Is That What I'm Thinking?

Someone is writing a biography about someone (I won't say who) and it has started me thinking...

I don't know how it is possible.  Without being God, no one - even if they were to pour over my journals and novels and blogs and facebook posts, even were they to interview all my closest friends and sisters and relatives and roommates - no one would be able to actually perceive, much less understand, the inner workings of my heart or of my ongoing conversation with God.

I know this because I am barely capable of understanding myself, myself.  And when God is completely gracious and gives a little word of enlightenment, my reaction is usually, "Oh!  Is that what I'm thinking?  Oh!  Yes, I think it is!"  (This is all very Biblical:  Jer. 17:9; I Kings 8:39.)  Added to that - the number of times I'm near a journal and have the time and umph to write said revelation down, is very few.

Then, when one IS journaling, the hand simply cannot keep up with the spirit and the mind, and ends up recording every tenth thought or so, so that there is no paper record of the split-second interactions with Jesus that brought one to Thought #10, then Thought #20.  A biographer would be left to speculate in the worst of ways, devoid of most the pertinent information.

For all these reasons, I think it prudent to request - please do not write a biography of me when I'm dead.  Thank you.  Unless you're only interested in "on such-and-such a date she went to school; on such-and-such a date she went to China" and that sort of thing.  Very boring, I warn you.

When I meet Perpetua in heaven (or on the Millennial earth, whichever one I end up in first) I am very glad that on the back of my little book about her is not the word "biography", but "historical fiction".  I did my best by her, based on as much understanding as the Lord and nature would give me through her own writings, her political/geographical/economic context, and my own observances of how God works in hearts.  But as far as writing a true biography, tracing the true movements of an individual human heart - I think only the Lord Himself is qualified to write that about any of us.  This is why we may be often surprised when we meet our famous men during the eternal years and realize how very different they are than we thought.  We might even discover that autobiographies are among the worst of the bunch for giving real insight into the person canvassed.  For what man can know his own heart?

Rules of Civility

I am going to start compiling a Rules of Civility.  (Thanks, President Washington!)

Always thank the hostess.  This is mostly for the men, who I am sure have never realized the sheer amount of labor that goes into the nice meal or dessert or event they just enjoyed.  Sometimes it involves a whole day of cleaning, a few hours of getting to the grocery store and back, another hour of cooking, an additional hour or so of decorating, a half-hour of getting herself gussied up, and a few hours last week of thinking up the plan and sending out invitations to...you!

Always carry a very heavy Swiss Army Knife.  And actually, this is mostly for the women, who never know when they may need to have a tiny pair of tweezers on hand for emergency eyebrow-plucking.  And it works for fixing cars and turning screws and cutting boxes open and all sorts of other things.  Mine even has a thin pen, and a corkscrew so small I'm not sure I'd ever be able to get the cork out anyway.

Never despise a gray hair.  It probably means the one sporting it has survived life experiences you haven't yet.

Always thank the Lord if you enjoy something.  We forget that He did it all, and that every good gift came from Him.  When a beautiful sight spreads out before you, say "thank you"!  When an artist comes up with a great melody and you  just have to sing along, say "thank you"!  I am NOT being religious.  When your husband brings you flowers every Shabbat, you say "thank you", don't you? 

Which, in turn, leads me to...

Always bring your wife flowers on Shabbat.  No explanation needed.

Pasta Pick Up

Have you ever played pick-up-sticks with angel hair pasta?  I just did.  Praise God for that scientific advancement: boiling things. 

I have not been having great luck today with food.  Although I did successfully doctor up a cup of decaf at the local coffee shop, I had flashes of imagining myself, the floor, and the condiment bar covered with milky brown liquid.  Something in me knew, just knew, that today might not be the greatest non-klutz day.

A quick tortilla-with-cheese to tide me over until I could cook the meatballs ended in a very burnt quesadilla - which I only realized by the odd sound that started to fill the kitchen. 

And then...then the almost-full but not-quite-as-unopened-as-I-thought box of angel hair ended up in a great crisscrossy pile on the kitchen floor.  All I could do was laugh.  And laugh.  In fact, it was the most pleasing sight of the whole day.  I am suddenly understanding one of the reasons babies make messes - and we thought it was underdeveloped dexterity! 

I did throw out the very last handful I gathered - a nod to propriety.  And now I am super-full from just a small bowl of meatballs w/pasta.  Which, by the way, has been the state of my stomach (super-full from smallish meals) ever since I prayed against a demon of sugar on Sunday.  No, I'm serious.  (Repenting for gluttony of sugar accompanied the prayer, of course.  Just thought you should know, in case you're planning to try it for yourself.)

One Way or Another?

Snowing. Freezing. Driving?

No, I thought, I’ll just go to the Sun Fresh. It’s small and expensive, but the closest grocery store to my house. But there is only one road that goes from here to there, and when I got to the intersection, a white police van was blocking the way, lights flashing.

Wasteland to the right (well, a windy road that I have never followed to the end since it seems to lead past oddly populated ponds, electricity compounds, and graffiti’d underpasses). To the left – Walmart. A very far-away Walmart, when the snow is blowing and the roads treacherous.

To the left I went. Odd, how the Lord takes a day and flips it around on you, as if you’re not really the one in control. And odder still when you find that your heart just easily follows him, without the usual frustration over changed plans.

Besides the fact that I forgot to buy the chicken (a central ingredient when cooking Chicken-and-Wild-Rice for dinner guests), it turned out to be a very successful shopping venture. I recognized my check-out clerk as the same one who’d had a cold several months ago and who I’d said I’d pray for. (Not that she had asked, you know. But what can a clerk say if you offer to pray for them? The customer is always right.)

I asked if she was the one; she sort of laughed, obviously remembering it, and said yeah, and that she had felt a bit better. I’m a little slow on the draw sometimes (comes from having once been shy), and it wasn’t until I was already at the doors out that the Lord reminded me He had detoured me miles out of my way in order to re-meet her. So I abandoned my cart to a door attendant who said she’d look after it (she didn’t) and ran back to the counter, interrupting the next customer to reiterate to this young girl (in case she hadn’t already realized): the Lord LOVES you!

It was as I entered the doors of Starbucks down the road, not willing to brave the cold ride home without a latte, that I remembered the chicken. Too many cute men had smiled at me in Walmart – can I blame my memory lapse on that? So, armed with instructions from the barista on how to bake broccoli (with olive oil in a 375 oven for 15 min.), and yet another smile from a cute baristo (is that the male form of barista?), I headed off to Hyvee…where a very handsome butcher seemed quite keen on assisting me. The thing is – a butcher?! Remember Fiddler On the Roof?

Back to the moral.

1.) Don’t let men distract you from chicken.

2.) Watch for God – what seems like inconvenience to you might actually be an invitation to do some heavenly damage (good damage, I mean, to colds and sad hearts).

Uncanny Coughs and Messiah Moments

There's one thing I'm sure of. As soon as the auditorium hushes, the first fiddle has sounded the note to which to tune, the conductor is applauded, and the music is about to start.....the air conditioning guy releases COUGH-inducing particles into the vents and lets 'er rip!

How else can the horrible and sudden need to cough (and cough violently) always happen (and ONLY happen) right when one is most supposed to be silent? It's uncanny.

There were actually quite a few uncanny moments at last night's Handel's Messiah. It started off with arriving at the auditorium and discovering it is part of a Mormon sect headquarters and right next to their huge temple, which is shaped like a giant slide from the steeple right down to the base--apparently Jesus is supposed to reign from there when He returns to Earth. Right there in Independence, MO. Who knew?

So we contemplated this lit-up oddity in the dark, with the full shining moon hanging up there, and prayed for the true God to bring light to these people stuck in such darkness.

The oddities didn't end there...

Two separate ushers looked at our tickets and "ushed" us, but it wasn't until we met the third, at the back row of seats, that we were told we were on the wrong level. When we did settle into our seats, and the lights were blinking and the doors were on the verge of being closed, a woman in a row in front of us ungraciously tells a group who want to get past her to their seats that they have to go back up, out the doors, and around to the other aisle, as she is not moving. Luckily, they were able to do it all before the doors actually were closed. I tried to dismiss her ungraciousness from my mind, along with my shock, and settle in to enjoy the evening. Not so fast...

Our group organizer and her daughter were a few moments late, and the doors shut them out. One of my seatmates saw them looking through the little window and, not acquainted with the etiquette of such productions, became very agitated, believing the door itself was locked and had to be opened from the inside. She figited and wiggled and wanted to get past me to the aisle to go open it for them, while I tried to explain in the nicest way possible (and the lowest possible whisper) that the ushers would let them in during a moment of applause, and that the door was not locked - she didn't need to go open it. It was a few very uncomfortable moments for me as I wondered how long I could hold her off. Meanwhile, in the background, the tenor is singing "Comfort ye my people." She is to be commended for her heartfelt concern for them, and so is the usher who - praise the Lord! - ended up bringing them in before the song was over. Whew!

So, I settle in again for a peaceful evening. Wait. Not only are the ushers bringing in random late-comers, a whole group is tenderly lowering a handicapped and blind man step by step to his seat in the 3rd row of the balcony. I watch, holding my breath as they go down each stair rise in the darkened balcony, until finally he is settled safely into his seat. This whole oratorio is about the coming of Christ, and I begin praying fervently that Jesus would soveriegnly heal this man's eyes as he listens to the scriptures ... "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined (Isaiah 9:2)." I start looking around the auditorium from our bird's eye view and realizing how many of these people do not know Jesus. Just as I begin praying for them all to see the Light, and a pause comes in the music so that all the auditorium is in a hushed silence, screaming cries pierce the cavernous room!

Two aisles to our left, right on level with us, repeated crys come - paniced, angry, and odd. The conductor froze. A half-dozen or so people jumped from their seats. Though I was looking right at the spot, I could not see who was in such horrible distress. Wendy, doctor-extraordinaire at my side, sat tensely, half out of her seat. But in a moment a woman came up for air, clutching her drink to her bosom. What sounded like a very verbal heart-attack turned out to be a fall down a step - and the victim had in the process somehow managed to keep her drink from spilling. Holding it close, and crying aloud "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she walked uninjured to her seat in the front row of the balcony, apparently (according to the good doctor) inebriated. That's a more hopeful conclusion than my own, which was that she might be psychotically unbalanced. I think you'd have to be either one or the other in order to repeatedly scream like that, over an extended number of seconds, while several thousand people gaped.

Satisfied that the scene was over, the conductor started things up again. But before long, another just as surprising - though not as disruptive - oddity graced the evening. The soprano. Oh, in the words of the man in the row ahead, she "hit it right on!" Not only that, but her whole body moved in sympathy with the words of scripture she sang, as she swayed and waved and jerked. Finally, as she ended with "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heav'nly Host praising God and saying," she threw her head back, inviting...and the huge choir mounted behind her broke into, "Glory to God in the highest." I could see her physically rejoice in the power of the noise of them praising God. She rejoiced as it swept against her back, in response to her song, and flowed out over the audience. She rejoiced as she stood there for a moment, swiming in the noise of the glory. She rejoiced as she took her seat and threw her head back again, like Eric Liddle as he ran, to listen to the multitude of voices praising God. It was stunning and particularly surprising in such a trained performer - especially compared to the carefully contained, stoic stance of the alto and the tenor.

That woman was a joy to watch the rest of the evening. But it broke my heart.

Her next air was spent entreating us to "rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion...behold, thy King cometh unto thee." How many times did she with great beauty and great fervency - of both body and voice - plead with these several thousand of us to "Rejoice!" Everything she had was put into this plea, this command, this entreaty. And we, oh we!, sat silently and deadened in our seats. When she had done and her last note had faded in the empty space, polite applause greeted her.

I began to imagine this song being sung on the New Earth. As she entreated, the saints would have risen to their feet - a wave of joy and dance would have spiraled among the thousands - a roar in unison would have greeted her last note... I hope she gets to sing it there, and to enjoy leading a company in the high worship of God!

I'm not even half through the evening, and as you can imagine the serendipitous events kept coming...but being more than half through this particular night, I will leave them to your imagination. If, though, you do decide to imagine, put in a cd of Handel's Messiah and imagine this -- what he wrote about, actually happening; the dear Messiah, actually returning; the trumpet sounding, the King reigning, the dead rising, and in your flesh-and-blood ... seeing HIM!

28 Days of Joy - Days into Weeks

Oh dear - deepest apologies to all my blog-reading friends, as I seem to have left you out of the second half of my 28 days of joy. On the bright side, this is partially because so many good things were happening, I didn't have time to write. Of course, it is also because I spent a little time sick, a little time overwhelmed, a little time angry, and a little time figuring out all the deep stuff God's been doing - just to be honest.

For instance, on:

Day 13-19 - I spent all my free hours hanging out with my neice and nephew and their grandmother (except for one day I did take to write...but I chucked it for Chick-Fill-A at dinnertime). These children are endlessly amusing, and extremely high energy, and in the absense of their parents it was my job to relieve their grandmother as much as possible. Yep...not much writing got done that week, and no blogging, but I have lots of writing material out of it. Such as the new knowledge, supplied by Judah, that butzes and burps sound the same. (That was his reponse to my instruction that butzes should not be heard at the table. Apparently, if it sounds the same as a burp, he thinks it's legal. When did burps at the table become legal?) We took the kids to a harvest party at a local church; one was a pirate, one was a princess, and one a ballerina. No, I'm not the pirate. He's not pictured.

Day 19 - I was given an out-of-the-blue, two-part word at Shabbat dinner... 1. I'm a worshipper/musician (God keeps trying to remind me of this), and 2.) He actually, really, fully, deeply loves me. Yum. (Yum on the challah bread, too. I want to make some soon.)

Day 23 - my third nephew, John-Peter Wilberforce was born. (As his mother says, he's so cute he's kinda hard to take! though he looks a little concerned in this photos.)
Day 22-25 - I spent these days playing single-mom to my niece, Glorie, while her parents were busy about the business of birthing a son. We went to the hospital a few times, to get some holds in :) You can imagine the joy involved in all that! Odd, how joy often comes accompanied by sleeplessness, pull-ups, and an unending need for discipling children. But, as I put in my facebook status, none of that seems to matter when a little girl's hand slips gently into yours during the middle of closed eyes and a whispered Lord's Prayer. I almost died of love.


Day 22 - I got the longest love letter I will ever receive in my life (seriously, I have no doubt on this front) from a man who had never met me, only read my stuff. It was ridiculous, engendered many laughs, took me at least a half-hour to read, was full of overly romantic sentiments, and came my way from a far continent. However, it did pose a problem - how is one to respond to such a thing without breaking the heart involved? The easiest way would be no response at all, but my roomate admonished me that one must be careful "not to wound a man" - and no answer would be a harsh blow to someone who has handed me their heart on a platter. No response was sent that evening, however. It was just too much.

Day 23 - A little bit of affirmation made my heart glad :) Ah, the simplest things!

Day 25 - Got some prayer at the IHOP renewal (it's still going on, by the way) about a pretty deep issue. Spent a bunch of time during the service trying to remember which Psalm had the verse the Lord whispered to me (I don't tend to memorize the numbers, just the words, which can pose problems later on :) but finally gave up, only to have my friend turn to me to pray over me, pull out that very Psalm, and read it over me. Ahhh...beautiful.

Day 26-27 - Sick AND working. Bit of a bummer, that. But the work itself...God was there!

Day 27 - News from a beautiful friend that she will soon be engaged!

Wait, you say, you've left out all the bad days. That's because most of them turned out to be good!

Oh, ok.

On Day 22 I apologized to someone and was forgiven - see? Good.
On Day 24 I was mad and frustrated that I was mad, and tried to keep from getting bitter.
On Day 25 I confronted someone and knew I'd done the right thing.
On Day 26 that someone agreed that I'd done the right thing. See, again?
On Day 27 I watched the most time-wasting of a movie because I was so tired and sick. Yuck.

And on Day 28 I stayed home from church sick (ah, you think this is starting off in the bad-day list, don't you?!) and then bam! one-two-three God lined up row of stuff for me that took me from repentance, to encounter, to faith. And it all wrapped up at small group, falling in love again with the people Jesus loves.

Well now, there is a concise and very incomplete summation of the events (though not the substance) of the missing Days of Joy. Perhaps I'll have to just keep having more Days, as these ones have been pretty eventful. Even when they weren't "happy", they were good, because my great God was all intertwined in them with me.

That is by no means the last word on the 28 days...but it's the last word for tonight, as I'm tired!

Love to all,
Amy

28 Days of Joy -- Day 15

I know that suffering for Jesus is super-hard, but I read Acts 5:41 this evening and was immediately sobered.

"And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name."

Dear, dear, dear. My little life has so many comforts, even in the midst of the great spiritual battles. Hard they are, yes, but no one is beating me, no one is arresting me, no one is throwing me into disease-ridden cells.

Am I not counted worthy?

I am not being facetious here, or hyperbolic; and I'm not trying to make a point. When will the church in America encounter physical opposition? When we do, I'm going to take it as a good sign. Not that dedication and persecution are causally linked (I can't remember the technical term, but you know what I mean). But power and persecution often are, I think! Once we get dangerous to the enemy's bottom line, the enemy ups his attentions. I don't want his attentions, but I do want to be counted worthy to suffer shame. (I guess that shame doesn't always have to be physical.)

The Lord did comfort me a bit with the reminder that time is a wider and less algebraic thing than I usually calculate. Perhaps I am worthy; that doesn't necessarily mean the "beatings" will happen today. Just eventually...

You've probably already guessed that I was reading my new VOM tonight. The back cover, with the photos of Marzieh and Maryam made me weep. I want to be counted worthy, but I also want every Christian to be rescued and spared the persecution they're under. Especially His women. Lord, make me worthy! But Lord, rescue your daughters!