Two Eight

today i am grateful
for another year moving in grace

i am anything but a shriveled up old maid
i am vibrant and very much alive
i am engaged in my world,
faithfully being present where He has placed me
(i bloom where i am planted)
and growing into my own skin
my beauty coming less from youth now and
more from the gentle and quiet spirit
i've traversed this road to earn
surrendered, i am more truly myself
and more truly His than ever before
and so
in so many ways
this is the best i've ever been

i am an offering and
my life is just beginning
i am 28

tripped

he still comes around; he plays it cool
he is like a man who clumsily tripped then
shook it off, straightened his shoulders,
claimed, "i meant to do that"
as if his leaving here were on good terms and by design

clear cover

i took this picture of the plastic-covered herb garden yesterday and then i got to thinking about how this image represents some of what is going on here, spiritually.

the clear plastic covering brought to mind the phrase "glass ceiling" -- when you're under it you have the illusion that you can reach higher and higher towards the sky if you could only grow so big, but then you hit your head on it. it keeps you contained. sometimes, when my faith is smaller, i feel a bit like this whole operation at the SBR will surely hit that glass ceiling. the growth, the explosion of new life and abundance of resources feels like so fragile a thing, too good to be true. have we hit our glass ceiling?

but then there's the other option: the reason we put this plastic on the herbs was to protect and shield it from a bitter frost that would drain its life. it's sheltering there from a threat it could not have anticipated. so, tenderly, we spread a cover over it, a clear one, so the light can still get in. to lift the small stones that hold that plastic in place is no big thing and we can and will lift it as soon as it's safe for the plant to be fully exposed again. so though it feels dry and tentative around here these days, maybe we're covered for the sake of our lives being sustained in the long run. and in His time, He will reach out His finger and lift it off.

my challenge will be to

speak up.
lean in.
fight for my life.

i have a voice
(it's a voice with impact).

i can remain in relationship
(i am not too much).

i can keep my heart open
(my tenderness is what the world needs).

some of what came up

1.
i am fierce
i am strong
i have spent that strength on self-protection but now
i vow to use it to chase down hearts
including my own
(i am vulnerable)

2.
maybe we are over-spiritualizing things here or
maybe we have been touched by
the Finger of God,
which is (or seems)
too good to be true

this isn't meant to minimize or --
heaven forbid --
to forbid the grieving (all stages) but
just to say that
what He has called dead
ought to stay in the grave

3.
i am already free
(where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom)
i am becoming free, too
i hold the tension of both being true
at once

my unfettering is complete
and presently occurring
both

4.
Jesus, you are more than a story
your blood and crucifixion not merely
a historical event but
power
your resurrected life not merely
a doctrine we give creedance to but
alive now
living and active
you are

we send words

it is such a pleasant surprise to see that we can send words, like friendly arrows, into the deepest places of a person -- words that bring out the dignity and glory that was always there, only hiding, and that those words, when given by that Holiest Spirit, will bring forth new life and transformation of the inner person. These words, spoken from the heart of God, shift reality and move the heavenlies, they are words that will not return void.

that we have this ability and responsibility is a gift; it is the weight of glory, the image of God. It should not be silent. in the light of these revelations we are restored.

we can really speak this way to each other, though it may feel frighteningly foreign. it is not weird, it is Eden revisited. it is necessary, like air. and it is not for wimps.

SALTS

last week I was gone away to a little conference with life-changing impact: Survivors of Abuse Leadership Training Seminar (SALTS). the SBR sent me and Chip, sent us because they care enough to invest in our healing, and also because we as a community want to go deeper into healing the wounds amongst us that contribute to addiction and homelessness in the first place. Chip and I are coming back with hearts more present and open to walk alongside others as they heal, too.
though Sarah DID try to prepare us for the intensity and all-consuming nature of the thing, we were still a little stunned by the impact.

here is what it was like:

it was like reaching deep into your heart's most shame-filled and wounded places and presenting it to a small group of people who were previously strangers. and then they weep with you, rage for you, and validate the feelings you've been having for years but maybe thought you were a little crazy for having. then you get to do the same for them. this is terrifying and vulnerable... but then they smother you with truth and grace, covering your shame with dignity.

the other side is this: how have we in our woundedness wounded others? how have we set up defenses or hidden behind facades to protect our tender hearts? these people will call you out if you are hiding and drive you back into your heart (they call it "pursuing your heart") because what we want is WHOLE HEARTS to offer to our Jesus. we want to be changed.

there's much more. but that's all i will say here. for now. i'm still processing.

he is a greenhouse

when you come around and you shine your light on me and say:
"grow, Precious One. you are invited and i will be your green house and that small seed has met its match in me because i will withhold no fertilizer from you, i will plant and replant you in fertile soils until you bust open, a sprout. and when you are tender and palely green i will protect you until your roots have gotten deep enough into my love for you. and then when you are ready to burst up into a strong stalk, with leave, i will bring you out into the full sun and i will not stand in your way. you will not be constrained by posts or string, you are invited to grow wildly and untidily into a shape of your choosing. and when you ask me to -- and sometimes when you don't -- i will use my hands to pluck off the leaves that have lost their life so that you will be ever-green and there will be room for new life to grow in its stead. because i want more for you. i celebrate your wildness, your visibility, your expansion, so much that i won't let you keep those dead pieces attached, that might detract from your glory. and i will take pleasure and rest in the shade of your outreaching branches and drink deeply of the fragrance of your blossoms -- a fragrance that only those very near to you can inhale. i will stay near and you need to know that in your flowering you are pleasuring me and you are covering me in grace and glory. you are not too much, nor are you too small. you are just right; just the right size for me. i delight in you, from root to spreading leaves. so go ahead and grow, Precious One. I invite you and i will bear the weight of your seed's beckoning."
THEN i will know i have found you.

rejoicing. grieving. together. the Lord's.

1.
heaven is rejoicing over her:
weeping every time danmike picks up the guitar and opens worship
laughing at silly vocabulary mistakes (calling the futon a fondue)
raising her hands in church, fully surrendered
expressing herself and her truest feelings with an honesty and vulnerability that floors me
experiencing sorrow over sin and responding with repentance
offering clean pants or a cup of coffee to hurting women who stop by (or the girl she punched last week)
turning thoughts over and over in her head about her future
making space in her heart for me and sarah and chelsea and michelle
pouring over her Celebrate Recovery Bible, alone in the prayer room
leading us in bedtime exercises with groans of physical exertion that make me laugh
making cards with colored paper and markers for her little daughter, daily
preparing dinner for everyone with the odds and ends in our pantry
aglow with the Holy Spirit (this sometimes looks like drunken joy)
she is my hero

2.
jeff is gone. and joe.
only not really gone because they still come by to supper or
to sit on the porch, have a smoke, and chat with feigned light-heartedness.
joe looks me square in the face through his straggly hair and
with drunk-tenderness asks if
i am still his friend.
he points to his chest, says, "i like you, i miss seeing you. it's really a drag."
but he and i both know that home-coming isn't an option until
until he comes Home.

as we prepared the soil for our garden today
and planted those small seeds
i thought of the soil that is joe's heart
and jeff's
and how brad heart the holy spirit say
their soil isn't good and
i heard "hand him over" (i cor 5:5, i tim 1:19-20).
this is a hard word;
a hard word for hard soil.
well, Jesus is a much better farmer than brad or jenn or don (combined) so
we're hoping He'll till and turn and enrich with compost until
until it is ready to receive the seed deeply (roots way down, leaves spread to catch the sun).
but for now we are grieving the garden that has not yet produced.
in spite of the best of us all, it lays barren still
and we are at the end of our means.
come, Lord Jesus, come
(it is He who makes the seed to grow and we know not how)

3.
community is:
my theoretical dream come true
my ideal utopia
my taste of the kingdom of God come down
my values embodied
theoretically

it is the practice that is hard
i am not my own
i belong to him and her, her and him
the elder, the sibling, the child, the stranger
the lovable and the unlovely, both
i cannot move outside their realm
or direct myself independent of the pull of their gravity
we are enslaved to one another in a way that sets us each free
we are family and
our call is in Christ to whom we ultimately belong
(body and soul, bought with a price)
ad whose body we are
Body of Christ embodied
no longer merely theoretical but
practical,
fleshly

romans 12 and 15:1-2

4.
One will say, 'I belong to the LORD ';
another will call himself by the name of Jacob;
still another will write on his hand, 'The LORD's,'
and will take the name Israel.
(Isaiah 44:5)

yesterday danmike wrote "The Lord's" on his hand
which reminded me of the time i wrote it on mine
for a self-portrait assignment in my photography class
this would also make a good tattoo, chelsea suggested

gloria

this morning as i sat in the garage for morning prayer,
i heard bea's little voice calling out through the alley,
"Gloria! Gloria!"
she was calling the rottweiler, their family dog

i think it is a good idea to name your dog a name that
when called out aloud sounds like praise

the problem of food

Since I have started hanging out at and now living at the Stockbridge Boiler Room, I have put on approximately 5 lbs. Some of you will be shaking your head thinking, "that ain't no thing." But for a small-ish woman, that is something. More importantly, I feel crappier. I feel lethargic, I have mid-afternoon energy crashes, I am bloated and uncomfortable and more prone to headaches. My pants aren't fitting real well. Granted, all of those symptoms are ones that many of us experience on a regular basis and have perhaps come to accept as normal, but let me tell you as one who has lived a chunk of life WITHOUT any of those symptoms, it is not normal. It does not have to be normal.

It's largely about food -- which kinds and how much. There is a strong and unmistakable connection between what I put in my mouth and my general sense of well being (or lack thereof). Do you believe me?

My family at the SBR doesn't believe me, save for a few (you know who you are). They think I'm crazy. They tease me about eating exotic foods and subsisting off of twigs and berries. There's lots of good-natured ribbing that goes on about this. I don't mind for my own sake, but what makes me sad is that I know their teasing indicates a lack of understanding about the power of food to heal their bodies and minds.

Among us there is diabetes, addiction, high cholesterol, neuropathy, and high blood pressure. There's probably even more than that that I don't know about yet. I know that with some dietary changes (lots more veggies, way less sweets, less animal products, more whole grains and beans and perhaps no gluten), most of them could see a significant reduction in symptoms. But they don't believe me.

Because food is so central to fellowship around this place, and because I see the sense of purpose and pride in contribution that comes when we unleash Dave, Marie, or Don in the kitchen to cook for everyone, I am hesitant about more forcibly asserting my nutritional prowess. I don't want to squelch these good things. Furthermore, there is the very real socioeconomic-related lack of access to nutritional foods (what is available at food banks is refined, processed, genetically engineered, chemical-laden, packaged JUNK). I'm at a loss.

There is also the constant influx of gifts from friends of the Boiler Room of baked goods and sweet things, almost always sitting out on the counter in the kitchen begging to be eaten. Though these things are made and given in love, they contain most of the Top 5 Avoid-Like-The-Plague ingredients (refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup, white flour, cheap/hydrogenated oils, artificial flavors and chemical preservatives). Though I never keep these goodies in my own house or grocery shop for them, when they're present, I experience great difficulty resisting consumption. I have a bit of a reputation for the girl who can't turn down chocolate cakes and brownies.

So I am getting fat and sick along with all of them. Misery loves company, right?

This is perhaps a little like sharing the gospel. We know we have the life-giving truth in Jesus and yet we hold back in speaking that truth to others because we don't want to rock the boat, be inconvenient, take away comforting habits, or hurt someone's feelings. We certainly don't want to seem holier-than-though or freakish. So we stay silent and watch people waste away in their own destruction.

Perhaps it's time to speak up and out. About the Food issue. As well as Jesus. :)

So we're putting in a vegetable garden very soon. I will continue cooking "weird" meals here and there and taking advantage of any teachable moments I'm presented with. I'm considering putting together a small health counseling group for whoever in the community has an interest. And in the meantime, if you feel an impulse to gift us with good eats, will you bring us veggie platters, salads, and fruit bowls? We need living food!

photography is a spectator sport

photography is by its very nature a spectator sport -- it is a standing back and watching, seeing... as I like to say to Brooke, "lurking." when you're behind the camera you're not in the game. that's just the way it is.

sometimes i find this a difficult choice to make. i love photographing (documenting, really) the life unfolding around me, but sometimes -- and more and more so lately -- i have to put down the camera and step into the ring and engage with that life without this piece of technology between me and a world that needs me to be fully present more than it needs documentation.

i remember having a conversation with a friend years ago about the difference in how we record memories in our mind's eye when we are taking pictures versus when we are not. Though I wouldn't likely ever go on vacation without my camera, I wonder if I would capture the images and the moments in my memory more clearly (or under a veil of pleasant surrealism) if I didn't have a camera to help me out with it.

(photograph by shane folkertsma)

disconnected ramblings

"Marie, Jesus left some cigarettes for you," Chip said. If sometimes He calls me to spend my money on cigarettes and diet coke for recovering addicts (even as I cringe), I guess it isn't outside the realm of possibility that He'd do it, too.

"You're a warrior, Bill. just wait until I can grow a moustache" DanMike said, though what makes a man a warrior is much more about what's in His heart and what proceeds from His mouth, of course.

I love reading the Bible in the light of the Holy Spirit. (It's electric).

I'm learning to give when I'm afraid I don't have enough to give... (no grasping/clinging). "Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. (Malachi 3:10)

He is jealous for my heart. Right now, He is all. There is and can be no other man.

You have to earn the right to speak into another's life. I have seen how damaging and inappropriate it can be to disregard this.

The tears are a good thing, especially after years of holding them in. "I can feel my backpack getting lighter," Marie says about it. She's finding her voice again, and it is strong.

Sometimes we end up grieving things that weren't really ours in the first place, but we're grieving the loss of a hope, the death of a vision. This sort of grieving also needs to be heard and validated and memorialized. It clears the ground for new growth.

I don't want to leave here next week to go to the SALTS training. It feels important that I be here to stay close to the sides of my family here right now, at what feels like a critical time. But maybe I'm not so indispensable as all that.

Horseback riding is one of the least complicated pleasures in my childhood memories and still today it soothes me like few other things.

"God sets the lonely in families" (Psalm 68:6)

about

wish there was more time to process and to tell (write) all that is going on here, has gone on here just today alone.

• about the cooking miracles emerging from the kitchen under the skillful hands of dave and his side-kick marie.
• about the gracious and vulnerable conversation had with a friend; a conversation that kicked an elephant out of a our room and promises to bring peace.
• about the taxi-driving in the minivan (call me soccer mom for middle-aged men).
• about the counseling session that gave me just the word i needed to prepare my heart and mind for the SALTS conference next week.
• about the visit from a friend who came in the middle of a whole lot of Boiler Room chaos this afternoon and saw in it all the truth -- that this is an incarnation of Jesus' kingdom, however messy.
• about the arrival of kia, hearing her story while sitting in the camping chair out back, then finding at day's end that she's crashing on our sofa tonight (and maybe longer).
• about the return of jeff after a relapse and some jail time and the brokenness i saw in his eyes when he looked at me in the most unguarded way i have yet seen.
• about the seething anger in joe, who is reaching his breaking point here with us, and about whom I can no longer discern accurately.
• about the vision I spoke aloud in prayer tonight of Him on His throne -- able to change everything with a single word -- and us as His brazen young children rushing His lap even amid guards and grandeur to be held in His arms and to bring our burdens to Him.
• about the peace that passes understanding.

I am full.

riding in cars

a client told me this week that it's best to have important conversations with children in cars. they'll say more, talk more openly, while everyone is looking ahead in the same direction.

today was my on-call day at the Boiler Room, which mostly just means that I'm the point person for the day, and today it also meant that I was the taxi driver -- for D's counseling appointment, for J to pick up his new glasses, for F to retrieve his things from the Degage locker, and for M to get her bent glasses bent back into shape.

cruising around town in the SBR's donated mini-van (what a blessing!) i started to see what my client meant. folks talk in cars, while everyone is looking ahead in the same direction. maybe it feels safe to talk under those circumstances. or maybe it's because given the crowded (11 men sleeping under one roof, plus all the friends/visitors each day) house in which we reside, a little time in the mini van with me and one or two others is the best space in which to have one's voice heard.

i listened to D talk about his hopes for life and love down the road from here, and the process involved in getting there. i heard J vent his frustrations about being on restricted privileges and heard him tell stories of abusive authority figures in his past ("I'm sorry that happened to you, J," I said). Through a couple mis-turns, I also found the way to the county jail (703 Ball St) and learned how many times each of the guys had spent time in there. F let me know his stance on theological hot issues such as women in the church and homosexuality as we drove homeward. all of the guys gave me an informal education and commentary on some of the rehab/detox options around the city. and en route to Rx Optical M caught me up on her latest thoughts and interactions with her husband and her deep sadness at being separated from her daughter while she seeks to get well.

the mini van might be a small, moving confessional booth. or at least a counseling office. it's a safe place, a quiet place, a place where as long as I'm behind the wheel I hope my copilot and passengers will be free to think out loud. maybe this week we should lay hands on that van, anoint it will oil, and pray for the Holy Spirit to tabernacle there, too.

on our faces on a tabernacle floor

today marie returned and this time she was ready. really ready. she sought me out at the Love Feast after I had been watching her during worship, holding hands with Esther and John and being softened by the Presence that accompanies that joyful noise of 90 people praising God in a garage on the West Side. crying, she sought me out to say that she heard Him whisper to her during worship that it was time to come home now. she wanted me to know that she was ready, starting tonight, to surrender, to stay, to be arrange for her things to be brought to her here so that she wouldn't have to re-enter that rough world again.

we started to pray for discernment because she has said this before but didn't follow through. only this time seemed different. so with jenn we discussed the ground rules with her, noted the time of her last drink, sought counsel from Chip, ended up having to do a little confrontation (the whole truth must be out on the table in order for this thing to work)... and when all was said and done, she was officially staying.

evening prayer was sacred ground. He never disappoints us when we invite Him in. a mere moment in His presence changes things irreversibly inside a person, so that is what I was praying for as we sat down to pray. He called me down to my face on the floor by the wooden cross marked with tealights and covered with nailed-down sin offerings, to confess my smallness here -- that i have no idea how to do this, that it's all Him. i sensed a presence nearby and looked over to see that Marie was there, too, also on her face, racked with that holy sobbing that accompanies the gentle conviction that leads to repentance (the kind that occurs when you've stood in the shadow of Holiness) and the weeping of burdens long carried and now surrendered.

my soul recognizes this as the unmistakable work of the Holy Spirit I've come to love and trust so much. i know beyond a shadow of a doubt that those tears were a gift from Him, a cleansing agent, an instrument of peace. i know this because i've been in that position so many times myself and because the peace that settled in over Marie after that time of weeping on the prayer room floor while Cassie, Sarah, Chelsea and I rested prayer-filled hands on her back and knees was thick and stubborn.

Jesus wins. always. the darkness that was in Marie desired to overtake the light that awaited her, but it could not. it could not because He who is here with us is greater than he who is in the world. Jesus wins. again.
so now, a few hours later, Marie is sleeping soundly and peacefully on a comfy futon in clean pajamas, having done her nighttime exercises on the living room floor with sarah and cassie amid much giggling, and having had a cup of green tea and half a roast beef sandwich. i have absolutely no fear that she'll run off again tonight. the furthest she'll go is to the balcony for a cigarette. because she's been called home by grace.

though He is always reigning on his throne of grace, and we know this theologically, sometimes we get to see this more clearly. tonight is one of those nights. and whatever high hopes i have for her, I know His are higher.

"Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame.
Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth
and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.

For your Maker is your husband—
the LORD Almighty is his name—
the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
he is called the God of all the earth.

The LORD will call you back
as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—
a wife who married young,
only to be rejected," says your God.

Isaiah 54:4-6

in my shoe

this week i found her feet in my sneaker shoes
though the shoes were a bit too small for her
and she walked away from here without saying where or
for how long or if she would be back
yesterday i found a guitar pick in my left shoe
while i was at work and i felt something under my toes
so i pulled it out to see and a smile spread across my face
because this means i live with musicians

healing in His wings

We're exploring this question of healing as a community at the SBR. Jesus has laid it on some of our hearts with a weight that can't be denied. Also, now that we're all sobered up and confidently off the streets, we're beginning to see rising up in and among us the rough places that remain -- those places that were previously medicated and covered up by drug/alcohol use, but which now need new ways of being dealt with because the old coping mechanisms aren't options anymore.

We need to go deeper into healing.

Earlier this week Tony, DanMike, Sarah and I attended the W at Mars Hill, which is a small team of folks (led by Ted Kallman) who believe in and practice healing prayer -- praying with expectant authority for healing of diseases both physical and mental. Read Tony's accounting of our visit here.

In processing this, I'm remembering some of the work the Holy Spirit has already begun doing in me in regards to this question of supernatural healing. It blows my mind. And my theology.

Healing. Is it to be expected? Is it God's will and intention for ALL believers? Has my brokenness mentality kept me from believing God's healing/redemptive purposes for all His people?

He prompted me to go to Mark 3. Here Jesus heals a man on the sabbath. People were waiting for Him to make a "wrong move" and break their customs (their idea of how things were supposed to go). Jesus was angry and deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts -- then He healed the man's shriveled hand in front of them all.

Jesus may so often seem irrelevant and unapproachable because wherever He went he HEALED and DROVE OUT DEMONS -- things we don't even know how to begin to imagine. We say He did all this for a season only to prove his divinity, yet He said that in His name we would do all this AND MORE (John 14:12-13). If we really took that seriously...

I'm so afraid to hope. To step out in faith on these things; to look like a fool if I were to pray for healing over a person and see no result (Ted Kallman calls this the Threshold of Discomfort). To be disappointed.

I used to have a sign on my desk that said Wounded Healer -- a Henri Nouwen phrase. Lord, am I to be a Wounded Healer or a Healed Healer? Do I make You small when I accept and lie down in my brokenness and woundedness? "Why should you be beaten anymore? (Isaiah 1:5)" You said to me last summer. Lord, I repent of my Brokenness Theology. Lord, cleanse me and correct me of any false things that I have put my hope or trust in for that "bed is too short to stretch out on, the blanket too narrow to wrap around [me]" (Isaiah 28:20).

A Theology of Brokenness -- a refusal to believe in Your healing and restoring power is like, "making a covenant with death; an agreement with the grave" (Isaiah 28:15). You said, "I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours" (Mark 11:24) and "Everything is possible for Him who believes" (Mark 9:23).

Even though it was God's will for Jesus to suffer and die, that was only HALF the story. The rest of the story is RESURRECTION and VICTORY over death. And this work happened in Christ so that we can partake of it (I Peter 2:24)! Jesus did humble himself to death (Phil 2:8) and He rebuked Peter when Peter tried to rebuke Him for talking about His upcoming death (He told Peter He did not have the things of God in mind in Matthew 16:23). But He did not make the grave His home. He went there only to DEFEAT it and make His home ABOVE. Healing. Restoration.

Lord, show us your heart about healing.
Lord, let us see it in action (to bear witness).
Lord, let us participate in it.
Amen.

MOST OF ALL... it starts with being close to His heart and learning to hear His voice, I think. Because if Jesus did nothing apart from the Father (John 5:19), how much more so do we need to be dependent upon His moment-to-moment downloading to guide us into how to pray, when to pray, for whom to pray (Rom8:26, Eph 6:18)... and to supply us with the prerequisite faith that precedes healing (Matt 13:58).

March 2008 Photos

I missed a few days this month.

he moves

1.
when we sat and listened he gave us both the same simple instructions
when he gives instructions, it's best to resolve to obey
so i step out on that one step he's revealed and things are set in motion
in my heart and in actuality and
i trust that as i obey these small steps the outcome will be
exactly what it should be
"i don't own the results, i don't own the timing, i own the believing"

2.
he has never detoxed well before
in fact never has he done it without a necessary hospital stay
due to severe nutritional and electrolyte imbalances
which is why it is all the more miraculous that now
thirty-six hours since his last drink he has still not suffered
the shakes and the dry heaves and all the rest
and i can't help but think that this is a gift of grace
a miraculous sign to tell this lost sheep that he's where he needs to be
"God must be doing something," he says (and he is a bit baffled)

3.
tonight i listened (and participated) as people prayed for healing as though
it were the most natural and inevitable thing in the world
they did this so casually, with the air of people who are going about ordinary routines
there was no emotional hype or religious fervor, nor anxious striving to rouse God into action
because we know that the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective
we say our peace and then we sit back in a trustful stance to wait and see
so i put my grocery list of Things Requiring Healing into the box and allow myself to believe
that the oil that stains that box and the hands and prayers swarming all over it
are somehow all heard, seen, and noticed by God and that He'll actually intervene
that in fact he already is

found poem

you came red into my life
stunning and unforgettable
and prone to leave a stain
red like a rose, a crescendo
the flush of skin after love
a raspberry on a summer day
the intensity in a Rothko painting

i may go the remainder of my days
without seeing red again
but red is stunning and unforgettable
it has a way of sticking with you

i had always preferred the grays and brown
black and sometimes green
comfortable and neutral, safe
but you came red into my life --
unsought after and formerly mythological
now my neutral palette feels naked
without you

Shepard's Pie for 13

There's first of all the sensual pleasures of cooking -- the color of sweet potato, the texture of garlic bulbs, the scent of fresh thyme, and the taste of lamb's meat.

After doing the grocery shopping for tonight's meal I was in a hurried, bustling state. So I reminded myself, as I chopped the onions and the parsley, to slow down and enjoy the process. Take a deep breath (inhale the aroma of the basil plant on the window sill). There's no hurry. I can be here completely. There is value in my attentiveness.

I am in this spacious, light-filled kitchen getting my hands dirty with whole, real food. There are miracles all over this thing. The food itself is a miracle (have you ever stopped to contemplate the intricacies of a garlic bulb?), but also miraculous is the fact that I'm cooking for a family of over a dozen now. The joy is multiplied by perhaps three knowing that this will fill bellies of people I love and care for and will perhaps even, in time, contribute to their wholeness.

I remember what a classmate at IIN said over lunch one weekend in NYC last fall, about the Parmesan cheese shaker filled with "loving intentions" that she would figuratively shake over and into each meal she prepared for her family, believing that they would be eating not only the actual food but also everything that was in her heart for them as she prepared it. So as I cook I summon up all my loving thoughts for these people and I hope that they come out of my pores when I handle the vegetables and that I put good vibrations through the potatoes as I mash them.

The take-home message here is this: "We can do no great things, only small things with great love" (Mother Teresa). Today, this was my small thing.

And the Shepard's pie has been completely devoured, with praise and gratitude murmured between bites (even by Marv), and with only two pieces left over (for Chip and Michelle, who were both conspicuously absent from us this evening).

a day (in case you wondered)

8:30 -- wake up naturally with love letters running through my head, so i get up to write them.
8:32 -- run into Chelsea in the kitchen making a pot of coffee. sit down at the kitchen table together and drank that wonderful beverage and had a lovely chat about missions, decision-making and the will of God.
9:30 -- breakfast (nutty flax cereal with soy yogurt, pecans, shredded coconut and blackberries)
9:45 -- writing the love letters.
10:30 -- begin researching dinner ideas for the community meal I'll be cooking tomorrow night. settled on Shepard's Pie (because i think that was the Holy Spirit's idea) and developed my own recipe by looking at several.
11:30 -- watch Chelsea and Sarah making the Intern Responsibility/Communication board
12:00 -- get ready and head over the Boiler Room next door
12:01 -- meet brad, marv, and jeffrey who have just finished pulling out the fence (so the house looks more open and welcoming) and are now preparing a flower bed on the side of the house (which already has flowers donated from friends who own a green house).
12:12 -- pause to talk to don and steve who have parked themselves in what used to be my camping loveseat and are smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee from styrofoam cups and discussing the day.
12:15 -- start cleaning up and rearranging the garage in preparation for the Love Feast tonight, whilst all the guys are out working on the plumbing and other man projects in the yard.
1:30 -- am given a Bible from jeffrey with a love note in the front of it that says, "thank you for being part of our loving family. your beautiful smile brightens all of our days. we all love you sister."
1:32 -- come home to clean the litter box and have a lunch of salad with homemade tahini dressing. again, with chelsea.
2:45 -- head to the BR to nab one of the guys to hang my vegetable basket and stained glass window and find that help in steve, who assesses the situation and we make plans to go get the required equipment for the project tomorrow after church.
3:15 -- while the guys are having a Celebrate Recovery group in the garage, spend a bit of time poking around in the BR kitchen to get a feel for what staples need to be acquired in order to make it healthier and start a list. brad comes in and out and tells about the pleasure of landscaping and we appreciate the finished product, the fruit of honest work.
3:40 -- sit in the camping loveseat in the sunshine with cassandra and catch up, marvel at the greatness of this community and the endless number of friendly faces to greet. sarah joins us and we attempt a guided imagery of being on a dock by the water, with only limited success.
4:40 -- head upstairs to write a little blurb that needed to be recorded in my personal chronicles.
5:00 -- gather in the BR yard with the friends who are pouring in from all over the city for our weekly love feast. this week a college group has taken on the responsibility for providing the food.
5:30 -- run upstairs to heat up some brown rice and veggie/tofu stir-fry for dinner because i can't eat hot dogs, hamburgers, chips and potato salad and still feel good. however, DID definitely overdose on brownies.
5:45 -- get introduced to marie, who is drunk but affectionate, and is considering staying. help her into the house to try on some fresh and better fitting clothes, tend to her immediate needs, and attempt to discern whether or not she is really ready to stay. we hit it off. i like her.
7:00 -- marie decides to stay and Jenn gives the go-ahead for me to take her home with me, which we do after she's had a cigarette.
7:15 -- marie wants to walk to the store for cigarettes to Brad accompanies us and she gets hooked up with some.
7:30 -- i am in the kitchen at the BR and i am doing dishes and cleaning up while marie is staring to doubt her decision, is crying, is not sure she can do this, which of course she can't (but He can). we pray and sit with her, but ultimately she leaves.
9:00 -- cassandra and i stay home and intercede for marie whilst sarah follow her to the liquor store, talking light over her all the way, but ultimately has to watch marie walk away, knowing she will sleep tonight in an alley.
9:45 -- join in around the fire pit in the BR yard where tonight's evening prayer is occurring. there is deep and joyful worship because God is on His throne, He is king, and all is as it should be.
10:15 -- some of us continue singing praise songs loudly to the strumming of DanMike's guitar and dancing a little around that same fire pit.
10:45 -- head back upstairs where i find tammy camping out on the futon and cassandra comes up to use my laptop. listen to tammy read aloud from her holy-spirit inspired Facebook note while sipping tea.
11:20 -- reclaim my laptop and come to bed to write this post, pray with Sarah, and sleep at last.

though full both in activity and internal reactions, this day has been good. it has had the finger of God upon it and he showed me (again) that He is real and I can rest.

Abundance ("That's God's Way")

Chelsea's blog is called "that's God's way," and I love this phrase. It's a great way to respond to the miracles big and small that are daily unfolding around us.

When someone donates a van to the Boiler Room, which Jenn was only half-jokingly praying for... we smile and say, "that's God's way."

When Roger gets a voucher for a year of rent payments and several job offers, allowing him to get back on his feet out in the world, we nod knowingly and say, "that's God's way."

When a woman offers the female interns a complimentary spa night including microderm abrasion treatments (which one of the female interns had asked God for), we can throw our heads back, laugh and say, "that's God's way."

When a friend comes by the Boiler Room this morning at just the right moment and writes me a sizable check to be spent on the keeping of a healthy kitchen for our community's health, I stand in unsurprised wonder and say, "that's God's way."

When a conversation with Jenn and Sarah today reveals that we've all been very much on the same page regarding the need for deeper inner healing amongst us -- both through hard emotional work and the instantaneous prayer healing -- and we start dreaming about how this might be unleashed here -- we grin from ear to ear and say, "that's God's way."

When another woman makes a rather large donation through me to the Boiler Room, enclosed in a card that mentions how knowing me and the stories of how God is moving at the SBR has put things back into perspective for her and bolstered her faith again, I scream with delight and say, "that's God's way."

Much of this happened in one day. So Sarah and I dubbed this day Dream Come True Day.

Eventually these things aren't unusual . We learn His heart, His limitless generosity and power and then these miracles aren't surprising, they're inevitable. We're no longer shocked, we're just grateful and we hold it with open hands and attribute all the glory to The Giver.

With God there is always more than enough and there is always room for one more.

When you're letting Him write the story and run the show, there is no such thing as swimming upstream; you just spread your arms out and float in the current He's set in motion.

This is how it was meant to be, I think. I don't think that what is going on around us here is some bizarre exception to the rule or that we have somehow been granted unusual privileges from God. This is what He offers to us all. The only price is moment-by-moment surrender and leaning hard into Him.