Three Teeth

I'm on a temp job assignment in the middle of industrial-land, where Starbucks are scarce and McDonald's coffee is the beverage of choice. My boss declared it BETTER and CHEAPER than Starbucks, and sent me on down the street to pay only $1.20 for a large. I sauntered right on in, and about 5 seconds later realized I'd accidentally cut in line in front of 2 men. While I'm stammering an apology and motioning them ahead of me, they both smile happily and insist I stay where I am. They couldn't have been older than their late 40's, but one, the happiest of the two, had only three teeth. That's right. Three. And that includes a top and bottom count. His smiling face woke me up and I started peering around with different eyes.

Happy. Faces. In factory-darkened overalls and worn shoes. Laughing, chatting noises. Black faces, white faces, brown faces. And some of them...some with only three teeth.

I got my coffee and went back to the car to munch on a peanut butter sandwich (sans jelly, which went bad in the fridge the other day), feeling comfortably at one with Industrial-land. It reminded me of St. Therese, the movie of whose life Lizzie and I subjected ourselves to several nights ago. I can't recommend the flick at all, but I can recommend her thoughts on life and God: Littleness is no obstacle to love. (Charlie Dodrill has a great song about it, too.) Industrial, factory, and general blue-collar areas may seem big on cavernous buildings and little on importance, but even so (and it's definitely debatable), that is no obstacle to love or joy. I'm glad a joyful, three-toothed man smiled at me today. It has sort of made the hours seem worthwhile.

Love and Earrings

This morning I threw on a simple blue shirt and almost dashed out of the house without earrings, but at the last second reached for my little jewelry box. I have a pair whose colors match this plain shirt perfectly, but for some reason I felt I shouldn't wear them. Perhaps I'm going to lose my earrings today, I thought, and I'd hate to lose those ones as my mother gave them to me. Well, I couldn't figure it out but went with the feeling and slipped a pair of plain golden ones in. The minute it took me to rummage for them was going to make me a minute late for babysitting my niece.

My sister is speaking at a conference today, and when I got to the house she was wearing a pretty golden necklace with rusty red beads--one I'd actually given her for her birthday. But she had on dangly blue jewel-toned earrings, because she has no golden ones. Were discussing the lack briefly, as sisters do, when she suddenly realized my earrings would solve the problem. We quickly pulled them out and switched pairs. The jarring blue was gone from her ensemble, and I'm now wearing evening-worthy jewels above a plain t-shirt!

I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. :) Very odd looking combination, and I could just take them off, but Glorie-Bee is fascinated by these things and it's awful fun to be rolling around with her on the floor then suddenly see her expression change, her little mouth part slightly, her eyes fix on my ear, and her face come toward mine, entranced. Then her fingers reach them and gently push, tug, tickle against my neck while she plays. Absolute sweetness. That feeling is worth the danger that she'll suddenly grab and pull, leaving me with a torn ear.

I think the world trains us to expect love to be this way. A lulling; a gentle, delightful sensation; but always the possibility that a very painful twist will cause permanent damage at the end. And it keeps us stiff, on guard.

I know a Man who is not like this. If he applies pressure, it is not to tear but to heal me. And I'm wondering if it will be easy or hard to trust a husband like this. With Glorie, I know the possibility of pain is there but still allow myself to enjoy the movement of her chubby fingers. Yet always my hand is ready and near, my muscles poised to rescue myself. When it comes to love I don't want to keep a protective hand on call; I don't want to have emotional muscles ready to defend myself. I know it means I may be hurt occasionally, accidentally. But there is nothing like the freedom to enjoy love that I have in God's arms, and it's the same freedom I hope to have in my husband's.

There is one thing I will never hope for, though, no matter how great (or poor) his sense of style is. This husband of mine is never going to be able to arrange my sister's successful be-jeweling by whispering a simple instruction in my ear as I'm running out the door. Nope. Only a Very Happy God does that sort of thing!

A Prayer

I like to prayer-write. It's rather like prayer-walking, except I get distracted by nature when I walk, and stay focused when I write. I thought I'd post one of these recent prayers, since I'm so poor at keeping my blog updated and it gives a bit of insight into the things I'm thinking about. Keep in mind, this is not edited and plenty of poetic license is taken--mainly in the areas of creating words. It's just a little talk between myself and God.

A Prayer...

I like you so much. Dwight just asked… “Stop and think about our resurrected Lord. Is He depressed? Is He anxious? Is He intimidated by Pilate or Herod or Hitler or your boss or any bully you can think of? Is He cowering in the presence of the evil one? Is He a somber sourpuss? Does He sneak away to deaden His pain with a bottle of liquor? Is He struggling with impure thoughts? Does He eat too much? Does He look in the mirror and cringe?”

No, you’re none of that, and I like you so much. There is no man on earth who could even try to be as perfect as you; in fact, there is no man on earth who can even know what perfection is. You are things we haven’t even imagined. You have noble, beautiful thoughts and motivations we haven’t ever conceived of. Chivalry? It is the barest, slimmest, faintest glimmer of what your humility expresses in your heart toward us, the bride. And all we know of your true, first-source-thoughts on love and honor are hardly full reflections of the real you.

I like you so much. When I’m married, my husband won’t be perfectly caring for my heart; perfectly urging it along; perfectly applying pressures at just the right points, angles and times; perfectly guarding my thoughts; perfectly going ahead and making arrangements, orchestrating circumstances, planning provision…while integrating it all with the goal of making my soul more and more beautiful every moment until it shines like the sun in righteousness and in the very glory of the Lord. Who are you, that you waste your time on me like this? Who am I that you spend your thoughts and energy on my continuing creation? All I can do is raise up my arms like a little girl and agree, ask you to continue, ask you to never stop…and then fall in, like a student falls backward off a platform into the waiting arms of ten classmates who are all participating in the trust-building, team-forming exercise we’ve all done. Yet you’re the only one catching me, and your arms are unbreakable, your eyes unswerveable, your attention undistractible, your purpose unwaverable, and the ultimate perfect end of all your plans—unstoppable.

Sam wrote a song that ends in the mighty image of you coming back on your “victory ride.” So it will be! And when you do, my heart will rise in an unusual purity of pride and joy, and exclaim within me and to any nearby, “that is my husband, that is my king! Do you see him? Do you see how perfect he is, how strong, how glorious, how in love he is?” No one will envy me, I know, for either they’ll be believers also, whose hearts are leaping with the very same joy as mine, having the very same love as mine; or they’ll be the wicked, whose response of fear and trembling and hatred will be all mixed with their self-recrimination and overwhelming, rejecting pride, so that they would still reject you then, even if they could have you. “ A husband?” they’ll say. “How could you take such a terrible, awesome God for a husband?” Oh! how they miss the truth about you, for you are not only the mighty warrior whose ride of victory will be crushing and glorious, but you are the gentle lover, whose thoughts have been 2000-years-long of preparing places for each of us who love you. And these places, these places themselves are unimaginable. Mansions on hills? Perhaps. Spiritual ecstasies? Perhaps. Fullnesses of all that you originally designed us to be and enjoy? Yes! Yes! to your plan to set me in a place where I get to do—for your glory, your work, and our joy—all that I love. A place where I can continually worship, a place of psaltery, a place of creation. This is too much to even comprehend, the fulfillment of the good works you’ve prepared for me to walk in during the millennium and beyond.

Actually, it is you yourself who are too much for me to comprehend. How fun to have such a long, long prospect of discovery ahead of me. This is not a trip across the country, where my anticipation of the plains, the Rocky Mountains, the desert, and the ocean will all be met and then end, there on the rocky shore of Mendocino. This is not a trip around the earth, where my carefully charted course will take the sailboat around the Cape of Good Hope, through the Indian Ocean, across the South Pacific, until I arrive again where I started and all the world has been seen. This is a journey into a Person—a Person whose beauty never ends, whose new and undiscovered depths are continually unfolding before me, whose imagination in creation is inexhaustible, and whose heart and spirit and soul will tantalize and satisfy me every moment of a real and very long eternity, in an unendingly exhilarating cycle.

How are you so, so, … well, there are no words for what you are, love. Except perhaps just that—Love.