Day dreamin'

I have a friend — a kindred spirit — who likes to daydream the way I do. When we're together we create extravagant, intricate fantasies in which everything is well and ends well.

Last year, we constructed a fantasy in which we moved to the Scottish countryside for a few years of doctoral study. The cottage in which we spent most of our time was nestled in the verdant hills, just off a country lane. My friend, Joe, wanted to be sure the cottage would have "rustic hard wood floors, a small but sturdy oak dining table, and a kitchen window overlooking a quaint, organic garden blooming with tomatoes, carrots and herbs."

"Yes, yes!" I exclaimed. "And the cottage will have all sorts of large windows (and a bench seat under one window) with sweeping views of the countryside. And there must be a rose garden. And there must be a nook for tea time, and I hope we take high tea everyday."

"AH!" he responded. "How could I forget the bench seat?! I am a fool! I expect nothing less than high tea on a daily basis."

In very little time, we'd created a dream in high definition, complete with hand-painted dishes, freshly preserved marmalade, and rousing tea-time discussions with "tart philosophers, soulful poets, eccentric musicians (preferably fiddlers), colorful authors, brooding psychoanalysts, and elderly widows and widowers of gentrified birth." Our neighbors, Betsy and William, would own a cow and would have their freckled, dimpled 9-year old, Billy, bring us fresh cream every morning. To go with the marmalade and scones, of course. We would churn all leftover cream into butter, which we would sell at the local farmer's market.

Oh, and there's so much more.

Our dreams are often extravagant, but they're not too far outside the realm of realistic possibility. It's the twinge of realism that makes them so sweet. It's unlikely we'll ever realize our Scottish cottage fantasy, but we've both toyed with the idea of doing graduate studies at St. Andrews, so our dreams could have come true. Dreams that could come true are one of my favorite escapes from real life when the going gets tough. They breathe a little bit of hope into dark times.

I've been trying to escape my life into the Land of Daydreams lately. I try to dream about traveling to Spanish-speaking countries or meeting a good guy on an airplane, but these dreams feel too far-fetched after so many months in bed. It's hard to imagine that I'll ever again be able to participate in life enough to travel abroad or date. So lately, I've steered clear of these kinds of dreams. The hope they instill isn't sturdy enough.

But gosh. I need some place to which I can escape. I need a dream that feels magical but could still be realized one day. So I've started daydreaming about the escapades I want to have with Jesus in heaven. I ask myself, "If I were with Jesus right now, in the flesh, what would I want to do with him?" Often, before I enter into these daydreams, I ask God to help me dream. I'm hoping he'll reach in and drop a sparkling idea that makes my heart skip a beat.

The other day I imagined Jesus and I were jumping on a trampoline so big I couldn't see its borders. It is just the two of us at first, bouncing and laughing as you only can when you're flying and flailing. There are hundreds of colorful water balloons on the trampoline, too, bouncing high in the air alongside us but somehow never getting under foot.

After awhile, hundreds, maybe thousands, of other people appear and join us. Everywhere, there are colorful balloons and people laughing with glee, delighting in God's company and in each other, and marveling at the ways we reflect the God we're getting to know so well.  Sometimes, a water balloon pops, but instead of water drenching an unsuspecting jumper, small beads of light cascade out of the balloons, each glistening with a different color. There is light confetti everywhere.

A dream that really, truly could come true. I hope it does.

Hey God, I hope this dream comes true, okay? Maybe Moses, Elisabeth Elliot, and my grandpa can help you fill all those water balloons. In the meantime, I'll be rallying as many trampoline troops as I can down here. I'll tell them about your love, and I'll pray for them, and I'll do my best love them like you do. And hey, would you use this sickness of mine to somehow draw people to you? I'd love it that trampoline were extra full because of my sickness. That would be just the greatest.

Thanks, God.

Love,

Sarah

© by scj

Encountering the gospel as fairy tale

Posted simultaneously at Positively Human.

Late one night, a few weeks back, I whizzed down a California freeway with my A.C. blasting and a radio preacher’s voice blaring. My eyelids felt heavy, like they were weighted down with mud — the same thick mud I felt I had been trudging through all week.

And then the preacher’s voice rumbled, loud and unhindered:

“You’ve got to hunger for the Truth!” he said. “You’ve got to long to be in the Word!”

And my soul — the soul that’s learned to love Jesus for 26 years — felt nothing. No longing; no hunger. Nothing but the weight of that viscid mud.

Sometimes, when the mud is especially messy, I like to remember my childhood. I remember the days I exclaimed in delight over spit bugs, believed people when they told me I was fantastic, and found the Gospel of Jesus awe-inspiring. Back in those days my soul was always alive with longing for the Truth.

And then I grew up.

And now a family friend lies in the hospital while cancer ravages her body, and my soul is still heaving from relief at the doctor’s words this weekend: “Your sister’s bump is benign.”

On these muddy days I find myself wanting to want more of Jesus and his world. But the wanting to want isn’t always enough, and the radio preacher’s exhortations bounce off the barrier around my heart, like bullets off a fortress wall.

When I was a little girl my mom read The Chronicles of Narnia to my family at bedtime. As I entered adulthood, memories of these cozy nights with wood nymphs and fawns prompted me to read other fairy stories. And so I spent afternoons romping through Middle Earth, and evenings walking the corridors of Hogwarts.

Sometime between eating second breakfast with hobbits and perfecting my summoning charm with Hermione Granger, I realized these stories were doing something for me that rational arguments rarely did.

Like author G.K. Chesterton, when I read of cities where rivers gushed with wine, I marveled that the rivers in my world flow with water, of all things. Water that churns frothy white, generates power, and bends the light, separating it into vibrant ribbons of color.

When I read of orchards that grew golden apples I saw afresh the glory of the tree outside my window. This tree is laden with green apples that grow from soft blossoms, and power my dusty body to breath, blink, and dance. And it doesn’t have to be this way. But it is!

During a time of piercing grief I read George MacDonald’s tale The Light Princess, in which a wicked witch curses a newborn princess so that she is ‘light of spirit’ and ‘light of body.’

As the princess grows the law of gravity doesn’t bind her, nor does her soul feel pain or sorrow. Instead, she spends her days being tossed or dragged from place to place — her freedom from gravity no freedom at all, as it strips her of the autonomy necessary for walking. When she sees her mother cry, or is told an enemy is about to attack, she laughs a loud, hollow laugh, which bespeaks her incapacity to feel deeply. And when a prince falls in love with her she can’t know the joy of returning his love, for her inability to feel any depth of emotion precludes the possibility of relational intimacy.

And so it was that I longed for the Light Princess to be able to feel pain. And I knew deep in my grieving heart that the God-given capacity to feel pain makes us much freer than we would be without it, and that to be human is marvelous.

As fairy tales awakened in me what philosopher Peter Kreeft calls a “right response to reality,” my appetite for them increased. Soon I realized every tale went the same: an enemy invades a peaceful Kingdom¹, and an epic battle between good and evil ensues. Lives are forfeited and dreams sacrificed. And then, just when it seems like all hope is lost, a savior arrives to rescue the faithful ones from the grip of evil, and restore order to the Kingdom.

These stories revived my longing to be swept up in something bigger than myself. They made me want to sacrifice and even die for the greater good. And when they ended happily a childlike voice deep inside whispered with longing, ‘Is it true?’

One day I re-read Genesis 3:14-15, which announces to a world invaded by evil that a Savior will come to fight evil on behalf of the suffering ones. The story unfolds throughout scripture: the Savior will die, and just when it looks like all hope is lost he will defeat death and darkness. And one day, he will restore everlasting order to his Kingdom of faithful ones.

And that’s when I understood how fairy tales could resurrect my desires.

Fairy tales are trumpet sounds of the truest and greatest fairy tale of all: the Gospel.² These tales dress Truth in the beauty of story. And beauty so powerfully engages our desires that it can creep past our intellectual defenses, or fortress walls, via the secret passageway of imagination. And like Aslan breathing onto the White Witch’s stone statues to revive them, these tales can breath resurrection life into our hardest heart spaces. For as C.S. Lewis reminds us,

“Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as inducing them.”³

 
For a list of suggested fairy tales and essays about the power of fairy tales click here.

¹or ‘sphere’

²When I say the Gospel is the truest fairy tale, I do not mean that it is literary fiction. I mean, instead, that its true storyline is unique to the fairy tale genre, and that it is the archetype for every fictional fairy tale.

³italics mine

_________

Image Credits: ak6.picdn.net, wherethewind.files.wordpress.com,melissacartercreations.com/images/Aslan.jpg

Beatin' the Heat to this Beat

I'm back in L.A. this week, and boy is it hot.  Cloudy, humid, is-the-breeze-vacationing-in-Bora-Bora? hot.  When I left Portland it was hot.  Record-breaking hot.  And when my family left Idaho it was the hottest it's been in the five years we've vacationed there.

Thank goodness for shady trees, the frozen food aisle at Vons, swimming pools, and this video.

Watch it.  It will give you chills.

I get goosebumps every.single.time. I watch it.  Especially from about 2:10-2:56.

Doesn't it make you excited about singing with the heavenly choirs one day?


© by scj

Hoping for Happily Ever After

I’ve been watching ABC’s new television series Once Upon a Time this winter. The series chronicles the plight of a band of fairy tale characters that have been cursed by a wicked queen.

Her curse has thrust them from their fairy tale kingdom into our world, stripped them of their memories of their former lives, and damned them to a life without a ‘happily ever after’.

They wander through life having forgotten who they are.

Not surprisingly, their days lack direction, their relationships easily crumble, and their work is rarely satisfying. But still, they dare to hope that life will get better.

Little Red Riding Hood hopes for recognition at work; Prince Charming hopes to be united with his true love, Snow White; and Jiminy Cricket hopes to help people do the right thing. Hope swells and sustains them, for a time. But then the sharp thorns of injustice and human fallibility puncture their hope, leaving them deflated and disappointed.

I can’t help but remember the wise observation from Proverbs when I watch these fairy tale characters flounder:

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick."

I wish this heart sickness were confined to fairyland. It is disease that can consume and devour, with the power to wolf down joy and drain life of its appeal.

It makes hope feel like a not-so-great thing.

And yet the apostle Paul reminds us that there is a hope that does not disappoint:

Click here to join me at Positively Human for the rest of the article!

© by scj

When I Wake Up Hungry

Last night I went to bed craving a bar of swiss chocolate—the kind that's loaded with so much cream it melts in my mouth before I have a chance to chew it. Today I woke up dying for a steaming, frothy latte and a thick slab of pumpkin bread, hot out of the oven.

When I quickly and hungrily climbed out of bed and almost blacked out from the exhaustion of the week I decided it would be nice to take a vacation to Italy where I'd eat loads of fresh bread and butter, heaps of cheesy pasta, and bucketfuls of gelato.

Then I remembered that I'm not allowed to put gluten, sugar, dairy, or caffeine in my body, and I concluded that heaven can't get here soon enough. Because I'll have a new body in heaven, and I'm pretty sure the lattes and chocolate there will be off. the. hook.

So I started dreaming about heaven, where my desires won't ever go unsatisfied, where my Jesus will fully fill all the empty cracks and hollows in my soul. I'm learning that letting my mind drift "further up and further in" to my heaven-home is the loveliest tour an imagination can take— it fertilizes my hope of future glory and helps me to center my heart on the place I belong.

Won't you join me as I muse?

1. I hope Turkish delight in heaven is as exquisite as Edmund thinks it is in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

When I tasted Turkish Delight for the first time I felt certain someone was playing a joke on me. To think this supposedly smooth, creamy, and divinely sweet Turkish Delight is really just chunky jelly coated in powdered sugar. Heaven will certainly rectify this egregious culinary blunder.

2. Boy but laughter is divine, and I cannot wait to have a deep belly laugh with God. If all of the truest, wholesomest, and rip-roarin' funniest humour is just a shadow of the kind of humor that flows from God's holy character, then we are in for some right good laughs, folks. Especially when you consider that our current belly laughs are facilitated by bellies in fallen bodies. What capacity must a resurrected and perfect body (belly) have for laughing?!

3. Have you ever hiked Half Dome in Yosemite in autumn? It's spectacular. The crisp air is perfumed with traces of summer pine. The mountains rise jagged and majestic on every side, a banner of deepest blue stretched wide behind them. The trail is dotted with fragrant wildflowers, and everywhere there are deciduous trees turning vibrant shades of saffron, amber, crimson, and caramel. Around some bends in the trail there are silvery looking-glass lakes; around others are undulating waterfalls, chortling as they tumble from heights to depths.
If an orchestral symphony could be translated into visual artwork it would look like Yosemite.

Each time I survey this staggering beauty I can't help but remember this land is cursed. This is an imitation of the real thing; it's but a shadow of our heaven-home. Can you imagine what it looked like before the fall of man? I think we will know in heaven. And I hope to find autumn in some corner of heaven. I think its colors and smells are too strong and alive for my senses now, but I sure can't wait

4. Oh how I yearn for the day that I feel really, truly known. In heaven all of my dingy facades and tarnished masks will melt away with sin's soul scars and stains and I will know what it is to stand before my Creator naked, known and loved. And the best part is I will know him fully, even as I am fully known.

What must it be like to hear the voice that spoke the stars into the sky, calls dead men to life, and courses with love say my name....

5. In that same vein, I am so excited to see and really know my dear friends and family in their truest form, uninhibited by fear and unfettered by insecurity; radiant in purity and splendor as they rule and reign with Christ, more themselves they've ever been before. I think I will stand in awe at their beauty.

6. A friend recently shared this by Charles Spurgeon with me: "You may look, and study, and weigh, but Jesus is a greater Savior than you think Him to be when your thoughts are at the greatest."

Now close your eyes and picture his eyes burning love into the darkest corners of your soul, speaking compassion to your withered heart, resurrecting your deepest dreams and desires and then satisfying every yearning you've ever known.

Let your imagination plumb the depths of his goodness and love, and then remember that the Savior is much, much greater than even this. It doesn't matter how far and wide you stretch that imagination of yours, you will never approach his great compassion and loving kindness.

This is the one who fights for you, walks with you, and lives in you. Blessed be his good and holy name.

7. Okay, now it's your turn: what do you hope for in heaven?!

© by scj

A Tale of Two Trees

My apartment looks a little bare this morning. My roommates and I have finally disassembled our Christmas tree, swept the wispy snow off our "mantle" (which is really a tv that has been broken for over a year now), and haphazardly stuffed miscellaneous red, green and gold nick-knacks under my bed. We've switched out the Christmas music and replaced it with the David Crowder Band, finished the last of the peppermint coffee creamer, and have shifted our focus from celebration preparations to the daily grind. And once again, January stretches before me looking kind of drab and dreary.

When I was a kid my mom began a tradition that broke up the monotony of January and began to awaken in in me and my siblings excitement and anticipation for a day that topped even Christmas. She used this tradition to shape our little hearts, teaching us to hope and reminding us that although our stockings had been boxed up and our presents were losing their luster, the best was yet to come.

My mom taught us about trees.

We learned that at the dawn of time in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were surrounded by trees. Big trees, little trees, colorful trees, blossoming trees, fragrant trees, fruit trees, and a forbidden tree. We learned that God created humans with the capacity to choose to love him, and listened with dismay when Adam and Eve decided God wasn't good enough, powerful enough or trustworthy enough to obey, and ate fruit off the tree he forbade.

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit off the forbidden tree they rebelled against the Giver of life and chose death. For thousands of years after Adam and Eve's rebellion humans have continued to run into a head-on collision with death and destruction. In the midst of our self-created chaos God pursued restored relationship with his headstrong people. He gave us the law to help us live peacefully in community and to show us how impossible it is to live rightly without his help, with the hope we would run back to him. He even sent prophets to proclaim a promise that would change everything: "A Savior is coming to save you from your sins and give you new life!"

My mom wanted us to fix our eyes on this promise, and so each January she got out the saw and dragged our dying tree outside where we solemnly sawed off its branches and then cut its trunk in half under a gloomy winter sky.

As we sawed, we talked about trees some more. Because God is the Master Redeemer, and although a tree played a significant role in ushering death into the world, God used a tree to conquer death and bring us new life. When Jesus was nailed to the coarse, splintery wood of a tree, sin was also nailed to that tree, so that sin doesn't have to be our slave-master anymore and we can have victory over death.

Once our tree was bare and sawed in two we stored it away in the garage, and we waited. We waited for Spring, when brooks would gurgle, birds would chirp from their blossom-bedecked perches, and we could tie the pieces of our Christmas tree into the shape of a cross, put it in our front yard and set a sign on it declaring, "He is Risen!"

My mom always gave me the privilege of arranging flowers around the base of the cross. That splash of color against the rough wood of our little cross reminded me that winter does not last forever, and death does not have the last word. I am free to live fully and flourish the way God intended back when he created humans in the Garden of Eden, because of the cross. And one day I will meet the Giver of Life face to face in a place where there is no sorrow or death, and nothing is drab and dreary. Because the best is yet to come!

Untitled

My little brother's friend is a poet, and a good one at that. I enjoyed his most recent poem, and I thought you might too. There's more where this came from!

Untitled

A flame fell over the horizon,

Followed by livid lilac smiles

And the sun's salmon-shaded shadows.

A new king's coming.

The blue above bows,

bending to a darker hue.

Creatures concede his supremecy,

Closing their eyes

In reverence to his reign.

Lowered heads lie on sunset beds

And cool air claims the atmosphere.

This is the Night.

A diamond-crested crown on his brow

And Moon-jeweled septor across his lap.

He sits upon his throne an emperor,

Submitting only to God and a sunlit sky.

A Reflection of the Real Thing

On Saturday morning when my mom and I cruised across the Columbia River from Portland into Vancouver, I had the sensation one must get when putting glasses on for the first time, after months of struggling to discern blurry outlines.  As I soaked up the beauty of the silvery river, lined with budding trees and offset by snow-capped mountains, I felt like I had stepped from a world of hazy figures and blurry outlines, into a world of high visual pixilation.  This high definition world was bursting with light and color, and proclaiming God's glory with greater detail and precision than I'm accustomed to.  The vibrant colors pulsated with life, and every bit of creation seemed more real to me than ever before.  It was as if I had been transported from the smog-covered Shadowlands, into the wild mountains of the HeartLand, and every cell in my body was crying out, "I was made for this!!!!"

If C.S. Lewis is right, then we will experience something infinitely greater when we get to heaven.  I like to think when we pass through those pearly gates, it will feel like we've just been given a pair of celestial glasses, with pixelation that'll put Sony to shame!  Everything will seem more real, as if all these years we've been living in a dream, enjoying a reflection of the real thing.  Until then, enjoy this reflection of the real thing, Pacific Northwestern style.  I hope it makes you yearn for heaven.  :)

The trees rolled out a red carpet of blossoms, welcoming Spring to our neighborhood. If you look closely, you can see where Spring traipsed across the petals, transforming the dead ground into earth laden with decadent flowers. 

This is the view from my driveway.  Notice the lack of smog on the horizon.  Believe it or not, t's actually difficult to deeply inhale this air.  I'm so used to chewing my air.

Have I ever mentioned that it's a secret dream of mine to live in a tree covered in blossoms?  I'm thinking about moving into this tree.  

I wonder if each blossom is different, like snowflakes.  

Spring just recently waved her wand at this little guy.  

I went on a walk and enjoyed watching the clouds shift from one mood to another.  Even the most mediocre horizons here take my breath away.

A diamond in the rough.

The daffodils are Spring's finest form of efflorescence!  

"So whatever it takes, I will be one who lives in the fresh newness of life of those who are alive from the dead."  Philippians 3:11

Tell Me What You Think, Thoughtful Reader

1. What is beauty?

2. Is beauty always in the eye of the beholder?

Please chime in with your ideas...!

Broken Chains

Last night, the young witch and mother about whom I blogged several days ago gave her life to Jesus Christ!!!!!  She is now covered in the blood of the Living Lamb of God.  Thank you for praying.

Please pray for her physical safety and spiritual growth over the next several weeks.  She is surrounded by witches, and will certainly experience intense spiritual warfare now that the Spirit of God lives in her.  Also, pray that her husband would come to know Christ, and that he would give her the freedom to get involved in my church with her three children.

"The LORD your God is with you,

he is mighty to save."

Zephaniah 3:17

Face to Face

You know those moments when a kernel of truth that has been forever imbedded in your brain wiggles its way down to your chest and penetrates the layers of your heart? These moments are always life-changing because those little kernels of truth have a way of turning tough, scaly hearts into liquid hearts that refresh the hearts of those around it.

Yesterday a kernel of truth finally made its way from my head to my heart.

I was wearing a tall black hat that I hoped looked sort of "priestly" and I spoke with my most authentic foreign accent. Standing at the front of my classroom, I did my best impression of Saint Valentine for my students. I talked about true love, the source of true love, and how we can love others truly. Then I had my students open to 1 Corinthians 13, the looove chapter.

I've read this chapter a million times. I can't count the number of mugs it has graced, songs it has inspired, or household toilets it has hung above. But yesterday I read something that took my breath away.

1 Corinthians 13:8-12 "Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

"Then we shall see face to face..."

Of course I've tried to envision what it will be like to see God face to face. I usually fall on my face somewhere between "J" and "esus!" But what will it be like to look at the people I love in heaven, where they will have no trace of sin, no soul scars or spiritual burdens, no sadness, no regrets or physical ailments? What will we be like when we are stripped of the sin that discolors and mars our essence? How glorious will it be when I can see the people I love as they should be, the way God wanted them to be at the dawn of time?

In a sliver of a second I thought about everyone that I love. I like to think I know these people's quirky tendencies and admirable strengths pretty well. My sister Rebecca will identify who is hurting or uneasy in any social situation, and my mom will always find humor in stressful situations. My brother Aaron plays the guitar as a therapeutic outlet, and my littlest brother Marc pulls his chin in when he's making an especially funny joke. And then there's my dad whose integrity is unwavering and who cooks a mean dish of chicken pasta. My roommate Megan squints her eyes right before she's about to laugh really hard, and Stacey's eyes light up whenever she talks about her most recent educational pursuits. My college roommate Rachel asks the most poignant questions, and Cara feels fully alive when she's dancing.

I know it's cliche, but I could write books and books about these people that I love so dearly. So, what will it be like to see them face to face? How glorious will they be when I see them in their, "true form" one day in heaven?

Geroge MacDonald speculated about what it will be like in heaven when we stand, for the first time, face to face with the people we love. I'm not sure what MacDonald is implying about the resurrection of our bodies in this quote, but I love his idea about knowing each other. "I think then we shall be able to pass into and through each other's very souls as we please, knowing each other's thoughts... and so being like God."

I reveled in my thoughts during this truth transfer. Then, with 20 pairs of curious eyes on me, I continued to read the latter part of 1 Corinthians 13:12, and I think the little kernel of truth grew roots and made itself a permanent fixture of my heart.

"Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

I am known. When God sees me, he sees me in light of the cross, not in light of my sin. He sees me the way I should be. The way he intended for me to be, back in the Garden of Eden. I have once again been hit with the reality that as I continue to be united with Christ and his Body, I become more myself. I grow more like the Sarah Jackson God had in mind when he formed the foundations of the earth.

Fellow followers of Christ, today I feel so blessed to be able to watch you press into Jesus and begin to take on your true form. And I cannot wait until I see all of you face to face.

Parched

I'm not a great poet.  At all.  But lately, I've been reading my little brother's friend's poetry and I'm beginning to think that one day, (maybe in heaven?) I'd like to write poetry.  Until then, I'll just keep drinking in other people's poetry.  

Is your soul thirsty today?  Read this:

http://underthegreenumbrellatrees.blogspot.com/2009/01/his-madame-her-malady.html

It'll Only Get Better

The other day one of my students decided that the cake in heaven will be good.  Really good.  Even better, he declared, than Betty Crocker.  

Preach it brother.  

Today I had a deep longing to ride on Aslan's back.