Dragonflies and Bears

Today I hosted a potluck meal for a dragonfly and watched a black bear stretch her legs. It was a good day.
My sister planned this girl’s weekend with our friends from high school. In fact, we’ve known these friends ever since I can remember. Together, we soaked up the sun as we floated down a river on inner-tubes surrounded by the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. I told Charis that I think today will be my best memory of the summer. One of the pleasures in life that I treasure is being on the water under a beautiful blue sky. The weather has been perfect, despite the prediction of rain.

For some reason, as we drifted downstream, I was a Mecca for dragonflies--they all seemed to be drawn to me. I had as many as five at a time resting on me once. One even brought an insect to feast on while perched on my arm. Apparently, insect-wings are not tasty, as he left those behind. Dragonflies are one of the few bugs that do not come around to bite or annoy, so I enjoyed watching these beautiful little creatures as they fluttered on my arms and legs.

Then this evening we took a drive through Cade’s Cove. In several places, cars were stopped as people gawked at feeding deer. At one point, we saw a couple of wild boar chasing each other through a field. That was unique, but I told the girls that I have been on a quest for the past three summers to see the elusive bear. Although I did not think it likely that I would see one today, I made my desire known amidst assurances from my friends that it was not likely and quite uncommon there.

I’ve been to Yellowstone twice now—each time hoping to catch a glimpse of a bear. We saw elk, deer, antelope, eagles, bison, foxes, and even a bull moose, but no bear, despite all the signs and warnings that created fear and anticipation. (By the way, did you know that the population of elk in Wyoming is higher than the population of people?) On both trips to Yellowstone, we camped in the area where a grizzly had been spotted, we heard reports from people all day long of bear sightings, and we fervently scanned the woods along the road for a momentary glance at a bear. Not a close encounter, but a distant observation, of course. But I never saw a bear. Until today.

As we drove around Cade’s Cove to see the beautiful scenery, we were annoyed by the cars slowing down and blocking the road when they spotted an animal. We were almost through the cove when others said they were watching a bear, but we didn’t see anything and didn’t want to waste our time staring at a black shadow by a tree that may or may not be a bear (as we had done earlier). Yet I rolled down my window and stuck my body outside the car with a fleeting hope, when suddenly she rose on her back legs, stretched her body out to its full length, and then took a stroll to find a more comfortable spot to lie. It was thrilling to finally see a wild bear. Everyone around was awed at this rare sight. I know black bears are fairly harmless, especially compared to a grizzly, but all wild animals demand a degree of respect—even those who are "more afraid of you than you are of them."

It made me think, once again, of our true home. A place without fear where the lion lays down with the lamb, where we will be able to pet the bear’s oily fur and admire his teeth and claws up close. What an amazing world God has given us to enjoy. I look forward to the day when we can truly take pleasure in it as we were meant to, when there will be no enmity between us and the rest of creation, when a prowling bear causes us no more trepidation than a perching dragonfly.

The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,

their young will lie down together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,

and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

Isaiah 11:6-9

Plastic Fruit Shortcuts

"Healthy things grow. Growing things change. Change challenges us. Challenges cause us to trust God. Trust leads to obedience. Obedience makes us healthy. And healthy things grow." James Ryle


Do you ever get fruit envy? You see the fruit of the Spirit alive in someone else and you want it? I do. Someone recently pointed this out in me and reminded me that those people have the fruit because they’ve gone through the hard work in their spiritual journey to get there—the hard work which I have habitually avoided. It made me think of something I just read—that some people seek the fruit, not the Spirit. They look for peace, joy, love, etc., but they don’t want to make the necessary sacrifices to get there. So, we look for easier ways to get at it or we imitate the fruit to make it seem like we’re there. We may even fool ourselves. It’s like that fake fruit my grandmother always had in a bowl that looked so tasty, but was plastic. (What’s up with that anyway? Are they trying to appear healthy or is it some sort of decorating fashion statement?) It’s not really fruit at all.

I’m learning (or should I say relearning?) there are no shortcuts to the real thing. The fruit of the Spirit isn’t natural and instinctive. It comes from a life surrendered fully to God. It comes from daily submission to the Holy Spirit’s work. It takes time to work out all the rotten stuff that has accumulated. It requires paying attention and getting rid of distractions so that God can do the work He wants to do and develop the imago Dei that is within us. I would much rather reflect the image of God in me than my self-created image. I am especially aware of this lately as the Spirit has exposed all kinds of debauched things in me that I’ve never seen before. I had myself fooled with plastic fruit. But only as I recognize the repugnance of my own fallen image do I see the beauty of His. His image is everything that is good, right, and true. I want to be beautiful. Only He can make me beautiful as I spend time in His presence, letting Him change me into His image (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." Ephesians 5:8-11

It's Not You, It's Me

You chased me to myself and left
me here alone
with me
and Him
The Jealous One

You chased me near to Him then left
me to face Him
by myself
without your help
Just Him
and me

I wanted you to be my guide to Him
and me
but not to leave
me here alone
with me
and Him
The Jealous One

I wanted you to be my ally against them
and not to leave
me here alone
to love them
by myself
alone
with Him

I wanted you to be my hope
for better days

But you won’t

So it’s just me
alone
with Him
foolishly waiting for you
while I’m with Him
The Jealous One
my Hope
my Guide
my Ally

Book Review: Searching for God Knows What

I wrote this at the end of last summer. I wasn’t blogging at the time, but God was speaking so much to me through this book that I wanted to write it all down. I’ve enjoyed looking back on what God started then and how he is continuing to move me into an intimate relationship with him that I honestly didn’t even think was possible…

I just finished Searching for God Knows What and just started Shattered Dreams. Both books clearly make sense of what is going on in my life right now—God pursuing a love affair with me. Again, these books have revolutionized my thinking about myself, about God, and about hope. They help make sense of life in general, and I want to send copies to everyone. Doesn’t everyone struggle to make sense of life?

I’ve been referencing Searching for God Knows What in discussions about life all summer. I owned it for a while before I ever opened it. I bought it because I heard it was even better than Blue Like Jazz (also by Don Miller) and because I love books. I own more books than I can read—it’s like putting too much on your plate at an all-you-can-eat buffet. It sat on my shelf for a while. I picked it up after finishing the last book in the Harry Potter saga. I felt really empty after reading the 7th Potter book, knowing my journey with Harry and his friends was over. Since I was pretty recently divorced, in a new city, not working, and utterly alone, I was escaping all this by reading—diving into the lives of the characters, and when they were gone I was even more aware of my dissatisfaction and hopelessness. I laughed at myself for being depressed over missing fictional characters, but then I realized that it was more than their loss that was affecting me. At the time I didn’t have a TV or computer to turn to. So I saw Searching for God Knows What on my shelf and started searching.

In the book, Miller draws on wisdom from an alien, a lifeboat theory, and Romeo and Juliet to explain God and life and how we got it all wrong. I was thinking it’s kind of like apologetics for the post-modern thinker, and then, he said as much in the afterword. So, he writes about this human need to feel important and valuable—that the deepest needs of man are relational. But we’ve been living out our spirituality like it’s a formula, jumping through hoops for God instead of entering a relationship, a romance even.

He writes about how God fulfilled completely the deepest needs of man before the fall—so there was no insecurity, jealousy, shame, fear of intimacy, broken-heartedness, and all the other ailments of humanity. I can’t imagine a world without those things. In fact, I heard recently that the most serious threat to intimate relationships is low self-esteem or insecurity, which makes people defensive, cautious, needy, emotionally-protective and leads to real rejection. That’s why there are so many broken relationships—because after our relationship with God was severed in the Garden of Eden, we no longer had our deepest needs met by our Creator, and we began searching for someone or something else to meet those needs, and that can’t be done.

So, in the book he shows me that I was reading my Bible as a text book or self-help guide to find the formulas to live by, but not as a story. I love stories. I find meaning in stories—that’s why I love to teach literature. I even feel like I have a relationship with Harry Potter because I’ve entered so deeply into his story for so many years now. I find beautiful truths about loyalty, the duality of man, forgiveness, and sacrifice in his story. I love Harry. What if I found the beauty in God’s story? What if I entered so deeply into His story that I fell in love with Him? Only, He’s real, and He loves me and wants a love relationship. When I realized I didn’t have that real love relationship with God, I felt even emptier because I’ve been a Christian since I can remember, and if I didn’t have that by now, maybe I never would. I didn’t feel satisfied by God. I felt stronger toward Harry Potter than I did toward Jesus. I didn’t feel significant, important, fulfilled, or secure even though I was a Christian, and God was supposed to fill those needs, right? I felt a big gaping hole in my life. The formula wasn’t working for me.

He writes about what an alien might think of humans if he came to visit. The alien might think it strange how much we compare ourselves to others. He might recognize our obsession with having the right clothes, listening to the right music, driving a certain kind of car—all in order to be higher on some invisible hierarchy. We’re looking for other people to tell us we’re smart, or beautiful, or successful, or funny, or good. We’re looking to a jury of our peers. He says, “It is as though the voice God used to have has been taken up by less credible voices.” Other people’s opinions have become very important since the fall. The problem is we’re all looking for validation from other humans, which inhibits our ability to give validation to others.

That’s where the lifeboat theory comes in. He poses a question that his teacher asked during a values-clarification lesson, “If there were a lifeboat adrift at sea, and in the lifeboat were a male lawyer, a female doctor, a crippled child, a stay-at-home mom, and a garbage man, and one person had to be thrown overboard to save the others, which person would you choose?” After reading this part of the book earlier, I asked the students in my classes this very same question, and just as predicted, they did not hesitate in deciding who was most and least valuable. There were debates on each person’s merit and what they had to offer. No one brought up the idea that all people are equal—just like in his class. He says we live our lives as if we’re in this lifeboat, like we have to fight to prove our own value so we don’t get thrown overboard by everyone else. We look for allies—others to defend our importance. We constantly compare ourselves and get very upset when we’re disrespected or when someone says they’re better than us, as if it is a threat to our existence, like there’s some sort of penalty. Isn’t that the context of many of our reality shows? They mirror life.

It reminded me of Walk the Line, the story about Johnny Cash. I’ve never read his biography, but it seemed to me from the movie that he wanted so badly to prove his worth and value ever since his dad had said that the wrong son died after Johnny’s brother’s death. So he found his identity as a musician and looked for his significance in that, but after he became famous and so many people “valued” him, it still wasn’t enough. His father still didn’t treat him like he was worth anything. I guess the feelings of worthlessness draw people to do all sorts of things—addictions, affairs, climbing the ladder of success, jumping off, or throwing others off the lifeboat. But ultimately, all of it still leaves us unfulfilled.

Miller writes, “God wired us so that He told us who we were, and outside that relationship, the relationship that said we were loved and valuable and beautiful, we didn’t have any worth at all.” We need this love from God so that we can love others. How can we love other people purely without selfish motives, stop hating ourselves, and quit comparing ourselves to others unless we are already fulfilled? How can we see them as equals until we know the value God places on them and us? How can we be authentic and sincere unless we recognize we aren’t in a lifeboat? We need someone who loves us so much that we don’t have to worry about being disrespected, how to dress, getting older, feeling lonely, and all those other things that could get us thrown overboard by others. We need to be told who we are by the One who knows, our Creator.

He explains how God did the most selfless thing a perfect and loving Being could do by coming to get us, trying to save us, so that we can know and enjoy Him, as Adam and Eve did. He offers redemption though a relationship with himself. This may be more appealing to those who are marginalized—those whose place on the lifeboat is most threatened. That’s who Christ spent his time with, but He said the rich will have trouble coming to Him.

Miller spends some time in the book revealing how Christians don’t always represent Christ accurately. We tend to want to kick out of the lifeboat those who don’t share our political leanings or our morality instead of showing them their value, as Christ did. Instead of imitating Christ, we’ve tended to just want to defend the church and justify ourselves to the culture. My perspective on this particular topic was changed through two other books: one by Rick McKinley appropriately called Jesus in the Margins and the other also by Donald Miller called Blue Like Jazz. They reveal the Christ of the Bible, and disassociate him from our modern-day, political, right-wing, yuppie, patriotic Jesus who wants us to display anti-gay bumper stickers for His name’s sake. I, for one, am glad to leave that Jesus behind.

I have often questioned and struggled with what our motivations should be for following moral law. There are the obvious reasons that even those who don’t know Christ have for following moral law. I have posed this question to my students many times, usually with unsatisfying results. To earn God’s favor? To get to heaven? To avoid bad consequences? To feel superior to others? I believe Miller gives the answer I’ve not been able to articulate. He states, “…moral law is not our path to heaven; our duty involves knowing and being known by Christ. Positive morality, then, the stuff of natural law, is but an offering, a sweet-tasting fruit in the mouth of God. It is obedience and imitation of our pure and holy Maker; and immorality—the act of ignoring the conscience and the precepts of goodness—is a dagger in God’s heart.”

Morality flows naturally out of a relationship with Christ. I think for me morality has often been about meeting a person or group’s expectations, or it’s been about exercising my freedom or “right” to do something. But now it’s about bringing a pure offering to the Lover of my soul, and not hurting Him. I want to know Him and know the sweetness of His love. Just like the image in Ephesians 5, a woman who submits to her husband, not out of obligation but out of love because she knows that he loves her even as he loves his own life, and he will only do the best for her.
This marriage imagery is used throughout the Bible to compare Christ as the bridegroom waiting for his union with the bride, His church. It is so beautiful in spite of, or because of, the flawed state of human marriage. The purity and perfection of a union with Christ, His faithfulness, His love, inspires me to honor Him, to be pure. We miss out on this by breaking the Gospel down to bullet points, acronyms, and formulas.

Miller claims Shakespeare revealed this image of a selfless, spiritual marriage with Christ as the bridegroom in the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. The baptism imagery is stated explicitly, yet I never picked up on it. Juliet tells Romeo to deny his name and be baptized new. The idea of giving up who you are to be united with another—with Christ—is the kind of passionate love affair I seek, yet I don’t know if I’ll ever get there because of my family name, my broken humanity. At least, I’m not there yet. It’s a tragic love story. But it is unfinished.

By the time I read the end of Miller’s book, my heart was ready for it. I’d been asking God to satisfy me, to make my desire be for Him if it was possible. I told Him I felt lost, without purpose, and empty. He’d been doing the work in me without my awareness. I started to notice that I cared about people more; much of my fear and insecurity was gone; I wanted to worship; I was no longer worried about finding someone to love me; I was more aware of my motivations; and my critical spirit was melting away. It all happened so imperceptibly, I didn’t see the transformation happening. It’s still happening. A deep, satisfying relationship with God is possible, and I’m going to have a taste of it now, and will experience it’s fullness in eternity, where my hope now lies.

Voices

Carried along
By voices that tell me who to be,
What to think, how to feel,
But is that me?

Content to float
On this torrent of expectation,
Never slowing to consider
My identity

Instead I heed
This test, this degree, this book
This city, this status, this group
This image, this store, this look
This music, this cause, this pursuit
This scholar, this church, this career
This love, this sage, this leader
This duty, this formula, this fear

These voices
This noise
This noise

All the lies about me
And the flattery too
Have become the cushion where I lay my head
Amid the din of carnival clamor
But I’m waking
And searching for a mirror
Away from the funhouse distortion
Away from this sound pollution
These voices
This noise

Let me hear One Clear Voice
Above the whispers, murmurs, and yells
Merge Your voice with mine
Until I don’t hear anything else
Let my mirror reflect what You see
Your image in me

Your image
Your voice

Your voice


Your quiet
Quiet voice
Your gentle
Gentle breath
Whispers
Whispers to me
“You’re mine
Now rest”

Truth at a Slant

I was reminded today of this poem by Emily Dickinson:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --

I was thinking about how God is constantly at work revealing truth as we are ready for it. This poem gives me the image of truth coming to us gradually, dazzling us as it is revealed. But if it came all at once, it would overwhelm. God knows what we can handle, and He is so patient with us. He has been dazzling me lately--giving glimpses of truth, then widening the light little by little as I'm able to take it in. Truth at a slant.

I've heard my sister try to explain to her 8 year old son (Karston) that her 5 year old son (Josiah) is not yet ready to understand an idea or concept because of his age and development. We're all like that. God waits. He holds on to it for us. Waiting. I always want to rush ahead and reach for what I'm not ready for. I want to run when I've just learned to walk, and I fall on my face. But I'm learning to slow down and trust God to give me truth at a slant, so I eagerly wait to be dazzled (and sometimes humbled by my ignorance when I thought I had it figured out already).

"In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:4-6

Aftermath

As we view the bloodstained memories scattered across the battlefield
Too late we see the tragedy, the futility.

Why? Why couldn’t we see this war coming?
And when did we build barricades and take up arms?
The secret skirmishes in our minds provoked our true but unseen enemies
to wage the Three Year War.
In this war
there were no winners,
only casualties—
the Dreams, the Devotion, the Innocence, the Intimacy we shared
lay slain
by our faceless foes—
the Silence, the Apathy, the Resentment, the Fear we unveiled
too late.
Preoccupied by the grass on the other side, we didn’t notice as they flanked and surrounded.
They snuck in and mercilessly lay siege our existence,
once beautifully fused as One,
now brutally severed in Two.

Why? Why didn’t I see this war coming?
And when did you become too broken and bruised to fight?
I had only begun raising your flag
when you retreated, battle-weary.
Did you even realize I was on your side?
Too late I found you, playing dead to avoid a fatal blow.
You gave up long before I was ready to surrender.
So I fought
alone
too late
until finally forced to admit defeat.
Now I will fight no more forever and breathe a sigh of relief.
At last I’ll recover the wreckage and tend to the wounded in peace.

Why? Why don’t you see the war is over?
And when will you allow your blood-soaked face to be washed?
Released from my yoke as your Savior,
while prisoner of war you remain—hostage to Guilt and Shame.
Content as a captive, you avoid facing the raw ache of devastation,
rejecting the ransom that has been paid.
Overwhelmed with the arduous task of reconstruction,
you prefer to persist
in ruins,
a remnant of what used to be.
So I grieve the loss of my lover, who once I adored and enjoyed,
and I pray that his relic will find
that out of the ashes more beauty can rise
than that which I helped to destroy.