RESOLUTION

Tis the season for shedding – for the casting off of the old self. Tis the season for sliding out from under layers of dead skin, for cutting off dead weight, for the removal of the inauthentic, the worn and the wasted. Tis the season for self-reflection, self-discipline, self-denial and self-flagellation. Tis the season for taking stock, for spiritual fasting, body cleansing, closet purging, de-junking, de-cluttering, simplifying, stream-lining, organizing, categorizing, goal-setting, budgeting, quitting, starting, shrinking and sweating.

After a heady month of the Spiritual, worship, extravagance, generosity, giving thanks for our many blessings, and thinking of others, tis now the season to turn inward.Tis the season to become self-involved, consumed with thoughts of our flesh and our mastery of it, enamoured by our own potential, authoritative over our weaknesses, and obsessed with finding the power to change.

I am not generally a fan of New Year’s Resolutions. I spend the greater part of each year just trying to love myself, accept myself and make peace with who I am. I don’t like the thought of beginning each new year by declaring to myself and to the world that there are things about who I am that I do not like, which I would otherwise not have the wisdom, the will or the strength to change if not for the fact that it is now January. While I am a firm believer in self-reflection and in being open to change, it has been my experience that the kind of mental fortitude required to begin or end a habit, or alter a pattern of behaviour, seldom comes to you simply because the pages of a calendar are turned.

And yet – I do get positively giddy when I get to start a new calendar, like the first snowfall before boots and tires draw up the mud. I love the glossy feel of the unsullied pages and the smell of the printer’s ink. I love buying new multi-coloured pens, and plotting out how on top of things I am going to be this year. I love neatly printing in Pizza Fridays, Garbage Pick-up Days, Birthdays and Anniversaries, and every other known, fixed, already remembered and completely anticipated event I can draw to my mind.

I begin my year hopeful – hopeful that at the end of the year its measured days will be marked full with tidy, colour-blocked events that have all been predictable, planned and completely within the realm of my control.

The truth is that most of this past year has been scribbled. Nothing that really happened is marked anywhere on the calendar, though I have walked it day by brittle day, felt each little square crumbling like burnt parchment under the weight of my feet. It’s not been my favourite year, by a lot. Though it has been rich with love and life and once-in-a-lifetime experiences, huge parts of it have been really painful.

It wasn’t supposed to be that kind of a year. It was supposed to be my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy year – 42 – the year I discovered the meaning to life and the universe and everything in it. It was supposed to be a year of blossoms and fruit, where everything that had been so slow in growing in me while I waited so patiently for the seasons to change, could finally, finally burst forth.

It was not supposed to be The Year of the Winnowing. It was not supposed to be the year that I gave up. But this was the year that I unclenched my hands and let go, gave in to the Sifter, blessed the winnowing fan as it scraped and bared my soul, felt myself tossed and coming down hard as the split husks blew away, looked in the mirror at the dead seed.

It’s been a whole year of January.

You can’t plan for that. You can’t psyche yourself up for that kind of change – it isn’t anything you can check off on a calendar or resolve yourself to. And who would ever choose it?

It is possible that I will look back on this year someday and I will think, That really was a good year. It’s honestly too soon to tell what the new seed will bring forth. What I do know is that this year has forever changed me, and that I am resolved to spending this new year learning to love, accept and make peace with this new woman that I have become.

THE LAST OF THE MAGI

I am very grateful to a beloved aunt who introduced me to Aunti-Climax – that uninvited relative who always manages to slip in unannounced smack in the middle of big, much anticipated events like birthdays and Christmas, dropping off giant parcels of crabby. She visited our home on Christmas Day, but only briefly – her visit is always so much less disruptive if you remember to forewarn your children of the inevitability of her coming.

The lead up to Christmas is so filled with pageantry, glossy shoes, ribbons, mass choirs pressing our hearts in to the sacred. We gaze upon ancient stars, submitting to the hush that our soul demands as it marches reverently in line to the stable. Our spirit bends its knees before the holy, holy, and waits. Everything is mystery; secrets are kept, voices lower to whispers, doors are locked, presents put on paper veils.

Christmas morning is chaos and crumpling, as gifts are undressed, embraced and stacked into piles. On that sacred morning there is nothing I want more than to worship God in rumpled pajamas. I want all the carolling to stop, to make room for the sound of laughing and loud voices calling up and down the stairs. I am done with pageantry – I want children running in circles around the house bumping into tables, knocking ornaments over, irreverent, full of life, happy. My soul wants to cast off its trappings of sober stillness and meditation. My soul wants to rise and twirl. My soul wants to stop singing about rejoicing, to stop demonstrating appropriate amounts of gratitude for all its blessings, to stop burning candles and watching contemplatively as flames flicker and dance in windows – it wants to get on with it.

I see it on my children’s faces – about half way through the day, when the better half of the toys have been unleashed from their plastic bindings, and lips are full and sweet with chocolate.

Is that it?

It’s a letdown. Anti-climax. It’s everything we hoped it would be, everything we planned for it to be. We received what we asked for, exactly on the day that we asked for it to be given – it was all handed to us with blinking lights and buttery cookies and shiny paper. It’s good. It’s wonderful. It’s too much, too generous, we didn’t deserve it. We’re grateful. Still, something inside us whispers, That’s it?

It’s over?

That’s what all the fuss has been about?

It is not ingratitude, it is not gluttony – it is only that we have become intoxicated by our own expectations. The fulfillment of a long-deferred hope is so very seldom what we imagine it to be.

And Jesus wasn’t – he was not what anyone expected him to be.  Jesus was not the kind of saviour we thought we were waiting for, he didn’t do what we thought he would do, he didn’t behave the way we imagined that he would.

If I’m honest, he still doesn’t. Sometimes, after the angel choirs have finished with their annunciations, after the shepherds have gone home, after the dramas are done, after the stars stop being road maps, my soul can gaze upon that little babe in the manger, crying and needing diaper changes and not behaving like Divinity at all, and it can feel a little bit let down. That baby won’t even do anything for another thirty years. It’s nothing if not anti-climactic.

I felt it when each of my children was born – both the miracle and the letdown. Is that it? After all that anticipation, all that preparation, all that longing and dreaming and work, I thought I would experience something more. I didn’t ever imagine the birth of my child to be anti-climactic.

This is why I think that Christmas and babies and Jesus himself, despite all the longing and pondering and anticipation, despite all the joy and wonder and holy adoration, are blessings that still manage to sneak up on us and catch us unprepared.

You can’t prepare for that glow that fills you – somewhere around the third day – after  you have let go your affection for expectation, after you have relinquished your hold on hope and longing, after you have given and received and have given thanks, and have realized that nothing really has been added to you that wasn’t already there.

You can’t prepare for Emmanuel – God with us, God born in our hearts, God breathing resurrection life into us from the inside. God is not how we imagine, God does not fit into the space we have prepared, God does not make us feel the way we believe we are supposed to feel. We are satisfied – but still we are not really satisfied.

This year, I saw Aunti-Climax for who she is. I recognized her – how she comes so unabashedly after every offering of worship, after every rejoicing in the miraculous, after every celebration of life and love and God.

She is the last of the magi, come to show us the space – the sacred void. Our soul knows it, it feels the vacuum, it whispers to us, No, that’s not it. There is more.

LES GRENOUILLES

Apparently if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water it will jump out – but if you put a frog into a pot of cool water, put it on the stove, and turn the heat on, it will sit there comfortably and soak until eventually it boils to death. I have heard this, but I have never tested it. I imagine it is probably true.

I haven’t looked at my mail in two weeks. I might have inherited a fortune, I might be about to lose my house, I really don’t know, I really don’t care. I think this is called depression. I’m not sure where I caught it, but it seems that every other person I talk to has it or is taking something for it. It’s my first time, but it’s definitely going around – it might qualify for epidemic. I’m washing my hands of a lot of things, and trying not to spread it.

My mind is bubbling with information overload and is signaling emergency shut down. My body is lethargic with compassion fatigue and wants to stay in bed. My spirit is weary of well-doing, and wants to stay in a warm bath for a year. All my senses are hot and stimulated, on high alert, but I just can’t sort out what to do about it. Circuits are shorting out. I can’t process any more data. I’m wishing life came with a pause button, but I would settle for simmer.

I am considering the possibility that I might be slowly boiling to death.

If there is anything that draws out the I don’t have enough feeling in me, it is the Christmas season. Five dollars here, ten dollars there, starving children, homeless people, drug addicted women in shelters, soup kitchens, coats for kids, mitten trees, shoe boxes, kettles, building funds, bursary funds, foundations, gift exchanges, baking with the good stuff, wrapping paper, secret Santas, loved ones near and far – it adds up. I want to give to it all, but I can’t – my heart is generous, but I still feel selfish.

Everywhere I am hearing, You are among the most blessed, you are so rich, you have so much. Who are you, to say ‘no’? I find myself suddenly ranting to a Tim Horton’s employee about the exorbitant price of the medium Mint Mocha Latte that I thought I might treat myself with to maybe help me out of the doldrums into festive. Inside I am scolding myself; The money for that coffee might have been spent on the poor. Without warning, I am barking at my kids for eating the cookies I made for the neighbours, and now I have to go buy more chocolate.

It isn’t about money. If it were about money, it would not be an issue. That you either have in your pocket, or you don’t. It is about having to choose where your limited resources are going to go, when you don’t know how to choose. It is about too many choices.

Until this past Friday, I actually thought that I had lost the capacity to care. I thought I had over-spent all my compassion. I thought maybe I was all out of love. I couldn’t find a mite to offer – I already gave everything I had to live on, and my emotions operate on a very tight, fixed income. Really, what does it even profit you to gain the will to care, if you have lost the means?

But I have discovered that I do care. I care so very much, I have not been able to stop crying. And I have discovered that I am not depressed – I am sad. I am sad, and I should be sad and, Christmas or not, it is perfectly alright if I walk around for the next good while just feeling very, very sad. I would have to question my humanity if I were not sorrowful about all the hurt and the loss and the suffering of this world – it is right in front of my face, all the time.

I am a forty-two year old adult. I am strong and I am mature. I have wisdom and intelligence, education and resources, freedom of movement and expression. I have life experience, conscience, discernment and the ability to exercise sound judgment. I can turn a T.V. off and on, I can change the channel, I can choose not to read magazines and newspapers or surf the net. I know how and when to filter, how to sort out good information from bad, and how to find out what I need to know. I have a deep, tested, abiding faith and the knowledge and words to comfort myself. And I, in this rich condition, find the pain of my world too much to process at the moment. There is too much to filter. There is so much that is needful and too much to hold in my brain.

If this is how I feel, how is a child supposed to process this world?

If there is one thing that I hate to hear people say, it is that children are resilient. No. No, they are not. We have to stop telling ourselves that. Children are not resilient – they are simply powerless to do anything to change their circumstances, and so they find ways to survive. Ask any messed up person that you know, and they will tell you about their crappy childhood – how their uncle molested them, how they had to shoot their own dog, how their parents wouldn’t stop fighting, what the words are that were spoken over them that they still hear in their heads. Children do not bounce back from trauma. When children are assaulted and abused in their bodies, minds and spirits, it affects them forever. When children are traumatized by events or images, it shapes them irrevocably. When children have their families torn apart, whether it is by death or divorce, it completely changes who they are. When children are exposed to things that a child should never be exposed to, it alters the pathways of their minds.

I was fourteen when my brother was hit by a train. A month after he died, a girl from our school was abducted and later found dead. The trauma, the grief and the fear infused into our community because of these two events was incredible – at least, I think so – I was not actually all there to fully experience it from a community perspective. I imagine that it took years to recover. Everyone within a hundred mile radius was hit with shrapnel. There was no space in between to get your bearings, make peace with it, find consolation, regain emotional strength. People had to choose who they were going to grieve for – where their resources were going to go. It was simply too much – an emotional Sophie’s Choice.

There were no glory days, but there are things that have changed even since then. Our community has gone global. We have a lot more neighbours to love than we used to. We are all starting to have to pick and choose between one horrific trauma and another – the wounded stranger on the side of the road has grown into a battle field. We have to choose. There are wounded everywhere we walk, and we simply cannot carry them all. We might love with all our hearts, we might even weep as we do it, but we have to step over them. We have to look away from them. We have to shut off, or we will crumple and fall and be one of them.

Sometimes I think that this is really the problem in our society right now – why so many people seem to be snapping – we cannot manage our emotions. We barely have time to acknowledge them, before we receive the next hit. We have been over-exposed, but we are still telling ourselves, Suck it up – Walk it off. Our emotions have been so continuously assaulted that we are all suffering from a massive case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We’ve had to shut emotion and reasoning down, and we don’t know what to turn them back on for. We start to feel a morbid desire for the images and the details of the big stuff, because it signals us that we are alive – that we can still be horrified, that we can be moved with compassion, that we are not as numb as we fear.

On some level we know that we absolutely need to get up, because the water is getting very, very hot around us and we just can’t bring ourselves to really, really care. Not care enough to actually do something. We look around us and everyone else seems to be doing more or less ok soaking in the same hot water. We are completely desensitized. Maybe some of us are starting to look a little sleepy. Maybe some of us are starting to wiggle and bump and stack ourselves on top of the slow movers to keep ourselves off the bottom. Maybe some of us are already belly-up floaters – we look at them, perplexed, and try to figure out what happened.

And so I am wondering – what would it even look like, to hop out of the pot? Because, honestly – I am completely sincere and not being alarmist – I think it is time. I think we are boiling ourselves to death, and we are too numb to even know it.

I want to feel the pain. I do not want to pretend it is not there. Pain is what tells you that something is hurting you – pain is what makes you say, Stop. Enough. No more. Pain is what makes you get up and do something.

OVERCOMING EVIL

My heart is broken. I am so very sad, and so very angry, and so very at a loss. I so very badly want to find the words – string them together, wrap them around, bring understanding, bring healing. Those words do not exist. I am overwhelmed with feelings of disgust and grief and awe over the combination of events of this Friday. I hugged my children’s principal this morning – I wrapped my arms tight around her and I felt her heart, strong as a shield standing in front of my children. She loves my children. She would protect them. She would lose her life to protect them. I know that she would. There is something so staggeringly beautiful and sorrowful about that, I cannot do anything but weep over it. She is not a soldier; she is an Elementary School principal.

I cannot believe this is the world my children live in – where we collect assault rifles like stamps, where babies are targets, where we would consider giving guns to teachers and turning our schools into the O.K. Corral.

I cannot believe this is the world my children live in – where a mother would throw her much loved, much needed body over some other mother’s child to protect them, where women and children show such courage and nobility of spirit that I feel maybe I have seen the face of God.

What kind of a world is this that we are living in? Sometimes I think we have never been more magnificent and we have never been more insane.

There aren’t enough fingers on our hands to point at all the things to blame – guns, mental illness, sensationalist media, violent video games, broken families, absent fathers, a culture that celebrates violence and that rewards those who entertain us with it.

I believe this, with all my heart – we are all, under the right circumstances, capable of anything. With the right combination of factors, in a perfect storm, if the circumstances of our lives were different, we are all capable of anything. We are capable of murdering innocents, we are capable of becoming heroes, we are capable of saying, it’s too much to bear, it’s someone else’s child, turning our heads and putting it out of our minds.

We will never solve the problem of evil, or root out the source of the sickness that is in this world. It is inside of us.

But we have to decide, each of us for ourselves, how we are going to respond when we are confronted with it in others. What will we choose to do, when the most hideous evil imaginable touches us? Who will we choose to be when we are confronted with violence and pure insanity – when it breaks our heart, tortures our mind, lays our spirit low into the dust?

I do not believe that you can end violence with more violence. The most that you can hope to do with violence is to keep bodies alive. Violence cannot subdue or overcome the spirit, whether it is a spirit of violence or a spirit of heroism.

In my life, in my home, I have decided that the answer to pain, sorrow and injustice is to overcome evil with good. I have decided that life is sacred – sacred enough to sacrifice my life for – but that I do not love my own so much that I would take a life to preserve it. I give thanks for men and women who can, and do – who carry that burden in their jobs, to serve and to protect. I am not called to that. I need to honour them, to make their calling, their sacrifices and their courage meaningful, by using all the powers of life and freedom to overcome evil with good. To bury it alive. To drown it. To so completely overwhelm it, that the good that covers it is exponentially greater than the evil underneath it. I believe this.

We had a season in our lives where people kept stealing from us. We had bikes stolen, we had money stolen from ATM machines, we had wallets stolen out of desk drawers – over and over again, we felt the hurt of thievery. It was beyond discouraging. I started thinking a lot about how much people suck, and about how hard it is to work and work and work for something, and see somebody just come along, reach out their hand and take it. I started thinking about how much certain people needed to just get a job, and how I never wanted to give anything to anyone ever again.

The words came to me. Overcome evil with good. I decided that I would try. The next time somebody stole a bike from us, we bought another bike – and we bought a bike for somebody else who didn’t have one. In my heart I purposed that every time somebody stole from me, I would give to someone else in a greater measure, so that every single act of thievery would result in a greater giving that otherwise would not have happened. I would not just pay it forward – I would overcome it forward.

I have adopted this for my life. I make the choice that whatever injury is done to me, I will not respond with injury. I am choosing – I am trying very, very hard to choose – to respond with pouring out of myself the things that are the valorous and helpful and noble parts of my humanity. Courage. Compassion. Forgiveness. Sacrifice. Empathy. Service. Encouragement. Sharing. Redemptive grace. I will spend money to do this. I will give time to do this. I will break my own heart, if need be, to do this. I believe in this.

I am choosing to not self-preserve.  

I am choosing to believe that there are things more sacred than life, and that we sacrifice them to our own peril – to the peril of our children.

How do the mothers and fathers, the siblings or the children of the victims of Sandy Hook ever find a way to overcome evil with good? I do not know. I do not know. It is simply too great of an evil to overcome it alone. When you are broken and defeated, you just cannot.

Like hired mourners, we must do it with them and for them.

Let us dig down into ourselves to find the noblest parts of our humanity, to pull those things out of ourselves, and pour them all over our communities. Let us prove that the good that we are capable of is greater – far greater – than the evil that we are capable of.

I read that somebody was going to perform twenty-eight random acts of kindness in response to the twenty-eight deaths. I think this is beautiful. I think we need to find ways to perform acts of kindness that are not only random, but focused, purposeful, deliberate, pre-meditated, costly. Let us kindle our anger, and keep it kindled, so that we do not slide into resignation. Let us actively and purposefully move ourselves towards change.

As Ghandi lived and taught to us, We must be the change we want to see in the world. 

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  Romans 12:21

WWJD?

 Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent away and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its environs, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the magi. Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more.’ Matthew 2:16-18

Sometimes I think about the babies – all those thousands of babies, murdered in the hunt for one. I wonder if Mary thought about them, if she dreamed about them, if she heard the cries of their mothers in her sleep. I wonder if she wept tears of grief over them, felt guilt, struggled, choked on her first solid bite of broken.

I wonder if she thought of those innocent babies when she kissed Jesus on the head at night and tucked him in – if she pondered in her heart that they were dead because she chose to hide him. They were dead because he had to live – because it was not his time to die.

From the time you lose your innocence, Christmas is bitter-sweet. Sometimes Christmas feels like an act of faith – a declaration of hope, rather than an expression of any reality. I have to make it happen. I have to choose it. I keep waiting for a perfect Christmas – a Christmas when I won’t feel the dull ache of absence, when I won’t be acutely aware of the brokenness of family, when I won’t feel guilt over the richness of the blessings I am able to wrap my arms around. I keep waiting for a Christmas when all I truly have to think about is bright bows and glimmer and making my bathroom look festive – but for me that Christmas never comes. I keep waiting for all to be calm, all to be bright – for that peaceful, easy feeling.

I am afraid that, in so many ways, I have completely missed the point. It is not that there is now peace on earth – it is that Peace is now on the earth. Peace has entered in to our world of loss and pain and sorrow. God has come to us, has given Himself to us, and has allowed Himself to be broken with us. He has been broken for us. God has been broken – the Trinity has been split apart, and God now shares with us our longing to be whole.

I don’t think we’re supposed to pretend that there aren’t people missing, when there clearly are. I don’t think we’re supposed to put out of our minds that there are broken, rotted people who are willing to kill babies as they hunt what their soul is looking for. I think we’re supposed to taste the bitter – feel it wrapped around the joy, like paper packaging. I think we’re supposed to hold the gift of life in our hands, and hunger and ache and long for our redemption to be revealed.

I think we are supposed to understand that peace will never come to us without deep, unfathomable loss – because peace is right there in the midst of it. That is where we find it. That is why it has come. It is our humanity that is the channel for Peace – God with us, in the form of brokenness, in the form of the Christ child.

Do not thank God that it was someone else’s child, not yours.

Love your neighbour as yourself.

Mourn with those who mourn, and refuse to be comforted.

Be filled with the Spirit of God.

Do not pray for peace – be its instrument.

CHRISTMAS SPIRIT(S)

I’ve been fighting Christmas – feeling a little Bah Humbug. I’ve not been miserly, exactly, but my eyes have been looking at things through some dark shades. I’ve been peering through glasses the opposite of rose-coloured. I’ve been a little jaded.

I watched a mountain of shoe boxes for Samaritan’s Purse loaded up onto a truck, and I choked up. Tears stung my eyes and I thought, Good God in heaven, please forgive us. We do not know what we are doing. Do children in jungles really need bouncy balls? Do they really need their eyes to be opened to just exactly how much they don’t have? Do we really want to spread our gluttonous, consumerist, disposable spirit to them? Can we please just stop trying to save everybody, and learn a little respect?

But then a funny thing happened. My new neighbour with a new baby – a woman I have never actually spoken to – dropped off a little Martha Stewart Christmas bundle on my doorstep. My new neighbour who I don’t go out of my way to speak to because she never smiled when I waved at her that one time; my new neighbour who is always annoyed when my husband parks on the street in front of her house because we have such a big driveway, and she doesn’t seem to understand that a long, narrow driveway is not necessarily that awesome when you have two vehicles and two people that leave the house at different times. That neighbour. She left us a gift. I unwrapped it, feeling more than a little embarrassed by her generosity, and I smiled. I stared at it, and I marvelled. I said out loud, Wow, how great is that? That is amazing. I did not deserve this.

And just like that, I caught it. The Christmas Spirit. How blessed it is to receive. How blessed it is to receive something you did not ask for, you did not expect, you totally did not deserve.

Spirit changes everything. It makes the snowfall whiter and brighter, it makes the music swell inside you, it makes you want to smile and say hello neighbour and hold the door open for strangers. It makes you want to give very thoughtfully, with care and attention and generosity. It makes you see everything that you have with whole new eyes, and it makes you want to share it. You really cannot do Christmas without Spirit.

And so I am sitting here saying a prayer for a beautiful child – the child of a stranger far away, whom I have never seen or met – and I am praying that child finds joy in their shoe box. I bless all the bouncy balls and the jump ropes and the pencils and the toothbrushes, and I pray that they are all received with joy. I pray that each child finds some small thing inside their box that makes them smile and say out loud, Wow, how great is that? That is amazing. I did not deserve this. I pray that they will feel how very blessed it is to receive. I pray that the Spirit will fill them, giving them eyes to see their own abundance, and that they, too, will want to pass it on.

BRAMBLES

Some days I feel like I am a round peg stuck in a square hole. It fits, but there is always something a little off. Something is not quite lined up. There’s always room for growth, and always in the same four corners. There’s a lot of wiggle room, but everything might not hold the way it should if I get moved. Sometimes if I am resting in the sweet spot, I think I look a little loose to everyone else.

There’s something about a wobbly peg that makes people start looking around for some glue.

I get bumped by the paradoxes and the inconsistencies. God is a lion, God is a lamb. Do not be a slave to ‘do not touch this, do not touch that’ – but seriously, do not touch that, ok? It is for freedom that I am made free, but really only technically – I am free to want and to do the will of God. If what I want to do is to run wild, then I am free to either get hemmed in or fenced out. If I’m not careful with my thinking, I can get lost in the brambles. I can start to feel that God is giving mixed messages.

Things don’t always line up. We pray fervently in the Name of Jesus for people to be healed and they are not healed. They die. They do not get back up from the dead, even though we pray, In Your Name, by the power of your Name, not for ourselves but for Your Glory and for the Glory of Your Great Name. They stay sick and they get sicker and they suffer, even though the Bible says, If you ask for anything in My Name – if it’s something that is within My will, and if you ask with right motives, and if two or three of you come together in agreement to ask Me, and if you ask and ask and ask and ask persistently until I give you what you ask, but still are able to wait patiently in faith believing that you have already received what you have asked for – then you can be pretty sure that I will almost certainly let you have it. That is not verbatim.

And how can we discern this will of God, upon which everything depends? Do I walk by the Spirit, or stay put in the Spirit? Do I walk on the water, or do I sleep in the boat? Do I speak to the storm, or do I ride it out? How much does it matter? When you are surrounded by chaos, it’s hard to hear that still small voice that says, This is the way, walk in it. That voice can be very still and very small, or maybe really loud but talking to the person next to you. If you’re listening for it, you can actually get a little paranoid and start second-guessing yourself every time you get on an airplane or think about which route to take to school. Oops, I turned left instead of right. Great. I was distracted, and now I’m stuck in traffic. Oh but wait – Oh no. Was there some place I was meant to be, and now God’s plan has been thwarted? Or maybe there is something that God means for me to do on this road, and so He took me out of my way. I could be right smack in the middle of God’s will right now. This is so exciting. I’m starting to feel all tingly – Is there going to be an accident??

I’m not even kidding. Sometimes I want to say to God, Could you speak up? Could you please be a little more specific? I’m getting a little muddled. Can’t you just give me some rules? Maybe a chart of some kind, with some stickers for when I get it right? I need some boundaries. Fixed rules, set in stone, so I don’t have to always be asking You – waiting on You – while I’m trying to make basic decisions. Turn left here, turn right there, if this happens then move, if that happens then stay – that kind of thing. Feel free to write it down. Also, if You say You’re going to do something for me, it would really help if You would actually do that thing in THIS time/space continuum. I don’t know if You are aware of this or not, O God, but when you speak You can be kind of cryptic.

We are supposed to walk by the Spirit, but we are so bent on rules. We want them. We crave them. We have no way of measuring ourselves without them. What is that ‘A’ on your shirt for? Is that an A grade, or is that an A for ‘adulterer’? Are we still giving out ‘A’s? I thought we stopped doing that.

I walk the tightrope between super-natural grace and natural consequences. I swing on the paradox between, God will supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory and, Ahem, there aren’t actually any cattle in the stalls at the moment. I trampoline between, God is my shield and my defender, and Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him. I was having the conversation with a friend the other day, and we were talking about inconvenient troubles like slander, gossip and tarnished reputation. I spoke very wisely from the depth of my experience, The truth always comes out in the end. She looked at me straight, and said, Does it? We laughed a little and the two of us agreed together – no. No, actually, it really does not.

Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds feet, and makes me walk on my high places.  Habakkuk 3:18-19

LITTLE CHILDREN

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, ‘Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea... See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you, that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.’  Matthew 18:1-6, 10

That’s pretty harsh. When Jesus starts talking about millstones and drowning, you might safely assume that he is serious. I read this and I am left thinking, Whoever receives one such child in His name receives Him. Jesus spoke these words to his disciples, straight to their face – and yet one chapter later, they are sending children away from him. Sick children, babes in arms, brought to Jesus for healing and blessing – the disciples are chasing them away. Jesus doesn’t want you around. Jesus is tired. Jesus has a headache. Can’t you make that kid stop screaming? You almost have to wonder, did they not think that Jesus meant what he said? Were they not taking him literally? Did they think that he was only speaking to them in metaphor? I’m not shocked to read that Jesus was indignant.

Jesus seemed to speak often to his disciples about humility – somebody was always jockeying for position, trying to impress, trying to get it right, or trying to anticipate what Jesus was going to want them to say or do. You can almost hear it sometimes – We’re with him. We know him. I can tell you already, Jesus isn’t going to like this.

It always puzzles me that Jesus said humble yourself as this child. If you said to a child, be humble, they wouldn’t know at all what you meant – you would really have to work to explain it to them. Children, before the insecurity sets in, are shameless braggers. Look what I did! Watch me! See what I can do! You’re not watching – really watch me! They assume that if you love them, you are interested in everything that they do. They assume that everything they do for you is amazing. They are in a constant state of wonder at their own abilities. Look how I can bend my leg. Listen to this song I wrote. Watch this play that I worked really hard on. I am doing things, I am learning things, isn’t it all so amazing!

If you were going to compile a list of the most godly people you know of, those most closely representing the Divine image, the ones on the same page as Jesus, the ones closest to the kingdom of heaven, your thoughts might not immediately turn to a Daycare. Your first thoughts might not be of children, who innocently go straight for the front of the line and have to be taught to wait their turn; children, who don’t know what an important person looks like unless you tell them; children, who rub the earth between their toes and fingers, and love it, and who have to be taught to wash their hands; children, who poke your breast and your belly and have to be taught boundaries; children, who are always and forever asking Why? and then Why?, and then Why? again; children, who say things like, But how do you know God is real? Are you sure? What if God is an elephant?; children, who feel untruth in their gut, who say out loud, That doesn’t even make sense.  

You might not think immediately of a child, who wouldn’t even think to ask, Who will be on your right or your left in the kingdom? – but who just comes to you boldly and says, Can I sit on your lap?

And yet Jesus said, Be like that.

WORDS MADE FLESH

I have a fear of losing my voice. I send the words out wrapped in hooded blessing, and I try not to think about where they might end up or where they might trip and fall. I lose faith in them sometimes – I wonder if they will be kind and determined, as I mean them to be, and whether they have the strength and the wisdom to withstand a wolf. I want to tempt them to return to me, but they are already changed. They are already in somebody’s belly.

At times I feel a hand clamping over my mouth, and I don’t know whose it is – I don’t know whether to bite on my tongue or the hand. The words want to escape, but I don’t know if I am their captor or their abettor. I am thinking about ineffable, and I am asking the God words what they are even for – what is it they are trying to do?

Sometimes I have to talk with other words – listen to ones that I know are other. I need to know my neighbour. I may need to borrow some sugar – one of us may land in a ditch. I need to stand face to face with God words that I don’t like, that I don’t believe, that are written in ways that anger me or hurt. I need to feel myself trip over them and bang my head. I need to remind myself that it’s ok – it is not death, for the words to hang there abandoned, despised, rejected. I need to bear witness to how life comes forth reborn because we cannot agree to disagree.

There are words that are simply true for everybody – breathing, loving, and pain. They are blankets – they don’t need to be spoken because we already know, yet we still want to pull them around us. We share them willingly with one another, when we are cold, when we are afraid, when we love. The words become the light, the wind, the earth, the sea, wrapping us in all that we know together. The words enfold us in the safe embrace of the universe – they assure us that we are, none of us, alone.

But there are words that are intimate, timid, murmured by a solitude within us, drawn from us because we are alone. They are drawn from us while we are asleep. With the God words our soul is cut and shaped into bones. The bones are sent out to find flesh to absorb them and give them a place to live. The offering is taken – a piece of ourselves – and cupped in the hands of God. We hope that God will breathe into it. We hope we will awake to a mate.

POSTPARTUM

I don’t remember worrying about much before I had children. I put off till tomorrow, I slept peacefully in airplanes, I chatted with strangers on buses – I lived day to day. I didn’t worry about a lot of things I worry about now, like crashing and stranger danger and falling out of tree houses. Parenting has a way of adding new levels of awareness. There are so very many things you could worry about, if you were so inclined.

I wonder very often about why I was chosen – why I was chosen to be mother to my three beautiful children. They’re each so very different – different from me, different from one another. They are so incredible in the here and now, and so filled with potential. Sometimes I just don’t have a clue. I worry about wrecking them. I think maybe God didn’t factor in all the risks when they were placed into my hands. Maybe God hadn't read my Family History.

I know a lot of amazing women, but I have not met one yet who makes me think to myself, Yes, I would let you raise my children. You are everything I wish I could be for them. You would draw out everything in my children that I wish I knew how. You would not wreck them in any way. For all my limitations, when I start to think about whom besides me could raise my children if I were not around, I look at all the people I love the best and I become very, very aware of flaws.

I do not think, I am looking for someone to raise My beloved only begotten Son,Word made flesh, helpless baby. Hey, there’s this teenager – I think she’s about fourteen. She's engaged to a man she barely knows – a blue-collar type, who works with his hands. My Son will tarnish his reputation – the timing will be ‘off’. Now, there is always the possibility that he will not love My Son in the same way as he will love the ones made in his own image. And My Son will most likely become fodder for playground gossip – ‘He doesn’t know his real father. His parents weren’t married when his mom got pregnant. They had to get married. His dad only married his mom because he’s a nice guy, and he didn’t want her to get stoned.’ Yes, yes, off to a great start. They shall be his parents.

God wasn’t worried.

God could not have done more to establish just exactly how much He was not worried. God put Jesus into the care of a teenage girl and a carpenter, dropped him into their arms in a stable surrounded by the smells and sounds of animals – the furthest thing from safe or sanitary, with nowhere else to go – far, far away from home, on purpose.

The thing that I have to keep reminding myself over and over again is, it is not about me.

I knew this before my children were born – before they ever moved inside me – when I didn’t know who they were or all that they would need. I was only a vessel. No angel spoke it to me, and yet I pondered it in my heart. But sometimes I forget. I need to be reminded.

You are blessed among women – you are the chosen. I have not given you to My children – I have given My children to you. These children are gifts.These children will bless you and bring joy to your soul. They will absolutely change your world. Open your heart wide to receive, and let the God love fill you. It is not about worthy – it is only about willing.

BRIDE OF CHRIST - STEPFORD WIFE

Maybe it is the way it’s always been, but our minds are saturated with unrealistic expectations. Performance enhancing drugs, photo shopping, breast augmentation, hair extensions, cubic zirconia, face lifts, spray tans, Viagra, gel nails, happy pills, relax pills, pills for sitting at attention – everything is augmented. So much is fake. It used to be that fake meant ugly plastic flowers – nobody liked them, nobody was expected to believe they were real. They filled a space, they added colour and they were low, low maintenance. But these days we are being pushed to prefer what isn’t real. These days, fake seems to be the standard. These days, fake is very, very high maintenance.

It’s hard to live up to all the pressure. It’s expensive just trying to keep your hair and skin looking like they are younger than they are. It’s overwhelming trying not to be inconvenient with your emotions – to pretend that you are in complete control of yourself, that you are never sad or depressed or angry. It is exhausting trying to stay always at an optimum level of motivation and inspiration. We really can’t do it all without special tools, doctors, drinks, medications, and daily affirmations – I’m not always sure God wants to get involved.

Sometimes I worry that we have let perfectionism bleed all over the church. We don’t know how to confess our sins anymore. We are losing the gift of encouragement to motivational speakers. We are forgetting our purpose. Sometimes I have to look it up, because I can’t quite remember exactly.

I know God wants His church to be real. I know God wants His bride to be the realest thing around. God did not sign up for a Stepford Wife – always submissive, always vacuuming and getting rid of stains, never questioning, never showing pain or frustration, never thinking or feeling or having a bad day, never eating too many cookies, always smiling. I don’t think that is how God envisioned His church at all. I hope it is not. I would never survive – I can’t even play Martha.

But I have said, like Martha, Lord, if only You had been here. God has been beautiful to me, and has protected and covered me, but God does not often do what I want. It very rarely happens that I ask God for something and that I get it just the way I asked for it. Very often I just get silence, which I have been taught to assume means a no. Very often I get something I would not have thought to ask for – not even in the ballpark. Like I asked for a watch and I got a ratchet set. Sometimes it seems very random. Sometimes it is the opposite of what I want. I ask God for strength and direction, and I get more to carry and the road disappears. Very often I simply do not understand.

Sometimes I get tired of the spiritual gymnastics I have to do to make it ok that God isn’t coming through the way I want. God never closes a door unless He opens a window. Sometimes our tears are our blessings in disguise. God’s ways are higher than ours. You never know what God is protecting you from. God knows what you need more than you do. God’s timing and your timing are not the same. God is not your personal genie. If God doesn’t give you what you want, it’s because God has something better planned for you. God knows you are not ready to receive that. God is growing you. God won’t do for you what you can do for yourself. The most amazing miracles happen underground, where you cannot see them – Spring will come, and you will see. Every bit of that is true. But the fact that we have so many different ways to avoid saying, God is not doing what I want, tells me that I am not alone.

I wish I could have a fingertip on Holy - but God has been asking me to just work on real. The truth is I have said some very real words to God. I have once or twice told God that I think maybe He is an Impotent Husband and that I am sick to barfing of all His words, words, words. I have once or twice said, If You love me so much, and You’re so all-powerful, then why don’t You just – DO something? I don’t always have peace that passes understanding – sometimes I am very unsettled and confused. I have once or twice lain face down on the floor, breathed in and out and said God, God, God, God because that was all there was to say. Not a name, not a prayer, not a swear – just not the sound of silence. I have told God a few times that I am tired of being the only one who is ever wrong in this relationship, and that it just isn’t healthy – that I am tired of being the one who has to do all the soul searching.

God doesn’t need me to cover for Him. God has nothing to hide. I know that I am dust, and that God is God is God.

In Love there is intimacy and naked and real. I can’t believe God wants to watch me tape a smile onto my face and hear me say, Fine. God doesn’t want my fake. Dead, dead in my sins, dead deep down in my soul – these God can deal with. God specializes in resurrection. It’s the paint that has to go.

ADVENT

I’m really feeling the Advent spirit in a big way this year. Like I’ve been a long time in sin and error pining. Like life is hitting me upside the head with you have to, and it’s taking me on a journey that I really would rather not go on right now. Like everything is so necessary and busy that there would be barely any time or room left for pressing things like giving birth. Like I just wish everything would stop for a minute so I can be quiet, make room in my heart to ponder things, and feel heavy and joyous with expectation. Totally like Advent.

God came into the world so inconveniently. It really wasn’t a good time. It almost seems like maybe God didn’t plan it very well – didn’t factor in things like government and censuses. It’s as though God didn’t know anything about how once-in-a-lifetime the birth of your first baby is, and how scared you are, and how full your bladder is all the time, and how much you don’t dream of giving birth in a barn. But God didn’t seem at all concerned with finding a convenient time. Ready or not, God had no problem with interrupting absolutely everything.

I’m not convinced that God is really excited about having a birthday party every year. I’m not sure God is really impressed with how long it takes us to plan it. I don’t think God is tickled over how grumpy and overwhelmed everyone gets over it, and how we start to stick our fingers down our throats after hearing the same song sung thirty billion different ways every day for a month. I don’t think God is thinking, You know what is awesome? Presents! I want everybody to have presents! I don’t think anybody really thinks any of that – but we do it all anyway, because of God, in God’s name.

I think that we need to be honest with ourselves – we’re trying very, very hard to make room at the Inn for God. We’re planning way ahead of time. We’re baking, we’re decorating, we’re sending out cards, we’re popping little doors open on calendars. We’re expectant. We sing, O Come, O Come Emmanuel – we meet with God, we ask God to be with us. We behave so convincingly as though we believe God’s presence is something we have to anticipate, go find, invite, make welcome, make space for. We don’t seem to really understand what Emmanuel even means – welcome or not, invited or not, ready or not, noticed or not, God is with us.

I will give my children presents this Christmas. We’ll have new pajamas, a tree and a turkey. We’ll eat cookies, and we’ll watch Christmas movies like, Home Alone and Christmas Vacation and Scrooged. Someone will read Luke 2:1-20, I’ll cry when I hear O Holy Night, and we’ll wrap each other up in ribbons of peace, family and love. In the midst of it all, I will try not to let my heart get expectant and ready and prepared for God. God is already here.

AFTER THE POOL

Now it was the Sabbath on that day. Therefore the Jews were saying to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.” But he answered them, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Take up your pallet and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your pallet and walk’?” But he who was healed did not know who it was; for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may befall you.” The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. And for this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.  John 5:9-16

What was that made whole man from the pool of Bethesda doing in the temple when Jesus found him? If the disciples were filming an episode of Where Are They Now? that sounds like a great place to be found. Very spiritual. Maybe he wanted to get right with God. Maybe he was going to offer up some praise. Maybe he was just looking for a friend who could be happy for him, instead of envious of his wiggly new legs. It’s entirely possible – John doesn’t make note of what he was doing in the temple. But I have my suspicions, because of what Jesus said to him when he saw him. Look at yourself – you are well. Stop sinning, so something worse doesn’t happen to you.

One thing about Jesus – he didn’t run around randomly telling people to stop sinning. I can only think of one other time – after he had stepped in between an adulterous woman and a pile of flying rocks. After sending all her accusers away convicted, he said to her, I do not accuse you. Go and sin no more. No judgement. No lecture. He saw right into her heart and said, Don’t go back to your boyfriend.  

Jesus was not into making threats either, and so I wonder why, after the healing – later, in the temple – Jesus felt the need to say to the man from Bethesda, Stop sinning, or else. It doesn’t really sound like something Jesus would say.

Sometimes Jesus makes you whole, but you kind of wish he hadn’t. Jesus didn’t really prepare you for all that it was going to mean. You weren’t exactly emotionally ready when he came along and asked you if you wanted to be made whole. You mean, like, now? – Yes. I mean, like, right now. You can be a little upset that he asked you to choose.

Truthfully, if you’d had your druthers, you’d rather have had a little bit of time to adjust mentally. Get a few things out of your system. Take a little time to open yourself up to the idea of wholeness again. Get re-oriented with the world of the walking. You weren’t ready to hear, You can’t do that. You just wanted your heart to work – you weren’t even thinking about religion. You were not equipped to meet this new possibility that, in the world of the walking, your little miracle might be completely beside the point – that there might suddenly be expectations.

But this wasn’t an intervention and Jesus wasn’t offering rehab. Yes or no. Choose.

Take up my pallet and walk? Where am I supposed to go? – I’m not telling you where to go. I don’t care where you go. Walk wherever you want to walk. But do not stay here, and do not reserve your spot. Go today. Right now. Pick up that smelly old mat and move, man. You’ve got legs – use them.

I know what institutionalized looks like – when the captive doesn’t know what to do with freedom. I know what it sounds like – what the words are that keep them from being well. It isn’t my fault. That man who healed me, he told me to do it.

Jesus really hadn’t said, Pick up your mat and carry it around all day. He had only said, Take your spot by the pool with you when you go. But the man was still holding onto that ratty old pallet when religion came along. That symbol of his sickness and his poverty in spirit – it should have been anathema to him, but it wasn’t. He wasn’t holding onto it because Jesus had told him to – he was holding onto it because he still planned to use it. And so I think he was in God’s house doing the most predictable thing in the world – the only thing he knew how to do. He stopped carrying his mat on the Sabbath. He put down his pallet, rolled it out smooth and sat himself down on it. He curled his well legs up under himself, he stretched his well hands out in front of himself, and he started pretending unwell.

I don’t think the man got it. I think that maybe when Jesus came right up to him in the temple and called him on it, he started to get a little mad inside. Mad at Jesus.

Seriously, what is your issue with me? Who even asked you? I never said ‘yes’ to any of this. I was doing just fine before you came along with your ‘Do you want to be well’ shtick. I look well to you, do I? Really, Jesus? You and I must have seriously different ideas of what ‘well’ looks like. Because let me just point out to you that currently I’ve got no job, no home, no possessions, my legs are all pins and needles and my back is killing me, I haven’t stood toe to toe or looked anyone in the eyes in almost forty years, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing or who I’m supposed to listen to – everyone is interrogating me and telling me what to do – I can’t even go back to my old friends because somebody else has my spot, and now I’ve got nothing but guilt and shame and trouble, thanks to you. Wiggly legs, and nowhere to run. And there is something that I would like to say to you, Jesus. I am considering the very real possibility that you set this whole thing up. This was never about me at all. You just wanted to use me to make a point. Well, you sure made it. So thanks, Jesus. Thanks a lot.

Maybe not. But what did the man do after Jesus found him – after he had learned the name of the one who had healed him, and exactly who Jesus was? He didn’t ask to be a disciple. He didn’t jump and leap for joy and cause a big scene. He didn’t pour tears all over Jesus feet. He didn’t do as the man born blind did four chapters later – get thrown out of the synagogue because he would not, could not deny the only Truth he was absolutely sure of, that I once was blind but now I see, and Jesus is the one who healed me.

He did not go forth and tell about Jesus – he went away and he told on Jesus.

This I know about Jesus – he can remove obstacles. He can come right up to you and whisper into your ear, and bring healing to you when you aren’t even sure that you want it. He draws close to the poor in spirit. But he cannot make you choose to be whole – even after he has already made you so. He cannot make you want to be well.

I don’t know what Jesus had in mind when he said, So that nothing worse may befall you – but I listen carefully to his story of The Unforgiving Servant, and how that man’s stone of debt came rolling back onto him. And I imagine that healed man from the pool of Bethesda walking around with a cold, unresponsive, not-my-fault, passive, paralyzed heart.

DAYS OF MUD

Most days I feel completely unequipped to be a parent. The nurses in the hospital told me, Don’t worry, you’ll know what to do. It’s instinct. And for a while they were right – but now, most days, I am way over my head. Instinct has been tackled by impulse. I can’t get in front of the ball. And time is running out – these days of mud, when I have lives in my hands to shape and to mould, are drying out and sliding through glass.

I have a daughter who watches me – observes, takes it in, notices everything. I have learned so much truth from her, about myself. I don’t look attractive when my hair is wet. I do strange things with my hands when I drink my coffee. I am not quick enough to count my blessings. I gossip. I want to say to her, Baby, we are not all models.

On days like this I think of Mary – mother to son of God, mother to son of Man. I wonder if her children watched her, and if they noticed with their child eyes all the odd and the out of place. I wonder if she had to re-evaluate her beliefs about what constitutes sin.

Jesus, where on earth have you been? We’ve been sick with worry, looking everywhere for you. You aren’t old enough to be on your own – there are sick people in the world, and there are a million strange people running around this city. Anything might have happened to you. Do you have any idea what you’ve put me through? I told you we were getting ready to leave – why can’t you ever just pay attention??

C’mon, Mom. You know me. Didn’t you know I would be in my Father’s house?

Don’t you talk back to me. I AM YOUR MOTHER.

Maybe not. Maybe Mary and God had some good, long conversations about parenting, and Mary knew to look at the heart. Maybe she knew enough not to guilt. Maybe she knew enough not to worry. Maybe she knew that whatever befell, her children were in God’s hands.

But I know for certain that she was not perfect. I wonder if being a mother brought out every weak and faulty thing inside her. I wonder if she watched her pure little babies while they slept and worried about wrecking them. I wonder if those innocent eyes soaking her up ever made her want to crawl out of her skin, and if she ever dreamed of running away – getting a job working the counter at a coffee shop in Mississippi, squishing mud between her toes on the banks of a foreign river, smoking crawdads by the shore, no modelling, no responsibility, no refiner’s fire.

I wonder if she felt the grace pouring out of her children the way that I do. I wonder if she learned from her children, the way I learn from mine, what unconditional love looks like. I wonder if she took Jesus’ precious hands in hers and said, I’m so sorry, Jesus. I should not have yelled – and if she felt the God-love fill her when he kissed her and said, I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention.

MIRROR, MIRROR - Reflections on Leviticus 19

I believe a lot in ineffable. That God is beyond words. That you can hardly say anything about God at all without running the risk of being out of the ball-park wrong – and that even when you’re right, God still isn’t all that excited about being explained. Whenever I have a temptation to say God is____, I get the fear. No eye has seen, no ear has heard – Do not say what I will or will not do. You do not know Who I am or what I am capable of.

I sometimes hear people worry about idolatry, and they try to toss out things that they think they maybe worship, like television or food or Facebook. Like other gods is simply a metaphor for anything that takes too much of our attention, or gives us too much flesh pleasure, or that we turn habitually to rather than prayer or Bible reading or worship. Like the Holy One might actually become jealous of a sandwich. When I hear people conjuring this way, I start imagining God in front of an enormous, bedazzled mirror, gazing at the Divine Image, insecure. There is something fairer than Thou, Fairest Lord Jesus.

I try hard to picture the God above all other gods feeling wounded, or lonely, or mad, or just tapping the foot waiting for me to stop doing whatever it is I’m doing that isn’t productive or disciplined or healthy, or isn’t giving the Lord of lords my undivided attention. But when I do this, God starts to sound less to me like my immortal beloved, the lover of my soul, and a lot more like an abusive boyfriend. I try to imagine God mouthing the words, I can’t believe you chose a sandwich over Me. What is it with you emotional eaters, anyway?  You’re never satisfied.  Sometimes I get guilt and I do say, Ok, God, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t paying enough attention to You. I need You. Really. Look at me, I’m putting all that away. Taste and see that the Lord is good – I get it. Now, what was it You wanted to say?

But I happen to think that idolatry is really more insidious than all of that. I actually think idolatry is very serious. It has to be, because I don’t at all believe God is petty or insecure and because it’s on a shortlist of things that Yahweh God is said to get very, very upset about.

It isn’t just graven images of other gods Yahweh doesn’t like – He doesn’t want carved out statues of Himself either. Not of anything in the heavens, or of anything under the heavens, or of anything in the oceans under the earth. Pretty much no images. I don’t believe it’s that God hates art, and think it is deeper than just that God doesn’t want to be defined. I don’t think God enjoys us holding up little pictures of Unknowable to each other and saying, This is who He is – No, this is who She is. I suspect God isn’t crazy for boxes. But I really don’t imagine that Holy God has more vanity than Snow White’s stepmother, that God is in any way offended by our small imaginings of the Divine, or that God cannot empathize with our deep, deep longing to grasp for that which we are simply not skilled to understand. We’ve been doing it since the beginning – God knows what to anticipate.

I think part of the thing so offensive about idolatry is that it feeds our temptation to want to make God not be other. It fuels our temptation to possess and control the Divine relationship we deeply love. It separates God into compartments based on function, as they relate to our own favourite needs. It puts God into a role. It filters out all the things that we don’t like or need or believe, and leaves us with a smaller, more manageable being that shares our values, who’s actions we can predict, who’s tone we understand. A God who responds to and reflects back to us all the qualities we like best about our own selves. A God a little in our own image.

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes, You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

I know I’m shaping God in my own image when God starts exhibiting signs of Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Do not blaspheme My Name – do not say that I will do things that I would never do. Do not try to invoke Me, like I Am a genie in a bottle. Do not tell Me what I can and cannot do. You are not Me – I am Other.

Do not quench the Spirit. I Am. I will be Who I will be. But still I will draw you a picture – I will carve words for you on stone. I will knit you an image of blood and bone, and make the words live. Word made flesh – nothing lost in translation. Behold the face of Peace. Behold the face of Love and Wholeness, Wisdom and Truth, Honour, Mercy, Grace, Strength and Sacrifice.

This is what I meant, back when I said ‘Thou Shalt Not’.

Do not worship splinters – love the whole of Me with all that you are, as I love the whole of you with all that I Am. Do not form any image of Me – you are My image, My Own reflection in the mirror. I am One and you are many – though the mirror shatters, My image cannot be shattered.

Do not distort My image by lying and stealing and cheating and wounding and gossiping and hoarding and self-preserving and coveting, because these are things I would never do. But be patient, be kind, be generous, bring healing, show mercy, pour out grace, touch the untouchable, lift the fallen, cover the naked, defend those unjustly treated, release the captives, guard the truth, strengthen the weak, walk humbly, love – because you are My people made in My Own image, and because that is Who I Am.

I crafted you from mud, in the beginning. With My hands I moulded you, and with My breath I blew life into you. I created you in My Own image.

From the beginning you are the metaphor.

 

But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. ~ 2 Corinthians 3:18