Scissors, skinny old cats and random requests

My coffee table is covered with pictures of monkeys, goats, a spaceship, a glued-together horse and carrot and a lot of confetti-like pieces of paper. My grandson Gabriel was here today.

It occurred to me the last time I was at Target that he'd never been properly introduced to the pre-schoolers' friend: a scissors.

It was big fun to help him learn how to cut today, and he was so into it that he didn't even ask to watch (and watch and watch and watch) a Thomas The Train video for nearly 45 minutes. If you knew what a Thomas junkie this little boy is, you'd appreciate what a hit those scissors were with him. I'm leaving the mess on the table until grandpa gets home, so he can appreciate the wonderfulness of the mess.

I never would have dreamed a few months ago that this darling little boy would be in my living room cutting out an octopus. I am very grateful.

* * * * * * *

"Lost" starts again tonight.

Has it occurred to anyone else that just about every single character on this show (and there's a lot of them - it's a huge cast) has major father issues?

* * * * * * *

A good friend involved in Muslim ministry called today to ask for prayer as she, her husband and several others on their team begin a three-day fast. "We are desperate," she said simply. "We want to see so many coming to faith in Christ, looking for discipleship, that our current staff won't be able to minister to them all."

They have been with this ministry for over ten years. They've focused on the friendship and relationship-building style evangelism, but have always remained willing and open to participate with God in the miraculous, in prophetic/dream/power encounters, which can instantaneously turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. They've seen God use them to meet people in friendship and in miracles.

And now, they're feeling as if there's need for a fresh wind to blow through the ministry. What this means, they don't know. So they're asking, in the way desperate people ask, which is more like begging.

If you're reading this, please take a moment and add your prayers to their for an increased grace and power in the ministry's evangelism.

* * * * * * *

Our almost-sixteen year-old cat is the skinniest creature I've ever seen, and continues to get skinnier each week. If he was a teen-age girl, he'd be the before picture for for Remuda Ranch.

* * * * * * *

Our 21 y/o son Jacob is in-between school and school this semester. He's got mad art skills (illustration, photography, and a good measure of a few other disciplines as well) - and was hoping to do an internship with someone this semester while he's working to stash some Benjamins for next fall. He thought he had something lined up, but that possibility hasn't quite caught traction for him. If you know of an art-related someone looking for an intern, contact me and I'll forward the info on to him.

* * * * * *

How did this gal get to be the Proverbs 31 woman?

She's adorable - no doubt about it. Come on - just look at that skirt! But how did she become our prototype for the Proverbs 31 woman?

I was always pretty freaked out by her, because I thought I was miles away from ever being her. I used the Scripture passage as a sort of report card on how I was doing in the woman department. I was better at some things on the list than others. Totally flunked the part about "rising while its still night to prepare food for her household", for example. Used to quilt, which would get me a passing grade on the "working with my hands in delight" part. But honestly, every time I've read this passage, I dress this ancient woman in June Cleaver's clothes. Maybe June Cleaver with a community college business degree, which she got before she married Ward and birthed Wally and the Beav.

I think more than a few of us do. Maybe it's the many women's Bible studies that use Proverbs 31 as a prescription instead of a description. Or maybe it's that peer pressure that happens when some Christian women gather.

I find myself wanting to befriend this Proverbs 31 woman these days. This is new for me. I don't want to compare myself with her or try to behave like I think she'd behave. (Plus, I will never be able to clean the toilet wearing three-inch heels. I'm coming to terms with my limitations, and this is one of them.)

Someone at work suggested that Proverbs 31 is a portrait of wisdom applied. Where the first few chapters of Proverbs use some graphic language to portray foolishness as the fine art of getting tied up with the wrong woman - the wrong, ungodly people, it has been suggested to me that the conclusion of Proverbs is meant to help us see what a godly companion looks like. This is an interesting interpretation, and certainly has some value.

But...

...I believe this good woman is more than a metaphor. This is a portrait crafted by a man with a very difficult day job (see Proverbs 31:1-9) who'd found a loving, nurturing partner who was a vessel of God's care and provision in his life. She was a flesh-and-blood woman. I like to call her Mrs. King Lemuel. And Mr. King Lemuel celebrated her efforts and accomplishments with the same kind of inspired passion found in the Song of Songs.

When she stopped being a checklist and became a real person, I started to like her a lot better. If you like people, you want to hang around with them. If you want to hang around with them...weird...they may eventually become your peers.

This gal is the kind of peer I want and need in my life.

A strange place for a monastery

It started in a trailer behind a church building. It now resides in a converted grocery store in a small strip mall in a leafy neighborhood full of 1960's ranch homes and apartment complexes. Part of the strip mall is given to fairly mundane tenants: a realtor, a coffee shop, a small independent bookstore, some office space. On one side of the strip mall is a free-standing gas station. Across the road, a small liquor store.

At the strip mall, they've got nearly 1000 people there from around the world who've committed most or all of their vocational lives in prayer. And hundreds more who are working a day job somewhere to fund their prayer habit at the strip mall. There are dozens of local businesses and ministries connected with this little strip mall.

But prayer is what they do, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can show up at the strip mall at 4 a.m. on a Thursday morning, and there will be a worship and prayer team focused on intercessory prayer. At noon on Mondays, they're singing, praying and meditating on a specific passage of Scripture. It is a Charismatic monastery, in the best, truest sense of both of those descriptors.

And for Bill and I this weekend, it is a way station as we continue our journey.

Truth In Labeling

In recent weeks, I've run across a new phenomenon in church leadership. It is that of the long-distance Pastor. As in, the person with the title of Pastor jets back and forth every week between his/her home in City A and his/her employer, a church in city B. These people tend to be the Communicators - the magnetic Sunday morning teachers who draw the crowds, or the gifted high-level strategists working behind the scenes.

For years, conference speakers, traveling teachers and evangelists have lived their ministry on the road, returning home to recharge before launching out again. Before that, there were circuit riders going from frontier congregation to frontier congregation, preachin' `n marryin' `' buryin'. And wayyyy back before that, Acts tells the story of people traveling to preach the gospel and plant/oversee widespread congregations.

This new breed of traveling pastors seems to have more in common with business execs (hired hands) who do this live-in-Boston-work-in-New York lifestyle, however, than they do with, say, circuit riders. Without either demonizing the A to B and back again pastors or romanticizing circuit riders, I find myself wondering how the title 'Pastor' applies here.

It is the perogative of these large corporate religious organizations to recruit and hire top drawer talent, I suppose. I just wish they would give them a different title. I can't imagine how anyone could fully "Pastor" people when he or she spends part of each week living several hundred miles away from the community in which the church is located, and all that energy maintaining a life in two places. (Really, how can you be two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?) I have a couple of dozen questions floating around in my head on this trend, flitting in and out through the images of mustard seeds and fig trees tattooed on my brain.

But maybe these flitting thoughts need to land on one of your ideas. Your thoughts? Am I missing something here? Any experience with this phenomenon?

Why I cut in line at the DMV today

So I should start right off by apologizing.

I'm sorry, O people of the Libertyville, IL DMV.

I'm an oldest child, which means that I have a finely-tuned sense of justice. I am not a habitual line-butter. I have practiced waiting my turn in line from the time I hit elementary school and we had to line up on those grade-numbered yellow painted onto the playground blacktop before we could enter the building. I know the rules about waiting in line, honest I do.

But really, most of the time, there's only one rule that matters. No cuts. (Yes, there are those other rules like not talking loudly on your cell phone about bodily functions while waiting in line, or staring at the person behind you as if they were a freakish science exhibit or beautiful sunset, but those rules are more like...well, Emily Post-type polite ideas. No cuts, on the other hand, is more of an immutable law of the cosmos.)

Today, I returned to the DMV for the third time in four weeks. I was there once with a young friend trying to straighten out her moving violation issues, and twice to try to transfer the title and get license plates for my mom's 99 Corolla. This car is now in our possession, being driven by our son Jacob. He gets pulled over all the time because he must resemble one of America's Most Wanted and because he drives...um....rapidly at times. The Florida plates currently on the car can only serve to draw additional attention to him, so I figured it best to do my motherly duty and make him slighly less interesting our friends, the police. I can't do anything about the speedy driving or the twinship to felons, but I can at least help him out with some Illinois license plates.

I didn't think this trip would be very emotional. Few trips to the DMV are once you get your driver's license. But honestly, pulling out a death certificate, a letter from the lawyer, my mom's title and original bill of sale (signed in her tight, loopy, lefty script) - and then all those forms the state has you fill out to make sure Caesar gets his taxes - kind of blurred my vision with some unshed tears.

I normally love to people-watch at the DMV because the vast array of unhappy humanity sitting in plastic chairs blurs all the usual socio-economic boundaries that normally divide us. At the DMV, we're all in this together, waiting for our number to be called.

But today, I had all of that emotionally-charged paperwork in my hand, and I was trying not to cry - because there's no crying allowed at the DMV, even if you flunk the behind-the-wheel portion of your driving test - so when the guy behind the counter told me to see the cashier, I marched right over to the cashier with my eyes on the stack of paperwork in my hand.

What luck! The person transacting his business was just leaving, so I thrust my papers into the window. The cashier looked at my quizzically, but began processing my information. I was there for about 20 seconds when I felt multiple laser beams boring into my back. I turned around slowly, following the laser beams to their source: a long line of people on the other side of the window under an arrow that said "Cashier", all hating me for my brazen cut in line.

I made the kind of impassioned, groveling speech for which I've had lots of practice in my life: "I'm so sorry...I didn't see the sign...I feel like an idiot...I'm sorry....doh....sorry sorry sorry". Which made it worse. Then I hightailed it out of there as fast as I could.

The next time I see someone cut in line, I really need to remember this moment (which will be easy, since my back is splotted with laser beam holes) and have mercy. Not everyone who cuts is intentionally rude. Sometimes, there's a whole other drama going on that has nothing to do with the present moment.

Drip, drip, drip goes the sound of mild existential crisis

I have had a case of mild existential despair when it comes to my writing "career" these last months. As if the intense drama surrounding my mom's illness and death in September, the sometimes-Screamin' Eagle ride of young adulthood Van Loon-style, and the exhausting slog of looking for a church home weren't enough to push a person to the edge of a ledge, there has also been the quiet drip-drip-dripping of a faucet in the background.

The dripping is the sound of 110,000 words of a really good book that could help people sitting on a shelf whilst publishing business relationships get squared away. It's not fatal, and its not on the front burner of my wacky life - but there it is, in the background, my concern that the book will never taste printer's ink. Dripping. Chipping away at the enamel covering the iron sink.

All of this has left me wondering which way to go, "career"-wise. I have only recently begun to connect with the idea that I'm a writer. As in, a Real Writer. For some reason, all the writing for publication I've done for the last couple of decades, not to mention all the writing students I've mentored, has never seemed to qualify me as a Real Writer in my mind. I'm not sure what kind of writer I thought I was - but I was pretty sure I wasn't really a Writer. I was almost a Writer, but hadn't quite arrived yet.

Writing three books in three years, which was a little like having three babies in three years (which I also did), cured that almost-itis for me. Even though I spent too much of those three years in my pajamas, living in my head and drinking room-temperature coffee, I wouldn't trade that time for anything. I was immersed in the Word of God, in research, and in reaching for words in places I'd never have gone otherwise. I love that life. I am a Real Writer.

But now I find myself at quite the crossroads. After a necessary hiatus from hard-core writing, I am here, no book contract, no prospects save a handful of freelance prospects - a good thing, and I'm grateful for them, but... - and a single question.

"Lord, what's next?"

Is this even the right question to be asking? Have you ever been here, perhaps not with writing, but with _____[fill in the blank with the identity of your own existential crisis]?

If so, I'd sure love to hear from you. Feel free to e-mail me (mishvl@yahoo.com) if you'd rather keep your own crisis past or present off the comments here in blogland.

Baby, Baby

A few years ago, we were foster parents with Bethany Christian Services. We did "cradle care" which meant we'd have a newborn or infant living with us while the birthmoms tried to figure out if they were going to keep the baby or give him or her up for adoption. We had five little ones with us over a span of 2 years.

Each situation was unique and brought a new story into our lives. One birthmom was older than I was, another was a carnival worker who told me she'd been raped. One baby came to us after her birth dad and his new girlfriend had cared for their (cocaine) baby for a month by giving her water and, occasionally, chocolate milk. Potential adoptive parents chosen by the birth parents would come to visit the baby at our home; each of them had been through years of grief as they'd been unable to conceive a child even with medical assistance. All of them became a part of the life of our family during that season of time.

The one birth parent situation that particularly staggered me was one where the mom was 16 and the dad was 15. The birth mom drove the dad to our home to come visit their baby since he was too young to have a license. It was a little bit surreal. But they were sweet, wise kids who wanted to give their child the gift of a better life than they could. The girl attended a high school program just for expectant moms, and told me during one of her visits that out of the dozen plus kids in her class, she was the only one considering adoption for her baby. The rest of the girls were going to raise their children on their own - some with the help of their families, some not. In a world where abortion has been the standard answer to the question of teen pregnancy, and where most of those who choose to have their babies choose to keep and raise their children, this young couple was making one of the most counter-cultural decisions imaginable.

They signed the papers, placing their beautiful child in the arms of a waiting, stable family.

Last night, Bill and I saw Juno, a movie about a situation very similar to this, but with far better dialogue, thanks to the mad skills of screenwriter Dakota Cody. She told the truth about how some babies come to be these days, what its like to be so out of sync with the rest of your peers if you're a pregnant teen mom. At a deeper level, she addressed the more universal theme of what we're all of us looking for in life. If you've seen it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Oh, and blessed 2008!

Oh, the places I've been!

I love the way 2007 began for Bill and I: the pastor of the church we were attending at the time opened the building and made himself available to share communion with anyone who wanted to stop by on New Year's Eve. The place was lit by candlelight, and he had quiet worship music playing in the background. We stopped by there - the place was almost completely empty - just the pastor and one other person, but God was there, and it seemed just about the best way to end one year and begin a new one.

Though the church didn't work out for us (that pastor fled the empty building - and the folks who paid the mortgage on it - in the process, snagging a plum position at a Big Box church across town), I value what that evening meant as we staggered into 2007.

* * * * * * *

The wreckage of that "empty building" church launched Bill and I back on the road, looking for a new church. We'd only been there a few months, and slipped out the back door almost as quietly as we'd entered the fall before.

And we found ourselves on the road again. And we didn't want to be.

This year has been an illustration of a new "ah ha" in my life. It's occurred to me that people usually find themselves spiritually homeless for two reasons: they're pilgrims or they're refugees.

Pilgrims are on a quest for a new thing: they're responding to the call and conviction of God in their lives and they can't help but leave the familiar and journey into the unknown. They're on the quest of their lives, following Him.

Refugees*, on the other hand, are fleeing something terrible, running for their lives. They're not sure if there's safe haven "out there", but they know they'll perish if they stay where they are.

This year was more of a refugee experience for Bill and I than a pilgrimmage. Bill was more gracious than I about it, but I can tell you that as the year wore on, I felt like I was staggering from one church to the next, looking for safety and not really discovering it in the places I'd expected to find it.

I did find it in the prayers of my husband, the hymns of a hospice nurse, the words of Scripture, the phone calls and visits with friends, the deep connection with God I experience as I write, and in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. God Himself is a refuge, a present help in time of need.

Last week, I told someone that I simply want to feel safe at church. I understand now that those are the words of a refugee. Though God Himself is our refuge, His Bride has been charged with absorbing and mirroring His character. She should be safe, because God is safe. Bill and I are now attending an Anglican church. I cried through most of the service the first week we were there, I think because I smelled safety in the air there. I believe (and I think the Bible bears me out on this) that one of the roles of the church in our lives should be to shape us as pilgrims, pursuing God.

Which is ironic, since a pilgrim's life can be just as risky as that of a refugee.

(*Note to all refugees of civil wars and persecution out there: I don't mean to diminish your suffering by using it as a metaphor for a spiritual condition. You are my heroes, and my inspiration.)

It's beginning to look a lot like...

It is always surprises people when I tell them that when I was growing up, I didn't even know when Christmas was. I wasn't totally clueless - I knew it was a December holiday that generated a lot of cool Christmas cartoons (Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, and two local favorites, Suzy Snowflake and those three zany elves, Hardrock, Coco and Joe), but my Jewish parents emphasized that Christmas was their holiday. In my 99% Jewish neighborhood, electric menorahs, not plug-in electric Santas, lit the windows of the houses. We celebrated Chanukah - the translation in my head was "Jewish Christmas", meaning . I knew the story of Chanukah, but those 8 days of presents (and the 8 nights of candle-lighting that accompanied the loot) was the primary focus of my material girl heart.

After I came to faith in Christ, I couldn't wait to celebrate Christmas. I thought a proper Christmas celebration included church attendance, carols on the radio, a tree, snow, presents, parties, concerts and baking cookies. So much of what I thought Christmas was supposed to be had nothing to do with Christmas. I figured that out quickly, but have played along with some of it all these years because some of this stuff is pretty fun - it's our yearly attempt to chase the darkness out of these short days and celebrate the people in our lives with gifts, parties and decorating.

In true parable fashion, this thing we celebrate badly with plastic lawn ornament Santas, drunken office parties and overheated Visa cards - or celebrate well with visits to the nursing home, gifts to needy families and participation in church Christmas pageants - is nothing less than the near-invisible invasion of planet earth by a Baby born to an unwed teen mom in the ancient equivalent of a garage off the alley.

But maybe, celebration is an incomplete response to this invasion. Worship, after all, is how the original party guests responded:

"Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.' When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about...(After visiting the manger) The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." - Luke 2:13-15, 20

"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." - Matthew 2:1, 2

As we round the bend toward Christmas this year, it's something to ponder.

Thank you for praying!

Carlos will be receiving his green card within weeks!!!

Across the divide

This week, Scot McKnight's must-read Jesus Creed blog linked to an excellent Books & Culture article about the lifestage now being dubbed "Emerging Adulthood". This piece offers a more academic spin on what I'm observing in my own kids, in the lives of the emerging adults with whom I interact at work, in the words of blogs and books penned by this demographic, and as I watch and listen to what's going on in our broader culture. It's a somewhat lengthy piece, but well worth your time.

I am a tail-end Boomer, born in 1959. When I look at that year, I think sometimes it may as well be 1959 B.C. It looks like ancient history. 1959.

I have often found myself impatient with Boomer ethos, both in the culture and in the church. (And sadly, the latter often mirrors the former so perfectly that both of them blur together in a very icky way - but this post ain't about flogging that tired horse.) We Boomers, besides frequently possessing a stunning sense of our own Importance and a perverse desire to look Goldie Hawn-young, have allowed our generational identity to be forged as victims of the Generation Gap. "My elders don't understand me!" became both battle cry and justification for decades of some really bratty behavior by us Boomers.

And in a weirdly just turn of events, many of us Boomers (the parents of this wave of emerging adults) now stand on the other side of a new, uncharted Generation Gap. We have both contributed to and exacerbate the struggle our kids are now experiencing. These kids aren't whining that we don't understand them. They are trying to grow a life, while we are viewing their battle to figure out who they are through our own John Lennon-shaped lenses.

I have heard Malachi 4:5-6 ("See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.") quoted everywhere from homeschooling conventions to The Call. I occasionally see little glimmers of what fulfillment of this might look like in action - in mustard-seed sized packages. Boomers relinquishing the stage and the microphone. Emergening gens washing the feet of boomers.

But mostly, we don't. And we're losing too many of the emerging gen as a result. May God have mercy on us all. It is not in any of our hearts to live with our hearts turned to someone on the other side of a generational divide. (Or, for that matter, with our hearts turned to the person right next to us, on our side of the divide. Again, I digress...) This Malachi promise is a benchmark of revival; it is also a violent, paradigm shattering promise of His return. It is a picture of the kingdom.

I can offer no clever solution here. Only to know that if I pray "Lord, Your kingdom come...", I need to be ready, willing and able to repent.

And to listen to the voices on the other side of the divide. Something tells me that if I repent, their distant whispers will become shouts.

P.S. - I'm adding paragraph breaks - honestly! I can't figger out how to convince Blogger to do what I tell it to do.

Addendum to the post below

Blogger! Grrrr!

I can't quite figure out why the formatting of the post below is whack-a-doodle. So sorry!

A face to go with the news story

Here are the faces of some who have been directly and indirectly impacted by the challenges of navigating our country's immigration system. These faces are my family; people I cherish.

Next week, after a 4+ year wait, our son-in-law heads into Mexico to begin what is hopefully the final leg of his journey towards a visa and green card. There are no guarantees with this process, and the wait there may stretch on for months. They don't want to be separated, so our daughter and precious grandson are planning to stay there as long as it takes.

After the great losses of this year, this is another big challenge for me personally. The holidays are full of warm images of family gatherings. Though our reality is miles from Norman Rockwell, those images stand in contrast to where we Van Loons/Valenzuelas will be this Christmas and they bring a particular heavy sorrow to these days leading into the holiday.

Psalm 39:12-13 is a cry for help from a road-weary David. This imprecation comes at the end of a song crafted out of David's experience of chastisement. The pilgrim words cry out for God to hear and to act, and for Him to remove the sorrow and bring wholeness and restoration in this life: "Hear my prayer, O LORD, listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger, as all my fathers were. Look away from me, that I may rejoice again before I depart and am no more."

These words are the cry of my aching heart right now.

I'd value your prayers for wholeness and restoration in our family. Of particular urgency in the next couple of weeks are our son-in-law's hearings in Juarez. We are asking God for a miracle - a visa and green card on the spot. It can happen. God can move a mountain of paperwork in an instant.

Give it away, give it away now

I've been working with home schooled writing students for well over a decade, first in the venue of support/enrichment groups, then in classes held in my living room, and finally via e-mail tutorials. One of my favorite assignments is an essay based on the question: "How would you give away a million dollars?" I have a couple of rules: students can't give this money to a family member - or their own local church; they need to choose at least 3 different destinations for their financial gift (this gets me a structured, classic five-paragraph essay to evaluate); they need to be specific. I tell them, "Don't just tell me you want to help people in Africa - tell me which country in Africa, tell me which organization located there and what kind of work they do, tell me why you choose this particular organization, and tell me how you expect this organization to use your donation."

This assignment is based on an editorial I'd read in World magazine in 1999, penned by Marvin Olasky. In it, he details how he'd give away a billion dollars. A billion is a ridiculously unimaginable number, so I scaled back the figure to a nice, manageable million.

I've had kids doing this assignment for the last 7 or 8 years - and I've read dozens and dozens of these essays during that time. Students have donated their imaginary money to numerous missions agencies, cancer research, homeless shelters, and animal rescue organizations, along with the occasional homeschool basketball team. I've had a great time reading these essays, and pushing the kids to dream about giving to others.

So maybe, as we enter this Advent/Christmas season (which tends to be all about getting and buying, as well as eating and eating some more) here's a daydreaming assignment for YOU:

HOW WOULD YOU GIVE AWAY A MILLION DOLLARS?

I'd love to see your list. Even better, you don't have to write an essay! Just a list. :)

I'll post mine to get you started:

- Supporting missionary friends of ours who work with immigrant Muslims and Hindus here in Chicago, as well as overseas.

- Emmaus Ministries - I did a profile of this amazing outreach to male prostitutes for Charisma magazine a couple of years ago.

- A hospice organization like Vitas, the people who served my mom so well.

- Revive Israel - a ministry based in Israel focused on evangelism, prayer and worship.

- A scholarship for a few needy students attending the ministry school at the International House of Prayer.

Today is a good day for Thanksgiving

I've been battling some pretty big depression for the last few weeks. I could give you quite a list of contributing factors (feel free to e-mail me at mishvl@yahoo.com if you're curious or given to prayer; I'm more than happy to talk about it) - but that is not the point of this post.

Sometimes, crawling through a spiritual and emotional time where it feels like the air is black tar is what it means to live the parable life. It is the practice of gratitude, even when the usual emotions which accompany it are a gazillion miles away. To the right is my icon of gratitude for today: a glamour shot of my husband's recent close encounter with a deer.

Back in the `70's, we sang a happy-clappy version of Habbakuk 3:17-19 that sounded weirdly like the song "The Farmer In The Dell". We'd sing Habbakuk's list of coming death and famine - God's judgement - as if it were a list of pesky little annoyances, along with the upbeat chorus that promised it would all be OK. Though many of us sang that song out of great pain, there was always something about that perky tune that made it sound like we were praising God for helping us with really grim stuff like not being able to find a good parking place at the mall. But I digress...

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to go on the heights.

Read the entirety of Habbakuk 3. It really is not the kind of thing to which you'd want to clap along. Habbukuk has been given a message of the kind of wholesale judgement that was going to mean great physical suffering. He intercedes even as he prophesies by asking God, "In wrath remember mercy" (vs. 2). What Habbakuk hears in his soul from God, combined with what sees as he observes the decaying world around him, would be enough to make most of us want to jump off a cliff.

And perhaps Habbakuk did feel like that: "I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us" (vs. 16). That 'day of calamity' was going to come on this invading nation AFTER God allowed them to first decimate Habbakuk's friends, family - and nation. I think Habakkuk was prophesying the kind of stuff that would be very costly not just to "someone else" later, but to himself, in his lifetime.

Rejoicing in the Lord in Habbakuk's context does not mean clapping along to The Farmer In The Dell-style melody. It meant committing to hold on to a deeper reality - the goodness and certain salvation of God. It meant gratitude, even as despair threatens to suck every bit of a whispered thank You down its insatiable black hole.

If you're having a rough time of it this holiday season, let me know at the e-mail address above. It would be an honor to pray for you.

All In A Friday

It was something to see 400+ local church leaders, staffers and assorted other gapers (like me) gathered today at the annual Catalyst Forum. The keynote dude, one Bishop Kevin Ulmer, preached some of the wallpaper off of the walls at the Trinity International University chapel.

What he had to say was familiar (go and make disciples, not programs or members) but he said it creatively and in order to motivate. It is always interesting watching people come out from their various church encampments and mingle/schmooze and even truly fellowship.

The highlight moment for me was in the breakout session on prayer. As the workshop leader, Debbie Stackhouse, shared about what a church that's centered on prayer - a house of prayer! - might look like, a man on staff at one of the Big Box mega churches in the area got visibly emotional. "We're the exact opposite of this model," he said. "We run programs and ask God to bless them. And it's wrong." I was watching him throughout the session. He was fighting back tears almost the entire hour.

He is in a dangerous place, this guy. It would be a lot easier for him to run his program. But something tells me that God is moving deeply in his life and he won't be satisfied with anything less than Him. May God give him the strength to stay in this place of brokenness, no matter what.

* * * * * * *

We lived in WI for 9 years, where Thanksgiving week is better known as Gun Deer Season. The entire state comes to a screeching halt so people can head to the woods in shocking orange outfits. The boy deer are in heat, as crazed as frat boys on spring break. The people (mostly guys) dressed in horrible garish clothes shoot at the frantic deer. Sometimes they kill the deer. Mostly they drink, eat beef jerky and tell each other stories.

Gun Deer Season flushes Girl and Boy Bambis out of the woods and sends them running helter-skelter through the state. As in EVERYWHERE. As in over the river and through the woods, right into Grandmother's Pontiac. I suspect that cars kill as many deer as guns do, only the drivers of the cars aren't usually wearing orange and aren't intentionally hunting.

We never bagged a deer with our car in WI, though we had a few close calls. But this morning, just as the sun was thinking about coming over the horizon, Bill my husband got a 4 point buck with his Corolla. Sadly, he was thinking about heading to work, not Car Deer Hunting. He's fine, by the grace of God. I'm beginning to wonder if I need to put our auto insurance agent's number in our phone on auto dial.

This is the car we bought about a year and a half ago to replace to Corolla totalled with our boys driving it. This is the car that was in a 4800 dollar accident 6 months ago. (Today's deer damage is far, far worse.) In between these accidents, my car blew a head gasket. 1200+ bucks for that. A gigantic bubble in the tire of my mom's car that I drove back from FL. I drove it all the way back with that horrible shimmy going on, thinking the car just needed an alignment. The next week, our son Jake got a flat and needed tires on his car.

May I just say that a friend noted that not a hair on our heads has been harmed during any of this drama. We've walked away from each of these disasters. Thank you, Jesus.

But we are really in a weird car zone. Spiritual attack? Test? Curse?

MMM...doughnuts

My recent motto: It is possible to do something humiliating EVERY SINGLE DAY

So far today, I've managed to keep the red blush from crawling up my neck. It's only 3:17 p.m. The day is young.

Yesterday, it only took me an hour to experience the day's humiliation. The first human being I spoke to was the tinny voice coming out of the Dunkin' Donuts speaker, asking to take my order.

"A medium coffee, two sugars, and a chocolate covered bagel," I replied.

"A chocolate covered bagel?" Tinny Voice asked.

"Yes. Chocolate covered bagel."

"Did you say chocolate covered BAGEL?" she queried again.

That was it. She couldn't hear me. I looked toward the pick-up window and nodded slightly, to show her I understood, then yelled, "BAGEL!"

She tried again. "Bagel?"

There was a long pause. Obviously, we weren't communicating very well at all. She was staring at me, trying to turn on the darkened lightbulb over my head with her eyes.

At last...ignition: "Oh," I said sheepishly. "I meant doughnut."


* * * * * * * *


I heard Steve Carrell walked off The Office set in support of the striking writers. Give yourself a gift today. Take 3 minutes and re-watch Dwight Schrute giving his Dunder-Mifflin Paper Salesman Of The Year speech, Mussolini-style:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqDkV4fd8Nw

Then, go order yourself a nice chocolate covered bagel. Loudly.

The blessing of a messed-up life

I've known a few people who have enjoyed relatively problem-free lives. By "few" I mean I can count these people on one-and-a-half hands. Max. One woman I used to know who proudly and regularly proclaimed she lived by God's principles (exegeted by Dr. Dobson in the childrearing department, Elizabeth Elliott in the wifely submission department, Larry Burkett for finances, Emilie Barnes for teacups and doilies) had a life that seemed to bear witness to the discipline of living within the boundaries of that counsel. It all worked for her.

There was a lot of "if only" in her response to people who had messier lives: "If only this person had followed godly principles, __________ would never have happened to them." She also had a toxic propensity for labeling sick people as spiritual failures. ("If only they'd dealt with the sin in their lives - or prayed more effectively - they'd enjoy the blessings of good health and a long life!")

Let it be noted here that this woman with the perfect life was one of the least-compassionate people I've ever known. But you probably already figured that one out! Her handful of companions in the blessed life department are all nice enough people, but they were people who spoke the language of compassion haltingly, with a strong pity accent.

When hard stuff happens in my life , I find myself wistfully longing for someone else's life. The life I covet is actually a life like this handful of blessed people enjoys. I want the good gifts I see in their lives: orderly families, HGTV homes, cozy church experiences, glowing good health.

Again and again I discover in the midst of my pain that the Giver of those good gifts is there in the midst of the chaos and pain, wanting me. Giving me Himself. Yesterday my family's too-dramatic life took yet another hard turn: more loss, more upheaval. It feels anything but a blessing today.

But I am learning to do the counter-intuitive thing - turn into the pain instead of running, cursing or cowering - or worse, demanding that God give me the blessed life I am convinced I so richly deserve. As I do, I again discover my Father there.

Hymn break

Man of Sorrows! what a name

For the Son of God, who came

Ruined sinners to reclaim:

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,

In my place condemned he stood,

Sealed my pardon with his blood:

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

Guilty, vile, and helpless, we;

Spotless Lamb of God was he;

Full atonement! can it be?

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

Lifted up was he to die,

"It is finished!" was his cry:

Now in heav'n exalted high:

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

When he comes, our glorious King,

All his ransomed home to bring,

Then anew this song we'll sing:

Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

He is our only hope.

Do I read what I write?

Apparently not.

Yesterday I wrote in this blog about the parking lot known as Chicago's Edens Expressway. Tonight I cheerfully got on the Edens. Sat there, parked, buring three buck-a-gallon gas.

I need to pay more attention to what I write.