a day.

Today i worked outside putting up Christmas Decorations...it was dreary and drizzling the whole day. bleh. depressing. Things just seemed flat, shabby, and worn-out looking, as if the earth was exhausted and needed a break.

then, quite suddenly, the sun broke out for 5 minutes before setting. i love it when that happens. everything was golden and quiet and perfect, a respite in the midst of a soggy day.

i'm still working through "A Grief Observed" by Lewis, here is the quote for the day...

"And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling."

honestly, i'm tired and worn out, but somehow gratefully so. i think thats possible. just like i'm grateful for the grey day because that 5 minutes of sunshine was so perfect and right. does that make sense?

another thought...

mom says she feels God has chosen her for this.
What does this say of her faith? That she is chosen to bear such a thing. what a thought.

Lewis says that time is just one more name for death. my first reaction was to underline it as something that sounds good. my second reaction was to disagree.

Time is a human construct, but it is also the medium of obedience. the timing of daily events which come from the hand of God are what move us, they are the things which shape the character of our own beings.

I am learning to live with irruptions in the day to day, learning to percieve the value and preciousness of the common and the simple. a walk, a conversation with family, laughing with friends, a good book, times of deep silence, longings not fulfilled. i was taking a walk this morning and looked up at the breaking clouds. i remembered a line from Wiesel which talks about all of those who make who we are share in the sight of our eyes lifted to heaven. many of them contribute to our awareness of the ineffable. i thought of mom. and i was glad.

time is of man, but timing is of God. We are not given the chance to choose the things over which we will ponder, we are each placed in reality. what will we do with these few moments? do we even see them? do we "feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal?" (heschel)

tonight was really hard. i wrote in my journal,
"i know You will keep us limping all the way home, but did You have to do this?"
maybe that is asking to much or to simply...or maybe its not saying enough.

some news.

Last weekend we went out to the Santhouses for the weekend. It was harvest season and we watched the tractors work late into the night in the field behind their house. It is always so refreshing being with them. The wisdom and good questions of Mr. Santhouse, the joy and peace of Mrs. Santhouse and the warmth of the kids make their house a wonderful place to be.

On Monday I found out mom has cancer. Lewis said, "I never knew grief felt so like fear." I feel a lot of this recently. its a learning experience. We still don’t know a whole lot, but it came as a shock to my family. Life really is fragile; I feel it in the dryness of my eyes. When faced with such a terrible reality there are many doctrines and ideas which fail and fall away. Yet we are assured of God’s fidelity every morning we wake up. With that assurance I ask for prayer, that God’s presence would be sensed in the midst of this, and that he would grant patience until it is. This snatched the breath right out of me. I’ve experienced a tightening of my chest, a pit in my gut, a wince of my eyes, and an ache in the depths of my being. To be honest, its all rather confusing. Some things just age you.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about this whole thing. somewhere I read that all a cancer patient wanted was someone to “walk with me to the head of that lonesome valley.” But that’s just it, he wanted the humanly impossible. It seems that one of the horrors of cancer is that its an individualistic disease, a diverging road, a separation which cannot be fully understood.

How do you pray for what is a part of your own heart? Mom is such a part of me that I am not afforded the comfort of having a perspective of distance. Lewis says, “One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness. One only meets each hour or moment that comes… One never gets the impact of what we call ‘the thing itself.’ But we call it wrongly. The thing itself is simply all these ups and down. The rest is a name or idea.”

The fact is, “the thing itself” is exactly what I feel in my bones. It’s the glaring word which is imprinted in my mind, the concept which dries my eyes, the ambiguous magnitude which follows me to bed and prohibits rest. Its not the many possible outcomes that I fear, nor the weight of grief, rather it is the memories of years which seem to be swallowed up in the vacuum of “the thing itself.”

Mom said she felt “called” or “chosen” to bear this severe mercy. What a strange and unlooked for reminder. When faced with our mortality it seems that the quandary draws one closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter and drags into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our “normal time.” It seems the afflicted are granted the faith of two people while the few surrounding loved ones are given the worries and fears of two people. Nevertheless, disease and tragedy are doorways into which the suffering God can enter in the fullness of His being.

We have known since the day of our birth
that our primal task is to grow in basic trust to you.
To rely on You in every circumstance,
to know that you would return when you are away,
to trust that in your absence you will soon be present,
to be assured that your silence bespeaks attentiveness and not neglect,
to know that in your abiding faithfulness,
“all will be well and all will be well.”

It is at times like this that we remember that Jesus is not simply all we need, Jesus is all we have. And we are thankful.

sigh...

Sometimes something really good has to end...
We would as soon that life, God and ourselves were predictable.
Yet in our rare moments of honesty we are grateful that life is doubtful and full,
that God is Himself to us,
and that we are constantly learning...and in constant need of grace.

There are times that I feel like i'm bursting with sighs, that my whole being just winces. its not a bad thing, simply an acknowledgment that He will keep us limping all the way home.

At the end of a distracting week...

Heschel says that life is lived under wide horizons, I love this thought because in it is the reminder that life is full and deep and a journey. I often forget that in the midst of a place like Chicago, I have found that long walks are much needed. This past week has been crazy. It began with writing a paper on the suffering of the Godhead as seen in the crucifixion of Christ. For one of the first times this semester I gave myself to an assignment, and as often happens, did not feel like I did it justice. But that’s not the point; I really enjoyed writing and researching the topic. Since last semester’s Theology of Suffering class I have looked for glimpses of what Dr. Schmutzer discussed in everything I have read. When the time came to finally put some thoughts down on paper I realized how fragmented my thoughts were. The opportunity to study this in addition to other things has led me to consider grad school. That was one of the reasons for the walk, such a thought is a violent irruption into what I had “planned”, and deeper than that, into who I am.

Dad has come to visit for the weekend. It’s good to have him here; I realized how close we became when working together over the summer. We went to Ho Jo this morning for breakfast and I listened to his many ideas of what might come next for him… he always has new plans.

And now, a new week is almost upon us. Silence is sometimes the only healing balm to the wondering soul. As we come before the Fountain of Trembling Silence we may at least know that from Him no secret can be hid, and that the Creator God who sees all is also among us, I love this thought…but still wonder what the implications of this really are. I closed my last paper with this question,

“Perhaps it is enough to say that maybe God is more, or less, responsible for evil than we previously thought. And maybe God is more, or less involved in His creation than we have previously experienced.” Things may not be as straightforward as we think they are. In the midst of a darkness which encompasses and threatens humanity the immanent God of love makes Himself visible, but, in the words of Nouwen, “can we recognize his presence?”

We pray for His peace upon this week, His immanence in our weariness, His joy in our eyes. Have a great week friends.

Friends, i hope this update finds you well. it has been far to long since i have written. that must change. now. this might be a little fragmented, but its a start... :)

Since returning from B'desh almost three months ago it seems like life hasn't stopped. I continued working up in the mountains on my folks cabin till it was time to return for my final year at Moody. During the month back home I had Coen and Carolien from Holland visit as well as Charity, Mariah and Andrea from Moody. Being able to spend time with good friends up in the mountains was so refreshing after the somewhat strenuous time in B'desh.

I have missed spending time with family since college and overseas trips began 4 years ago. This summer was a much needed time with them, and i enjoyed the oppertunity to work with Dad again as well as spending quite evenings with both of them apart from distractions like running water or electricity. :)

One of the best parts of this summer was reading. Nouwen's book The Genesee Diary was sometimes all that got me through days in B'desh while Greene's book The End of the Affair is beyond a masterpiece. Below is an excerpt from a review that i wrote on it,

"Although titled “The End of the Affair”, the reader is left with the impression that the eternal, seeking God does not see ends in stories when Maurice says, “O God, You’ve done enough, You’ve robbed me of enough, I’m too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever.” Perhaps T.S. Eliot said it best in his “Four Quartets”: “In my end is my beginning.” “The End of the Affair” is not a masterpiece because of the brilliance of its faith but because of the intensity of its doubt, it’s characters filled with uncertainty that the God to whom they pray does, in fact, exist. When we are faced with the damning reality that in our eyes our sins hold so much beauty we are forced once again to ask, what is left for us but grace?"

It is that same question which stuck with me coming back from the Islam on Capital Hill event several weeks ago. in response to 5,000 muslims gathering for Jummah prayer on the lawn of the Capital several of us went in partnership with the South Asian Friendship Center to pass out Jesus Videos and talk with those that would communicate. It was intense and refreshing all at once. It is uncomfortable to see people as they really are, made in the image of God and precious in His sight. No one can understand the image of God who has no fallen in love with the Gospel and seen a person as an eternal being. I went down thinking that what i had learned about honor and shame in the muslim world would help and came back realizing that I did not understand grace as i should.

I can't believe its halfway through the semester. so much has happened and I would love to tell you about it, but i don't think either of us has the patience...so in closing these are the books i am reading apart from school:

Facing the Abusing God by Blumenthal
Praying the Psalms by Brueggman
Brighton Rock by Greene

In his book Blumenthal says, "Humanity in its individual and collective existence, is created in God's image, and hence struggles, together with God, to live the depth of that image." what a thought. I have so much I want to write about this, but it will have to wait till another blog post.

I've also decided I want to intentionally write prayers more. I finished one this weekend, its in the style of Brueggman, someone who I am learning to appreciate a lot...

This morning, we pray to the God of furnaces;
we remember the smoke of Sodom and Gomorah,
we remember the sacrificial offering by fire which you saw as right
we remember the heat of the fiery furnace where you met 3 men in the flames.

And, very differently, we remember the ashes of recent years;
we remember the smoke as the towers fell,
we remember the flames as Dresden burned,
we remember the furnaces where six million people were reduced to ash.

Into these manifold ambiguities,
we yield to the depth and fullness of Your being.
Into these irruptions of reality,
we ask for grace to pray in the presence of sufferings.

This morning, we confess that You are the God whose presence filled these many furnaces,
and we submit.
Restore,
Refresh,
Renew,
we pray in the name of the risen, wounded Christ. Amen.

and a few pics....

Mariah, Andrea and i in Colorado

in front of one of the decks we built.

mom and i at PPP