...with my eyes closed

…still with Thee in closer, dearer company,

in work that keeps faith sweet and strong ,in trust that triumphs over wrong;

in hope that sends a shining ray far down the future’s broadening way,

in peace that only Thou canst give, with Thee, O Master, let me live.

---Washington Gladden, 1879

Meat, browned. Tomato paste and water. Beef bouillon paste, spices. Red beans. Cook in crockpot, add salt and tomatoes in juice.

In my sleep I made this recipe, stumbling through blurs of soccer seasons, choir seasons, season seasons. With my eyes closed, with one hand tied behind my back, while pretending I understood the math homework. So when middle child texted for the recipe, I sent it off from pure muscle memory. …”Mom? Is there any kind of tomato stuff in there before the ones at the end?” …”Yes. The tomato paste and water at the beginning…” “Ummm, not there. Did you leave it out?”

Well. A little lesson for me on the power of habit, and falling out of it. When I had stopped making chili by the bucketful, the habits that guided my cooking (and the mental index card that held the much-loved recipe) had fallen away too. Walking in the company of Jesus, our teacher and friend, incorporates habits—habits of work, trust, hope, peace. In the daily practice, the repeating rhythm of these habits we exercise walking in the presence of Christ, we find our way to life.

In Christ’s closer company, we become what we practice.

...behind the mask

Will you love the “you” you hide if I but call your name?

Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?

*

 Lord, Your summons echoes true when you but call my name.

Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.

In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show.

Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me.

--John L. Bell and Graham A Maule, 1987

Mardi Gras is a couple of weeks in our rear view mirrors, but I still come across strings of purple beads tucked between the cushions in my sofa, or under the seat of my Honda. I know for a fact I’m still working the Fat Tuesday pancakes off my hips (Shakira preached truth when she said “hips don’t lie”). And if you follow the Mardi Gras pageantry in New Orleans (or in Mobile, where Mardi Gras is even older), or even the Krewe de Tigris fun of a small-town Auburn Mardi Gras, you know that masks are a vital part of the revelry.

Masks allow us to pretend, to be someone or something other than who we are for a bit. They are pretense, misdirection, fantasy. Masks are fun or spooky, glamorous or mysterious.

But friends. When masks become our daily uniform, when we hide the reality of our lives--our truest joys and our deepest anguishes—from the world, and from ourselves, then our masks will be our undoing. Jesus calls us, by name, to repudiate fear’s power over us, the power that keeps us tied to the sameness of those masks. Jesus calls us, by name, to step out from behind the masks that are smothering us, to step into the uncovered truth of God’s love.

Out in the open, unmasked, there is moving, and living, and growing, in the company of Christ.