“the dearest freshness deep down things” {September thoughts on listening}

{Stay tuned for a back post of August's thoughts on my One Word for 2014: listen. 

Now for a few thoughts from September...}

There is a deep quietness slowly growing in me.  I feel like  a field with a spring of water which has been clogged for years.  The leaves and bracken are slowly being cleared away, handful by handful, and the spring is beginning to well up with clear, fresh water.  

“There lives the dearest freshness deep down things”…

-Gerard Manley Hopkins, "God's Grandeur"

I am seeing more.  

It feels like entering the cool dimness of a great cathedral from a bright summer afternoon.  Slowly, gradually, as my eyes adjust, I am able to take in more and more details of the beautiful interior.

There is so much more to see than I have been aware.

The more my spirit sinks roots down into this quietness, the deeper I want to sink.  It is unspeakably refreshing.  To sit for a few minutes noticing the color of sky, the sound of birds, the curve of my daughter’s cheek.  To reach out to these things with my spirit and know them to be windows, passageways into God’s presence.  To sense Him here with me, close as breath.  This new seeing is a freshly discovered green pasture for my soul.

It’s this new awareness that causes my soul to well up in thankfulness.  I’ve realized, after trying lists and other tools to grow a thankful heart, that I can’t cultivate thankfulness until I first cultivate seeing and listening.  Awakening my senses, remembering I have them, using them to deeply pay attention… Now I can see what I have to be thankful for.  

The seeing itself begets thankfulness without effort.  

I see, and I become deeply grateful.  I hear my daughter’s sweet lips smacking sour grapes with two-year-old delicacy and I am flooded with awareness of her sweetness, and then gratitude that I am aware.  I catch her eye and grin, electricity flashes between us, and my awareness of relationship increases my pleasure in her, and my gratitude grows.  She grins back, blue eyes sparkling, round cheeks pushing up in folds under her eyes, golden bangs brushing her eyebrows.  

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,

Every common bush afire with God, 

But only those who see take off their shoes;  

The rest just sit round and pluck blackberries.”   

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Aurora Leigh"

I still pick a lot of blackberries.  Today is Sunday, a day in which I've started practicing rest and contemplation, and my senses are heightened today while I write this post, which is why I’m aware of the well of freshness springing up enough to write about it.  But when I’m the thick of the week and the moments fly past too quick to grab and I’m changing poopy diapers, making lunch and dinner, welcoming unexpected visitors, and handling requests, phone calls and emails, blackberry picking seems all I can manage.  It takes a tremendous effort of will (and a well-rested body) to remember to see, and take off my shoes for the holiness of it all.  

I mostly plow through unnoticing.

You know, I’ve spent 30 years running and striving, habitually moving too fast to notice holiness.  So I have to keep reminding myself, You’ve only just begun.  I’ve only just started these practices of Sabbath rest and deep, attentive listening.  As I live into the next 30 years of my life and beyond, I’m hoping these practices will continue to bear this delicious fruit of the awareness of “the dearest freshness deep down things” in my everyday moment-by-moment living.  

If I can’t learn to see and feel the holy in my every day, the days of my life will pass and I won’t have spent them aware of God.  Wouldn’t that be an unbearable tragedy?

Because, like a thunderbolt, the realization strikes: we are practicing now for eternity.  What else will we do for all the ages except to notice and delight in the holiness of God, in all its myriad beauties and multi-faceted excellencies?   Forever, we'll delight in Him.  We'll notice and bathe in His holiness.  We'll fall deeper into Him, revel in our intimacy with Him, enjoy the exquisite privilege of curling up in the lap of the Lord of the universe.  

Why not start now?

change poking through

When we moved into this house, it was a mess.  


The owners have a passion for fruit trees and were lavish in their planting: rows of pears all around the house perimeter, six huge walnuts by the back fenceline, tall leggy apricots in the side yard, cherries by the abandoned chicken coop.  The crowning glory is the small apple orchard that fills the backyard: thirty small apple trees planted in narrow rows with sturdy low-spreading branches.  

My husband, the farmer, was thrilled.  I, the musician-bookworm, was overwhelmed.  “It’ll be your thing,” I tell him, warning.  Abdicating.  What is this choking thing in me that makes me hesitant to try anything I don’t feel I can succeed at?

None of the trees had been pruned or tended in several years, and when we moved in last summer and looked out our back porch windows, all I could see was a jungle.  Where are the kids going to play? I wondered.  And then, with a sinking heart, How am I ever going to deal with all this fruit?

Nothing goes to waste in this culture.  Letting fruit drop off trees and rot on the ground because it’s too high to reach easily (or because you just don’t have the energy) is frowned upon.  There’s always the option of opening the gate wide and letting the neighbors in to pick (which I still might do), but all my overwhelmed-ness hadn’t counted on one thing: the rest that pruning brings.

Last fall, James cheerfully went out and bought a chain saw.  Every day when he came home from work, he went out to the backyard and I heard the engine revving its masculine roar while I cooked dinner.  He lopped off heaps of branches, whole tops of trees, even whole trees in some instances where they were half dead or just too crowded.  Our neighbors happily dragged away mountains of branches to feed their cavernous, ravenous bread ovens, leaving us with…. Space.  Open sky.  Lopped off trunks pointing stumpily in all directions.  Breathing room.

Part of me was happy about the tidying of the jungle; part of me grieved the amputations.  The part of me that wants to be a competent local housewife was thrilled to realize that ferocious pruning meant a much smaller fruit harvest this year… less for me to deal with!  

And then yesterday I made a startling discovery: if a tree is alive, it never stops growing.  (It sounds so basic when I put it like that, but I just haven’t grown up aware of nature, and each discovery is astounding.)  Right through the thick, scaly bark of those lopped limbs, some as thick around as my calf, the trees are pushing out new life.  I had no idea trees do this.  Tiny green shoots struggle to emerge, their frailty emphasized by the girth of their home limbs.  How in the world are they strong enough to get through those barriers? I wonder.

Just now, while I was peeling potatoes, I asked God if there’s anything he wants me to learn from this picture of new life.  Immediately, this thought began moving through my mind: “No matter how ingrained you think your habits are, or how neglected an area of your life may feel, or how discouraged you might feel that you’re not seeing growth, with my life in you, change is always possible.  I AM the growth-Author.  But - sometimes it might take some vigorous pruning to make way for new things.”

A mundane example popped into my head: I have never been a good flosser (of teeth).  My whole life, every six months at the dutiful and much-dreaded dentist visit, the hygenist would ask me that innocent and terrible question, “So, are you flossing?”  And I would always fudge and answer, “Weeeeelll… not every day (meaning, never)...”  So last year, my last year of my “twenties”, I decided to put “flossing” on Ann Voskamp’s daily “Do It for 100” form, along with “reading a verse with Will” and “get up before the kids to have devotions”.  And guess what?  I can count on one hand (ONE HAND!) the number of nights I missed flossing last year.  And my gums are pink and healthy and thanking me for it!  It took me 30 years to get around to making a new habit, and a whole year to hammer it in, but now I can’t imagine going to bed without flossing and if I forget, it feels weird.  

Change is possible.

At a deeper level, I can feel new growth emerging quietly in my soul this spring.  As tiny and frail as those green shoots, it’s poking through nonetheless - the result of epiphanies from Transformed Into Fire and a new, quiet awareness of resting in God’s presence and receiving his love.  It’s not every day yet that I create the space and time for intentional communion, but it’s oftener than before.  I’m starting to feel my soul (not my body, mind you) longing to get up half an hour earlier, and sit outside under some of those breathtaking trees to listen and absorb God’s presence.  

Maybe this will be the year of finally letting go of busyness and performance - with some vigorous pruning? - and allowing new green fronds of awareness to quietly lengthen into bloom.  

there is no point B!

There is no point B.

Did you know that?  I didn’t.  In my Christian life, I always thought I was supposed to be moving from point A (acceptance of Christ and initial salvation) to point B (final perfection and glorification).  And this assumption always left me with a nagging sense of guilt, because no matter how many lessons I learned (or how many times I circled back around to learn the same lesson at a deeper level), I never seemed to be getting any closer to the goal.  Nor did I ever seem to be experiencing any more of Christ, regardless of what spiritual disciplines I tried or how much I dutifully read my Bible.  

Guess what?  There is no point B!  

“There is only point A, and more of A, which is to say, there is only Jesus and more of Jesus until his love envelopes all that you are, defines all that you are, and is powerfully expressed in everything you touch.”  

~Judith Hougen, Transformed Into Fire

Wow.  If this is true, I have already reached my destination.  I’m already there!  I already have the complete, glorious fullness of Christ wondrously living, breathing in me.  All that’s left is to discover the reality of Him-in-me more deeply and fully every day, to learn how to experience His love minute by minute, and to live out of that experience of love.  

On the previous page, Judith shares a quote from Thomas Merton, prefaced with the comment, “A few times in my life, I’ve read something and instantly known that my life lived on the other side of those words would never be the same.”  I felt a little skeptical, like, would what came next actually live up to that description in my own life?  

It did.

Merton is talking about prayer, but his thoughts can be expanded to the whole spiritual journey into discovering your true self in Christ:

“We were indoctrinated so much into means and ends that we don’t realize that there is a different dimension in the life of prayer.  In technology you have this horizontal progress, where you must start at one point and move to another and then another.  But that is not the way to build a life of prayer.  In prayer we discover what we already have.  And you realize that you are already there.  We already have everything, but we don’t know it and we don’t experience it.  Everything has been given to us in Christ.  All we need is to experience what we already possess.  The trouble is we aren’t taking time to do so.” 

~quoted in Transformed by Fire, p. 119 (emphasis mine)

I closed the book and got into the shower, with those words reverberating through my soul.

All I need is to experience what I already possess.

I closed my eyes and felt the warm water beating down on me, and I imagined the warm river of God’s love flowing over me and through me.  All I need is to experience what I already have: I’m already full to bursting with Christ’s Presence and power and love!  All that’s left is to choose to take long, slow minutes here and minutes there to close my eyes (or fully open my eyes) and experience Him, in me.  

I’ve been suddenly full of peace this morning.  The knowledge that there is no point B and that I can stop striving to get there and just be filled with Christ, the knowledge that all I have to do is enjoy what I already have, is setting me free.  

grace poured down {Remembering December: Part 4}

For the month of December, I counted doggedly to 1000, scribbling blue-inked gifts lists across fields of white paper, pounding new habit-nails on top of complaints, criticism and stress…. Hungering for joy.  In those moments, joy came slow, if it came at all.  I didn’t feel much of anything.  

But now, warm January sun streaming through the window, paging back through lists of hundreds and hundreds of graces - all poured down in just one month - the joy begins to well, deep and strong.  

All is grace.  I lived it, counted it, for 31 days straight, over 30 gifts every day (and for each one written, so many more slid past unnoticed).  

I review the gifts of December, and I remember… 

December 26

834. Cleaning out the toy cupboard 

835. Presents to give away
836. Poor people to give to
837. Ben carrying Arli’s present all the way there by himself, bouncing the bag along the ground, refusing to let me take it

838. Boys learning the joy of giving
839. Three boys, with no common language except joy and boyhood, playing wild in a threadbare living room 840. The ability to buy this family a ton of coal
841. That Jesus loves them enough to die for them

855. Having the perfect Christmas present for a friend: bamboo knitting needles
856. Her genuine pleasure
857. Being able to say God arranged it (I bought them in August)
858. The hope that their curiosity in God will grow
859. She and her husband pairing up with my boys to “box”
860. Fits of laughter all around

861. The stars on the way home862. Explaining to William how God knows each star by name, 

and William saying, “Does He just call them ‘stars’?” 

 “No, each one has a name.” 

 “What are they?” 

 “I don’t know - why don’t you ask God?” 

 “God, what are the names of the stars?”

863. The faith of a child

December 27

886. Twenty packages of cookies assembled for the neighbors
887. Planning ahead
888. Thirteen homes visited
889. Thirteen presents given

892. Thirteen conversations

893. Two or three interested parties
894. The Holy Spirit’s discernment
895. Words to explain things in this language
896. Open homes
897. This friendly, hospitable culture
898. The hope of glory

899. Discovering that our new street has four other ethnicities besides ours
890. James serving lunch when I got back 

909. The way Ben cuddles into me when I read to him before naptime
910. Led to open the word during rest time
911. The joy and challenge of personal goal setting
912. The way my “Year of Letting Go” (more on this later) is overlapping and dovetailing with my “Year of Here” 

December 29

933. Grace for a new day

934. Avalon’s “How Great Thou Art”
935. Climbing out of the pit
936. That Your lovingkindness never ceases
937. And Your mercies are new every morning
938. Building new habits, one nail at a time 939. Hope
940. Being in the 900’s at the end of this year
941. Being blind before and now SEEING

942. Fighting crankiness with thanks 

972. Water for showers and laundry and dishes
973. When I turned Avalon up loud, Will exclaiming, “Let’s get all the instruments! PRAISE GOD!”
974. How gospel music can make it fun to wash the dishes
975. Shaving my legs in stages to get ready for our holiday at the beach in two weeks -- the bigger the smooth patch, the closer we are to having a break! 

December 31

991. Breakfast in bed! Banana pancakes and coffee!
992. 6 happy years of marriage 993. My husband gifting me time for a lovely walk by myself
994. Poetry forming
995. Glory all around: mountains, fields and sky

998. How blessed we truly are

999. My husband’s gifts to me: poetry, a promise of dates to plan, a promise of music to make

1000. The privilege of living in this place, with these people

1001. Salmon for New Year’s dinner!

1002. Fireworks in our backyard!
1003. Mulled white wine with rosemary, lemon and honey
1004. A fire in our fireplace
1005. Counting past one thousand gifts in one month, and knowing they will just keep on coming -- and coming -- forever

a new way of seeing

like a bird on a wire

awareness of grace

turns commonplace

into glory and fire

like wood to a tree

like waves to the sea

let thanks become

the fiber of me

a drop in the bucket

My youngest turns two tomorrow.  In a month, my oldest will be four.  Four years is a long time.  I spent four years in high school, another four years in college.  

And now I’ve been a mother for almost four years.  

In high school and college, with each year that went by you felt like you had it figured out a little better, and by the time you graduated you were top of the heap.  All those little puny freshmen looked so inexperienced and immature - you had it “sussed” (Kiwi English for “figured out”).  You could show them a thing or two.  

As a mother?  

After four years, I feel even smaller, even more like a beginner, even more humbled and overwhelmed than when I started.  Bringing William home from the hospital, I was filled with joy and confidence.  I was made to do this, I thought.  My body was created for this - I’m a natural.  

That lasted for a while… motherhood was golden.  Piece of cake.  I loved it.  

Then William turned two.  The week before his second birthday we had our first screaming knock-down-drag-out fight, and panic filled my heart: Who IS this kid?  This isn’t my son!  What do I do NOW?   

He used to get so angry when I punished him - I mean, absolutely kicking-screaming-furious.  He still sits in stubborn silence, convinced he’s right, refusing to answer the simplest, gentlest question.  His craving for fairness right from the beginning has kept me accountable to never discipline him in anger - he simply will not respond.  Not until I calm down, pray for love myself, speak in love, pray out loud for him to want to ask Jesus for help, and walk him through asking Jesus for help himself, do we finally get somewhere.   It’s extremely humbling, extremely frustrating, and extremely good for me.  I’m so much more aware of my own sin than I was four years ago.  Nothing like being held accountable by your three-year-old!

Now, looking at his fourth birthday next month, instead of feeling like I’ve got it “sussed” after four years, it’s like there’s this  massive chasm yawning before me of everything I don’t know, everything I haven’t experienced yet, all the milestones yet to reach… After four years, even with all my mother’s intuition, I’m just barely beginning to get to know my son.  Just barely scratching the surface of who William is.  There is so much down there - he runs so deep.  I’m driven to prayer, again and again - O Lord, help me understand him.  Help me love him even when I’m angry with him.  Help me delight in him.  Help me shepherd his heart, not just demand different actions that please me.  

And Benjamin?  I blinked, and two years went by.  He’s completely different from Will.  He has completely different needs, loves, hates and frustrations.  He is a ball of energy where Will is sedentary, talkative where Will is contemplative, physically in-your-face where Will demands his space.  Ben wants to be outside, Will likes to stay inside.  Ben starts climbing, Will says, “Get down, you’ll fall!”  Will wants to sit and watch television, Ben gets bored after 10 minutes and looks for something to throw his body on, in or over.  Ben has a hotter, more explosive temper and more of a showman’s streak, but a much quicker turnaround time.  They are totally different.  Hardly anything I’ve learned with Will applies with Ben - I’m starting completely over from scratch.  Yikes.  

So much for four years feeling like a completed length of time.  Four years is just a drop. in. the. bucket.  Really.  

On Sunday, we listened to a great message on parenting.  After sharing some anecdotes, the pastor invited his two grown daughters (ages 20 and 18) to the mic to share their thoughts on godly parenting.  Both girls sounded articulate, genuine, not nerdy at all - their voices were beautiful.  And they talked about Jesus more than anything else.  Everything they said related to loving Jesus.  

They talked about learning the fear of God from their parents - modeling  seeking God as a family on financial issues, relationship issues, decision-making - how Jesus was the first person their parents sought for everything, and so that’s automatically where the girls go now for advice: to Jesus.  

The girls never thought “Family Night” was cool growing up - all their friends teased them about it, and they had to miss out on study dates, etc - but those same friends joked later that they thought of ringing the doorbell to interrupt “Family Night” and join in.  Both girls said, “Parents, it’s ok to make your kids do things they don’t want to do!  I used to gripe about having to ride bikes and play games with my brothers, and now we’re best friends.  Your kids will thank you for the memories and relationships when they’re older.”  

They talked about learning how to spend time with Jesus from an early age, starting with Bible DVDs or tapes, and moving on to reading the Bible for themselves, and how their Dad or Mom would ask them later what they read and what they learned, what Jesus said to them… and so now, they not only understand how to spend time with Jesus, but they love doing it and their day isn’t complete with out it.  (I was definitely in tears by this stage.)   

I looked over at James through my tears, and said in a half-whisper, “Oh that our boys would talk about Jesus like this when they’re 20 and 18!”  

A while ago I started a “Jesus box” for William in the mornings, with Bible story books and paper to color with, but he never did much with it because it wasn’t specific or directed enough.  So after listening to Sunday’s sermon, I put The Jesus Storybook Bible CDs on my iPod, and yesterday when Will woke up, instead of just having him look at regular books until breakfast, I gave him headphones and turned on the Storybook Bible.  Afterwards at breakfast (upon request) he told us the entire story of how Isaac was the son of the promise, and how Abraham almost killed him, but God provided a “wam” stuck in the bushes so Isaac didn’t have to be killed.  (The first time he’s really gotten that story!)  When James asked him who the “ram” was that God sent for us so we didn’t have to die, Will immediately said, “Jesus.”  

Today Will woke up a bit later, so he came straight in to eat breakfast.  But the first thing he said afterwards, still in his PJs, was, “Mommy, can I go listen to Jesus?”  

Music to my ears.  

If I do one thing in my 14 remaining years with Will and 16 years with Ben before they leave for college, I want it to be this: showing my sons how to love Jesus.  How to spend time with Him.  How to listen to Him.  How to hear His voice.  Who cares what homeschool curriculum I use, which continent’s material I focus on, how many languages they learn, how many fieldtrips they take or educational toys they have - if they know who Jesus is, that He loves them, and how to love Him back, I’ll consider it a job well done.  

entering the Valley of Vision

Stop and refresh your soul here a moment: Sovereign Grace Music - How Deep

I’ve had this book, Valley of Vision, a Collection of Puritan Prayers since my Dad blessed me with it while I was in college… but I haven’t pulled it off the shelf in several years.  It felt so right to pick it up again, and begin to add another element to this “Year of Here:” the discipline of “hard stops”. It’s something Ann talks about a lot, but I just didn’t know how to make it happen… 

...but after reading this post, I decided to try again.  Being given something rich, intimate, and convicting to say to Jesus every three hours made such a difference to my motivation to keep my hard-stop trysts with Him.  

I did the 9am one, finding a little island of quiet by my kitchen counter as I prayed the words softly to Him under my breath, feeling my heart slow down and everything else recede away momentarily.  

I did the 12noon one too, looking forward to seeing what prayer came next, delighting in the feel of the words in my mouth, sensing the pricks of conviction in my heart at various phrases.  

I set my alarm and ended my nap at 3:00 (well, 3:10 - I hit the snooze once!), and found such pleasure in meeting Jesus at the kitchen table before the boys woke up (instead of greedily sleeping until they wake me up and then feeling grouchy, like most days)… and when they arrived tousled and damp, I could welcome them with a smile and a composed, gracious spirit.  

So, Day 1 of this new journey completed successfully, rich blessings received… the challenge will be to take the book with me on our outing tomorrow, and keep myself focused on Him with these hard stops even while not at home… 

{post-script - I did it!  I slipped the book in my bag and followed the prompts, if a bit late... and each time I re-entered my activities with renewed joy and focus.  It's really working!}

I think this must be why monks have set times of prayer - because Practicing His Presence is so challenging for the distractable human heart, we need bells or alarms, or something to call us to remember Him at regular intervals.  

Ann’s suggestions:

1. Begin with the book
2. Print out this "Walking Through the Valley" guide “an organized approach to working through The Valley of Vision prayer book in 13 weeks using 3 daily “appointments” scheduled at 9am, 12pm, and 3pm Monday through Friday.”
3. Set the alarm on your phone, or have email reminders sent at 9am, 12pm, and 3pm Monday through Friday, to bring you to His throne in prayer. Prayer is our delight as He is our Joy — may yours go deeper as you spend time with Him who never leaves us...

Something to ponder...

When was the last time you stopped everything you were doing, 

and focused completely on communing with Jesus, 

even just for one 60-second minute?

How did it feel?