Facial recognition

As I pulled out of the garage, it was as desolate, bone chilling, and dark as a mid-January morning before dawn.  Because it was indeed a desolate, bone chilling, mid-January morning.  Not even the sun had risen yet.  I was on my way to Bible study on the other side of town, trying to beat the traffic.

But as I descended the long hill, around the curve on the deserted road, and across the bridge over the swollen creek, I gazed over the fallow fields, abandoned and frosted.  I gasped at what I saw.  "Keep your eyes on the road," I said out loud.

Because there was no mere biblical burning bush trying to get my attention.  The entire horizon of the new day was blazing with His glory.

My friend Marcia took this shot while she was driving to Bible study. Indeed, every one in our group from every part of town witnessed that same majesty.   I still have that image of Shekinah Glory engraved in my brain, this visible manifestation of God on earth, not just a natural occurrence, but a supernatural one -- which is the way God always works.
 
It was not like God was trying to prove His existence ("I AM"), but revealing His Presence ("I am right here with you.")  And He practices the same resurrection twice a day, every day, so precisely we know the very minute today, tomorrow, a hundred years from now, a thousand years before in history.  God's quotidian evidence is steadfast, immovable, and not subject to change, whether we are looking for it or not.

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above
      proclaims His handiwork.

                           Psalm 19. 1

The very moment I saw the beauty, literally before me,  all words were erased from my vocabulary.  But the silence was more than I needed to account for what I was feeling.  Not just what describes the awe, but what explains the awe?  Even among those who do not believe in God, even among those who follow Him, the wonder is but recognition of the Almighty.

There is a story here of His faithfulness, His grander narrative we cannot but catch a glimpse.  What does it take for us to see that?

"Now watch what I do with the rest of the day,"  God chuckled.

A Year in Books 2019

I chuckle as I post this list of books that I devoured in 2019.  When I was a little girl, my extroverted musician mom would literally hide my library books, in an effort to get me to do something useful, purposeful and life-affirming like learning to play the violin like her and moving freely among large gatherings of people.

I am still at it, Mom, sometimes (gasp!) reading more than one book at a time.  My life now, as then, was not consumed by books, but energized and in many ways enlarged by them, similar to how Mom herself was impacted by her music.  Just as she always had a piece she was working on, well, I almost always have a book cracked open, keeping my place with a pen or scrap of paper -- to underline, to take notes, to savor a truth, to grab a paragraph or two even in a brief opportune moment. 

One principle that continues to guide my reading, as C. S. Lewis recommended, "It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between."  I tried to include new and old, fiction and nonfiction, children's literature, spiritual formation, historical, scientific, and favorites read again.

And when I reluctantly come to the end of a really delightful book, I know now that this first reading is only preparation for a second reading sometime down the road.  As the French say "au revoir," see you again.

Enjoy!

Books 2019

1. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery (1941)
2. Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson (2018)
3. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2016) 
4. The War Before the War:  Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War by Andrew Delbanco (2018)
5.  Giving:  Purpose is the New Currency by Alexandre Mars (2019)
6. The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century  by Kirk Wallace Johnson 2018)
7. The Incomplete Book of Running by Peter Sagal (2018)
8.  Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland (1993)
9. Madison Park:  A Place of Hope by Eric L. Motley (2017)
10. An American Childhood by Annie Dillard (1987)
11. The Secret at Pheasant Cottage by Patricia St John (1978)
12. The Tanglewoods’ Secret by Patricia St. John (1948)
13. Rainbow Garden by Patricia St. John (1960)
14. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (1989)
15. The Gospel Comes with a House Key:  Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield (2018)
16.  Betrayed! by Stan Telchin (1981)
17. Nathan Coulter  by Wendell Berry (1960)
18. A World Lost by Wendell Berry (1996)
19. Remember by Wendell Berry (2008)
20. Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry (2004)
21.  Half the Church by Carolyn Custis James (2011)
22. Things As They Are:  Mission Work in Southern India by Amy Carmichael (1903)
23. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (2000)
24. John Steinbeck Working Days:  The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath by Robert DeMott, editor (1989)
25. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (2018)
26. The Root of the Righteous by A. W. Tozer (1955) 
27. The Storm On Our Shores by Mark Obmascik (2019)
28. Mama Maggie by Marty Makary and Ellen Vaughn (2015)
29.  Fidelity:  Five Stories by Wendell Berry (1992)
30. How (Not) To Be Secular:  Reading Charles Taylor by James K. A. Smith (2014)
31. Watch With Me by Wendell Berry (1994)
32. Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien (1978)
33. Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C. S. Lewis (1955)
34. Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt (2004)
35. Tender At The Bone:  Growing Up At The Table by Ruth Reichl (1998)
36. The Second Mountain:  The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks (2019)
37. Running:  A Love Story: 10 years, 5 marathons, and 1 life-changing sport by Jen A. Miller (2016)
38. Prayer:  Forty Days of Practice by Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson (2019)
39. The Road to Paris by Nikki Grimes (2006)
40. The Volunteer:  One Man, An Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather (2019)
41. Life Without Lack:  Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23 by Dallas Willard (2018)
42. The Testament by John Grisham (1999)
43. Save Me the Plums:  My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl (2019)
44. Ripple Effects by Pam Tebow (2019)
45. Racing the Rain by John L. Parker Jr. (2015)
46. What is a Family? By Edith Schaeffer (1975)
47. Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation by Frederick Buechner (1983)
48. The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found by Frederick Buechner (1999)
49. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman (2017)
50. 26 Marathons:  What I learned about Faith, Identity, Running, and Life from My Marathon Career by Meb Keflezighi (2019)
51. My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (1935)
52. The Bible

Different stage, different venue

As a little girl, I watched from the edge of the living room as my mother played her violin, hours and hours a day.  It was not "practicing" to her, but being absorbed into the music. Playing exercises, scales and difficult passages over and over again was anything but mundane to her.  She was energized by it.  Practice was not about how to play the notes better, but how she grew to love the music even more.

When she was practicing, she was in a different universe, oblivious to everything around her:  dogs barking, my brothers racing through the house, even something burning in the oven.  "Just give me a few more minutes," she would call out. "I'm almost done."  But she rarely was.

As she practiced and subsequently performed, she heard sounds and patterns that none of us would ever be aware of.  But she could also see, beyond our own vision of things, as I only found out after she had passed away.  She possessed a neurological condition called synesthesia, in which she could actually see colors associated with the notes.

At first, I wondered why she never talked about her synesthesia.  But one morning, I was suddenly struck by the realization that she never shared about synesthesia with me, because she must have thought everyone saw colors when they heard music.

From the time she was a little girl, being successful as a musician was how she was going to make it in this world.  She came from very humble beginnings.  Her father died after a long illness when she was still a teenager.  Her mother kept food on the table by teaching piano lessons.  Mom played live music on the radio to work her way through college.  She turned down an opportunity to come to Nashville as a member of the Grand Ol' Opry radio show, because her sights were set on a bigger stage.  She moved instead to New York City.

Through the years and four children and a few moves between Chicago and the East coast, God began using her music as her way of loving people.  God provided her a different kind of stage and different kinds of venues.  She kept her violin by her side and pulled it out in the most unexpected times and unlikely places to bless someone. She played in churches, nursing homes, hospitals, garden clubs, and elementary schools to encourage youngsters.  (She would not ask children, "Do you play an instrument?" but "What instrument do you play?"  Music was not an optional activity in her eyes.)

And when my dad was out of work for a long season, she taught violin to fledgling high school students in our living room, literally night and day.  She never made much money at it, but she kept us going, and she loved a lot of kids through the angst of life.

When she passed away almost fifteen years ago, as I was going through her piles of papers, I came across an index card on which she had written, "I always wanted to be famous, but a lot better things happened because I am not."

I was reminded of that message this morning, when I read this passage of Oswald Chambers from the early 1900s:  "We must never put our dreams of success as God's purpose for us;  His purpose may be exactly the opposite."  

What brings glory to God?  Watching my mom, I learned that nothing is insignificant in His sight.

Today, December 29, would have been mom's 100th birthday.

May I be faithful to what she taught me about life, how she loved God, and the soundtrack of grace  she engraved in the lives of so many. 


One generation shall commend
            Your works to another,
and shall declare
            Your mighty acts.

                       Psalm 145. 4

Happy birthday, Mom!

Just say it

After making a transaction at Costco, the clerk wished me, "Have a great day."
I responded, "Merry Christmas!"

She looked at me for a moment, surrounded in the store by decorations, gifts, even holiday music playing in the background, as if it hadn't occurred to her the reason for this stampede of customers.

And suddenly, it was as if great joy suddenly emerged and entered the equation, "Why, thank you!  You too!" she said.

For a brief moment, it was about Christmas.

A few days ago in church, we sang, "Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born!"

And yet, we are negligent in saying anything at all.  Has our culture become so secularized --indeed have we-- that blessing others with even the words "Merry Christmas!" is out of the ordinary?  Are we that afraid of being different? Or are we that oblivious to bearing witness to Him, even in this season?

In our corporate worship, we come before God to confess what we have done and what we have left undone.  Even what we say can make a difference in someone's life.  More than we can know.  "What if...?" I had said something?

Does my life, my vocabulary, what I do and say --even my salutations --embrace and reveal the reality of what Christ has done in me?

And all the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen...

                     Luke 2. 20

God never intended for us
       to keep His glory for ourselves.
And that goes far beyond
             how we decorate,
  but seeping radically in how we love others,
           what we do,
      and even infiltrates what we say.

What kind of overwhelmed?

What kind of overwhelmed
   do I choose this Christmas?

Shopping for presents?

Or seeking His Presence?

Behold a Virgin shall conceive
       and bear a son
and call His name Immanuel
  which means
           God with us.

            Matthew 1. 23