Grateful Hearts

Yesterday I bought the ingredients for my family's Thanksgiving dinner. I laughed with the checkout man saying, "I won't be back, Eddie! I am totally together this year." He looked over his glasses with the look that said, "Oh, if I know you, you will be back tomorrow." While I already know that garbage bags and sliced almonds are on the new list, the big things are done. The turkey is resting, feeling like he has a special place in our midst. The cranberries are bought, waiting to pop, thicken and tantalize. The pumpkin and pecans are waiting on the shelf to be beckoned forth for the dueling pie fest. Just like the flavors that all come together every Thanksgiving, we come together too, rallying our gratitude, expressing our thanks to others and to God for our many blessings. Naming them one by one, as the song goes, is a good exercise. Giving words to your heart feelings is a good thing - it is when we really live. Like Thorton Wilder reminds us, "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."

The card shop has tiny "grateful" cards to help us be conscious of our treasures.. You can't write much on that card. I wonder if some people could even fill the space. Could I? Some of us have been listing five things every day for which we are grateful. Try it. Let's see. 1-a husband who likes to cook; 2-adult children who come around often; 3 - sisters and a brother who stay in touch across the miles; 4 - a cardinal outside my window; 5- a new book started that has captured me in a few pages. There. But I also loves the way Anne Voskamp lists her gifts of praise: sun pouring through the red leaves; crisp air; fleece robes; a mailman's wave; God's presence, a heart full, praise in my soul, life worth living. You can do this!

Praise and thanksgiving should be a regular part of our life, not just as the calendar that looks toward the last Thursday in November. When it becomes part of our daily life, it's much easier to look around and see all of the gifts. But the gratitude comes from the state of our heart and must be cultivated, nurtured and developed. You don't just get up one day and feel grateful. So how is your heart today? Is it being fed by Godly purposes? Or is your own understanding in charge of your heart?

Proverbs 3:5 says Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not on your own understanding. Two powers are at work here. The mind gathers knowledge and prepares food for nourishing the heart. So what kind of knowledge is being gathered in your mind - if your heart feels empty, it may be because you haven't fed it with God's word or spent time alone with Him to fill your heart with His thoughts. The verse says first to trust God with your heart. Then it say to not depend on your own ability. Trust first, then work out the understanding.

Scripture instructs in I Chronicles 16 to simply give thanks to God. It teaches that true thanksgiving comes by: remembering in our hearts what God has done, telling others about it, showing it, and offering gifts of praise. In other words, let it be known. Theodore Roosevelt said it well: Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.

Learning to Live Again

Yesterday I attended a benefit where the goal of the organization is to mend broken hearts. The various ways the mending is accomplished looks different to meet different needs, but the end result is always the same - mending those broken hearts and learning to live again. It reminds me of a song I love "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?"made popular 1971 - could it really be 40 years ago!

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/nottinghill/howcanyoumendabrokenheart.htm

I can think of younger days when living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow, but I was never told about the sorrow

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend a this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again

I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
We could never see tomorrow, no one said a word about the sorrow

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again

"Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again." What a line. What a prayer so many of us plead to our selves, to others and to our God.

This became so clear to me this morning while breaking an egg into a skillet. That egg is often thought of as the perfect, natural food. Pure nutrition wrapped up in a nice hard shell. The only way to get to the good nutritive value of that egg is to break it - crack that shell on the edge of the skillet and out comes the beautiful healthy food. After it is released from that hard shell, it can become what we use to say when I was a Home Economist, "the incredible, edible egg." It can be friend, poached, scrambled. It can hold a cake together or make a soufflé rise. It can be a salad or thicken a soup. The little broken egg can be transformed into a thing of wonder and delight. But it has to have its shell broken before it can be transformed. It became so clear to me as I studied God's word - breaking is painful and breaking frees us. But I am not the first one to learn this although this morning I thought I was. Consider what C.S. Lewis said:

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

"Hatching" is painful. Hatching is the realization that the world is not right and there is something we must go through to keep from going bad. It is a choice we all make. But the hatching can open us up for healing and binding of wounds and power. Hatching is where the transformation takes place and all the gifts we possess come out and become honey for others - scrambled, friend, poached - like bread and wine. If I believe scripture - and I do - then I know that God heals our broken hearts and he binds up our wounds. (Psalm 147:3) I also believe the God's grace is sufficient for me and my power is made perfect in my brokenness and I should tell others about my brokenness so that the power of Christ will rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Lewis said we cannot go on indefinitely being just some ordinary, decent egg. It's not enough. We'll go bad. Something must change in our hearts - it must be broken...

and then it can mend.....

and live again.

Victory Street

Is it just me or is everyone angry? Controversy is on every corner. People are out of work and scared. Business is slow. The news is a constant hum of discontent. It seems even the news broadcasters have an edge to their voice. Even business owners are snappy with customers. Everyone has their own solution. Nobody agrees. Probably the debates tonight will be a good example of that.

But yesterday I turned onto Victory Street. It's a short cut-through street that was taking me to my destination. I guess I had never paid much attention to the street name, but yesterday I could not help but wonder if anyone else was driving down Victory Street. Who was feeling good about their day? Who was making a change for the good in lives of others? Who was being kind? Thoughtful? Considerate? And as I walked into the well-ordered elementary school, I was welcomed into a beautiful setting of peace and calm. The secretary was cheerful and interested. The principal made time for a chat. Teachers stopped by to say hello. Children were active and busy with learning. Victory Street.

I left there refreshed and encouraged by an environment that had been created by willing and skilled staff members. But I knew that kind of environment doesn't just happen. It takes discipline, creativity, long hours of work and a passion to make something special happen. It also takes a willingness to just work in the background of life, quietly going about doing a job with skill and confidence. It is what Brian Williams calls "Making a Difference." the short, final segment of his airtime - a wise choice to make us all feel better about something at the end of the day.

Yesterday I read "The beginning of all reform must be in yourselves. However restricted your circumstances, however little you may be able to remedy your affairs, you can always turn to yourselves, and seeing something not in order there, seek to right that." But who wants to look within when it is so much easier to look out and blame someone else? Who really wants to pause long enough to seriously consider their own state of affairs? Isn't it easier to fix someone else? And who really wants to change anyway?

Living on Victory Street comes at a price. The price of work and sacrifice and self-control. Victory comes after the pause, after seeing something not in order and admitting it and then starting the long journey of change. Victory comes when we seek to right the wrong in ourselves first. And victory comes when we can find gratitude even in the smallest of things. If Victory is a street we long for, then Gratitude must be the sidewalk alongside.

"Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory."
George S. Patton

Make The List

On occasion, I read something that touches my soul, speaks to my heart, takes my breath away. I read the words and remember similar thoughts and feelings that made me feel alone, questioning, separated by a sea of grief yet connected in a way that gave me a painful sort of joy. But hard as one tries, words cannot fully express. We each must walk the path and find our own way. It is so individual and yet all so connected. With lives intertwined, we are asked to love one another. Choosing love, we also choose pain and suffering because we just can't have one without the other. It's the painful sort of joy.

My friend coming out of the grocery story is choosing love. Carrying three cases of old-fashioned canning jars, I asked, "Henry, what in the world are you doing?" He laughed and said, "Canning pears." And then he turned to a more serious subject and we talked about his beautiful daughter walking through cancer, looking for options, choosing love and hope. I came home thinking about how hard we work to preserve what we know and love. Canned Pears. Beautiful daughters.

I am reading the book One Thousand Gifts. I downloaded the book on my Kindle, but already know it is one I need to buy to underline and return to often. The author Ann Voskamp is challenged to write down 1000 things for which she is thankful. I will not tell you the story because, as my friend wrote to me, saying "stop what you was doing and go get the book," I would echo the same thoughts. Finding gratitude in everyday life events is what saves us. Nothing else. Voskamp says, "Thanksgiving always comes before blessing." I know this to be true. As I look out the window at the sudden change of the season, I smile and am grateful... for the red streaks in the Maple trees, one last rose begging to sit at my desk, cardinals playing hide-and-seek, Dr. Feelgood's morning call, Bodey at my feet, my son's emailed travel itinerary, my daughter's bright attitude toward her first jury summons, a repairmen on time. One thousand gifts is a short list. I smile and I know.

Because I know, there is strength for this life journey. I know God stays with us through the bad times - all the way. I know he is "close to the broken-hearted and draws near to the crushed in spirit." I know He blesses us with friends and material comforts, but the real blessing is in knowing Him. I know the power of his comfort, his strength, his wisdom, his staying power. I know Him and want others to have strength for their journey. And as our paths cross in our daily events, I want to be joyfully present in each event - welcoming the traveler, sharing an omelet, reflecting what I know. Maybe that is why these words come - sometimes with humor, sometimes with anger and often with questions - lots of questions. But never without gratitude and trust in the One I know.

Maybe we have just never been challenged to make the list. We'd rather be grumpy. We offer a perfunctory, skin-deep "thank you" and move on as opposed to really listening or really observing or really paying attention to the present that is offering moments of real wonder. John Milton said, "Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world." Until we can stop and be still -- be reverent-- gratitude will elude our hearts and we will miss the blessing. Thanksgiving always precedes the blessing.

So Get Busy

Mike and I recently enjoyed watching The Shawshank Redemption and today I was reminded of what Andy Dufresne said to one of his fellow prisoners, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies... so get busy living, or get busy dying."

What are you busy doing today? Living? Dying? It's a pointed question to ask yourself every morning when you get up. The directness of the question sorts things out pretty quickly and should make the daily choices we make clear.

This week I have watched people being busy with living: one is busy holding her head up as she waits and watches for reconciliation; one is busy recovering from cancer, heading out on a trip with her newly retired husband; one is in the midst of cancer treatment, but making Sloppy Joes for her husband as she skips out the door for a girls outing; one is another country, helping less fortunate children find hope for the first time; and one friend just called from outside her house to say she was sending me a picture of a praying mantis on her moonflower-- all ordinary tasks, all living with hope.

There are some days for all of us that are spent simply dying. We lose direction. We lose hope. We move through the day, respond to phone calls, think about what we should or could be doing and before we know it, we have managed to never find the productivity we longed for - the accomplishment of a well-ordered day of living, the article written, the meeting set, the proposal sent out, the contract finalized, the fall garden planted.

There is a verse in Romans that is a power source for living each day. It says, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." --Romans 15:13

If you study the verse, it says "as you trust in him" you will be filled with joy and peace and the overflow from our trusting will fill us with hope - not by our power, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. Something is required of us. We are asked to trust in the God of hope so that we will overflow with hope and spill out into the lives around us, lifting and offering hope to those who might be busy dying.

So what will it be today - living or dying? Some days might be really dark, but I love what author Anne Lamott says about that, "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." Just showing up and trying to do the right thing is the most courageous thing I have ever done. And I imagine we sleep better at night when we have trusted in a greater source than ourselves, being filled with hope, overflowing to others. It never gets old or stagnant, but a constant flow of movement through our lives. Get busy now with your choice.