Living in the Great I AM

In this year now past, the wind blew my life in so many directions in such a short span that I experienced a new marvel: the utmost grace for the moment, fully entering into the “now” without laboring over yesterday or tomorrow, and knowing Abba’s presence no matter the distance or place.

This grace was present even in the conversation that stands now as the greatest irony of 2011. Almost precisely one year ago, we had just returned to Cape Breton after weeks of winter driving from Nova Scotia. to New York City. to Pennsylvania. to Nashville. to Michigan. and then all the way back to Ontario-New York-Connecticut-New Hampshire-Massachusetts-Maine-New Brunswick-Nova Scotia-Cape Breton, just half a step behind a blizzard that gave us hundreds of miles of interstate all to ourselves. The conversation was more correctly just one simple statement. Big happy sigh: “Isn’t it wonderful that we don’t have to go anywhere in 2011? Except for April in Australia, we have the WHOLE YEAR to stay right here at Shushan and not go ANYwhere.”

I think we are a little too old to be so naïve. I’m actually a bit surprised God was so polite He didn’t let us hear Him laughing. But though the year was filled from beginning to end with the unexpected, it was full to the top with good gifts and grace for every single moment in every single place the wind has blown us.

There was a whole winter in Cape Breton, as expected, with the blend of invigoration and unanticipated immensity of wonder, a gift that we want never, never to forget. There in that remoteness are most precious friendships of the eternal kind, and hours of fellowship around the table or around the fire that fill our hearts with a warmth that endures, all adding up to “now” moments beyond counting.

There was Australia, as planned, and it was wonderful, as expected. Overlooking spectacular Sydney Harbor from the top floor of the time-honored Customs House, we celebrated life and hope on David’s 60^th and Adina’s 30^th birthdays, with all the joy and gravity of such an historic event. There were the Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley, camping, gardening, story times, hugs, and snuggles to our heart’s content.

And there was (unexpectedly) a quickly arranged flight to Michigan. David ‘s father was suddenly hospitalized with a rough bout with pneumonia, and I went to help. He was released, and I stayed on—and in those weeks more than anything, I absorbed the atmosphere of sixty years of a most genuine affection and true friendship. What grace there was, and someday I may find the words to describe the kind of love that adorns and dignifies the vulnerability of these latter years. Oh, let us love one another, for love IS OF GOD, and is the most amazing grace of all.

There was Pennsylvania. My precious mother, and all her gracious and full life in the midst of summer’s bounty, sleeping in her garden under starry skies, gentle and radiant with peace and good health. And our beloved Adelle, our magna cum laude fashion school graduate, glowing and brimful of growth and momentum.

And then there was unexpected Ethiopia. Ethiopia with three very dear Canadian friends, women of exceptional excellence. Ethiopia was a walk with our Father as He showed us just a glimpse of what He sees and knows as the God of the whole earth. His knowledge went like arrows into the depths of my heart. The grace in this journey was immense, and not without pain. There was the discovery of the finest and the best all intertwined with the darkest and the saddest; the beauty and the dignity of a great history enmeshed in an intensity of degradation and loss. Oh, Ethiopia. My heart was here expanded, and troubled, and marked for the future. This too was by grace.

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· And then there I was, in Tanzania, THERE I WAS! in Tanzania! for an unbelievable four weeks with these faraway ones over whom we hover with our night-and-day prayers. There I was, sharing dusty paths with our beloved granddaughters, and picnics by the sea or by the mango and papaya and banana trees, or under the coconut palms as the sun set and the stars appeared.

Then came New York City in splendid autumn with beautiful Adelle—how we love that girl and her city—strong and courageous Adelle.

And Thanksgiving once again in Pennsylvania, finally a trip with my David! with my dearly dearly loved nieces and nephews gathered from all their various traveling and blossoming, and the annual talent show that each year seems to outdo all the years before. And great spiritual refreshment, heaven-on-earth for me.

And last, but very, very, very far from least, came December. As with the water changed to wine, Abba saved the best for last, and crowned the end of such a year with a crowning surprise, a crowning desire fulfilled, a tenderly hidden dream come true, in the regathering of all our far-flung family. ALL our far-flung family, Every. Single. One.

And regathered to not just anywhere, not to the Holiday Inn of Farmington, or the conference center of Philadelphia, but to the land where toys were lovingly stored, and apple trees lovingly planted, and paths lovingly cleared through the woods, and clearings lovingly maintained, all for a future day such as this, when our children and grandchildren could come together and fill their hearts with memories. The land where bonfires awaited, and fireplace fires, the cushioned porch swing and the piano, the pond and the stream, panthers! and rattlesnakes! and rain dances, hot dog roasts and tickle fests, piney lean to’s and sleeping forts, and comfy days and nights. Oh, how we would like to have found the pause button, and stop the world turning for just a bit longer. But the happiness goes on, melded into a shimmery brightness, shining at year’s end like a glowing star at the very top of the tree.

Perching on this high place looking back over such a year, rising like the very tallest of the snowy peaks in the rosy sunset is the presence of I AM, who granted all these blessings and all the constant blessings between the coming and going, with the grace to live in the moment, not yesterday, not tomorrow.

Many years ago, our youngest set her sights on a little speck far, far, far, far away in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We set her on her way, but my heart felt it could hardly survive such a distance. I had always enjoyed the poetry of the 139^th Psalm, but in those days it became my daily sustenance, my ever-present reality, providing a bedrock of faith for the ever-ascending prayers of my heart. And the One I knew as my beloved Father I began to know more intimately as the Lord of all the earth, whose Presence encompasses the nearest near and the farthest far, to Whom no place on earth is unknown nor moment of time is lived apart from Him.

And in the shadow of these wings, enclosed by His love behind and before, with my trust in the Lord of the earth, I step into this year with all it may hold of the expected or unexpected.

Journeying Forward

“O LORD, Thou hast searched me and known me.

Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up;

Thou dost understand my thought from afar.

Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down,

And art intimately acquainted with all my ways.

Even before there is a word on my tongue,

Behold, O LORD, Thou dost know it all.

Thou hast enclosed me behind and before,

And laid Thy hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Where can I go from Thy Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Thy presence?

If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there.

If I take the wings of the dawn,

If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,

Even there Thy hand will lead me,

And Thy right hand will lay hold of me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,

And the light around me will be night,”

Even the darkness is not dark to Thee,

And the night is as bright as the day.

Darkness and light are alike to Thee.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I will give thanks to Thee, for . . .

Wonderful are Thy works,

And my soul knows it very well.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In Thy book they were all written,

The days that were ordained for me,

When as yet there was not one of them.

How precious also are Thy thoughts to me, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

When I awake, I am still with Thee.”

PSALM 139:1-18

2012

Sitting just inside the door of 2012, I am--of all places on earth--back at the shire, in our Lindisfarne woodsy home. But no, not ours, this and all we may ever call our own is the Lord’s, the One who purchased my life, all I am and all I have. I am sitting near my beloved, on my dear perfect-fit three-legged stool carved from a Kenyan tree, next to my treasured old out-of-tune piano—these also belong to the Lord, a fire glowing in the fireplace behind me, the hundred holiday lights in their holiday branches shining like quiet stars in triplicate reflection in the windows around me, with the reverent strains of Rachmaninoff wrapping us in the sacred mystery of awe and wonder. Here in this doorway of time, I pause in the present to gaze back on all that has come to us from the gracious hand of our God in the especially wonderful year 2011. Here, just inside the door, the sharp sense that the sand is passing through the hourglass at accelerating speed fades and recedes, giving way to the sweetness of eternity, the presence of the everlasting God in Whom we abide. And in this hour I know how very, very rich we are in Him, that His gracious hand holds us near, and that in His nearness is all our good both now and forever. And from the deepest depths of my heart, I give thanks.

More to be Desired than Gold

I am guessing that all who love the scriptures have experienced the magnetism of a phrase that is beyond your understanding at the moment, but your spirit senses the sweetness, savors the mystery, and waits for the illumination of understanding in due time.

Like "abide in Me". Or "Christ in you, the hope of glory". Does anyone really get that? But doesn't your spirit quicken to the taste of radiant hope and expansive assent when you read or hear or remember the words?

Some years ago I came across a small book whose title and author I failed to note, and since then I have wished I had not passed over it so quickly. The focus of this book was the hypothesis of a Japanese researcher exploring the power of words. He worked with glass containers of water which he placed separately in a variety of settings, and exposed the water to a range of music and specific spoken words. He then placed drops of water from the containers exposed in these various ways onto freezing slides, so that each drop crystallized.

The book was filled with photos of the variety of resulting crystals. The crystals from water subjected to words like "love", "peace", "happiness", and to light, happy or gentle, soothing music were as one would expect a crystal to look, symmetrical and beautiful. The crystals formed by water droplets surrounded by harsh and hateful words or hard and angry music were irregular, incomplete, or otherwise disfigured.

I have not come across the book again nor heard from any other sources of such a theory, but found myself intrigued by the concept and pondering once again the beauty of the body of literature we know as the Word of God. I have reflected on the potential for illumination that exists in even a portion of one verse of scripture, if it were to wash up on any shore to any person in the world. If that person were able to read those few words and think about them, what questions even a few words could awaken, and what resonance with the human heart.

And then to think of the effect on the human spirit through the generations, the uncounted hundreds of thousands who have gathered weekly and been the listeners as words like "light", "goodness", "love"," joy", "peace", "patience", "kindness", "gentleness", "wisdom", "mercy", "eternal weight of glory", "swallowed up by life", "the God of all comfort", "eternal life", "the hope set before us", "sorrowful yet always rejoicing", "overflowing through many thanksgivings to God", "indescribable gift", "manifold wisdom of God", "the grace of life", "good works", "fitted together", "built together", "riches of His grace", "His kind intention", "forgiveness of our trespasses", "freely bestowed on us in the Beloved", "rich in mercy", "grace abounded all the more", "encourage one another", "love one another", "be kind to one another", "forgive one another", "do not fear", "lift up your heads", "alive to God", "law of the spirit of life", "more than conquerors", "spirit of truth", "full assurance of faith", "be anxious for nothing", "peace of God which surpasses all comprehension", "good things to come", "myriads of angels", "the spirits of righteous men made perfect", "the Father's good pleasure", "blessed and holy", "faithful and true", "the bright morning star", "the glory and honor of the nations", "the Lamb's book of life", "river of the water of life, clear as crystal". . .

This is only the beginning; it goes on and on and on and on and on!

Do we have ANY IDEA how truly blessed we are?! Deeply embedded in the most hidden cells of our bodies and in the smallest backwaters of our psyche are words of life, words of beauty, words of hope, making us supremely rich.

"Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious--the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. ...Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into His most excellent harmonies." (Phil. 4:8, The Message Remix)

I have been created for His harmonies.

Oh that these words of illumination and life be our daily portion, and all that is lesser give place to that which beautifies and endures!

Those Silly Foxes

All through the winter of 2010 to 11, there was a large peaceful fox that would sit regally in a patch of sunlight on the hill top, or curl up to sleep on other days, in the same patch of warmth, or bark for the dog down the street, his friend, to come and play fox and hound.

I've discovered that while I was gone he turned into lanky, lean, beautifully bushy tailed teenaged foxES who peek in our windows, tumble and chase up and down the decks, and run the squirrels up the trees.

And carry off shoes. My favorite outdoor slip-ons that I slipped off at the front door have a missing mate somewhere in the hundred acre wood. And they were even too muddy to taste good.

Silly foxes.

Forests and Trees

Brooklyn and Manhattan, Philadelphia and Reading and Lancaster and Nashville and Franklin, Michigan and Halifax and Ethiopia and Tanzania and Ethiopia and Central Park and Shushan....the summer has softly folded into fall all unnoticed, and slowly my soul is catching up to my address.

Lots of trees in this forest; it will take me a while to find words.

Lots of sunbeams too, by the way, and the moonlight is stunning.

Thank You; It was Magnificent

Winter is gradually drawing to a close, and (here I must lower my voice so as not to be overheard by anyone who might doubt my sanity) on the day of the first thaw, I was surprised by the regret I felt that it had passed so quickly. I was not yet ready to part with air so clean and cutting that to take deep breaths of it must surely have added years of health to our lives; nor our weekly routine of bundling up against the piercing cold to throw and stack a week's supply of firewood outside our door, nor the countless treks late at night, returning home after long days in town with snow so deep we had to leave the car up the road and hike with arms full of groceries down our long driveway, through driving snow or under vast starry skies, through softly falling downy flakes or a hushed moonlit wonderland, but always through this deep stillness.

Whether softest powder, glistening ice, cold so dry it caused crispy crunching at every step, piercing micro-sleet, or smoothest drifts of whitest smoothest cream, I have not enough words to describe how deeply I have loved this winter here in beautiful Cape Breton. So much have I loved it and been moved by its unearthly stillness and its majesty and beauty that I am aware that my life on earth has been altered by it.

Every season is a gift, with the Creator's goodness imprinted in ways beyond counting. This year, winter's gift in this far northern wilderness has been a rarity of breathtaking purity so great that David and I have felt sometimes, standing in this profoundest silence of falling snow, or walking like a whisper under a thousand stars, or through the stillness of a corridor of diamonds more magnificent than any dream on earth, that surely we are just a breath this side of heaven, if not already there in one of God's most holy secret places.

"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?.... And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth?" (Job 38:22,29) As long as we live, our hearts will be marked by the gift this season of beauty beyond imagining has been to us, and for this profound gift we give profoundest thanks.