Learning to be 46, interrupted by a titmouse

Upside-down titmouse says “hi!”

I am 46. That feels very weird. But I can't dispute it and I don't really want to. Maybe when I am 80 I will look back at this post and think "what an innocent young chicken I was then... and I probably am. But I feel changed in my bones, these last few years. They have been hard, sad, joyful, full of life and death years. My roots are growing deeper, searching for the streams deep underground to sustain me. I am leaning in instead of running away. I am more whole, finding pieces of myself back on the old paths where I tried to discard them in frustration and self-disgust and fury, parts of myself I didn't want and hurled into the woods hoping the passage of time would cover them with leaves and debris until they were just gone. No. as soon as I went looking, there they were, waiting for me, to be picked up and held tenderly. They are mine, and I shall learn to treasure these rejected pieces of me and let them grow in to my wholeness.

Today I woke up and didn't want to feel the way I felt. I wanted to feel happier and began a mental self-motivating routine when I stopped- and let myself be. It's okay for me to feel this non-happy feeling. If Jesus appeared in front of me the first thing I would do was cry, I think. Cry for hours, days, weeks. He is like the mom who comes to pick up the child from daycare who held it in all day and looked fine on the outside and completely falls apart with mom, who is safe. Yes, I would cry and cry and cry until all the crying was done, and then- "I will every tear from your eyes. We will do it together. One by one until they are all dry." 

I walk with my father and let him cry. Impulses to try to ward off the tears jump through my nervous system and I take a deep breath and remind myself there is no need to do that. It is okay to just let him feel what he feels until he doesn't need to feel that thing anymore. Just let myself be who I am- and allow him to be who he is, in this moment, right now. We are walking in strange, uncharted territory, this place where my mom no longer walks beside us, where she will not come. We can only go toward her, but each day and hour is closer when we will take the same path we saw her take with joy on her face. I think about that moment, the second time in my life I saw someone see that door into heavenly places open. The expression of pure delight, looking beyond this world, to a place our hearts ache to be when we catch the smell of it on the wind. 

I know that taking a walk with my father is a thing I will only be able to do for so long. That is a strange place to be. Existing in this in between, turned-upside down place of grief and joy that I know is only temporary, but a temporary that could last until tonight or a decade from now. 

I constantly have to allow myself to exist here and now, in this season where everything is changing and unfamiliar. The role I have held for the last 19+ years as a mother and adult daughter is changing. I am on a train where the scenery outside is transitioning to something very different and it makes me nervous. I find myself scanning the horizon of my acquaintances for older women who have been here already and might help orient me. Hah! A tufted titmouse interrupts the flow here by landing above my living room window and looking in at me upside down, this way and that. Then he flies around the corner to the other window and sits on the back of a deck chair and looks in from that angle. What is this place where the humans and dog beasts are gathered? He zips away and then lands again on an overhanging branch with a seed to eat while he observes our ways. I’d probably feel a lot better if I stopped sitting here scrunched up drinking coffee and went outside into the crisp air and observed his world for a while, briskly exerting myself in the process. In other words, a walk. Good day, sirs and mesdames, I must be off.

Waking up to the new President-Elect

 It’s a strange morning to wake up to such a divided nation that believes either it’s on the cusp of the golden age or the end of all things. 

I still believe God is good no matter what is happening in our bombed-out world obsessed with power and dominance. That’s the way the world works. We yearn for something different and yet we continue to participate in its ways.

Probably the thing I personally hate the most is when Jesus is used as a tool and his ways distorted to create a political Jesus. I don’t know Political Jesus. I don’t want to know Political Jesus. I want to run from him as far as possible. Political Jesus espouses everything opposite from the real Jesus. Political Jesus makes me want to run screaming and throw up. 

When God came to earth as a man, He chose poverty, small insignificant people, and actively resisted those who wanted to make him a political king. He invited people into a new way, offering to plant a seed of transforming love in their hearts that would grow into magnificent tree drooping with delicious fruit:

-Love for enemies, real love that seeks to understand, reach across dividing lines, heal wounds, love so powerful that it would die for this enemy.

-Desire to serve and come alongside people instead of trying to manipulate and control and use them.

-Willingness to accept grievous wounds and refusal to retaliate and take an eye for an eye.

-Hearts full of compassion for all the humans they see, especially the struggling outsiders, the poor, the foreign, the powerless.

If someone says they know Jesus and you don’t see those fruits growing in their lives (maybe slowly, maybe haphazardly!), they probably haven’t met the real Jesus. The seed He plants is a real seed that really transforms utterly.

I haven’t seen those fruits in the man we now call president. The vision of a powerful Christianity he offers is another version of Political Jesus. I’m not buying it. I’m not buying the idea that waking up to President Harris would save everyone either even if I personally would feel far more comfortable having coffee with her than Donald Trump. The world is going to keep on world-ing and thinking political power is the means to happiness. Jesus did not storm the halls of Rome and take the emperor’s seat. He had far more important things to do with people the empire laughed at and scorned. The Kingdom that He came to establish grows in hearts, not in seats of government, even if we dearly pray that those with the Seed in their hearts will sit in the seats of power. While it occasionally happens, doesn’t seem to be the norm. You’ll far more likely find a person with that Seed in their hearts doing normal or lowly and unglamorous things because such people tend to abhor power and do anything they can to stay away from it.

However, there is one thing I can do-  I‘m praying for all the people who have lost hope today and are living in fear and despair, that the Voice of beautiful peace that transcends world and politics will beckon their hearts into its rest. I’m praying for all those celebrating victory and imagining all America’s troubles are over today to hear the Voice that says His ways are not our ways, and that the only time He met with a king on earth was forced, where he was mocked and sent off for execution. And I will pray for our new president, too, that his heart hears the Voice, that he lets that Voice plant the transforming seed in his heart. Can you imagine what a shocking and crazy and beautiful thing that would be, if he suddenly became humble and loving and wildly compassionate and wise and discerning and loved his enemies? Let it be so, Lord. 

A Christian Manifesto for the 4th, Love Me

 

It’s the Fourth of July, and I would like to muse on the concept of freedom and living together in a free country. 

As most of you know, I am a passionate Christian and Jesus is the most important person in my life. I seek to think and act and love in alignment with who he is. 

However, as a Christian, I just don’t subscribe to the various “Christian” political movements that would like me to side with them in trying to create a more supposedly Christian culture via political means. While our country was indeed based on Judeo-Christian values, I don’t want to live in a “Christian” country or try to create some sort of theocracy. I want to live in a country where people feel completely safe, free and comfortable to live according to their own beliefs and philosophies even if my personal opinion of those beliefs and philosophies is that they are crazy or false or don’t align morally with my beliefs about the kind of lives God desires us to pursue in order to flourish and know him. We need basic laws that protect this state of things no matter who is in power. If your right to live as you see fit is not protected, then neither is mine, for surely the wheel will turn again and who is on top now will be on the bottom later.

Following Jesus wholeheartedly means embracing a lot of uncertainty and accepting that many of the things we read in the Bible are hard to understand and can be interpreted many different ways and that the New Testament especially is not a law book for structuring society, but a guide on how to profoundly and sacrificially love the people around us, no matter how vastly they differ from us.  The “Christian” movements that I see so vigorously trying to seize power right now out of fear that our country is going the “wrong” way- I don’t see anything about them that make me think they are about sacrificially and profoundly loving our neighbors at great personal cost to ourselves. That is the core of the gospel, the truth that all things lead back to in the Bible and the very foundation of who God is.

It’s not that I don’t think Christians should be involved in politics, it’s just that when we are, I think we need to consider the well-being of everyone in the country and not just whoever elected us. There’s lots of issues I am passionate about because they affect all of us. I think everybody has the right to clean air and clean water and corporations absolutely do not have a right to pollute the air and water and land that everyone needs for their basic existence. I am passionate about finding ways to compassionately protect the lives of the most vulnerable among us- from embryos and their extremely valuable mothers, through the whole life cycle, all the way to the very end of life to a person who doesn’t even know who they are anymore. I am interested in working on finding common ground with people who have vastly differing opinions on these complex matters and trying to find agreeable solutions. I want to build connections of trust and love with people who are really scared that my “Christian values” will literally harm them or kill them.  

There is so much more I could say. I rarely get involved in political conversations on social media or make comments about people’s memes and posts that just make fun of the other side. In fact, when I am tempted to, I feel a literal sense of a divine slap on the fingers… “nope, not where I’m calling you, Kirstie.” 

Even though opening the news is a bit terrifying, the state of the world is dreadful and this whole election is like a deadly circus, I’m not afraid. I believe God continues to work and fulfill his purposes, no matter who is in power. It’s the paradox at work that sometimes when things are the very worst the very best things happen, and sometimes it’s the very worst things that turn us into the best people.  Also, you know what? No matter what the national and international stage looks like, I know so many incredibly amazing people that just keep doing their thing day and day out, loving the people around them, serving in extremely hard places, having compassionate conversations with their “enemies,” seeking peace, heading right back into the fray even after they have been hurt and offended, criticized, and condemned, ready to love some more. 

I’ll end with a few examples.

My parents’ physician, Dr Todd Granger, who has cared for them in their season of great need better than any doctor I have ever known, with extreme integrity and attention any hours of the day or night, who still makes house calls when necessary, and at prices that are definitely not making him rich.

Jeremy Courtney, founder of Humanite, and the local teams bringing relief to people in the hardest places that are being bombed and terrorized, no matter what their political alliances are. These folks keep going back despite being bombed, shot at, threatened, and even killed.

The good people of my church, Holy Trinity Anglican, working together to serve the hungry of our community with our food pantry, and growing fresh produce in our giving garden. Welcoming anybody who walks in the door. Building relationships with and honoring the civil rights heroes of our town. Doing so many good things secretly behind the scenes that greatly cheer my heart when I find out about them!

A random new friend I made recently sitting at an advertising table outside her place of employment who just radiates friendliness and love, and I have since learned is exactly the kind of person that is ready to jump up and help you with whatever you could possibly need… despite growing up experiencing tremendous abuse, cruelty and trauma. 

My mom, who died last month, and remains the most inspirational human in my life, who loved lavishly, built friendships across many political, religious and economic lines, brought countless “different“ people into our home (foreign, needy, elderly, lonely, outcast, socially awkward), volunteered relentlessly in soup kitchens and programs helping the homeless find housing, programs serving kids and school teachers in Haiti, sponsoring children with World Vision and keeping up a robust correspondence with them, defending anyone she sensed was being bullied or mistreated. Who kept doing all of these things despite bad experiences with some people who tried to take advantage of her good heart. She kept going back into the loving battle… even when she had Alzheimer’s she displayed this kind of love in the midst of great personal suffering. Love was her default setting, a profound gift from the God she loved with all her heart.

This post may have wandered all around and i could write and write for hours about the people around me who shore up my hope in God’s goodness but I think I’m done for now. Take heart, there is much love in the world and light always prevails over darkness, no matter what the news is telling us or what new evil the world tyrants are plotting. Blessings to you on this 4th of July!

What it’s like when my mother is dying

 Note: I wrote this on March 1, and my beautiful mother left this world on May 20 with a smile and glory on her face. I will write about that in days to come. 

My heart aches and my mouth is like sawdust. My mom is dying.

Will it be soon? Will she have another turnaround and give us more time? 

We have been living in this season for over two years now, the season of the shadow of the valley of death. She has given us scares before. I have stood in hospital corridors with doctors telling me she may only have hours left, she's in sepsis, and then... she comes back to us. Each time diminished, but there.

Day by day they tell us there are the signs of death coming near, and I am so uncertain. I do not know what each hour might bring. She is eating and drinking. She kisses my cheek. She greeted my sister this morning- but is mostly silent, except for the pain when they move her. She might be fighting a viral illness or she might have a "terminal fever." She might have "mottling on her feet," but I think that's the way her feet have looked for several years- just elderly splotchy red and purple-veined feet. I look for pictures in my photos- do I have pictures of my mom's feet? Yes, there they are, bare, by the lake, 3 years ago, looking about the same as they do today.

I struggle with anger at the words I hear from the hospice nurses. I think I have found my equilibrium again and then they pull the rug out from under me again with this sign, or that sign- emotional whiplash. The fast moving storm-clouds breaking and blowing in again with sudden violent gusts of wind.

Yesterday in the car I listened to Dr Tim Keller preaching on Ephesians 6:16- 

"...take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." 

He said that in times of seige, the flaming arrows come when you are storming the walls, and your enemies are standing above raining down fire to not just kill, but instill terror and fear that they hope will cause you to lose heart and retreat, as you see your fellow soldiers around you on fire, consumed by flames. Terror and fear, the cold chills of weakness and horror that incapciate and make you nauseous. The feeling that you want to run from. The horror and unbelievability of the reality of death.

But I must put up my shield and refuse to run. Roman shields were enormous- 5 feet long and 2 feet wide. My shield of faith is bigger. It surrounds on all sides and "can extinguish ALL the flaming arrows of the evil one." 

It doesn't change the fact that I am sitting in a battlefield with flaming arrows falling directed at me and it feels horrific to be here.

My shield means trusting that-

"when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." (Ephesians 6:13)

I am refusing to disbelieve the good words of my savior Jesus, spoken himself on the night before his death-

"My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:2)

My mom loves Jesus with all her heart and she has spent the last 50+ years walking in his paths:

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death." (Rom 8:1-2)

"...if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." (Romans 8:10-11)

"Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:34-39)

It is an incredibly hard place, this. I go through my days sobbing in the car, pulling myself together, going grocery shopping, making phone calls, doing the things I have to do. It is like wearing a weighted coat that makes everything harder, heavier, more exhausting. I wake at 4 am with the feeling of dread washing over me. 

"Praise the Lord, O my soul;
While I live I will praise the LORD.
Indeed, as long as I have my being,
I will sing praises unto my God." (Psalm 146: 1-2)

I no longer think that praising requires some element of joy, singing exultantly. There are times of praise like that, but this season, those words hit very differently. Today the words of this Psalm are words of clinging to a rock in a raging sea after a shipwreck. Words of refusing to lose hope in the truths I believe in. Words that I shout at the darkness because I will NOT be taken by it even though the woman that brought me into this world is getting ready to leave it, and my father, the man who loves her the most, sits at her bedside with his head on her lap. "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life," said Peter to Jesus, when things were getting very very hard and Jesus asked his closest friends if they would leave him too, like the others who couldn't handle the message of hardship and suffering they were hearing. No. There is no where else to go. There is no other "god" out there that can handle this mess, or a place I could run to that would make me feel better or that this world isn't what it is: beautiful but deadly and full of horrors, in bondage to decay and death. As long as I have my being, I will sing praises to my God, because THERE IS NO OTHER FREAKING PLACE TO GO. He is it. He is the only one that can comfort my soul, he has shown it over and over and over again. He is the only one that can strengthen me to get through this day-

when my mom is suffering

and my dad is weeping

and we prepare for the severing of earthly bonds

that have wrapped and surrounded my sisters and I

binding us together in love, 

this precious family

this stable mother-rock

turning to shale

He wraps my soul in love and holds me tightly. I will not fall because under the sliding shale of this grieving path is THE rock that doesn't shift, that is strong and unmoveable. My mom led me to this everlasting rock. She knew. Her one heart's desire for me was to see me on a rock that would not fail and I am here. I will be okay because I will stand. He has got me, no matter what flaming arrows are launched at my heart and soul.

Drowning in the Woods

 

I almost broke the potato masher

On the bananas tonight

Making breakfast for tomorrow

Because I am angry

That there’s no easy way

To stop evil.

Not bombs or swords 

And the open mouth

Of more death

Do not be overcome by evil

He says

But overcome evil with good 

We don’t know

We don’t know

What that means, Jesus

We are lost 

In the woods until you come

Help, Lord,

We are drowning.

Old Enough to Build a Fire

When I was old enough to build a fire
I came home from school on a bleak March day, overcast, sodden.
Snowdrops huddled in clumps, heads together, silently enduring wet drops
Rolling off their white hats.
I put on the kettle as the radiators quietly rattled and steamed
Cat stretching and hopping off her chair to see about kibbles.
Taking the leather carrier I walked to the woodpile, 
Piled in too many logs as I do with logs generally
And the carrier clumped and bumped against my legs painfully
As I dragged it into the house, piled them into the woodbox,
returned to the cold to scavenge for kindling.
Twisting newspapers, laying sticks, striking matches-
Matches, plural, because it is hard
To master match-striking.
The fire curls up into the twigs with small swirling whisps of smoke
The kettle sings loudly in the kitchen
And then I sit and do my homework or read my book
With my own pot of tea
And my own English muffin 
Sharp aged cheddar brown and bubbling on top from the oven
Logs shifting in the fireplace and popping and crackling
And under the grate the embers are glowing brightly
By the time my mother comes home.

Not losing hope in the horror

Right now there is a powerful article from NPR that I highly suggest you go and read if you want to have a bit of hope in humanity in the midst of this terrible, brutal war between Israel and Hamas that is shattering life after life. This quote from the article is spoken by Oded Adomi Leshem:

"Think about a small flame of a candle," he suggests. "If the room is lit with daylight, then the light from this small candle doesn't really influence anything. But when the room is dark, then suddenly the light of the candle has some meaning." 

We need candles in these times. My brain needs candles. My anxiety levels have been creeping higher than they’ve been in a long time. Intrusive thoughts about shooters and bombings and threats to my children zing around leaving trails of adrenaline. I am blessed with, or suffer from, depending on the situation, extremely high levels of empathy for others in pain. This naturally orients me toward prayer: good. Being unable to function well from the pain of what I hear and see of Palestinian and Israeli “normal people” suffering: really hard. Images of what Israeli families suffered on Oct 7th and the images of suffering Palestinians now seer my heart. The normal people who love their families and kids and want to live in peace and work and eat and go to the beach. The majority, in other words, not the zealots and fundamentalists and terrorists who are the minority but hold all the weapons. 

Some people may disagree with me about anyone over there being “normal” and longing to live in peaceful coexistence with the “enemy.” You can go back and read that article and decide if you believe the polls. I’m going to believe my friends on the ground in these places who long for peace and friendship with their fellow normal people on the other side, though who knows how these events of this last month have affected them, will affect them, after all is said and done? It would be completely understandable for them to be feeling hostility and fury at this point. And yet, this article shows us that some are choosing differently. Refusing to be pulled into hatred, steadfastly holding to empathy by the teeth while every reasonable factor suggests they should be consumed by bitterness. 

I’m taking a break from my obsessive news consumption for a bit. I bought a book of Mary Oliver’s nature poems at the thrift store today and I read them this afternoon with the golden light streaming through the forest canopy and squirrels rustling in the fallen leaves. The air is still but directly above my head, high in the sky above the giant tulip poplar, a hawk circles on the thermals with utmost laziness. 

I want to make poems while thinking of

the bread of heaven and the 

   cup of astonishment; let them be

 songs in which nothing is neglected, 

   not a hope, not a promise. (Mary Oliver)

Yesterday I took the bread of heaven and the cup of astonishment into my own soul at the altar, given by the blessed stand-ins for the Lord himself, women of our church dressed in white robes, speaking eternal truths to my heart of Who I belong to forever, bound in unbreakable chains of love to his side. Week after week these men and women dressed in white give me this spiritual food and tell me not to lose hope. Stand fast, take courage, remember, remember, whose body and blood this is, given for me. The storming waves crash on the sharp rocks in the night but I am held fast. It is written on my heart and your heart that love and goodness and joy will win. 

Maoz Inon, Oded Adomi Leshem, Dr. Lina Qasem Hassan, Robi Damelin, Yousef Bashir and his parents- thank you. Thank you for being candle-lights of shalom for us in these dark days. May the light and peace of God surround and uphold you through every day to come.