have felt a mixture of relief and terror when the first few drops hit. And the God-sealed door, and the animals two by two. And then the awful pounding to be let in.

But it was too late. Their lack of faith had failed them, and Noah’s faith has saved a new world.

This morning, everything feels fresh and new…………..and a new day full of the possibility of Redemption.

photo credit: google

God created animals because…………

Why did God create animals? The answer is simple and it’s the only right one. Because He loves us. Everything He created is an expression of His love for us. And because He knew that although human interaction is necessary for our well-being; He also knew that sometimes people would disappoint us. Animals have no ulterior motives, they don’t even know what that is.

Their love is a free expression given with no thought of what they will get in return and they remind us of the joy we had as children when we skipped no matter who was looking.

They will receive your hugs when others have backed away at your smell. They don’t care, in fact they like it better when we don’t shower. And they will never ask how you ended up on the streets because some of them are there too, just trying to survive. They will sit at your feet and listen impartially and give no argument, somehow you know they’re in your corner. They will huddle close when the nights are cold and you wonder where all your friends went.

They offer no judgments, and when we return their devotion, the rewards are endless. In their eyes we see the reflection of the God who created them to be our companions in this world which can sometimes be a lonely place. God knew that we would back away from Him too, and that’s why He created something so easy for us to love. For who could be threatened by a wagging tail or a winding around of your feet at the day’s end?

Animals have saved the lives of their people time and again. Read the stories of those whose lives have been transformed and healed from pain and addiction all because they discovered there is tremendous power in looking away from yourself and focusing on someone or something whose needs are as great or greater than your own. That rescuing an animal lost, alone and in distress had the power to bring them both out of the pit.

Why did God create animals? He created them in hopes that you will return their love and appreciation for what they give us, and that in loving them, our hearts will turn towards the God who created them and loves us with a love we can scarcely imagine.

We all know that there are times in this life when our sorrow is more than we can bear.

Crushed beneath a weight of sadness we go off to find a quiet place and sit for a while. We feel a brush of fur nudging our elbow, or a cold nose under our hand. We find they have followed us, sensing our loss. Tear fall on soft fur and they offer it up with no reservations. That’s what they do. And that’s what God longs to do too. There is nothing we have to do to earn His love, we had it even before creation.

God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. Acts 17:27

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:24,25

Photos found on Pinterest by Chris Teso, Tina Carter, Ana Muller, Dan Lee and the last one is via Google images of Street Cat Bob and James Bowen. Read about their inspiring story via their Facebook page.

Donation to the pets of the homeless foundation may be made here if you feel so inclined.

The Wheat and the Tares

It all started last March when I heard about the two suicides……two young people that couldn’t find any hope that things would get better. One of which was the neighbor of my Aunt, parents finding what was left of her. The beauty and the soul and the perfection that was her life. And then a week later, a phone call. My cousin’s son did the very same thing. In disbelief I almost dropped the phone. To me, there is no sadder horror than that for a parent.

And the recent events in the news, coming one after the other, so much so that we can barely keep track of them all. Planes shot down over Ukraine……a bank robbery, a hostage situation and a highspeed chase on the very street I drove down when I was back home two weeks ago. Bullets flew, hundreds of them. And an innocent bystander coming in to do her banking was caught in the crossfire.

Her daughter waited in the car, then watched horrified as her Mom was used as a shield while they got away. She texted her Dad……”They have Mom.” She didn’t come back.

You would think all this would be reason enough to give up on this life. We live in a world where heaven and hell coexist like the wheat and the tares that thrive side by side. And yet…..

There is poetry and music and art and crowded sidewalks and family and friends, and the smile of a child. And it all adds up to an incredible relentless beauty that tugs at the soul and won’t let go.

I can’t ignore the drops of rain that fall quietly on the pond like a prayer, the relentless beauty that falls all around us on any given day. There is a peace that comes from sitting on a porch with a view that wraps around you.

I can’t account for the joy that beats like wild wings within my chest except that I recognize it as the Holy Spirits quickening because that’s how God is. He shows up.

He permeates the air with His presence especially when it seems all hope is lost forever. He says:

No, it’s not, because I am.

In troubled times we need to gather the ones we love close and get rid of everything else that weighs us down. We need to walk humbly in love and cradle carefully the gift we have from God, and never lose our sense of wonder at the world that was once perfect.

Be surprised each day at what God redeems out of the ashes. Never forget the moment you first believed. He is coming quickly, so my advice is be ready.

Raise your eyes to the Heavens and never lose hope. Remember that even thistles and artichokes yield spectacular blooms.

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see.

A Monet Morning

“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” Romans 1:20

I awoke early one morning on my visit back home to California and the Spirit beckoned me to the Lake. All was quiet as I tiptoed through the wet grass and parked on the street. The fish were jumping and the sun was throwing her covers off on the other side of the world and beginning to color ours with the first promise of light.

The regular walkers were just beginning to come out as I made my stroll around the lake, this place where I grew up and spent so many family outings. I never fully appreciated it when I lived here.

Two ducks padded up, wondering if I had anything good to eat.

The whole experience was something like a prayer without words when the sun made her appearance like jewels strewn across the sky…….

It was one of those Holiest of moments when God touches down.

Heaven kissed earth. I kissed back……..

This guy got caught by the sprinklers………

Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. Job 12:7-10

No road-kill on the golden streets of Heaven

It was laying there feet up by the fountain when I got home. E had called and said there was a dead pigeon in the garden and for some reason she couldn’t deal with it. This is the bravest woman I know. She wrapped up my foot when it was sliced all the way to the tendon and told me, “Oh, it’s not that bad.” She’d lived out in the patio room at 100 plus degrees so her Alzheimer’s stricken Mom could have her room. She’s also never met a vehicle she couldn’t operate no matter how big.

But from a young age, her Grandmother instilled in her a deep-seated reticence about touching birds: “They all have lice,” she remembers her saying.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized she must have meant a dove and not a pigeon; she gets them mixed up. She knows how I love doves, how I appreciate the backdrop of their cooing when I pray out in my shed. That’s why it made her sad.

I said, “I hope at least it was single…..not old enough to have a mate.” I have read they are one of the few animal species that mate for life; I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s a romantic notion anyway and one that makes me appreciate the fact that you hardly ever see one dove without another by its side.

“Use the shovel!” she said. I didn’t listen. It was surprisingly weightless as picked it up. I wrapped in lovingly in a paper towel, much like my own Grandmother did when my parakeet Peppy died on her watch. She saved it for us for when we got back from vacation; lovingly preserved in a strawberry crate coffin covered with a paper towel for its burial shroud.

I can’t imagine what my Mom thought about that………..

As I gathered the little form in my palms, I said a prayer of thanks to God for its short but meaningful sojourn on the earth; for the joy that it gave with its song in the morning, and at the peaceful close of day. And again I marveled that there will be no death at all in Heaven, not any. You won’t find any road-kill on the golden streets of Heaven.

As I said the prayer, I thought of how I have always loved the Native American’s deep-seated appreciation and gratitude for animal life, and the humility with which they took a life, knowing that the animal had made a sacrifice to sustain their own preservation. They never took more than they needed and nothing was ever wasted.

God created all life, and it’s through His grace that we all live and move and have our being. By His word the Heavens and Earth and all living things came into existence. Let Heaven and nature sing His praise:

He appointed the moon for seasons;
The sun knows its going down.
You make darkness, and it is night,
In which all the beasts of the forest creep about.
The young lions roar after their prey,
And seek their food from God.

Psalms 104:19-21

I leave you with this Lakota prayer I found today……it’s a good meditation for it shows us how small we really are in the realm of creation, but also, how very loved we are. How thought of by God himself. Not a sparrow (or dove) falls to the ground without Him knowing…….

Oh, Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life
to all the world, hear me.

I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.

Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.

Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit will come to you without shame.

– Chief Yellow Lark, Lakota, 1887

When its still waters you seek………..

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul……”

The other day I awoke with a feeling of disquiet, of unrest. I felt like a rubix’s cube that someone had tried to fit back together wrong. Or that maybe there was a piece missing. I carried the feeling around that whole day. I was craving peace and still waters but I wasn’t sure how to go about getting it, I just knew I wanted it…..needed it.

Living the Christian life, we know those days will come. The best part however, is that we know they won’t last. We carry a living hope that refuses to let us despair, for we carry Christ wherever we go. The Holy Spirit rests deep within our soul. He is the still water we seek, and though at times the turbulence of this world rocks us, sends uneasy ripples in any number of ways, we need not worry.

Yesterday in prayer as I opened the Word, I felt those ripples begin to quiet as I read the words, fingered through those pages in the early hours. After awhile, I felt their calm assurance slowly begin to fit the pieces back together. I sensed a hope as I closed my eyes and once again meditated on those quiet waters. I felt Him start to restore my soul.

Because we need that, each day, don’t we?

The world rips us at the seams. People do it too, with hurtful words or actions tossed carelessly in our direction. The world is full of unrest, but here in this calm, in the eye of the storm, He restores us. He lets us know that no matter what happens outside.

He will be here with us on the inside. Where the still waters lie.

He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving-kindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Psalm 23

Photos: Gilbert Riparian Preserve, Gilbert Arizona, and The Bloedel Reserve, Bainbridge Island, Washington

There are places…….

There are places you miss like the face of a loved one…..I know this face. Years full of memories have attached it to my soul, so much so that it has become not just a place, but part of who I am. I see it and they all come flooding back like the mighty Merced that cuts a powerful swath through this valley.

If I close my eyes, I can feel the spray of this fall where one day near the top my hat took flight. And leaning over from the guard rail I saw it perched on a ledge below. The wind caught it again before my Dad could rescue it because he almost went. The wind was God that day.

And here is where the coyote trotted through, meandering one day in the hush of a quiet morning. I stopped still and watched him, a living prayer on noiseless feet in his space, in his element, not mine.

And this…….as we walked along the meadow. I had been here for years and never chanced to see this splash of pink. A day in early May when we walked in that dreamlike place. How many years have we walked this meadow and wondered aloud how it would be to live there in one of those little enchanted houses…….as close to Heaven as we would wish for here.

I remember how happy Lauryn was when “Blackie” came out to greet us there on our walk…….there in that frozen time.

Heaven has hoses……and though I smile when I see these, my heart aches, my throat swells with lost time. Yet even so, my heart rests in hope knowing I will be in that place again someday, and maybe soon.

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. 1 Corinthians 13:12

I regret not having my good camera yet that year when we visited Yosemite, but I am glad I got these.

Take me fishing!

What is it about fishing that stirs such romantic soulful nostalgia? If there is any activity that is more deeply ingrained into the heartbeat of American culture than fishing, I don’t know what it is. I blame Mark Twain. It’s not even possible to think of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn without a fishing pole. I dare you to try.

And who can ever hear the theme song to the Andy Griffith show without visualizing Andy and Opie strolling along that river bank with their tackle boxes? Later that night they’d be gathering around the supper table eating “a mess of friend trout” cooked by Aunt Bee. For me, it just has to be trout, you see. I have my own memories attached to that.

Then there was that commercial with the little kids begging their parents to take them fishing. I could almost cry right now just thinking about it.

I remember this. I remember the garbage can full of water in the backyard for the boat motor. I remember my Dad cursing it when it wouldn’t start. And I remember the victory when it would. And the Saturdays when we would drive to the Delta, the four of us on a bright California day.

I don’t remember Mom ever getting in the boat, but she would pack the lunch. It was always sandwiches and barbecued chips. Always barbecued. Even now when I close my eyes I can see the brilliant sky overhead, and somehow attached to my memory is the sound of a plane lazily buzzing overhead, that, and the rhythmic melodious sound of the waves gently lapping against the boat. Sometimes we’d fish from the shore, looking for the magic spot, straining our eyes to watch for fish jumping.

As a squeamish girl, I wasn’t into the fishing much. It was mostly the anticipation and excitement of the possible tug on the line. I never could attach that worm to the merciless barb. I remember the bright pink plastic tub of salmon eggs and the debate about which was better. And there was always someone’s favorite lure. This is the rhyme my Dad taught me from long ago:

Fishy, fishy in the brook, Daddy catch em with a hook, Mama fry em in a pan, Baby eat em like a man.

As an animal lover, I hated to see anything suffer so I could never watch the fish flopping around gasping for air. I thought it was more merciful to toss them in a bucket. I was always secretly glad when a fish was deemed too small and felt a private thrill to see it released and swim off into the deep.

But I also remember that there was nothing better than fresh caught trout and crispy skin cooked over an open fire, and weather so cold the rubber souls of your shoes would smoke.

My Dad raised us all to have a deep and abiding respect for nature and all her gifts. I was glad that he never hunted. He always said he could never look a deer in the eye and kill it. He did enjoy fishing, and even more than that, he enjoyed us all being together under the sky. For me, it was never really about the fishing. It was about being together in that magic place, when the world seemed perfect.

When I close my eyes to this day, I am there all over again. I can hear our laughter across the water, calling me back to simpler times, times when we were all young and still had so much ahead of us. A line tossed out…..a line of hope that we would always be together, always just that way.

Many years later I would think of this, sitting in a Mexican resort in the middle of my own nightmare, one memory that never leaves me. It was what my brother said through tears, “All I wanted to do was take Jody fishing.”

And it’s only a feeling I have that someday, on that great and wonderful shore, Jesus will bring out some fishing poles and Jody, my brother and my Dad will fish together. Maybe even Jesus too. That day it will be catch and release without the hooks. There will be no need of sun, because we will have the Son right there with us.

It’s how we’ll always be, forever.

First photo, courtesy of www.wildlife.state.nh.us

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

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