...the weary road

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
whose forms are bending low,
who toil along the climbing way
with painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
and hear the angels sing!
---Edmund H. Sears, 1849

Are you on the weary road? Not yet? Almost? Running parallel, and hoping to avoid the cross street that will carry you there? I don't mind telling you, I've been there---sometimes through no fault of my own, life's roadmap having directed me there through circumstance or happenstance, and me none the wiser. Sometimes, that destination was the fault of my own internal GPS, sending me down roads for which I was ill-equipped, weighed down with too much freight, exceeding the maximum passenger limit, barreling down some highway to God-knows-where, God-knows-why, because I have long ago forgotten the where and why. I'm weary, and that's what I know.

Right about then---right about now---angel song would sure sound nice. Right about then---right about now---I could lay down my burdens, and stretch my aching muscles, tense from constant alertness for that next thing coming to ambush my perfectly good day. Right about then---right about now---pulling over onto the shoulder of that weary road, and wrapping a blanket around me, climbing onto the hood of the car and leaning against the smooth windshield would feel pretty fine. Right about then---right about now---bathing in the starfall of a zillion messengers with heart-burstingly good news of real peace feels like all the heaven I need.

Right about then---right about now---glad and golden hours. Thanks be.

...who we are together

Every valley will be lifted up,
every mountain and hill eased low;
And the crooked path will lie straight,
and the rough patches smooth as glass:
And everywhere around will be evidence of 
the Lord,
And all of us will see it, the human family,
all of us together:
The Lord has always intended it be so.
---Isaiah 40:4-5 (para. laca)

Together. What a powerful word. Christianity is bound up, much of it, in individualism; making a personal profession of faith, choosing a private walk with Christ, developing an intimate relationship with God independent of any hierarchical relationship.

But there is a lot of together in faith. In this prophetic, forward-looking passage from Isaiah, the poet/seer yearns for the day when every geography is, well, flat. And if you are like me, and you are a mountain person, you are thinking, "Boooorrrrrrinnnnng. Who wants a world where everything is flat?" Which may be true. For the able -bodied. For the unencumbered. For the light traveler, not toting burdens, or children, or elderly parents. For the rested, not bent with sorrow or weariness.

But, for us all to gather around and witness the evidence that the Lord, Love, is here among us, we all have to be able to gather. The ground must be level and smooth, and the path must be straight, for us all to approach the glory of God. For us all to be witnesses, we first have to be here. Together. 

In this life, in God's household, if we don't approach together, we don't approach at all.

And all flesh shall see it together. (King James Version)

#ubuntu. I am who I am because of who we are together.

...that road trip, though

Holy Jesus, every day keep us in the narrow way;

and when earthly things are past, bring our ransomed souls at last

where they need no star to guide, where no clouds Thy glory hide.

---William C. Dix, 1861

Have you ever been on that road trip? The one where, because nobody is exactly sure where you are going, everybody is sure where you are going? The one where arguments follow every wrong turn (and every right, or left, one, for that matter)? The one where, for the life of you, you can’t remember what was so good about wherever it was you were going that you had to get in this car full of clowns and drive there? The one where the only thing you had running through your head was Tracy Chapman singing ‘Give Me One Reason to Stay Here (and I’ll Turn Right Back Around)’? Good trip gone bad, baby.

Now, imagine that trip---but with no clear destination, and only a vaguely-formed purpose in mind. Oh. And maybe the journey will take TWO YEARS. Or not. You’re on a need-to-know basis with the unfolding story, and apparently you don’t #needtoknow all that much. The things you know? Track the movements of a strange celestial happening, and follow that star. And find a King. No, not your king (that would be so easy---what do you think this is? Hide and seek?)…the King of a religious group in a Roman-occupied territory over there in that general vicinity. Oh. Now things become clear. #eyeroll But patience is a virtue, and the astronomers have plenty of time to work on their virtue as they follow.

You and I, though---how would we do with a challenge that nebulous, directions that vague, an objective sketched out in shifting sand instead of concrete? Would we follow, gifts at the ready--- staking our reputations, our futures, our hopes on a promise we traced on a map of the sky?

Would we gamble on a God who gambles on us, buying our souls from the meaninglessness of living without the star?

…and when earthly things are past, bring our ransomed souls at last

where no one needs a GPS, the path to show, the way to bless.

...before I believe

Where shepherds lately knelt and kept the angel's word,
I come in half-belief, a pilgrim strangely stirred.
but there is room and welcome there for me,
...and not alone for me.
---Jaroslav J. Vajda, 1986

Welcome. Welcome for me, stumbling in with no clue, and even less right. Not even sure why I'm here sometimes, not sure what draws me, who draws me, to this quiet scene. There is a diffuse light, and the damp warmth of night-calm animals. The babe makes the tiniest sounds...almost no sound at all. I remember a time when those newborn cries sounded louder than thunder. His mother comforts him; and it is easy, in that moment, to feel that everything in the babe's life will be charmed, that the star over the stable is a kind of sign, a blessing.

I know, of course. No one's life is lived under a blessing star. This baby won't be any different---will he? Because there is something...something...that pulls me to him. It isn't the charm of the star, or the comfort of the mother, though they hold their own appeal.

I need to believe there is room for me. Even before I believe.

...hush

Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly-minded, for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand.
---Liturgy of St. James, 5th cent.

Hush.

I'm afraid I often miss it. As a sometime musician, and a sometime wordsmith, I am a two-time loser in the silence department. Keep silence? I would sooner walk on my hands all day (and that, friends, is not happening). Most of the time, I see silence as a vacuum to be filled, an invitation to respond to, a note passed in fifth grade with a place to check 'yes' or 'no'. 

And even in, or especially in, worship, my response to perceiving the presence of God---vast as universe, close as breath---is sound and motion. Say something, do something---THERE IS GOD!
Like the Psalmist, I want to sing a new song---a loud one, a better one, a prettier one---to the Lord. Like David, I want to rip off my cloak and lose myself in a dance of such abandon that my soul will finally be revealed...<sigh>...to the one who created my soul and inhabits it still. Like Peter, I want to spring into action, gathering up sticks and building the hut to end all huts, so that, forevermore, #wecanallhangoutandthisfeelingwillneverchangebecauseJesusyouarethesparkliest.

When sometimes, the perfection, the completeness, the wholeness of worship might be bound up in silence. In stillness. In breatheinbreatheout. In wait. 

But. That's not my spiritual gift.

Hush.

...when the world turns

Though the nations rage from age to age,
we remember who holds us fast:
God's mercy must deliver us 
from the conqueror's crushing grasp.
This saving word that our forebears heard
is the promise which holds us bound,
till the spear and rod can be crushed by God,
who is turning the world around.
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.
---Rory Cooney, 1990

God's unearned pardon reigns down 
on those who make awe their breathe-in, breathe-out.
God's strength is exercised in a surprising way;
the proud find themselves alone with their 
hollow, shallow concerns.
God has emptied out boardrooms and 
stripped off power suits all over,
and raised up those who never grasped at greatness;
God pulls out a chair at the feast for the left-outs,
and the A-list are turned away at the door, 
shaking their heads in disgust.
God doesn't forget God's fundamental nature;
mercy, and the merciful, are at the very heart of God.
---Luke 1:50-55 (para. laca)

Power and might are not what they seem. Sometimes they are rather well-disguised. But look out. We may all be surprised by what strength looks like.

When the world turns.

...release God

There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness to God's justice which is more than liberty.
...
But we make God's love too narrow by false limits of our own;
and we magnify God's strictness with a zeal he will not own.
...
For the love of God is broader than the measure of our mind;
and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.
...
---Frederick W. Faber, 1854

What fools we are, to create God in our own petty little image, and then to submit ourselves, and each other, to this little-god's judgement and condemnation. When --- oh, God --- the world would expand to neverending-ness right away if we trusted that God was always more.

Always more. 

Always more love.

Always more kindness.

Always more acceptance.

Always more forgiveness.

If we would release God from the chains of being made in our brokedown image...and step into the blazing reality of, ourselves, being created in God's image. Imagine what we might become, what we might already be.

Always more.

Always more.

...light me up

Jyothi dho Prabhu.

(Give us light, O Lord.)

---bhajan, northern India

Give it to me, baby. 

Give me all your 4's (Go fish).  

Give me patience, and I want it right now.

Give me all your money, and nobody gets hurt.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.

Gimme.

We love the word. We use it early and often. To be fair, sometimes we are doing the giving, and that is a really good thing. But in this prayer from northern India, the pray-ers are asking---Give us light. We want it. What you have, Lord. Light of the world. Light for all time, or just the light that might get us through this present darkness. We yearn for that light, beg hungrily for it during our shadow seasons. And we maybe don't care if we sound grabby and greedy when we do the pleading. Our gimmes are that overpowering, and the dark is that, well, dark-ish.

Yet here's the thing. The prayer for light---Give it to us, Jesus---turns out to be not so selfish after all. Because the gift of light is sort of like Oprah's big car giveaway. Just one person can't get the light. Nah, light doesn't work that way. See, if you are sitting beside me? and you get light? guess what? That same light lights me up, too! And I can hear Oprah exclaiming, "YOU get a light! and YOU get a light! and YOU get a light!"

Because when light shines in this life, it lights up the whole place. That's the way light is. It's a gimme. 

Thank God.

...do you believe something?

O come to us; abide with us,
our Lord Emmanuel.
---Phillips Brooks, 1868

"I don't believe in anything. Do you believe something, Ms. Armstrong?" The teenage question was casual, almost throw-away; but there was already a life's worth of pain and betrayal in the carefully-controlled voice, the meaning of life bound up in the few words. I knew my answer had to be truth. And it had to be clear. Oh, and it had to be right then. Because life happens, well, at the speed of life. And I knew she'd already heard plenty of sermons. And lectures. And object lessons.

And she did not believe. Not one thing. 

And while I gathered up the pieces of my heart from where they'd fallen as it shattered, once again, at a broken world that does this to its kids, I slowed my breathing, and gathered my racing thoughts, and stilled my heart, and breathed a prayer. Wisdom, I prayed. Courage, I pleaded. Hope, I begged. Love, love, love, past pain, past failure, past bleak unbelief. And in I plunged.

"I do believe. Not in a God who micromanages the world and every little thing that goes on in it. I have seen too much hurt and pain in this world to believe that way about God. I can't be down with God pulling all the strings behind a world like this. But I do believe. I believe so much in a God that walks this life beside us, hurting with us when we hurt, and celebrating with us when we celebrate. This is the life with God I have experienced, and I can tell you I believe it."

"Well, I know you're right about the world, Ms. Armstrong."

God help us, I'm right about the world. God willing, I'm right about walking together. Here in this holy season, we anticipate the arrival of a God whose name is Emmanuel, 'God with us'. Not some God-up-there, or God-that-was, or God-with-a-carrot-and-a-stick. But God-here laughing at an inside joke,  God-here weeping at the pain of a hurting world, God-here when the path is the most difficult to discern. God-here God-now. Close as breath. Abiding. Emmanuel.

I believe.

...and now we wait

Match the present to the promise, Christ will come again.

Make this hope your guiding premise, Christ will come again.

Pattern all your calculating and the world you are creating

to the advent you are waiting: Christ will come again.

---Thomas H. Troeger, 1985

Wait. WAIT! Wait. There are so many different ways to say one simple word, so many colors and nuances to it. We wait --- in line. on hold. for that check in the mail. till hell freezes over. for that second chance, and the break that will make it ok. to be older. to be old enough. for time to heal all wounds (or wound all heels). till your father gets home.

And even Tom Petty knows, the waiting is the hardest part. All that standing still, and not doing anything, all the stasis and buzz of inactivity. All of the un-. So this Advent –time of waiting can seem pretty…well, pretty un-. Sitting around waiting for…for…God knows what, really. A baby born in a manger? A king, arriving all stealthy and incognito and un-kinglike? A household of God’s own making, realized in Heaven but reachable on earth? The Kingdom come?

But what if there is another way to wait? What if waiting on God’s household to come is the most active thing we can do? What if this waiting is full of dreaming, and planning, and co-creating along with the God who never really stopped in the first place? What if we play a part in ushering in that kingdom characterized by hope, peace, joy, love? What if this Advent waiting is anything but un-?

Come, Lord Jesus. We wait on you.

...time will tell

We ourselves are God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;

wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrows grown;

first the blade, and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;

Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

---Henry Alford, 1844

It doesn’t look like corn. It looks like wide blade grass; St. Augustine, or maybe Johnson grass. Not like corn. Not at first. But wait. Just wait. Keep caring for the plant, watering, weeding, tending. And wait. It doesn’t look like corn at first. But time will tell.

Our own efforts at cultivating the Good News about God’s gift of abundant life may be like tending that corn. It may not seem like our efforts are yielding any results, in ourselves or in the world around us. Funny thing is, though, our task is to water, weed, tend, care. And wait. It may not look like a harvest at first. But time will tell.

...be still, my soul

Be still, my soul: The Lord is on your side.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

leave to your God to order and provide;

in every change God faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: Your best, your heavenly friend

through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

---Katharina von Schlegel, 1752

There seem to be truths about life, truths that anyone who lives long enough will experience. Life is not always fair. Bad things happen to good (and bad) people. And the only constant in this life…is change. And while I have made my peace with life’s essential unfairness, and the fact that good and bad things happen to good and bad folks, change kicks me in the teeth like a schoolyard bully every time. Weird thing is, I resist change even when the situation I find myself in isn’t particularly ideal. Because, you know, change, OUCH. You may have a problem with one of the other of these great life truths.

And with truths like that, we need a friend in our corner. In this text from the mid-1700’s. we are reminded that God, our best friend, is on our side (your side, my side, all of our sides---but that’s another story for another day). Armed with this knowledge, we are empowered to tackle and solve some of life’s problems. And the others? Those river rapids rushing in the near distance? We are supported while wading through treacherous crossings, a strong arm firm around us lest we slip beneath the surface.

Be still, my soul…there is One beside you.

...being out there

O for a faith, a living faith, the faith that Christ imparts;

belief not locked in ancient creed, but flamed within the heart.

O for a fellowship of love, the love that welcomes all;

that helps the burdened with their load, and lifts them when they fall.

In gratitude for this, our church, a growing faith we claim.

We here resolve, for years to come, to serve in Jesus’ name.

---William R. Hornbuckle, 2007

Almost by definition, a living thing is one that is growing in some way---being changed from the inside out. A living thing is under construction, continually evolving, developing in ways both deep and wide from the nourishment being gathered from its environment. A nurturing, healthy, rich environment means strong, consistent growth---a healthy living thing.

This kind of growth marks a living faith, too; and the church is a natural and wonderful environment for nurturing the kind of development that marks lifelong growth. And the life-affirming thing about the church is that its role in growth doesn’t end with the nurture of personal faith! Because personal faith is not an end in itself, and the church should rightfully be woven into the fabric of not only personal growth, but the very life of the community.

We are strengthened and raised up in a living faith for the express purpose of pouring ourselves into the life of the world around us, with its hurts, and poverties, and divisions, and griefs. We are called to live our faith in the world, among our neighbors, being out there what we’ve learned of Christ in here. Our living calls us, compels us, to be there, in the world.

We have two hands, after all. One to hang on…and one to reach out.

...the table for everyday saints

Here we nurture and encourage as we share this common meal,

While we foster deep communion and our inner selves reveal.

---Larry E. Schultz, 2004

The starting blocks. The finish line. The beginning and the end. In the life of faith, communion serves both as birthing moment and gathering-in, as jumping-off and destination.

When our faith is new, and we are building our muscles of believing and living the life of love to which we have been called, the table provides communal strength and model for our growth. The saints with whom we share the love feast are there to hold our hands during our first tentative steps, to dust us off and brush away our tears after our falls and false starts. As our faith matures, as hopefully it will, we combine drawing strength from the communion of saints with offering our own to those who walk beside and  follow after us --- encouraging, guiding, offering grace, nurturing growth --- always finishing the course where it began, at the table of love.

For this table, for this feast, to nourish us as it could, for its communion to be true and deep, each place must be set as a safe place for the nakedness of honesty to rest, a place where we dare to reveal who we really are to each other. Where we seek to know each other in all our complexity. We must trust each other that much around the table…and being known, and knowing, must matter that much.

That table, everyday saints. Start to finish. Your place is saved. Come home.

...on reckless giving

Take whatever I can offer --- gifts that I have yet to find,

Skills that I am slow to sharpen, talents of the hand and mind,

Things made beautiful for others in the place where I must be;

Take my gifts and let me love you, God who first of all loved me.

---Shirley Erena Murray, 1992

Offering. Giving. $$$. If we are honest, many of us equate “giving” and “offering” with dollars. And there is no doubt about it --- the challenges of the world need your dollars, and mine. But what intangibles do you command that could make this world a better place? What of your own essence can you offer to God?

Is there a skill you can offer? Some expertise you can bring to a situation? What talent could you bring? Could you make the world a more beautiful place with your art, your music? Could you give voice to those without? Shirley Erena Murray, a New Zealand hymnist, imagines offering gifts and skills still “in development” to God; gifts we are still discovering can be offered in trust to God. Can we be reckless in our giving to God, offering up still unformed parts of ourselves in the assurance that utility, even beauty, can be shaped from them? Do we trust God to honor our gifts offered in love?

God. Who first of all loved us.

...rock, paper, scissors, water

By our nurture, by our culture every life is shaped to grow,

fed by long tradition’s learning, formed by mentors as we go;

tune our ears to hear the gospel questioning accepted thought,

ready to respect each other, see the gifts that each has brought.

---Shirley Erena Murray, 2004

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! If you are like me, you will remember this hand game from childhood. If you are a little less like me, you may remember it from earlier today! For those unfamiliar with it, the game is played using a hand sign each to represent rock, paper, and scissors, and two players face off with their hands out. After counting off three, each player ‘shoots’ one of the hand signs. According to a damage inventory, certain signs ‘beat’ other signs --- rock crushes scissors, scissors cut paper, paper covers rock. Best two out of three, of course, wins.

I have always felt that, if I played rock, paper, scissors, I would carry in a trump card, an unbeatable element against which none could stand. The longer I have owned my own home, and been responsible for the innumerable things that can go wrong there, the more sure I have become of my winning strategy. I would bring water to the game. Un. beatable. Boom. Because water dissolves paper into its pulpy components, and rusts the metal fabrication of scissors. And, given the time, water wears away stone to nothing. Not bragging or anything, but water wins every time.

So in our lives, who or what stands in the place of ‘water’ --- the steady, relentless, direction-shaping influence that ends up changing the complexion of our souls? Will culture do water’s work? Will we be eroded by our upbringing and family? Will mentors and learning shape us? Might, somehow, all of these waters flow together and chart their course across the core of us? Will these waters tune our ears and hearts to hear the radical message of the gospel, bathe away the hardness from us and expose the tenderness? What is water in your life?

Because, friends, water wins every time.

...let go of knowing

Green pastures are before me, which yet I have not seen;

bright skies will soon be o’er me, where the dark clouds have been:

my life I cannot measure, the path of life is free;

my Savior has my treasure, and he will walk with me.

---Anna L. Waring, 1850

The not knowing. Is there a more helpless feeling than not seeing the path that lies ahead of you, not being certain of what the future holds for you? How are we to plan, to plot our course, to steel ourselves against the possibility of future injury or harm without the knowing?

Let go. Let go of knowing. Let go the stress of needing to be in control of a future that was never yours to begin with. Trust that your pathway will wind its way through green pastures, under bright skies. Trust that the Savior holds what is truly treasure for your life.

And know this one thing: the steps you take, wherever your path leads, are walked beside your Savior. Every step, in shadow or sun, through green pasture or shadowed wood---never alone.

...in the gap

Stand for truth and cry for justice, share with those who don’t belong,

And remember as you serve them, sing for those who have no song.

Sing a joyful alleluia, praising God in all you do,

And remember as you witness, God is singing over you!

---Wesley Forbis, 2000

This fall our First Bells are learning a handbell setting of the American folk hymn ‘Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley’. I love the arrangement, and I love the bluesy folk tune. I even love the poignancy of thinking of Jesus turning his face toward Jerusalem, alone among his circle of friends and followers in understanding what lay ahead for him. But I am, perhaps, just as content not to sing the hymn, and to play it instead; for the second verse begins, “We must walk this lonesome valley, we have to walk it by ourselves….” And friends, I am not sure that is the calling we have received in Christ. Because, when we do it best, walking with Jesus is walking together with our brothers and sisters, sharing our joys and pains, our successes and failures, our tears and laughter, our burdens and strengths. When we do it best, we live life together.

This second verse of this relatively new hymn addresses the being there-ness of the Christian life: we stand up, we cry out, we share, all on behalf of those who, for whatever reason, cannot. And then a line lovely and true --- “…sing for those who have no song.” Even more than lending voice to the voiceless, this phrase brings to mind the Old Testament image of ‘standing in the gap’. When there was a breach, or gap, in the walls of a town, a defender would stand in the breach, defending those within at the spot where the wall was weakest. Leaders including Moses were known to have figuratively stood in the gap where God’s people were weakest, being strength for them in their time of need.

When we stand in the gap, when we sing for those who have no song, when we bear each other’s burdens --- then we live life together, and become Christ’s body, here, in this place. Alleluia.

...let me be?

Take My Life and Let It Be

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee;

Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love.

Take my love, my God, I pour at thy feet its treasure store;

Take myself and I will be ever, only, all for thee.

---Frances R. Havergal, 1874

Confession time, readers: most modern hymnals get this title right. But I grew up singing out of the white 1975 Baptist Hymnal, which told me the title of this hymn was, indeed, not “Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated", but “Take My Life and Let It Be". Could two phrases be any more different? One asks of God, “Take the gift of this life and make of it something holy, dedicated to you in whatever it finds to do.” The other is the ultimate modern ‘gotcha’ statement: “Take my life…well, no, I need to borrow it back to accomplish these very important things for myself…ok, here you go, God…nope, need it back, good times to enjoy….ok, all yours now….well, take my life, but LET ME BE is what I really mean.”

Are you ready to pour the treasure store of your love, your very life, at the feet of God? Do you want God to let your life be consecrated, or just to let you be?

...held like Jesus

Water Deep and Life Made Whole

tune: O WALY WALY

As John baptized the crowds that day,

Made straight the path, prepared the way,

Jesus approached the water’s edge

To seek God’s will, to make his pledge.

I’ll follow Jesus through the flow

Of water deep and life made whole,

Blessed knowing I’m held from above,

Like Jesus was, in God’s great love.

When Jesus stepped into the tide,

All other yearnings swept aside,

With singleness of heart and mind

He turned his life toward humankind.

I’ll follow Jesus through the flow

Of water deep and life made whole,

Blessed knowing I’m held from above,

Like Jesus was, in God’s great love.

And now we seek the water’s mark

To call to mind the Spirit’s spark

That kindled love’s warm glow within,

Remade as each new day begins.

I’ll follow Jesus through the flow

Of water deep and life made whole,

Blessed knowing I’m held from above,

Like Jesus was, in God’s great love.