I CAN'T GET NO SATISFACTION

Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. ~Philippians 4:11

This verse has been sitting in me – maybe because I have come to the end of a season of abundant discontent, and because I am very aware that it was a God season, a breaking up of dry ground, deeply cracked and baked hard, unable to either receive new seed or allow what has germinated to push forth.

This is the verse people will quote when they see you get a little too agitated by life and they want to tell you to, Don’t worry, be happy. It’s what passive people sometimes say in place of, You are not the Captain of your ship. It’s what panicked people tell themselves when the winds of change grip them and lift them from the ground into a tree five miles away. It’s what we tell ourselves when we have to endure, or we want to avoid doing hard things. You don’t like your job? Be glad you have one. You don’t have enough money? You just need an attitude of gratitude. You don’t prefer being disrespected and abused? You need to learn to be content in any and ALL circumstances. Bloom where you’re planted. Count your blessings. Think about the positives. Look on the bright side. Learn to be satisfied with what you’ve got.

But I do not believe that is what content means – at least not here, in this verse, in the Greek. Paul was, after all, perhaps one of the most agitated, least contented people in the New Testament. Paul was on the move and never satisfied. Paul was driven, hungry, looking for opportunities, pushing himself and others to the limits, wind-tossed and ship wrecked, but committed to a purpose that was neither bolstered nor hindered by any physical circumstance.

The greek word for content in this verse is autarkes. It comes from a combination of the words autos (self) and arkeo (sufficient), and means exactly what it sounds like – self-sufficient, contented, sufficient, independent. Sufficient for oneself, strong enough or possessing enough to need no aid or support; independent of external circumstances. (Strong’s)

It does not mean relax, chill, get over yourself, learn to put up with it, make the most of your situation, why can’t you ever just be satisfied.

I don’t believe that God means for us to be content in the way that we desire to be content. Nothing in Scripture says white picket fence, money in the bank, a few neuro-typical kids and a pre-trained, non-pooping puppy. You can look for it – and I have – but it’s just not there. The earth that God created exists by dying and raising, setting and rising, burying and uprooting, spinning, shifting, moving, changing. This world is never the same one day to the next – it is in a constant state of rotation, rot and renewal. Last night’s manna will mould before dawn. Yellow weeds grow inches and bloom overnight. The sky changes by the hour. Even mercies come to us new every morning. What is rigid is subject to erosion and breakage. What is fluid is subject to evaporation and absorption. Whatever grows will increase and diminish. Our bodies, hearts, spirits and minds were made to be in motion – to remain in one spot is to die. When is there ever time to be satisfied?

To be completely honest, people who are chronically content annoy me. There is nothing less interesting or less inspirational to me than a person who doesn’t ever get upset, who doesn’t change, who doesn’t get stirred up or isn’t moved by anything, who is never affected by the railing of the wind and who goes to bed on a thorn bush murmuring, Isn’t this a lovely purple. Dull. Boring. Zzzzzz.

But you know who really interests me? MacGyver. If MacGyver had a Bible verse framed on his wall, I think it would be Philippians 4:11. MacGyver was self-sufficient. MacGyver was Mister Dress-up for adults – the whole world was his Tickle-Trunk, but instead of playing dress-up he was finding a way to save the day with a fork, an old boot and a roll of toilet paper. Whatever he had in his hands to use, he used it. In any and every circumstance, he had learned to be content because he had learned that everything he could ever need was at his disposal – although he was always required to use his brain, be creative and look around a bit.

You know who else does this? Jason Bourne. Love him.

Being content in this context is not about being satisfied – it is about being on a mission, committed to a purpose, and refusing to allow abundance or want, handy or just-out-of-reach, pleasure or pain, to determine your cause of action. Being content is about knowing that you - YOU - can do hard things, you can do painful things, you can do uncomfortable things, you can do frightening things – and in any and all circumstances, My Grace is sufficient for all your needs.

Just like in this video:

ON BEAUTY, BOUNTY AND LOVING THE BELOVED

I’m a bloom where you’re planted kind of person. I like predictable pleasures like bare feet in the grass, tree climbing and strolling in the rain. I love curling up for hours with a book and a glass of wine to re-experience a favourite story like it’s the first time. I like attics, treasure chests and secret passage ways where precious things are hidden and kept. I like things that never go out of style – old friends, old movies, old music – things tried, tested and true. If it has the words steady, secure or stable in it, I am in love with it. If it says like a rock, I am taking it home.

I have a good husband who pushes me far, far out of my comfort zone on a regular basis. He forces me away from the fireside and onto the dance floor. He is an eagle – he knows what wings were made for. He does not really have a favourite anything – his favourite is whatever is colourful, new and untried. He cannot drive the same path to work more than once in a week - he is fearlessly drawn to new things, new experiences, new perspectives. The fact that he has loved one woman fully and faithfully for nearly two decades is no small thing – it’s part of why I suspect I might have multiple personalities. Not really. Maybe. Mostly it’s because his heart is steady, secure and stable, and when he sets his mind to something he is like a rock.

In this way we are the same – we don’t like to wade and we don’t dabble. When we’re in, we’re body and soul in. All or nothing. Go big or go home. I’m a big dreamer – he’s a big dream-maker. It's a perfect fit.

This summer he surprised us with a spontaneous trip to a new place I’ve never been but have always wanted to go – my oldest and favourite I want to go there dream, Nova Scotia. It’s a place packed with charm and hidden treasures – exactly like walking through a wardrobe that opens into Narnia. If I had been born there I would never leave, but my blood runs thick with prairie.

Oceanside pool puddles.

                                                   

Frogs. Not great for kissing. Just sayin'.

 

Getting sunburned at Peggy's Cove.

 

Gifts from the sea.

                                              

Ginormous rose hips.

Two words. Lobster Suppers.

Wisdom.

Falling in love with this guy, all over again.

Oh yes, my kind of place.

Johnny Depp is in there, sitting on his dubloons.

 

Red sand at low tide.

Found this little fella tucked inside a mussel at dinner.

Finding a shoe in the woods. Just one. Weird.

On the Ferry to PEI. There's mermaids in that thar water.
                                                

This Lunenburg gem, my favourite Pub ever, 

where we met this charmer, who basically wrote the theme song to the last few months of my life:

 

I’m always a sucker for a soulful guitar man, but Ryan Cook just also happens to be a genuinely nice guy and whole lot of fun on a Thursday night. His latest album, Wrestling With Demons, comes out this month and if he tours through your town, you should definitely check him out.

And just a little reminder of how staggeringly beautiful and how unbelievably full of hidden treasures this world can be if you have the time, patience and inclination to look for them:

Believe it.

A POUND OF CURE

I've only really broken a bone once - coming down the stairs in the dark, sleep-drunk at 3:00am, to fill a bottle for my crying baby. I thought I had judged the bottom, but I miscalculated. I put my foot down hard on air before sticking the landing, and felt the snap. Something inside of me broke because I had missed an important step, lost my footing and hit solid ground ever, ever so slightly off balance.

It happens. In life, in general, you can be cracked for no good God reason at all, just the consequence of being half-asleep on the job and not quite knowing where the bottom is. It's a sometimes consequence of growing older, having less tolerant bones, not being quite as nimble on your feet, not quite as bendy, not quite as able to run on empty. When you feel the snap, it is the hot stinging of something beneath the skin not fitting exactly where it should.

Doctors always say the same thing - stay off it. It's a useless thing to tell a person. Life doesn't let you stay off a broken foot, much less a sprained heart, spirit or brain. They might as well say, Thanks for spending the day with us getting x-rayed and all. You've got a lovely skeleton - at least the parts of it I've seen. There's nothing more important than having good bones. You know, there isn't anything we can really do to help you - it's just in one of those funny spots, you know? It will heal eventually. I've got a little support system for you to wear on your foot but, really, it's going to throw your whole body out of alignment if you hobble around with one foot an inch higher than the other for too long. Well, best of luck.

If Doctor's were allowed, I think they might sometimes be tempted to just say, Let me step on it for you.

People only give you a wide berth for the first week after an injury. After that it's Effie, we all got pain. Sitting on the couch one morning, feeding my baby and keeping off it, my husband walked up to kiss me goodbye on his way to work and, forgetting to give me that wide berth, stepped hard on my bare broken foot with his deep-tread steel toed boot. There was a pop, a flash of pain, pretty colours exploding behind my eyes, and then nothing at all.

Healing.

Sometimes we do get a little cracked and broken down, on the inside, in out of reach places. We  know we're injured, we know why, we know it's throwing everything off, sapping our strength, fraying our emotions - but we don't know what to do about it. It's not going to kill us, it's not going to make us any stronger, it's just slowly going to grate away and wear us down until we start to look unneccessarily miserable longer than is considered polite.

We think what we need is an expert, a cast, a splint, a good long rest with our feet up. We think we need intercessory prayer, wise counsel and chocolate. Tender loving care.

But sometimes - sometimes - all we really need is just one good boot stomp right on the sore spot, to pop everything back into place.

When that happens, it is absolutely awesome.

MY DATE WITH BOB

It's no secret, I've got a thing for Dylan. I'd never leave my husband for him, but if he'd promise to play the harmonica for me I might seriously consider a road trip. If there's anything about 42 that goes into the books, it's this night:

Second row. Breathing the same air. I'm sure he was looking RIGHT AT ME during this stunning performance of Mrs. Jones. Oh. That would be Mr. Jones. Freudian slip. He kind of staggered a little at the end, and I think it's because of the temporary trance I put him in. Don't deny me this - it's possible.

He was still thinking about me here, which is why his piano playing was so terrible.

That isn't Randy Travis playing the keyboard behind him, but I know. I thought that, too.

Here he's getting really intense. C, D, C, D, CDCD, D, C, D.... Yes, Bob, you're amazing. It's all good.

More Ballad of a Thin Man. You know he sees me.

And then there's this. Me. Bob Dylan. In the same photo. That white glow around his face is because he is so happy. Me, too, Bob. Me, too.

Scratch one off the bucket list.

BROKEN

I don’t write honestly when I’m content. It’s a difficult part of the creative process for me, but the reality is that – at least when it comes to writing – frustration, want, heartache, confusion, discouragement, disillusionment and pain prime the pump on the wellspring of my deepest, most pure thoughts and feelings. I think this is how I have been made. I think it is how a lot of people have been made because the more I observe my favorite artists, the more I am acutely attuned to their stories of hurt and loss, their struggles with invisible illness, their wrestling with inner demons – nearly every great painter or writer or musician I know was or is broken.

It isn’t the carefully crafted vessel, but what is splashing around loose inside of it that is precious to God.

It’s almost a cliché, but I’m not sure that you can have the insight or the honesty that it takes to make really great art unless you have suffered – unless you have held hot, searing pain in your wide open hands, given yourself to it and let it brand you, given thanks for the name it burns onto you and sincerely blessed it.

I don’t know that you can impart soul to anything you create unless you are willing to first have yours torn. It is part of the birth process – part of pushing a separate living thing out of your own body and setting it free into the world.  You help it to its feet and then you let it go, and that created thing takes a very real part of you with it that you will never again have control of or fully know.

I think about this when I think about creator God in Whose image we are – not only how God creates, but why and out of what dark, deep wellspring. Why it is that God doesn’t draw anything in straight lines and why God is so abhorrent of fake. Why it is that Jesus befriended prostitutes and made enemies of the religious right, and why it is that we so don’t.

Following Jesus is not supposed to be about perfection – it is about not hiding your own particular brand of imperfect inside of a beautiful jar. Some of us are filled up to the brim with sweet, pleasing perfume, but Lord knows we aren’t all. Some of us left the perfume sitting too long in the jar and it turned sour. But following Jesus is about smashing that shell to the floor anyway, spilling out whatever is stored up inside and saying to God, Here. It’s Yours. I know it’s rancid – I can barely stand the smell of it myself. But it’s all that’s in me. Please take it and make it into something that pleases You.

It’s the beautiful paradox written all throughout the God-story – it’s the way of the cross. You must lose your life to find it.  

I thought I understood what that meant – losing your life. I spent a lot of years really, really working at it. I thought it meant renouncing – putting to death and burying what only seemed like the most honest parts of who I am inside. I thought that the spilling out was just for the beginning, but that somewhere along the way I would get to be pieced back into a whole vessel again – something gilded in the cracked places, sitting modestly on a shelf, pouring out in generously measured portions from time to time as the Spirit led.

I thought losing my life meant dissolving all longing into the walls around me and creating a void – a cosmos – in the space where desire lived, so that there would be room in my heart for God. I thought my body-temple sat over an unmarked tomb – the burial ground of my old self – and that whitewashing the walls on the inside was a sign of simple consideration to the God who was invited to inhabit it. I thought my soul was Pandora’s Box – a dark, demented place filled with unimaginable wickedness to be kept under lock and key lest I should destroy myself and the peace of the world through my own curiosity. I thought the sacrifice, the dying to self, was on the inside.

 But I don’t think that anymore.

Dying to self is not about denying who you are – it is about being willing to be who you are. It is about living fully as the person you truly are, and denying your desire to people-please, to save face and self-preserve. It is about doing away with tombs and walls and boxes altogether, and allowing yourself to be the costly thing that splashes around freely inside the void that God has shaped within the Divine heart for you. It is to not question the Creator should you find yourself suddenly fallen, naked, with a hard shell in pieces around you on the floor – not to run around clamouring for a fig leaf, or for a mop and pail, but to simply receive and accept that your life has never, ever been more precious.

It is about turning back towards the Garden – the place where we were created to live bare and unembarrassed. It is about getting on our knees soberly in that Garden and praying for the strength to be true to who we were made to be, and to the purposes for which we were made, without regard for the cost. It is to neither grieve nor take pride for what is inside of us but to live without walls, with integrity, with dignity, with reverence for the One Who tore and broke and spilled out for us when we were created, Who breathed soul into us and Who covers us with Love.

MUDDY WATERS

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone. ~ Alan Wilson Watts

These words smacked me upside the head today, in a way generally reserved for Bob Dylan, Bible and Oswald Chambers. Like a lot of God words, I love this quote and it more than a little bugs me. For me, it sits in direct opposition to some other God-smacking words I have been working on:

Do one thing every day that scares you. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt.

Words are what's scaring me lately, and they are my feet in the water – in equal measure a controlled act of will and a stirring up of whatever is loose and grey. I have a really hard time leaving them alone, once they start walking around in my gut.

I’ve been very, very brave with my words lately – braver than I have ever been. I’ve been taking risks and doing what scares me, and I’ve been finding myself with my hand on my stomach a lot, muttering to myself, What was I thinking??  This risk-taking do what scares you stuff is counter-intuitive, and really not for the faint of heart. It’s how people fall off of cliffs, or get ulcers, and it's how people get really honest about what's inside them.

You have to somehow find a way to hold onto vision, without attaching to outcome. But even in the vision, you can’t be afraid to lose clarity. Occasionally, muddy waters part when you step into them.

Sometimes a pillar of dusty air is best cleared by just following it.