Against such there is no mandate

Yesterday, I weeded the garden bed.

This morning, (spoiler alert),
              I dusted.

Unfortunately, on the list of official restrictions,
weeding and dusting do not appear.

And while many things exist that I cannot do in this season of covid,
      much of which is way beyond my control
              or the narrow scope of my abilities,
   I can do something.

We are in lock-down because of the covid virus,
       but a wide wide world emerges within.
We are not constricted after all,
                but enlarged by the possibilities,
    hidden like surprise ten dollar bills in the pocket
                          of an old ignored coat.

If there is something I cannot do,
        I can turn to another.
I may not be able to change circumstances,
      yet there is a deeper treasure within,
not just in what I do,
          but in who I am becoming.

Not that I complain of want,
for I have learned,
in whatever state I am,
           to be content.
I know how to be abased,
and I know how to abound;
in any
    and all circumstances
I have learned the secret
  of facing plenty and hunger,
abundance and want.
I can do all things in Him
    who strengthens me.

                     Philippians 4. 11-13

There are many things
    against such there is no mandate.
Contentment
                is one of them.

Paul -- who authored this epistle in 59 A.D.--
was not living high and mighty at the time,
but confined to a squalid prison cell
            --literally on lockdown.
He did not dwell on
           "why, God?"
     but on "what, God?"
Chained to a jail wall,
in what only appeared as a deep dark hole,
       facing hardship and probable death,
Paul did the unexpected and unlikely
            and what was within reach:
     he began writing letters
     to those he knew personally
    and those believers he had only heard about.
What was within arm's reach
             was far more extensive than he would ever know.
At least thirteen of his letters are included in the New Testament.

And more than 2000 years later,
        we are still encouraged by them.

Wbat, God, what have You placed before me today?

How can I be faithful to You?
       Even in these circumstances,
       even in my heart attitude,
            against such there is no mandate.

Your glory in this day
          liberates me,
Your faithfulness reigns beyond the skies.
    against such there is no mandate,
    against such there is no end.

A Big Round 2 It

The jig is up. 

Nearly all of us have either an actual written-down list -- or a vague narrative of unending excuses -- for the highly unlikely "someday I'll get around to it."

Well, congratulations.  That "big round 2 it" is here.  Someday has arrived.

In this lockdown, our list of bonafide excuses have disappeared faster than that hidden bag of jelly beans.  The issue is no longer a matter of time, but facing our all-encompassing stubborn will to not do those things.  No more the grandeur of "If I only had time, how different my life would look, what a better person I would be."  No more the far-distant horizon of someday not just getting organized but being organized, cleaning out the scary hidden lair of my side of the closet, researching the family tree, or embarking on an enduring quest to learn Spanish, piano, or finally read War and Peace. This is it.

But now, during these many weeks of "time out" at home, we are realizing we never actually intended to do those noble life-altering things, and have avoided and ignored as much as possible the necessary ones calling our names.  Last week when I asked a friend what she was up to, she texted me, "Mending, ironing, sharpening knives.  It has come to this."   Every day, it seems, something else "essential" comes to the surface, raises its hand, or waves a red flag.  I am personally wading through forty years of accumulated and never-attempted recipes, wondering why prom dresses from the 90s are still hanging in the back closet, and like Nancy Drew, unveiling secrets in the old attic.  Even some of those things are just excuses to keep me from what I should actually be doing.

As Wall Street Journal writer Jason Gay recently bemoaned:  "The goal posts have moved from write the next Great American Novel to put on pants by 3 p.m."

The wisdom of Gandalf in Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring says it all:

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.  "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

Taking just one tiny step is like a concentric circle (above),  because one layer leads to the next, one step to another, and one action often initiates and energizes a new direction. 

And in the layering, we may actually end up doing more than we first intended, accomplish things we never knew we were capable of, or realize the extraordinary in what only appeared as an insignificant action.  Faithfulness does not differentiate between the highest calling from the mundane, but sticks to what is needful, even when we cannot yet see the results... or an outcome at all.

We are living in unexpected times right now, a vast narrative unfolding before us, in so many dimensions and directions.  I don't want to waste what I shoulda, woulda, coulda done, smothered by the grand "might have been."  I do not know the future, but God has given me today.  And in God's economy, nothing is insignificant.

For the day of small things is not to be despised.
            ...you shall be a blessing.
Fear not,
   but let your hands be strong.

                             Zechariah 4. 10, 8. 13

The point is not just to fill up the hours, but let God fulfill them.  God says, be fruitful and multiply.  And He will do the redeeming.  We are not defined by the significance of the things we do, but changed even more by being present in what is placed before us. 

"What then shall I do this morning?  How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.  What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing," said author Annie Dillard in her book The Writing Life. 

Jonathan Edwards, a pastor in the early 1700s, wrote down a list of 70 resolutions to guide him in his thoughts, attitudes, and actions.  In resolution 52, he ponders, "I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again:  Resolved, that I will live...as...I shall wish I had done."

We will never walk this way again.  May we not deceive ourselves by adding another "round to it"  by thinking, "Well, look at what I am going to do when this lockdown is over."  May this God-given time be marked by deep transformation, unlittered by regrets.

What am I doing with this time given to me?  Concentric circles are not based on accomplishment, but incremental growing in layers that alters the shape of our lives.

We are not called to just fill up our days,
or somehow get through this,
                   but learn
                   to live faithfully.

And what about today?

What's up for today?  I have no idea.

But one thing I do know, no matter how bleak the landscape, no matter how swiftly changing the circumstances, no matter how long, overwhelming -- or underwhelming -- this day appears, God is in it.  God is with us.  We are not alone.

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said,
"Surely the LORD is in this place,
and I did not know it."

                         Genesis 28. 16

I don't want to emerge from this strange season, and look back through the rear-view mirror, before I see the evidence all around of His Presence -- even in the hard stuff, not just at the end of this, or the beginning of something new, but on the journey through. It is on the long road trips of life that we get to know God more. God never promised life would be easy in this broken world, but "I am with you."  He is not about to abandon us now.

While running through the woods in early spring, the paths were lined with what only appeared as trees on life support, leaning against each other for another day of courage.  But the sepia-toned landscape was not dead, not game over, but waiting, biding its time, growing deep underneath, where I could not see.

And there, suddenly, just waiting for me on the side of the hard dirt path, were a few blooms of hope. I had almost run past this cluster of splendor, not noticing the signs of life surrounding me.  This assurance of things not yet seen was rising up gloriously out of a carpet of dead leaves, resembling just a little bit the faithfulness of God.  This is not the end of the story after all,  but just a glimpse of the glory to come.

Surely the LORD
              is in this day.

And I don't want to miss it.

Not just a small little Easter

In these strange times, our traditions may have changed in the way we celebrate this day.  But Easter is not different this year.  It is not just a small little Easter, but perhaps, without all the trappings and wrappings and things added to it through the ages, the message of Easter is clearer now, more than ever before.

Christ has risen.
He has risen indeed.
He is still our resurrected Savior.

And He is still in the life-changing business.

There are seven words that altered the world.
At Christmas, the angels declared,
              "He is here!"
At Easter, the angel proclaimed,
               "He is not here!"

Jesus said,
   "I am the resurrection
                  and the life.
Whoever believes in Me,
though He die,
                yet shall He live."

                        John 11. 25

The Gospel literally means
              "Good News"
that this life
           is not all there is.
That is why Jesus came and died
                      and rose again
that we can live forever.
We are loved,
          more than we can know.
We are not alone,
                  even in this.

It's not just a small little Easter
                               after all.

Jesus is all over it.

Defining moments

 
We all have been reeling from the radical changes that have hit us in the past five weeks.

Strange as it may seem, the difficulties, the demise of health and economy, the lockdowns, began about the time of Ash Wednesday, February 26 this year, the beginning of Lent.

Lent now has a new tangible definition that we will never forget.  Lent is traditionally preparation for Easter through prayer and repentance and self-denial, so that when Easter is celebrated, we realize the significance of Christ's suffering for us.  Without Good Friday, there is no Easter.

This year, Lent became not just a serious contemplation about suffering, but a daily visible reminder of the deep suffering around the world.  The often trivial handling of Lent -- giving up chocolate and other indulgent behaviors-- seemed so shallow in the light of the suffering before us and grasping the entirety of this broken world.  There is not one of us who has not been touched in some way by this.  Each of us was compelled in our own ways, to push back the darkness as much as we are able by staying at home to decrease not just unnecessary exposure for us and others, but to increase life.

Every life is sacred.  Every day of staying home, every hour of lockdown, opens up another hospital bed, makes available yet another ventilator, and saves another life.  This is far beyond inconvenience and mere momentary affliction, but life itself.  I really struggled with "What can I do?" Stay home. That is the most loving way we can respond.  It is a matter of life and death.  And that life may not be your own.

I have thought almost continually this year during Lent about those selfless servants in desperate conditions in hospitals and clinics, putting themselves right in the path of this deadly invisible foe named Covid.  May we be totally aware of, pray for, and thank these heroes, the exhausted doctors and nurses and support staff who have given up everything to save innumerable lives.

Night after night, the news stations broadcast the sheer intensifying numbers, but the medical professionals know names and faces.  Those who are extremely sick, struggling for breath, and dying are people -- someone's sister, child, dad, cousin, neighbor -- not a statistic.

As we approach Easter this Sunday, may we be reminded of Jesus who came to die to save us from our own brokenness.  He suffered and gave his life, because He loves each one of us.  This is not a religious belief, but a life-changing personal relationship.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem to shouts of "Hosanna!"  which does not mean "Woohoo! Go Jesus!"  But "Lord, save us!"   Jesus was not coming to conquer the ensuing political domination, but to die and conquer the enslavement of our own selfishness, which is what sin is.  On the cross, Christ redeemed those shouts of "Lord, save us." 

And on Easter, Hosanna was translated into Hallelujah.  Christ rose from the grave to prove He is who He said He is.  "He is not here.  He is risen, as He said." (Matthew 28. 6)  Good Friday was not the end of the story after all. 

On this Easter, celebrate, but please rejoice at home.  Let your Easter celebration at home allow someone to live.  No one is immune from this pestilence.  It matters.  It matters a lot.  Easter, after all, is not about family get-togethers, bunnies, ham dinner and jelly beans, but what Christ has done for us.

He is risen.  He is risen indeed.   That we may live in relationship with Him and to live forever and ever.

By this we know love,
that He laid down His life for us...


                        1 John 3. 16

Because of Jesus,
    life can never be the same.
Our hope in Him
   is not based on wishful cheery thinking,
                      "We'll get through this!"
but our hope
   is on Whom 
                  we can stake our lives. 

Not just dirt

He said therefore,

"What is the

kingdom of God like?

And to what

     shall I compare it?

It is like

a grain of mustard seed

that a man took

and sowed in his garden,

and it grew

       and became a tree,

and the birds of the air

made nests in its branches.

            Luke 13. 18-19

In this time of Covid, a friend of mine who is an amazing poet has set aside her words and focused on her garden.  When I asked her this week how she was doing, she replied, "I am well.  Not writing, but my yard has never looked better."

Those neglected winter garden beds do not appear as just dirt to her. There is deep poetry in that soil,  that which is growing, that which is not yet ripe, that which is coming to the surface someday, that which needs a little care and dirt under her fingernails.

A tree does not just appear full-grown, but its majesty is built in infinitesimal increments.  It starts with a tiny little seed, nurtured even in impossible environments, and then, there is growth.  And God brings it.

This time we have been unexpectedly given is not just to be endured.  We will be changed not just by getting through it and moving into what is next, but by what is now.  What am I sowing today?  What am I planting?

 "I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.  "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."  -- J. R. R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring

God has given to us this unusual time to not just do different things,

                   but to do the ordinary differently.

There is nothing insignificant in God's economy, 

nothing He cannot use,

                 no barren land, 

                               only that which has not yet visibly been transformed.

We see but the rocky soil choked with weeds

              or too bitterly hard to consider,

but God,

           God sees immense beauty

                                          already in the dirt.

God grows our smallest actions,

          even a kind and encouraging word,

                         into a perennial garden,

into a beautiful forest with refreshing shade

                  and tremendous fruit,

    an acoustic sanctuary

            for the chorus of birds,

                         the music of the spheres.

The mountains and the hills before us

shall break forth into singing,

and all the trees of the field

                    shall clap their hands.

                                 Isaiah 55. 12

I ran through the forest this morning

       surrounded by that rhythm and laughter,

   a thousand shades of newborn green,

                 refreshing my soul.

Faithfulness plants seeds,

    one no less valuable than another.

Faithfulness is not motivated

   by the end result,

       because we cannot comprehend

       the million layers of outcome,

   nor understand the deep abiding goodness

                    that crouches underneath,

   that someday will burst forth

            out of the ground that everyone

                       has given up on. 

What we do,

what we do for others

                   does something to us,

   the strengthening of our hearts,

   the deepening of vision,

the bearing of fruit,

the growing of magnificent trees

in ways we may

                   never recognize,

for the glory of God that

             will outlive us all,