The Unforced Rhythm of Grace

The goal I seem to accomplish when traveling is to unabashedly wear myself out. There is so much to be done in so little time. I take it on myself to go on beach walks and long bike rides after playing a round of golf. I hike, poke through markets, and  catch up on reading late into the night or talking over late night decaf. It's all good. I wouldn't change a thing—except for the exhaustion I feel when I'm finally home. I look at my calendar and say, "How can I do this to myself?" I promise to never exhaust myself again, and attack my calendar with a machete, slashing all unnecessary events. It takes a few days  of atmospheric change to make the transition, but rest comes. I've settled myself back into my quiet routine.  While I like my busy traveling, I also like my routine.

Routine is a good thing—a prescribed course of action followed regularly.  Over and over.  It is actually very restful and productive to be part of a routine. Watch an out-of-sorts toddler who has missed his nap. Watch an older person who has to leave his home for a hospital stay. Watch me on vacation! In every example, you find disruption, chaos, and ultimately melt-down. I like best the way the toddler handles it—he has a crying fit.

But the creative side of me wants to argue, "But too much routine is boring. I don't want to do the same thing—routinely—day after day. The writer Amy Tan once said, "You have to be displaced from what's comfortable and routine, and then you get to see things with fresh eyes, with new eyes." And I love what Emerson said about routine, “So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person's genius is confined to a very few hours.”

Well, that explains it. That explains why my "genius" is so underdeveloped. I spend my days preparing, thinking, and keeping my safe routine. It explains why seeing with fresh eyes can plant new ideas that grow creativity. Yes, even on the busiest of days. And yet, in my routine, I stumble upon the solution. I stumble upon another quote that restores me, settles me, and ignites the creativity in my soul. In Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message), Jesus said, "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

Ah, to learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

The Thinking Window

Everyone has a "thinking window." It's where your mind goes when it's searching for something—a word, a solution, a fresh idea, truth. It's where you sort and toss and  prioritize. It's where you remember and reconsider and refresh. You look through your thinking window to the other side and see something from a different perspective. All new.

I can't look out just any window and think. I wish I could because in the last month I could have uncovered a wealth of new images looking at the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Gulf of Mexico. I could have heightened my perspective looking up to Mt. Ranier, Whiteside Mountain, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. If travel enabled new ideas to morph into words, I would have a lifetime reserve.

I love the way Anne Lamott talks about writers and their work. In Bird by Bird she says,

         “Hope is a revolutionary patience for writers.  Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.  You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.”

Ideas will come—once I settle myself again—at my thinking window. I want to believe the sights I have seen and the beauty I have witnessed will over time come together as fresh fodder for the written word. Let them sink in and blend and multiply and then reinvent themselves, bursting forth in new thoughts and ranges of colors.

The Apostle Paul also gives wisdom to those who search. He offers a glimpse into a future where believers will find completion in God alone. Until then we will always be searching, looking through our own window of thought, trying our best to figure things out. Paul wrote to people in a big city where life was busy and distractions were many—not unlike today, just 2000 years later saying, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians13:12 NIV)

Probably the first thing you do each morning is look out a window. Maybe you look for a ray of sunshine, a glimmer of hope, meaning to a dream, or wisdom for a big decision. Take some time at that window, allowing some "revolutionary patience" to still your heart and fill your senses with the wonders of a hoping creation.

We can learn at our thinking window. Dawn will come.

                       

 Trail of Tears...And Uncertainty

The older I get, the more I love home. 

I have been away for two weeks, attending the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference in Asheville, NC. I stopped on the way home and visited friends who opened doors to their mountain homes, offering rest and respite and transition from four days of attending classes, listening to speakers, and thinking more than I normally think. It is home, though, where I reconnect, renew, and refresh my mind. As I water the plants and fill the bird feeder, everything somehow gets sorted and prioritized in my mind.  It is home where I reflect and sort and plan for another year of writing.

            This was my third year to attend, and I felt more comfortable when the routine question was asked, “What do you write?” I experimented with safe answers such as “I write non-fiction—the daily life kind of stuff—gardening, relationships, personal struggle." Or “I write memoir." That sounded vague enough without delving into my personal, painful story. Or, if I was feeling transparent, I said, “I write about death and grief—life and living.” This year, I mastered the "elevator pitch" by succinctly saying, "I published When God Comes Near in 2010, writing about my faith journey during the illness and death of my daughter. Now, I am writing a book about grief—good grief." I admit, it's not as exciting as a thriller mystery, or a trendy cookbook, but I write what I know.

            The drive to Asheville is pretty spectacular.  Once you get out of Atlanta, you head north to the foothills of the Blue Ridge.  Then as you wind further north, you enter a cloud of misty green. I returned home through those magnificent mountains with misty thoughts of my own mountains to climb as a writer. I remembered the Cherokee nation, forced against their will to leave a land they loved and to traverse through famine and hardship to some unknown territory that would become their new home over time. The journey itself became known as "The Trail of Tears" or, as a direct translation from Cherokee, "The Trail Where They Cried.” In one of the saddest episodes of our country’s history where over 4000 people died, lives were torn apart, displaced, and left to their tears on a trail to uncertainty.

            There is a legend that says an Indian chief prayed for comfort for the grieving mothers who were losing their children to death and starvation on the trail.  Following his prayer, a white rose began to spring up every time a tear fell to the earth.   

Supposedly, to this day, the Cherokee Rose, my very own Georgia state flower, still blooms along the Trail of Tears—life and beauty rising out of pain and sorrow. 

            I am learning that each of us has our own trail of tears—our own trail of uncertainty. If you tell me you do not, I won't believe you.  All who are in touch with life have been displaced by something—emotionally, physically, socially, or spiritually.  We have been forced to travel a trail of uncertainty. And the legend rings true—when tears are spilled and prayers are offered, something good happens in the midst of sorrow. A flower blooms on the road of sadness.

            "How can good come from pain?" we continue to ask. One thing I learned at the writer's conference was that everyone has a unique story to tell.  Some are true and some are imagined. Some are being developed. Some are being filed away and some, regrettably, thrown away. But all good stories should offer some kind of reconciliation to the reader. Name the problem and offer a solution. Change the reader.

            The Cherokee tribe did not get to the Oklahoma territory overnight. There was no GPS dotted with five star hotels and Starbucks, but there was a chief who sought a higher source for help. And following the little signs of life that bloomed encouragement along the way, the travelers stuck with their journey and learned new ways to live. They told their stories to their children with memories of a past life and with hope for the new territory to come.  As a writer, I will be doing just that—seeking help from above, looking for the signs of encouragement along the way, and learning new ways to live. I will remember the past and point to the future. Maybe I, too, will change the reader.

Look Up to Find a Lenten Message

A fellow writer and friend of mine wrote:

"Pay attention to people who encourage you spiritually. They just might have a Lenten message for you!"

But who is looking for the Lenten message?

Who is following Christ this Holy Week as his actions as teacher and healer turn abruptly to his intense passion of walking toward abuse, ridicule, and death on a cross? The message can often seem too hard, too cruel, too painful to watch. There have been years when instead of going the distance to the cross with Christ and attending church on Maunday Thursday and  Good Friday, I fled to the golf course, away from waiting and watching Jesus and His passion. I ran away , taking my pain and sorrow to the beauty of creation. It was all that made sense to me. It was all I could bear.

But it was there in the beauty of God's creation, the Lenten message sought me out, found me, and revealed to me the true Lenten message of hope. I have told the story before, but it bears repeating for those who might be looking for messages outside of church doors this week.

We were finishing our round of golf, moving around the course, and walking onto the 18th green. As we walked by the lake and onto the green, I saw some movement above me. I paused, looked up, touched Mike's arm and whispered, "Look Up! Look Up!" There waving snow white wings, hovering above us were five white doves. It was as though they were waiting there to give us the Lenten message - a message that said, "It is a sad day, but Sunday is coming. Jesus is alive. Your child is with Jesus. And one day, the five of you will be together again - in Heaven."

And then I remembered the song,

"On the wings of a snow-white dove
He sends His pure sweet love
A sign from above
On the wings of a dove"

Now, several years later, we reflect on that day as a day of gratitude that together we witnessed the Lenten message - delivered  to us personally on the wings of five, white doves, sent from above. Where did the doves comes from, you ask? I, too, pursued that question and learned that they lived close by and were often released  for specific missions, only to return to their home when their mission was completed.

How like God to send those doves as a Lenten message. But as my friend said, you have to pay attention.

You have to look up.

Falling Down, Finding Help

I have been walking most mornings for over 25 years and never, not once have I fallen.

Today that changed.

 In a split second after tripping over a crumbling sidewalk, I stumbled, crumbled, and fell to the ground. Fortunately, I was able to descend slowly because of my unsuccessful effort to aright myself. As if in slow motion, I allowed my wobbling legs and flailing arms to land on a grassy spot allowing my palms to block the worst of the blow. In the back of my mind, I was also considering the consequences of rolling into the street. Now, that would not have been pretty.

To be honest, none of it was pretty.  My walking partner felt helpless. My neighbor, who was in his car, waiting to pull onto the street, watched and waited to see if I would get up. And thankfully, I did get up - a bit humiliated, but relieved even more. I told everyone watching that I was sorry they had to witness that early morning scene, but I was grateful they were there - just in case I could not get myself up. Falling down is something none of us desire to do.  And it is in the getting up that we feel tremendous gratitude and much relief when we realize we are not broken, bleeding, or bruised.

But this very theme is what we continue to spiritually ponder as we journey through this time of Lent, experiencing the descending path of Jesus, which is the glory that comes from God.   It is the contrast between the descending path where we have trouble with glory. We think of glory as grand, better, more powerful or successful. And God reveals his glory by Jesus becoming more and more despised, rejected and hunted. God reveals his glory by having Jesus go all the way to death on the cross. He did that for me. And you.

It is why we should not be afraid when we fall down....when our hearts are broken, or we are disappointed, or the morning walk does not turn out the way we thought it should for our own glory. A little soreness here and there can be a reminder of those falls, teaching us to watch out for those things that would trip us and cause us harm, and asking ourselves where in the midst of our falling down can we discern the loving presence of God.  He is there to help us stand.

So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! (1 Corinthians 10:12)