What We Cannot Know

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He had no idea what he did.

This afternoon, Robert Wolgemuth is being laid to rest, having died rather suddenly of pneumonia that just wouldn't let go.  I haven't seen or talked to him in decades.  The obituary of this faithful man stated his recognizable and notable achievements of which there were many, but those tributes never tell the whole story.

When we met, Bob, as he was known then, had just graduated from college.  He was starting a chapter of Campus Life youth ministry at my high school.  In the course of his career, that ministry appeared to be just a short-lived blip -- but those are the moments that do not just prepare us for what is to come, but even how God uses us in what is now.  Faithfulness to God goes way back.

One evening when the youth meeting was over, Bob had no idea that the words he said to me were going to be so sticky. I didn't realize it at the time either. We rarely do.  But well-placed words and sacred encounters don't just come to the surface of our thoughts every now and then, but follow us around for a long time.  Those words are sometimes what we need to carry with us.  Sometimes we don't even know that we need them.  Or need them right now.

I was the shy girl on the edge of the crowd.  Most of the time I held a small notebook that I brought to the meetings, in case I wanted to write something down.  He noticed.  And one week asked if he could read some of my writings.  Reluctantly, I let him borrow my notebook.  The next week when he handed it back to me, I expected him to repeat what others had said in condescending tones, "Oh, that was really good," as if I was a kindergartner who drew a picture of purple and orange stick figures.  

But he didn't.  He said, "I hope you didn't mind that I copied down some of your poems." 

His words stuck.  They encouraged that timid 14-year-old to keep on writing.  They still do.

Who are the people who have influenced us most?  Not the ones who thought they did, but those without the slightest notion of their impact, those who radiated the unconscious loveliness of the Lord's touch.      ---Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest 

God places each of us daily in divine appointments to encourage others and love them to Him.  God's faithfulness changes the course of lives every day.  One unforgettable word at a time.

It's our turn. 

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.  Proverbs 25. 11

 

Of The Making Of Many Books, There Is No End: My 2025 Chronicle of Books

One of my first memories as a little girl was getting my very first library card.  I didn't have to prove I could read, but just that I could scribble my name. I practiced for weeks.  I couldn't wait.  The library was a wonder to me.  All those books for the taking.  And reading. And reading again.  Mom limited how many books I could check out. And often hid them from me at home. My foremost rebellion as a child was reading with a flashlight under the covers.

You're going to ruin your eyes!  Mom warned me over and over.  I thought it was worth the risk. 

The library is still a remarkable, splendid and moveable feast to me. 

One of my favorite books of 2025 was Theo of Golden, a self-published paperback novel that literally took the publishing world by surprise this year.  It was written by near-70 year old first-time novelist Allen Levi who lives by himself in rural Georgia. He never even intended for it to be published.  That would have been a shame.  Even as I write this post, the Nashville library alone owns 42 copies of the physical book with 334 people on the wait list.  There are 123 copies of the e-book with an astonishing 771 people on the wait list. And that is just Nashville. It ranks at the top of my list this year.  A gem of a story.

Of the making of many books, there is no end, the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 12. 12.  I am grateful to God for the creativity of those who are faithful to their calling. 

I did not read as many books this year, but I discovered new authors and savored their words. My new favorite novelist is Niall Williams, an amazing Irish writer.

Here's my 2025 list with a few annotations from my favorites: 

Even After Everything: The Spiritual Practice of Knowing the Risks and Loving Anyway by Stephanie Duncan Smith (2024)

Table for Two by Amor Towles (2024)

Why Everything That Doesn’t Matter, Matters So Much: The Way of Love in a World of Hurt by Andi Ashworth and Charlie Peacock (2024) No one gets to adulthood without a past....be on the lookout for redemption. It comes in waves.....In essence, I was training for a work I could not yet see or know.

A Shepherd Looks At Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller (1970)

The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis (1954)  He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.  

The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller (2012)

Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago by Kerry Egan (2004)

Foster by Claire Keegan (2010)

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi (2023)  ...for helping people see themselves for who they really are.

Stories of the Saints: Bold and Inspiring Tales of Adventure, Grace, and Courage by Carey Wallace (2020)

Time of the Child by Niall Williams (2024)  But storytellers skip the everyday, mistaking the ordinary for the dull, seizing on the sensational and leaving out the habitual that is in fact the fabric of life.

The Reading Life by C. S. Lewis (2019)   As we read we find ourselves sharing their burden;  when we have finished, we return to our own life, not relaxed but fortified.  [Fellowship of the Ring]

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa (2017)

Bel Canto: The Annotated Edition by Ann Patchett (2001, 2024)

Tinkers by Paul Harding (2009)

The Hospitality of Need by Kevan Chandler and Tommy Shelton (2025)  It's not just people saying yes to my need, but me saying yes to their participation.       

As It Is In Heaven by Niall Williams (1999) When something of great size moves into the heart, it dislodges all else.

Four Letters of Love by Niall Williams (1997)

You Have A Calling:  Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good and Beautiful by Karen Swallow Prior (2025)   What if your calling isn’t what you get paid to do?  What if it is?  What if your calling isn’t something you feel passionate about every day – or even most days?.... What if a calling isn’t just about what you do but how you do it? What if it isn’t just about doing a certain thing but also about being a certain way?

Little Shrew by Akiko Miyakoshi (2024)

An Axe For The Frozen Sea by Ben Palpant (2025)

October, October by Katya Balen (2020)

The Teacher of Nomad Land  by Daniel Nayeri (2025)  And because He has freely given these things I do not deserve, then I can freely share with you......Did God give you to us, or did He give us to you?.....Only love lets us forgive the inconvenience of other people. 

 Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story by Wendell Berry (2025)

Living in the Present with John Prine by Tom Piazza (2025)  John’s show wasn’t good because his vocal intonation was perfect, or his guitar technique was perfect, or his guitar was perfectly in tune, or because he was making no mistakes…Quite the contrary!  But it didn’t matter.  Because his ability to deliver the rest of it – the emotional part – was so in the stratosphere that none of that mattered. 

Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says About The Environment and Why It Matters by Sandra Richter (2020)

Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley (2015)

My Dear Hemlock by Tilly Dillehay (2024)

The Happiness Files:  Insights on Work and Life by Arthur C. Brooks (2021-2024)

The True Gift by Patricia MacLachlan (2009)

 Letters From Father Christmas 1920-1943 by J. R. R Tolkien (1976)

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (1935)

An Incremental Life by Luci Shaw (2025)  Never give up on the grace of God.

Just Like That by Gary D. Schmidt (2021)   Bless us in the unexpected.....She’s not going to have a new start, thought Meryl Lee. There is no new start.  There’s only what’s next.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day By Day by Peter Scazzero (2008)

Bread of Life: Savoring the All-Satisfying Goodness of Jesus Through The Art of Bread Making by Abigail Dodds (2021)  She knows the two most important things:  she is in need of help, and He is able to give it........Knowing there is a purpose behind the pressing down and rolling out can change our experience of the pain.....We need the Word. We need the people of the Word.

Humans Of New York by Brandon Stanton (2013)

History of the Rain by Niall Williams (2014)

The Bible  Never underestimate the power of God's Word.  Of all the books I read every year, the Bible continues to change the course of my life.  From my own reading, I post a daily scripture verse in my blog www.worddujour.blogspot.com  Don't go into the day hungry for God's Word. 

 

But Just Right

My mom was a professional violinist, and it always seemed, furiously practicing. Her fingers continually drummed even silently, practicing her repertoire, pieces she already knew and those she was engraving in her heart. She only ever read the Chicago Daily News, devouring it like the gospel itself, delivered on our driveway every afternoon.

Dad was a quintessential research scientist, crazy bushy eyebrows and all.  Even when he was home, well, he was not really there.  To him, reading was a waste of time. Why read when you could be inventing something?

My grandmother lived out my childhood with me.  She occupied a small first floor bedroom, busily keeping house for our family of six, including my two oblivious parents.

Every night, she pulled herself up the stairs with her arthritic knees to put me to bed with the story of the three bears.  It may have been the only story she knew by heart.  No book.  No pictures. Just the words. Just her raspy alto voice. Just the story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She didn’t talk about Goldilocks with beautiful long blond ringlets.  But she narrated the story of a little girl with unruly hair who wandered into a house looking for a place where she would fit in, a bowl just the right size, a comfy chair in a quiet room, being tucked gently into bed, no matter the chaos in the rest of the house. The story became a liturgy of memorized words and measured breaths. She sat sidesaddle on the edge of the bed, her soft warm leg leaning against mine.

I never knew whether the story was describing her life or mine.

I was not the curly-haired violin prodigy my mother wanted me to be, possessing legendary talent that compelled people to rise to their feet.  When I was old enough to read myself, I hid library books with a flashlight under my bed. Mom threatened to take them away.  “You’re going to ruin your eyes.”  “You could be practicing!” I was not just wasting time, but wasting my life. 

My three brothers pursued their own paths of giftedness, as one interest led yet to another. The house was a mess.  Mom commandeered the living room, her music piled high in stacks on the back of the piano and cups of cold forgotten coffee scattered everywhere like clues to a mystery.  My dad secluded himself in his laboratory at work, rarely realizing when it was time to go home. 

Dad thought in numbers and formulas.  All that mattered to Mom was notes.  For me, it was words. Dad loved his laboratory. Mom dreamed of Carnegie Hall.  I couldn’t wait to go to the library.  Three lives.  Three languages.

My grandmother saw our family's story being worked out page by page, and chapters unfolding season by season. And she understood me standing bewildered in the midst of it. The bears’ lives seemed so normal.  Quaker oatmeal in morning bowls.  A company of chairs in a book-lined living room. Soft beds with comforters.  And oh, how about a daily walk together in the woods?

Is that how other people lived?

I was never afraid of those ferocious bears.  Instead, they were a comfort to me, appearing in a story told faithfully every night. And always with a happy ending. Because in my heart, the little girl got to stay.

In A Galaxy Far, Far Away....Or Not ---Inktober 12 #remote

When I was working for a homebuilders' magazine way back in the late 1970s, I had an hour and a half commute each way from my apartment in the suburbs to my office cubicle in downtown Chicago. I walked a mile to the bus stop, rode the bus, caught the train, and then trekked another mile across town to the office.

I wrote most of the day not on a screen, but paper scrolled into an electric typewriter.  And then, at the end of the day, I slipped back into my walking shoes (or boots) and reversed my course.

One day I asked my boss, if I could work at home a day or two a week, to get the copy done.  "You want to do what?" he asked incredulously. "In what galaxy do you think people would work from home?"

Needless to say, the term remote working would not enter our vocabulary for many decades later.  I continued to commute.

And then, everything changed radically.  We moved from Chicago to small town Jackson, Tennessee in the early '80s.  The magazine still needed me to write on assignment. And we discovered not if I could write from home, but how.  Federal Express was in its infancy.  As long as I got my floppy disk to the small airport by 8 pm, Fed Ex would deliver my copy to the office by 10 am the next morning.  Imagine that!  And then another decade down the road, the internet anchored my freelancing while we raised four daughters, in several more remote locations.

Remote working, remote learning, TV remotes (no, we didn't have one of those either), and now since covid, even remote tele-doctor appointments.

But there is one thing not remote, never has been, and never will be.

For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.  It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?"  Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?"  But the Word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.     Deuteronomy  30. 11-14

God is not remote.  He has given us His Word on that.

Daily Trek Inktober 6 #trek

When we lived in Chicago, the pathway of my morning trek was a familiar one by design.  I ran it enough that I knew-- without nary a thought --when to turn, when to switch to the sidewalk, the best place to cross the train tracks, and when I reached the point of “heading back home.”  

Of course, this familiarity came in handy in my early morning mental fog, before my morning cup of coffee kicked in.  Or when I was deep in thought, praying through the day or for friends who are struggling, or simply writing in my head.  It was like an organic internal GPS.  A voice does not tell me where to turn – I just follow the path before me.

One place on that daily trek was an old railway line, converted back in the 1960s into a running/walking/cycling path.  On weekends, the trail was crowded with adults and kids on bicycles, moms and dads with jogging strollers, old friends conversing, and runners training singly or in pairs.  Weekday mornings, commuters rushed toward the train station and cyclists hurried to work, but for the most part, it was just a quiet sanctuary of trees to run through.  

One morning, fog was added to the mix, looking a bit mysterious as if out of a Jane Austen novel, a shady part sometimes a bit creepy on a foggy morning.  Once running on this section, looking for where the next street crosses at the train station, I thought:  What if I enter this path someday and the train station is not at the end?  What if I come out somewhere else…..or five years later in my life?  How will things be different?  How will I be different?

We are all trekking on paths designed by God for His Kingdom and for our good.  We cannot know what turns the paths will take or if indeed the expected train station will be at the end, but we can be assured of a few things:  God is with us to provide strength for the journey, wisdom to handle what we encounter on the way, grace to deal with those we meet, and His purposes manifest in our lives.  It will all make sense someday.  

Five years from now—or today – may not be what we planned, but it is firmly lodged in His plans.  We have only to run with Him through it.  And perhaps, be surprised at the next intersection where He has brought us.  We may have trekked further than we thought, or landed at a destination not even on our radar.

In Our Comings and Goings -- Inktober 2 #discover

My biggest creative moments rarely arrive when I am sitting at my desk, but when I am doing something else, mostly when I am doing something that bans any kind of creative action at that very moment.   Traveling 70 miles per hour on Interstate 40, I am bombarded by ideas, the revving up of my limited creativity, hardly the place to write, even to jot down a couple of words on any available scrap of paper.

But as soon as I arrive at my destination or back home and pull into the garage, as soon as I turn off the car, any prevailing thought or idea evaporates, like birds swiftly flying through the air and into the unknown. 

I sit down immediately to a blank screen.  An hour later, it is still staring back at me without words.  Doing something else appears to be the key to connecting the dots.

I wait these things out.  Those vanishing thoughts are not an end in themselves, but the beginning of yet, perhaps, another direction, another part of the story.  What has flown past once will return, what has caught my attention will take up residence in a different form.

What is significant, what bears tremendous purpose, what brings fruit, are not necessarily our intentional pursuits -- or on our radar-- but what we discover along the way of doing something else.  It is in our comings and goings, we find the deeper things.  They don't arrive on our doorstep, nor drop magically in our laps. We do not necessarily discover them in extraordinary circumstances, nor do they just sprint to us.  But it is in doing something else that we find them, even in the most familiar surroundings, often in the mundane, especially on the way looking for something else.

Call them as they are:  divine appointments, eternal encounters, the hand of God, the sacred connections and holy intersections and the clicking together of two seemingly unrelated things that only God can snap seamlessly into place.

Discovering is living expectantly even in the ordinary, which is never so ordinary at all.

...and the hand of the LORD
 was upon him there.

                          Ezekiel 1. 3

Right upon us here as well, right where we are, right in the midst of this, right under our feet. Not just a matter of discovery, but direction.  Do we recognize it?  God sings His faithfulness over us.

As Wendell Berry says in his iconic novel Jayber Crow, "...and times when, looking back at earlier times, it seemed I had been wandering in the dark woods of error.  But now it looks to me as though I was following a path that was laid out for me, unbroken, and maybe even as straight as possible, from one end to the other, and I have this feeling, which never leaves me anymore, that I have been led."

Several years ago, as my husband Bill retrieved a bag of potting soil from under the deck, he found not just the plastic sack of dirt he was looking for, but what he was not looking for.  The "lost" pole for our bird feeder was poking out from under the gravel, hidden in plain sight for five years, discovered when we were on the way to something else.  

We cannot take credit for discoveries.  God wakes us up to what is already there, waiting to emerge, waiting to be grasped and shared.  And sadly, we miss what we have left untried.

When we least expect it, as we are being faithful to Him in what we are doing, God brings an opportunity along our way, unexpected and in the most unlikely situations, sometimes even in the uncanny.  When we ask where did that come from?  God chuckles. And all these "unrelated" things that we have been doing and pursuing are just the training ground for what God has placed before us.  Just waiting to ripen. 

Just waiting to be discovered.

Inktober 1 Backpack

Inktober began in 2016 with 31 prompts to encourage daily creativity.  Originally designed for daily sketches, it now encompasses both visual and written art -- and for some, a combination of the two.  I have decided to jump into the challenge this October and utilize the daily prompts in my writing.  Some contributions will be much shorter than others.  Backpack is the first prompt.  Please feel free to join in the fun. www.inktober.com

My first contribution is a reprint of my nightlytea blog about backpacks entitled The Bulky, Scary, and Too Much to Carry.

 

Last year, it was my privilege to meet the school bus on Tuesday afternoons and greet four of our elementary-age grandchildren.  One of our then first-graders would always beg for me to carry his backpack home from the bus stop.  And every week, I took the backpack and replied, “What do you have in here?  Bricks?”

After snacks, I always asked about homework, and this little one would say, “I don’t think I have any.”

“Let’s take a look.”  I lifted his stuffed heavy backpack to the kitchen table and looked inside. One item at a time, layer by layer, I began spreading out the contents, the treasured collections of a curious little boy.   Crumpled worksheets already graded, his school-supplied Chromebook, a partially eaten lunch undated, an empty metal water bottle, several library books (“I was wondering where those were,” he chuckled), notices about past school events, a couple beloved small stuffed animals, a wrinkled t-shirt, dirty socks, his jacket that had been lost, and at the bottom, well, there was his new list of spelling words for the week and a practice sheet for subtraction. 

It was all spread out on the table.  The bulky, the scary, and the too much to carry.   

One of the ways the Old Testament talks about praying is spreading out our personal stuff before the LORD -- the good, the bad and the ugly. 

Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it, and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.  And Hezekiah prayed… Isaiah 37. 14-15

Like Hezekiah in the midst of panic-inducing turmoil, praying is our first response, not last resort.

Not laying before God our pre-conceived answers or carefully manipulated outcomes, but coming with hands spread out and open to receive what God lays before us.  Spreading out, clearing out, handing off our griefs, fears, and anxieties, and trusting Him instead. 

What does prayer have to do with all this?  Everything. A literal come-to-Jesus moment.

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest….For My yoke is easy, and My burden in light.  Matthew 11. 28, 30

The tipping point, when we are so burdened and overwhelmed, is asking God for help, not shirking our responsibilities, but unloading twenty pounds of unnecessary rocks of anxiety in our backpacks that God never intended us to drag along in the first place.

We spread out before Him what appears as heavy baggage we have to carry, wounds still unhealed from the past, favorite grudges we just can’t let go, and even irritations, like pebbles in our shoes, the unseen, distracting, and the hurtful.  Spreading out allows God to reveal what is real and what is not, what is essential, and what is just toxic junk handicapping our hearts. 

When we pray and open up our hearts before God, the things that defeat us are not so insurmountable at all. Worries and frightful things are revealed to be as they are, imaginary dragons that occupy way too much brain space, clog up our emotions, take up a demanding residence for us to care for fulltime, and push us to our limits.

It’s easy to see what others need to deal with.  But we all have stuff in our heavy-laden backpacks that needs to be prayed through.  What do we need to spread out before the Lord?  The busy details of this overscheduled day, the accumulated layers of fears that weigh us down, and way-down deep in the bottom the fierce and overwhelming foes that we cannot even begin to face.  Let Me carry that for you.

When we spread out these things, we are not revealing anything new and mysterious to God.  He sees and knows already.  But spreading and praying out into the open where we can see them in the sunlight, we find them faded, broken and without any power over us.  When we spread them out, God always unfolds something new.