i know i promised, but...

i said i wouldn't subject you to my poetry, so forgive me going back on my word. i also suck at HTML, so just pretend that the dashes are tabs. :)

Mark 9:24 (for the Venables and Athan)


a bird by-
----tip of branch
----in tip of beak;
i search sky-
----ink in hand
----to write or speak
words?

my son sleeps-
----unaware
----of heart's pale beat;
my friends weep-
----spent eyes there.
----in need we seek
prayer.

clouds roll through-
----sun and shade,
----so faith and fear;
seeking You
----words evade.
----be Healer near
please

backdoor to a celebration of marriage

my good friend Janae got married last month. my brother-in-law got married last weekend. several good friends and family members are facing tough times in marriage lately. my own marriage has been unspeakably sweet through our recent time of crisis and trial. i've had lots of occasion to reflect on marriage lately.

and on Sunday i heard it again - the Christian line on marriage. it includes things like "take a stand against divorce" and "divorce is not an option."

take a stand? what exactly does that mean? it sounds militant and strong. my marriage has been to the brink of divorce, and i'm not sure that valiant Christain soldiers boldly marching into such a tender, agonizing place in my life would have helped anything. in fact i'm quite sure it would have made it worse. i was, thankfully, surrounded by people who value my heart and Ryan's, as well as our marriage, and who gently laid down their busy lives and spent themselves in prayer on our behalf. they didn't stand up for the institution of marriage, exactly, but rather laid on their face for me and for us.

and now i'm faced with the decisions about how to best love others who are struggling in marriage. nothing about my part feels aggressive. it feels slow, unsure, and requiring me to surrender much. to lay down instead of stand strong. it begs the humility to remember my own struggles and weaknesses, past and current, and share them, if needed. it is prompted by the gratitude i feel toward people who loved us from broken to healing, not pride of having "arrived" (because we haven't) or being "right" (because i'm not sure it matters one way or the other whether i'm right or not).

divorce is an option. to just march around chanting that it isn't is a bit ostrich-like. i understand the intent, but i also don't think it's working (i won't bore you with the stats about divorce rates - you're watching them unfold around you just like me). but i know from experience that divorce is not the only option. rather than insist that people ignore the enemy of divorce, we can help them look that enemy dead in the eye and choose to stay married anyway. we keep treating marriage like a fragile, weak thing, and marriage is responding by becoming just that. but it's strong - able to acknowledge the temptation to give up and walk away without automatically giving in to it.

i don't mean that Christians have had a wrong idea. the good idea of protecting and upholding marriage needs a different method. a new approach.

and new words. i think our words describe our actions, but they also influence our actions (that sentence may spark a whole post). if marriage needs more compassion than crusade, our language needs to invite the former over the latter. if we change the way we talk, it will affect the way we think and act.

like so many things in the Kingdom, this is backward and counterintuitive. we'll fight for marriage best by surrendering, and stand for marriage well by laying down.

as i write today, my heart swells and my eyes well at the thought of my Ryan. i ache with regret for the times i intended fully to walk away from this covenant we're living. and i ache with gratitude to him, to our Church, and to the Holy Spirit for showing me just how strong and beautiful marriage is.

books

My mom owns a Christian bookstore (The Master's Books and Gifts: A Parable Christian Store), and was asked to speak to a group of publishers at their annual convention last week. She wanted to share a story that lets publishers see how the products they are putting out are affecting people's lives. Mom intended to work the floor during the weeks leading up the event and speak to customers about their stories, but instead she sacrifically stayed here with me during the last few weeks of a difficult pregnancy and subsequent hospitalization of my son Athan. So she asked me what "book story" I might like to share. I composed the following for her, and thought it was blog-worthy:


My mom asked me for a “book story” - a personal account that would exemplify to people in this industry that their work makes a difference in people's lives. “I'd LOVE to,” I said...

Then I sat here in front of a blank screen and a blinking cursor, and I couldn't get one sentence out. It's not that I don't have a book story to share with you. My problem is that I have so many! I just couldn't narrow it down to just one, and I can't give you the i-had-this-problem/crisis-then-i-read-this-book-that-changed-my-life story you were probably hoping to hear. My “book story” is a little different...

I've loved to read from the day I was able to do it. Some books have been more than just fun reads or educational tools – they are markers of milestones in my spiritual life. Rereading them feels like visiting trusted friends, and giving away copies is like introducing one good friend to another. I grew up in the freight room of a Christian bookstore, and I'm so thankful. Much of the way I think about Jesus still reflects what I learned from Aslan in the 3rd grade, and what I learned at age 25 from Phil Yancy in The Jesus I Never Knew. The world of first-century Palestine came alive to me in high school when I read Lloyd Douglas's The Robe, which in turn drew me into new dimensions of the accounts in the Gospels and Acts. Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend helped save my sanity and my marriage. I have been shaped by everything from Confessions by St. Augustine to Max Lucado's books. Ken Gire, Henri Nouwen, Brennan Manning, Mike Yacconelli, Donald Miller, Rob Bell... all these and more have been part of my journey through rebellion, conviction, depression, repentance, returning, refining, rejoicing.

I will probably never meet you, but I hope you remember my story. On the days when work seems mundane or meaningless, know that there are people like me out there who are grateful that you make life-changing materials available to us and the people we love. I pray for you to have wisdom and perseverance, and that the Holy Spirit would be with you as you wade through fluff-n-stuff and seek to publish, distribute, and sell books that are good art with Christ-like heart.


My journey continues to be shaped by so many people "who know Him like I want to know Him," (thank you, Cindy Venable), and who have published some part of their journey toward Jesus. If you want to "meet" some of my friends, I'd be beyond happy to get together and talk books (or you can go here and find them yourself).

another way to say it

i just read Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm. i'm not smart enough to attempt a book review of an Annie Dillard book. i've read 3 of them now, and i'm sure there is more stuff i don't understand than stuff that i do. but some passages here and there strike a chord...

"There are no events but thoughts and the heart's hard turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times."

maybe it's another way to say what really matters. maybe it contributes to my earlier posts that amounted to an amateur exploration of the psychology of blogging. maybe it is what my friend Chad means when he rants about "mommy blogs." Maybe it points again to the things i want my life to be about.

anyway, i think she's right.

awash in affection

A couple of months ago, we had one of those parenting moments that you never forget: Ryan and I were on the couch beside each other. Morgan (at the ripe ol' age of 2) came downstairs, walked over to the couch, and wiggled herself in right between us. Then she put her hands up behind each of our shoulders, and announced that “This is my friend Mom, and this is my friend Dad.” :-) Yep – I melted.

Today, I am wishing that I was 2 again, and that it was more acceptable for me to place myself physically near several people and announce to whoever would listen that “This is my friend.” I wish I knew the appropriate way for a 28-year-old to express such honest affection, because I feel it. Deeply and often. Tenderness in children that makes our hearts melt is frowned upon in adults. People tend to regard it as weak or weird or immature. I don't intend to be “cute.” I just want some way to tell you and show you...

Thanks to all of you who show me - clearly and often. And bear with me when I stumble toward you for an awkward thank-you-and-goodbye hug, or when I search for words that come out jumbled and teary. I'm just trying to find some expression that is true to what I feel without creeping you out. I'm still not sure how adults should do this, but I think we should do a lot more of it than we think. Maybe I'm trying to start by writing a blog...

paradox

I'm encountering a strange thing in the midst of this storm. A paradox that is probably not rare, but quite surprising to me right now:

(this is the set-up, not the confusing part): People are praying for us. More people than I can even imagine are praying for our boy, and for us. We feel it. We know we couldn't even get out of bed if that were not the case. And you know what? The prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective. People are praying for rest, and we're getting rest (body, mind, soul, and spirit). People are asking for strength enough to make good decisions, and strength enough to just let go and cry when we need to. And we feel strong in both places. People are praying for our marriage, and Ryan and I have really stayed connected to each other through all of this so far. I could go on and on with a list of prayers that are being answered in us moment by moment...

The paradox is that people are surprised when we're doing well. Some seem almost disappointed or even offended if we are not constantly coming apart at the seams. I realize that by all natural logic, we very well should be. And to anyone who doesn't know Jesus and His Spirit in us, our ability to keep going and do this very difficult thing well seems like we are being callous or uncaring or naive or in denial.

But it's not the case. Prayers are being answered, and the Lord is so very thickly present with us right now. He is doing as much in/around Ryan and I as He is in our Athan's little body. I do not pretend that Ryan and I have any kind of "ability" to do this well on our own. We don't. In fact, I can feel some of my natural tendencies being held at bay by the prayers of the saints (like the tendency to withdraw or shut down or be blinded by anger, among others). I don't believe the purpose of your prayers or the Lord's purpose here is to make the grief go away, but to allow us to grieve well. As my friend Cindy sings, "The waves He'll still, or else He will quiet your heart." He's doing both, and He has been from the moment I went into labor until just now as I'm typing this post. I am amazed and grateful and (confession) surprised.

I don't feel "strong." That's not it. In the midst of such awful weakness, I know I am carried by a strength that is not my own. I am not sufficient, but I am swimming in a Grace that is. There will undoubtedly be moments or days in the future when I am not as aware of the hands that hold me as I am today, and I hope I have the courage to call or write and ask you to pray me through that part of the journey as well.

communication

I suppose it is old news to just say again that communication is important. But as I said, crisis tends to bring out just how important some things are. We can coast through most days resting comfortably in all manner of bad communication habits and practices, but those small hitches become major hurdles in times of high stress. Also, our good communication patterns and disciplines may hardly seem worth the effort it takes to practice them when life is clicking along in predictable rhythm, but they become pure gold when rhythm becomes cacophony. So in the midst of this particular storm we are in, I've been both spectator and participant in communication that is critical for the well-being of several people and relationships. It's made me think...

Communication is a skill – like properly running a table saw or playing a sport or knitting a sweater or playing and instrument. Skills are learned – no one is born knowing how to knit! Yet many of us assume that good communication will come “naturally.” Skills require practice – training yourself to step beyond what you already know how to do and trying things that feel awkward until sheer repetition makes it part of your skill set. But it is rare that we will put forth that kind of deliberate effort about communication. Skills can be taught – by authors or coaches or friends or professionals or whomever - but I can't remember the last time I asked any one of those sources to specifically help me communicate more clearly. It just seems like we would all benefit if we recognized and treated this as a skill to be learned.

But here's where it gets a bit fuzzy for me: Skill level varies. Some people are just plain better at certain skills than others. This is the part that gets a little touchy, and I'm having a tough time navigating. Communication is a skill, but it is not just a skill. It is also a place where we express so much of our personality, identity, preferences, and peccadilloes. I think some of our bad habits need to change, even at the expense of being “true to ourselves.” That can so quickly become a trump card we play when we don't want to be uncomfortable in the learning process any more. But I also don't think the point is to just learn to conform to someone else's personality or preferences in communication. The goal isn't to be just like each other in every way. Unique styles of communication are part of what makes the communication worth it!

I guess I'm just wondering how to tell the difference between the elements of skill and elements of self as I'm learning to be a better communicator, and also to respect the difference between those two things as I'm helping others do the same.