You're Not Ready to Die. . .

. . . If you've never read this book:

It'll make you long for heaven,

and stand in awe of Christ's work on the cross all over again,

and want to be swept up in a story bigger than yourself.

Seriously, go buy it.  Don't even mess around with the library.  This is a book you need to re-read again and again.

And make sure you get the unabridged version.  Reading the abridged version is like eating carob chips when you could have a bar of decadent swiss chocolate; or looking at pictures of the Rocky Mountains when you could be skiing in them; or skyping with your neighbor when you could just walk over and eat dinner with him.

And then, go see this movie in December:

I seriously can't.wait.

© by scj

Because He Lives

Late Saturday night, the day before Easter, I was about to climb into my childhood bed when my mom came to the bedroom door with light in her eyes.

"Guess what we need to do?" she asked me and my little sister, who was spending the night

"It's tradition!" she said, "And this is our last chance to do it before Aaron moves."

My mom has always tried to cultivate a culture of celebration in our house by creating traditions.  Our Easter tradition is one of my favorites.

Every Easter when we were kids my mom taught us about trees. Sturdy trees, slight trees, blossoming trees, and a forbidden tree.

She explained that long before the pine trees stood erect on the distant horizon, or the willow trees bowed beneath the blue sky, God existed, all by himself.

He didn't need people, or planets, or atoms to exist, but he wanted to create people and planets made of atoms, so he used words to make things appear from nowhere.

His life-breath spread stars across the sky, coaxed trees from the ground, and kissed life into man.

He loved the things he spoke into existence, but he was especially fond of the man and woman he created, my mom explained.

He showed them his love in many ways.  He gave them special names, Adam and Eve, and he let them live in a verdant paradise teeming with magnificent animals. It was cool, lush, and full of trees laden with fruit popping with color and exploding with flavor.

He also gave man and woman souls, created in His image.  Their souls were marvelous; they could create, and imagine, and recognize beauty, goodness, and truth.  But most marvelous of all was their ability to love.  

They could choose to love and enjoy God's goodness, truth, and beauty, if they wanted, but God would never force them to love him.

Love never forces others to reciprocate.  

And Love is most delighted when the people he loves choose to love him back.

So he gave them an opportunity to choose Him.

He created a tree loaded with fruit that he asked Adam and Eve not to eat.  He hoped that they would love him enough to trust and obey him.  

But Adam and Eve decided their ideas were better than God’s, and so they chose to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree.  

Their love for self became the thing that motivated them, rather than a love for God, and when their focus became inward they turned their backs to God.  

Anyone who rejects God is shunning the source of life and goodness, and choosing death and badness, my mom explained.

That's why eating the fruit from the forbidden tree changed everything.

Death, badness, ugliness, and lies—all the opposite of God—infected all humans and the earth they lived on.

It grieved God's loving heart.

Humans chose death and separation from God, and God's justice demanded they got what they chose.  

But God’s mercy drove him to make plans involving another tree. He would die in our place on this tree in order to satisfy God's justice, making it possible for humans to enjoy God's life and love forever, once again.

My mom wanted us to remember how Jesus hung on the hard, splintery wood of the tree, his broken body food—Bread—for us; Bread that, if we choose it, would satisfy our deepest soul hungers, giving us life and restored relationship with God.

And so every January we would cut the branches off our Christmas tree, and then saw the trunk in half. As our tiny fingers stripped the tree of its branches we would remember the day Jesus put on skin and came to earth so he could give us Life, Himself. 

We would store the trunk’s pieces in our garage until the day before Easter when we would fashion the two pieces of the trunk into the shape of a cross, and stick it in a bucket full of dirt and rocks.

My favorite job was placing flowers in the bucket at the base of the cross, a reminder that neither of the death-bearing trees had the last word.  The Bread of Life gives us new life-that-conquers-death.

Then we would fasten a sign to the cross declaring "He is Risen!"  

And we would put the cross in our front yard.

Early the next morning the Easter sun would spill over the tips of the pine trees and cut through the darkness, 

an announcement to the world that darkness and death are no longer the victors, 

because He Lives.

© by scj

A Star Named Celeste

A few weeks ago my friend Jessica, a novelist, and I discussed an idea she had for a fable about desire.

Her seed of a thought thrilled me, and the story that grew out of it a few days later thrilled me even more.  She captured with her tale what I could only hope to capture with propositional truth.  I think this is because, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, sometimes fairy stories say best what needs to be said.*

Today is a very good day, friends, because Jessica has given me permission to share her story with you.

And so, without further ado I give you:

"A Fable"

By Jessica Brown

Once upon a time, a star named Celeste lived in the night sky. This star burned bright and clear, sending its diamond light through the vast darkness.

But this task brought Celeste no joy. For the one planet that could see her light was ridiculous.

The beings on this planet could not, like her, simply live. For them, living meant needing. They always needed something—food, water, wine, love, war. Need, need, need. She, who could live for eons without anything, despised them.

Then, one night, one of the far-flung comets swung by. He brought Celeste a message: her time had arrived.

“Time for what?”

“Your time to see what it is about.”

Way down in the dense, molten of her core, something stirred.

And the stirring got stronger and stronger and stronger, and she got hotter and hotter and hotter, and she started moving faster and faster and faster—

And her whole being burst into sun-flare,

And she was suddenly much smaller than she had ever been, and much heavier, and much stranger.

“Where am I?” she asked. “What am I? And what is this I’ve landed on?”

And she knew that she was on that small planet, that she was a human, and that the small, sharp things she was kneeling on was grass.

She rose, and looked about her.

“This is that planet with those poor, stupid beings!”

And she looked about her again. But the stirring that had begun out in the vast sky had not stopped. In fact, it was deepening. It felt like it was making a hole inside of her.

She saw one of the poor, stupid beings walking by. It was taller than her, and had shorter hair that was darker than hers. She held out her hand.

“Please,” she said. “I’m not sure what to do. I’ve got a terrible pain, just here, in the middle of me. Is this what it means to be a human?”

This person looked at her kindly.

“You’re just hungry!” he said. “What you need is a good meal. Come with me.”

And he brought her to a place called a diner, and she ate things called eggs and toast and hash-browns. And the smell and the taste of the things outside her went into her, and she was amazed by this.

“Now, I’m sure you feel a lot better!” said the other human being.

And she realized that while she was eating, that awful stirring had gone away.

“You are right.”

And she was suddenly a little afraid. And the fear began another stirring, now in her head and chest. She put her hand on her head and a hand on her chest, and asked, “Is the meal supposed to fill these places?”

And he looked at her kindly.

“I shouldn’t think so. But I know what you need for that!”

This news made Celeste so happy that she didn’t even hear the word ‘need.’

They left the diner and walked to a store with a sign that said “VINYL.”

“Vinyl?” Celeste asked.

“I know it’s old-fashioned,” the human said. “But it does the trick.”

So they went in and put on huge ear phones. And the sound that moved through her was like blue light from faraway stars. It made her sway, so she swayed.

“What is this?” she asked, swaying.

“U2 of course!”

And then he played some other piece of music, with something called a violin. The sound pierced her, and filled her. She was a little afraid, and vastly amazed.

Then, the door in the store opened. A cold wind moved across her.

“What about this?” Celeste asked, rubbing her bare arms and legs. “How do we take care of filling what’s bare?”

“No problem—you’re in Los Angeles!” her friend cried. And they walked north to a large park and a broad, sunny green space. They sat down together.

The light of the sun rested on her. She laid down and closed her eyes, and the warmth filled her. Again she was amazed.

But it happened so fast! The bigness of the want, and the grandness of the fill.

Celeste sat up and looked at her friend. “I wish I had something to take this day in more slowly,” she said.

He looked at her thoughtfully.

“Men through the ages have wanted the same thing. Let’s go get some wine.”

And they walked to a café and sat on a patio, and shared a bottle of wine. And the deeply colored liquid entered into her like sunshine and food both. She thought, with fear and delight, I am getting a need to have a fill.

And she looked across at her friend and did not despise him at all.

“I am Celeste. What is your name?”

“Johnny.”

“Johnny, I feel that I have something lodged right here—” and she pointed three inches below the base if her throat. “I don’t know if it’s happiness or sadness, but it’s big. I need something to get it out.”

And Johnny looked at her thoughtfully.

“That might be the wine talking, but either way, let’s go get some laughs.”

So they went to the cinema and took in a comedy. And as Celeste was laughing in the dark room of the cinema, she felt as if she were shining out, just like her star self. That’s what laughter is, she thought. How wrong I have been about these humans.

But when the credits started rolling, something happened. The seat suddenly felt small. But it wasn’t the seat, it was her skin.

As the lights came up, she asked, “Johnny, do you ever feel cramped? In your own skin?”

He nodded emphatically. “Why do you think I play soccer?”

And so they went south to another park, this one with a large flat field. And Celeste didn’t know what she was doing, with all the running and screaming and kicking of the ball. But she knew that when she high-fived Johnny she felt that her skin could never contain her again. How had she ever felt cramped?

It was now early afternoon. Could she possibly be hungry again? She was scared to say so. Surely humans don’t feel hungry twice in one day.

But Johnny must have felt hungry too, because they got something called Chinese-Takeaway. And as she was eating it, she was afraid by the amount of need in one day.

“How, Johnny,” she asked, “Can you just LET GO?”

He thought. “There is a lookout on a hike I take,” he said, “Where you can see the trees in their finest array, and hear the birds sing, and feel the wind move through the leaves.”

“Then let’s go!”

And they went on the hike, and as Johnny said, there came a moment when the beauty of the trees and sky and rock was so great she didn’t think about her tummy or her skin or that thing lodged in her chest.

But to her utter dismay, as they came down the mountain path, she felt a stronger stirring in her than ever before.

“Johnny!” Celeste cried. “My eyes! They’re aching! It’s like I need to see!”

And Johnny, resourceful human he was proving to be, replied, “There’s only one thing for that. Van Gough.” So they went together to a white-stone museum on a hill.

And as Celeste faced the painting, her eyes filled with tears. It was so beautiful, she felt filled to the back of her eyes.

“Oh Johnny,” she whispered, “I don’t understand. I am filled but the filling makes me hungrier. I want to see more deeply. What is a human to do?”

“Come see what I do,” he said.

And they went to his house, and she saw a little garden and a tiny kitchen, but he took her to the largest room, a room with paints and brushes and canvases. And he said, “Let’s see more deeply. Let’s paint.”

And paint they did. Celeste painted a still life, Plum and Jug.  She saw the color purple as she had never seen it, and the jug became extraordinary.

And the seeing in her making amazed her. “This must be the deepest filling,” she thought, “For I am creating.” And a thought came to her: for each need there is a fill that fits it.

And, lofty thoughts coming real, Celeste was appalled to find she was hungry again. So, Johnny set out cheese and bread. Celeste decided it was the best meal of the day.

After dinner, Johnny showed her to a cot in the back patio for her to sleep in.

Since the sun was set and she was tired, she said goodnight to Johnny and laid down.

The darkness of the night was all around her. It was quiet. Empty.

She was alone for the first time that day.

And the biggest ache of all hit her with the force of a zooming comet, right into the heart of her.

She ran into the house and to Johnny. “It’s so dark and empty! Do all humans feel lost when we’re not seen?”

Johnny flipped on the light and he said, “I will see you, Celeste.”

And when he looked at her, she felt filled in a way that she had never been filled before. And she decided that humans were far, far, far better off than stars.

But deep in the night, Celeste awoke. She heard Johnny’s breathing. “It’s still not enough. I need to be seen more deeply.”

And she quaked at the passion of this need. Surely, surely it was better to be a star. To be strong and bright and complete.

Celeste walked out into the small garden. How did humans fill this final need? Food and wine and soccer and nature and museums and painting and even the presence of Johnny would never fill it. They did not match the hole of that ache. What was big enough to match this emptiness?

What, she thought, raising her face to the dawning sky, is big enough for that?

© by J. Brown

*This is the name of an essay by C.S. Lewis in which he explores how it is that fairy tales sometimes say best what needs to be said. ;)

Free From Our Cages

helpinganimals.com

When I was in high school my piano teacher told me that the best songs “let the bird out of the cage.” When I heard my college roommate, Rachel, sing for the first time I understood what my teacher meant.

When Rachel sang she translated the beauty in her soul into sound waves. Her music often floated through our apartment, making my soul soar with the rifts and crescendos like a bird that has flown the coop. I can only imagine how Rachel felt when she sang like that.

I recently learned that Rachel’s singing doesn’t satisfy her soul the way it used to. She’s suffered some health problems over the years that have affected her voice, making it hard for her to control her dynamite rifts and hit notes with her former power. Singing is frustrating now. Like trying to fly but slamming into a ceiling mid-summit. The voice that has always sounded freedom to me now makes Rachel feel like a bird that cannot escape its cage. She is learning to live with the gnawing ache of unfulfilled longing.

Hop on over to Positively Human for the full article.



© by scj

Embracing Loss As Gain

Trees, like decaying ghosts, line Pakistan’s farmland, cocooned in the sticky webs of spiders. They found safety in the trees’ branches during last year’s monsoon floods. Some worry that Pakistan’s hot season will be unbearable without the shade of the normally luscious trees. Others are thankful for the spiders, noting that the expected malaria cases after monsoon season are considerably fewer, thanks to the abundance of sticky webs that have been catching the malaria-carrying mosquitos. After a tragic 2,000 monsoon-caused deaths last year, these ghostly trees appear to be some kind of grace.

Click here to read the rest over at Positively Human.

© by scj

The New Year's Post I Wasn't Going to Write

My mind is tired. I just finished reading a one-of-a-kind book. It used insects to resolve the problem of evil. My brain feels like my quadriceps do when I run up stadium stairs under a winter sky. Thrilled to be moving and flexing, very aware that it hasn't flexed in awhile.

My body is also tired. This could have something to do with the dance party I had this morning. Alone. While Little Brother ate breakfast and watched, his eyes wide with wonder at my ability to hula and do the running man simultaneously. Perhaps I should take up dance lessons in the new year. Nah. That sounds exhausting.

I'm tired from reading. I'm tired from dancing. I'm also tired from this last year. It was brutally hard. In this new year, I have absolutely no desire to review last year, to reacquaint myself with the thick and heavy darkness that settled over most of my days.

I don't want to look back on a year during which I spent most of my time in bed or on the lounge chair on my patio, too sick to participate in life.

I don't want to remember the way my broken engagement followed the onset of my sickness, knocking the wind out of my soul, leaving me deflated and stunned.

I don't want to revisit the subsequent nighttime dreams that chased me, pierced me, made me dread sleep; or the mornings when I woke up and wished I could just slip back into unconsciousness.

It feels like 2011 took its claws and tore into my soul, battering it with its savage blows. It feels like my soul is scabbing over now, heaving hard from the struggle. I think reviewing my year will be like examining my scabs, and then picking them open and watching the blood gush.

There is nothing in me that wants to dream up ways to try to make 2012 better than 2011. I think making resolutions will be like slapping Band-Aids on my freshly scratched soul scabs. Band-Aids keep the ugliness from view for awhile, but they're sure to peel off in the shower. And there will be more blood.

But I have a writer's impulse. An urge I can't restrain. It kicks at my soul, struggling to get out, like a bulldog in a gunnysack. I've got to release it. I have to write about the year, to try to make sense of it.

I used to write to get good grades. Now I write to discover. To figure out who God is and what he's doing with me, with this hard life. Each tap on my keyboard is like the blow of a chisel, chipping away at dense rock, reaching for a picture that lies buried within. Eventually a recognizable shape will emerge and I will sit back in relief and murmur, "Ah, now I see."

Tap. Tap. Tap. Chip. Chip. Whack. Scrape. Pound. The chisel does its work. Its blows sound familiar. Like the blows I've been dealt this year. And suddenly I remember a story about a boy who was turned into a dragon.

This boy was mean, surly, and selfish. He bullied younger kids, and complained about as often as he breathed. You may have heard of him? His name was Eustace.* Not the kind of kid you want to share a desk with. Or go on a road trip with. Or get stuck on a boat with.

But his cousins, Edmund and Lucy, did get stuck on a boat with him, and it wasn't pretty. Thankfully for them his greed and laziness got him turned into a dragon that couldn't talk. He could breathe fire, but he couldn't complain. A definite upgrade.

For the first time in his short life Eustace was humbled, reliant on his cousins' sympathy and help. His ugly exterior matched his monstrous heart, and he didn't like what he saw. He wanted to change, to be able to continue his sea-faring adventures with his cousins. He wanted to be human.

One night a fearsome Lion appeared to Eustace. He told Eustace to follow him into the forest, where they both arrived at the edge of a large well that looked a bit like a bathing pool.

The water was still and clear and the Lion knew Eustace longed to dive into it, to bathe his aching dragon's body.

"Undress first," the Lion told Eustace.

Perhaps he wants me to cast off my dragon skin, like a shedding snake, Eustace thought. So he scratched and tore until his dragon skin fell at his feet in a heap.

Joyfully, he turned to leap into the water but stopped when saw his reflection. He was still a dragon, covered in tough skin.

Two more times he scratched, desperate to free himself from his scaly prison. Two more times he failed to free himself.

"You will have to let me undress you," the Lion said.

Though afraid of the Great Lion's claws, Eustace laid on his back and let the Lion tear into his skin, so deep it felt as if it had gone into his heart. The pain pierced sharper than any pain Eustace had ever felt.

When the Lion's work was finished he scooped Eustace up and tossed him into the pool. Eustace's pain disappeared as he swam and splashed with delight, and then he saw his reflection in the pool: he was human.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Chip. Chip. Scrape. Pound. The picture is emerging. It tells the story of a girl. Her soul is twisted and stooped, gnarled as a result of the Fall of all humans. In every stooped soul lurks a dragon.

This girl, she hated that dragon. Hated the way its beady eyes sometimes glowered or its spiny back bristled at others, the way its fiery breath tended to scorch those around her. She didn't like what it did to the people she loved. She thought it made her soul unloveable, not as valuable. So she resolved to remove her tough dragon skin. This should take awhile. About a lifetime, she thought. But I can do it. So she strove and scratched for years, desperate to rid herself of her ugliness. Until one day she was wrestled onto her back, still and helpless. Broken. Too sick, sad and exhausted to keep scratching.

Sickness, sadness: sometimes they are a sword that slices deep. But an impersonal year is not wielding them; hands are. You'll have to let me undress you, their owner whispers. These hands, they are scarred, and they cut deep, until they are covered in blood. They have been covered in blood before.

I know what it is to be wounded so that you might know what it is to be free.

There is pain worse than this. It is the pain of being stuck in the coffin of my selfishness, the prison of my anxiety; of being trapped in dragon's skin forever, while it grows bigger and fiercer. The pain of striving, striving; of trying to earn favor and value by attempting to remake myself. This striving is like eating but never tasting, reaching but never feeling. A little bit like hell.

You'll have to let me undress you.

I never expected to look back on my year and feel pleasure. The pleasure of slowly, slowly being freed from a dragonish destiny, of watching Divine Hands steadily untwist my gnarled and stooped soul. I expected to look at this year and be burdened, affronted by my deep, brittle scabs. But those scarred hands, they do more than use the sword of suffering to slay dragons. Today they have tipped my head upward, outward, and I find I'm looking at a clear, still pool. I lean in close and I see my reflection. I am human.

I think I'll spend 2012 splashing in the water.

© by scj

*Read more about Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis

Tacky Tinsel and Beautiful Souls

We Portlanders and Vancouverites experienced a Christmas miracle last week: the grey skies rolled away and the sun shone clear. My mom and I pulled on our walking shoes, eager to enjoy this unexpected gift of sun, and went on a leisurely neighborhood stroll.

"Look at all of the cute Christmas decorations on this house," my mom exclaimed, slowing her pace to admire the house.

There certainly were a lot of them. Too many, I thought. Too much tinsel, and too many bright colors.

"It looks pretty tacky," I flippantly responded.

My mom grew quiet.

"You miss out when you judge too quickly," she finally said. "There's a bigger picture that you don't see."

"Mmm, no, I don't think I missed anything," I responded, again carelessly.

She was quiet again before continuing. "The lady who lives there works every day for a week to get that house ready so that kids can enjoy it. She and her husband aren't able to have kids, and she told me once she hopes the neighborhood children will delight in her decorations."

Her soft words cut sharp into my careless heart, teaching it to see what she saw.

I felt shamed, overcome by the irony of my judgment. For that house's tinsel glittered cheerily and its colors shone happily to celebrate the babe whose entrance into a cold and fetid stable made him the scorn of flippant hearts, unable to see his beauty and majesty.

This celebrated boy King, he grew into a man who looked at the people society scoffed at—the beggars and prostitutes, homeless and sick—and saw valuable, beautiful souls.

This humble King, he delights in us because he sees more than our trimmings—our waning shine and fading color. He delights in the souls no one can see, and takes joy in their offerings—even when they pale next to the riches of his heaven.

And this High King who stepped down from heaven into a dirty feeding trough, he would have us delight in the offerings of the souls around us, dignifying them because we can see what others may not.

© by scj

Copper Coins and Pistachio Shells

There is a to-do list on my kitchen table covered in pistachio shells—the remains of the afternoon snack I'd hoped would make me feel a bit better. But three handfuls of pistachios later and my muscles still ache somethin' fierce, and my fatigue is so deep it feels like it's located in my soul somewhere.

My mind is racing, tripping over discouraged thoughts, trying to figure out why I felt good for so many days and then woke up today feeling like I was hit by a freight train.

I stare in silence at the checklist I can't read for all the shells heaped on it, and it's just as well I can't see what I've written because I've been in bed all day, too achy and exhausted to do much more than feed myself the last of my leftovers.

This is so hard for me, the woman who used to make her roommates laugh at how quickly she blazed through a heap of responsibilities; who literally sprinted her way through college on a track scholarship; who is energized by productivity and is wired to scale and conquer metaphorical mountains—mountains that get higher and steeper with each victory.

And here I sit, the only mountain I've recently conquered in front of me: a pile of empty pistachios littering the list I am too exhausted to look at.

I feel impoverished, somehow. Like I have little to offer God when the fruit of my day is a pile of empty shells, when even my good health weeks allow me to do nothing more than scale mole hills.

The patient ache in my heart quivers and then I remember the widow in Luke 21 moving quietly toward the church offering, dropping in two copper coins worth less than a penny. They mustn't have sounded more than a quiet *clink* when they landed, swallowed up by piles of weightier coins.

I've often wondered how the widow felt when she watched Ol' MoneyBags walk ostentatiously up to the offering receptacle before her and pour in a heavy bag of gold and silver coins. Did she shift uneasily as the Rabbi, Jesus, watched her drop in her meager offering? As she gripped the two copper coins—all she had to live on—and walked up to the offering behind the pompous rich man, did her heart ache like mine, wishing she had more to offer God?

Perhaps not. Perhaps the kind of heart that is eager to give God everything is the kind of heart that understands the Kingdom of God—that knows that in this Kingdom greatness and value have never been determined by what we have to offer God. For what can clay do for the Potter or tools do for the Carpenter?

When Jesus saw the poor widow's offering he didn't see just two copper coins. He saw what no one else could see: a woman whose heart had taken a posture of surrender; a woman who had given the little she owned to God because she knew that the best thing clay can do is remain wholly available to the Potter for his purposes. Jesus knew that in his Kingdom—where less is more and loss is gain—the widow had given the most valuable gift of anyone in the temple that day.

The story of the widow's gift assures me that when Jesus looks at me he sees much more than a history of scaling and conquering mountains. I think he often sees a heart that strives: clay that believes deep down that its efforts and achievements are important indicators of its value and influence. Perhaps this is why God has stripped away my ability to achieve and conquer mountains this year. Perhaps he is redeeming this chronic sickness by teaching me, in still and helpless solitude, that clay is valuable, not because of its efforts, but because of the hands it rests in. Strong, capable hands that belong to a Potter who cares most about the things unseen: about hearts that need to be kneaded and shaped and taught to trust so that they can surrender to the loving plan of the Potter.

There is a stirring in my heart now—a lifting of my heart's gaze—and I know that Jesus sees beyond my pile of pistachio shells. He is looking for something smaller, something unseen. He is looking for faith the size of a mustard seed. The kind of faith that prompts a heart to surrender to the Potter's loving hands, available to be used for His plan because it knows that He is a God who uses a seed of faith—not to scale mountains—but to move them.

I think it's time to turn over my climbing gear.

© by scj

When You Get Slammed with a Late Fee

A few evenings ago I stopped off at the shabby video store down the street from my house to get a movie for the class I was teaching the next day.

As I pulled into the rental store's dark parking lot I muttered to myself about how I needed to run in and out of there fast so I could go home and get my aching body into bed.

I mindlessly put my car in park, eased slowly out of my car, and was startled fully awake by the ferocious snarls of a bulldog who was trying to squeeze his head out the cracked window of the car next to me to, no doubt, kill me.

Now I'm sure the driver didn't think his killer dog could squeeze out of that sliver of an opening to destroy passers by, but I've seen a kid get his head stuck in a smaller gap between two beams on a playground and am well acquainted with the pliable nature of heads. Naturally, I was not happy with the driver's negligence.

My mood grew more foul as I walked into the movie store only to spend who knows how long looking through the unalphabetized dvds for the one I'd come for (what kind of time does this place think I have?!).

I stepped up to the counter, anxious to pay and leave, and was told by the man behind the counter that I had a late fee for my last rental.

"Impossible," I told him . "It was a seven day rental: I checked it out Wednesday and returned it the following Wednesday." I did not smile at him.

"It says you rented it Tuesday and returned it the following Wednesday."

"But I remember checking it out on Wednesday," I said, conveniently forgetting about the memory problems that accompany my health issues. "I picked up the DVD and returned it on my way into work, and I don't go into work on Tuesday." He stuck to his guns.

"It's fine, it doesn't matter," I sighed. I still didn't smile, and this time there was an edge in my voice. A cranky, I'm so over this misunderstanding that is likely not my fault kind of edge.

I paid for the DVD and late fee, and walked around the counter so the clerk could hand it to me. The man shuffled over to me and handed me the DVD.

He couldn't look me in the eyes.

My heart sank and I quickly walked out the door so I could get out of there, like I'd wanted all along.

As I walked to my car and crawled in through the passenger's side to avoid Killer Doggie, I had a vision of Jesus picking an adulteress up out of the dust, looking at her with love when no one else would. I saw him talking to a scorned Samaritan woman—the town ho—and offering her eternal life, and I saw him letting a woman sit at his feet in a culture that only allowed men hang out with rabbis like Jesus.

I saw him rounding up a band of frumpy fishermen from a backwater town and telling them he'd use them to change the world. I saw him joining a reject tax collector for dinner, grabbing the deformed hands of an outcast leper, and pulling small children into his lap when there were important adults waiting to talk to him.

I saw him dignifying humans; making them feel like they were worth pulling up out of the dust; giving them a reason to raise their heads and pull their shoulders back; assuring them he didn't condemn them and it was okay for them to lift their eyes to his steady gaze of compassion.

And oh! when Jesus tells us to follow in his footsteps, he has commissioned us to spend our days dignifying the people around us by convincing the marginalized new kid that he's worth befriending, showing the man with cerebral palsy that he's worth serving, reminding the girl who got pregnant at 15 that she still has lots to offer the world, and assuring the movie store clerk that he can look into our eyes and find compassion there.

I wish I had dignified the man who stood behind the movie counter the other night, that I had remembered the great worth of his soul. I wish I had shown him that he is infinitely more important than a possibly "unfair" late fee.

I wish my focus had been outward, not inward. No—I wish my focus had been upward, that I opened myself up to the power of the Great Dignifier as I struggled to respond to my fellow soul with warmth and patience. I wish I could go back and do that night over again.

I haven't seen the movie store clerk since that night, but I've rubbed shoulders with several people—friends, family and strangers—since then, right when my soul was most laden with anxiety, fatigue, and just plain crabbiness. In his kindness, Jesus has given me lots of other opportunities to try to dignify the people around me, the way he did. And I am learning that when Jesus gives me second chances, he crowns me with dignity.

Just Around the River Bend

This evening I huffed and puffed up the big hill in my neighborhood toward a horizon drenched in honeyed light. I stepped over scuttling baby lizards, past tall gates covered in climbing jasmine, and smiled at the lady watering flowers under the giant wooden cross that stands erect in her front yard.

As I walked through this peaceful quiet I noticed my deep thoughts were punctuated by even deeper sighs; my shoulders were rigidly tense and the muscles around my chest were slowly tightening around my steadily beating heart, and I realized I was waiting for something.

With this realization came a flood of realizations—that I'd been sighing deep yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and I've been living as if I am waiting for something.

It doesn't take long for me to identify the things I'm waiting for. I'm waiting for spring semester when I'll hopefully be healthy enough to resume my philosophy classes after taking this semester off; I'm waiting to finish my degree so I can get a Ph.D. so I have more teaching prospects; I'm waiting for the floor to get mopped so I can put my feet up, the papers to get graded so I can read a book, the weekend to end so I can resume teaching, and the work week to end so I can resume resting; I'm waiting for the day my body is healthy enough to go hiking at sunrise and running at sunset; and, if I'm honest, I'm waiting for the day I meet a man who makes my heart quicken and my soul stand in awe of a God who gives good husbandly gifts. And I know that what I'm really waiting for is a life that looks the way I think it should.

I didn't do this when I was a kid. When I was a kid I had a settled contentedness, and although I sometimes burst into a heartfelt rendition of Pocahontas' "Just Around the River Bend," I wasn't thinking about the bend in life's road—or river—that brings surprising, and sometimes jarring and undesirable changes. I was living in the here and now, soaking up the gifts of the present.

Sometime before I joined the ranks of the double digit folk I had a few adults tell me I'd grow into an adult and wish I were a kid again, and so I determined to live it up in my youth. I climbed the highest trees, ate the stickiest candy, explored the wildest corners of the neighborhood, and rollerbladed down the steepest hills. I enjoyed years of this childhood reverie, and then I stepped quietly into adulthood, my soul popping with over-the-top ambition and swollen with starry-eyed dreams, and I started to sigh deep heavy sighs.

The thing about ambition is it's elusive—our imaginations whisper of greater victories and more satisfying conquests; and the thing about dreams is they're not bound by time they way we are. And these grand imaginations and eternal dreams of ours, they're shadows of Another World that beckons our sighing souls; they are the signposts that declare "You're not made for here!...you are not made for here!...you are not made for here."

These heavenly shadows remind me that my life was supposed to look different than it does. My soul was created to delight in God's unveiled glory in a Paradise untarnished by human narcissism and rebellion. My imaginative mind was created to drink deep from the Fount of all Wisdom and Knowledge, and my heart was created to commune with the Creator God's in a state of deepest, eternal satisfaction. And so I know, when I sigh deep and restless, I am really longing for the home I haven't seen, for the place God is preparing for those who love him.

I think perhaps Pocahontas gives us an apt reminder as we journey toward our heaven-home (!). This home, whose earthly echoes awaken aching desires, is waiting unseen around a distant bend on the Way of Jesus. It is the culmination of this journey; the last and greatest destination on a thrilling and tiring pilgrimage. Heaven—seeing Jesus face to face—is not something we just sit around and wait for, and it's not something totally disconnected from and unrelated to the terrain we traverse today, and tomorrow, and the day after. It is something we move toward now, in this fleeting present.

Today we make it our greatest ambition to drink deep from the Fount of Wisdom so that we one day recognize his voice that roars like raging waters....

...We remember that the Object of our greatest and truest desire lives in us, walks with us, and fights for us; and He is the only one who can satisfy....

...We fix our eyes on the glorious truth that Immanuel, God with us, is preparing for us a home that is a Divine Kingdom, and this Divine Kingdom is being established among us, here on earth: Now, in this moment....

...Today we, the Saints, get to build this eternally victorious Kingdom in the power of the Spirit and the presence of Jesus. And when our bodies grow tired and our minds grow weak, when our days seem dull and understated and we're tempted to heave deep and heavy sighs, we let the Father teach our lungs to inhale grace and exhale gratitude, because these are the air of heaven.

On the Road to Recovery

Today my dad and I went on a bike ride near the vacation home we’re staying at in Sun Valley, Idaho. We pedaled hard and breathed deep delight as the sun warmed our backs and the wind pushed us toward the stately mountains standing guard on the western horizon.

Slowing our pace to enjoy the murmuring applause of nearby quaking aspen, we were suddenly enveloped in a troop of dancing dandelion seeds, gliding and swirling like little parasols caught up in the gusting wind.

I smiled big and remembered my little girl self sitting at the family’s new fangled computer, writing story #46 about a girl who was turned into a dandelion seed by a benevolent wizard, blown off to fairyland, returned to her human state upon reaching a candy-flavored apply tree (the blue cotton candy flavored apples were totally the best), and thrust into an adventure that began in a fairy lodge made entirely of cherry blossoms.

This story, “The Babbling Blossom Tree,” was the last I fictional story I ever wrote. Adolescence came soon after, sending hormones coursing through my changing body and making me painfully self-aware.

Aware that there were other writers out there who penned much better stories than I.

Aware that any story I wrote for public enjoyment would be criticized and maybe even mocked.

Aware that trying my hand at anything meant experiencing inevitable, embarrassing failure.

I wish an awareness of the awarenesses that made me stop writing stories were enough to coax stories out of my fingers again. But it’s not.

And I realize that the things I did as a child when I was unaware of people’s expectations, untainted by insecurity, and unburdened by failure, those things made me feel fully alive.

Because those were the things God wired me to do.

 Those were the things he knew would pump life through my soul; the things he knew would give him great glory—not because I shouted praise each time I did them, but because he is glorified when we bust out of our self-made cocoons of mediocrity and monotony the way he busted out of the grave.

Because he is the Redeemer God and he made us to really live, the way Adam and Eve lived in Eden before they became self-aware and ashamed.

I’ve been looking back on the things I did as a kid—the pastimes that didn’t make it into adulthood with me—and thinking maybe I should try my hand at them again, see if they seep new life into my soul. Not driven by an awareness of my awarenesses, but by the realization that to live in Christ is to live better, fuller, richer.

As a kid I used to sneak away from the din of the cul-de-sac kids just before sunset and climb to the top of the neighbor’s tree. I’d sit alone on my little stump seat, my hazel eyes wide, my soul hungry, and I’d watch the sun shoot sherbet flames beyond the horizon’s darkening evergreen fringe.

I've forgotten to seek this kind of beauty daily.

This will be my starting place,

in re-learning to really live;

To recover Eden,

like a child.

Bring on the sunset.

© by scj