...the wholeness, after

I thank You, Lord, for each new day, for meadows white with dew,

for the sun’s warm hand upon the earth, for skies of endless blue,

for fruit and flower, for lamb and leaf, for every bird that sings,

with grateful heart I thank You, Lord, for all these simple things.

---Mary Kay Beall, 1991

Chaos is built of complexity. It is busy-ness, and noise, and frenetic motion, and confused grasping. It is layers of responsibility and burden. It is a multiplicity of demands—those from within, those from without. It is the rushing, and the doing, and the chasing, and the getting. And it is the emptiness, after. The echoing emptiness, too, can be chaos.

Gratitude is crafted of simplicity. It is pause, and breath, and gaze, and attending. It is unhurried presence in the face of a rushing culture. It is listening for the highest call. It is the abiding, and the being, and the discovering, and the acknowledging. And it is the wholeness, after. The echoing wholeness, too, can be gratitude.

Intentionally choosing simplicity over complexity may guide us in the way of wholeness rather than emptiness. And choosing gratitude over chaos may remake our lives as offering –every heartbeat, every breath.

...this side of heaven

For the joy of human love,

brother, sister, parent, child,

friends on earth and friends above,

for all gentle thoughts and mild,

Lord of all, to Thee we raise this

our hymn of grateful praise.

---Folliott S Pierpoint, 1864

The joy of human love. Flawed, fragile, erring love, conditional and weak, sometimes selfish and self-serving. Love has come through and come around. Love has rescued and resisted. Love has let me down, and ground me down. Love has promised and lied. But love, nonetheless, sometimes wounded or wounding, the best we have to give and receive this side of heaven.

It’s an easy thing to be thankful for God’s love for us ---the perfect, endless, complete love of our boundless God, shown us in Jesus. This verse reminds us that there is joy in the human love we share with those close to us, imperfect thought it may be. And the more we practice this human love, the better reflection of God’s love we are able to mirror in our own relationships. The love of those around us strengthens and encourages.

Let’s raise our hymn to God for the joy of human love. Praise and gratitude, Lord of all.

Gifter, Maker (goodliness and gratitude)

The last couple of weeks, I have been thinking a lot about the varied and manifold ways God draws near to us and interacts with our lives. And in the drawing near, and in the relating in love, God is the giver of the good gift of our days here, spent in fellowship with God and with each other. And in the drawing near, and in the relating in love, God is the maker of ways where we cannot see a way, promising us that the path we walk we will never walk alone.

And these realizations formed in me a groundswell of gratitude---gratitude for a God with a sweeping view of history and a long view of the unfolding events of my life, and gratitude for a God with an interest in the day-to-day ordinariness of what feels oftentimes so monumental to me. Gratitude for a God meeting me where I am and dreaming me into something I can't even imagine for my life. Gratitude for a God spending enough time with me to allow a little goodliness to rub off.

And from that gratitude sprung this song. Hope it can speak for you today, too.

Gifter, Maker (a brand-new baby thanksgiving song)

Gifter, Maker

You birth us, you bear us

You craft us, you carry us

You mourn with us, you merry us

Gifter of days.

Befriend us and bend us

You soothe us and send us

Embolden and mend us

Maker of ways.

Thanks be to God up above

Creator of all that is good in us

Giver of love.

Thanks be to God with us now

Walking beside us to cheer and to guide us

For all of the days life allows.

Thanks be to God with us now.

----LACA, Nov'16