The sky [could be] falling

I wish I could tell you that I've been MIA in the blog-posting arena because I've been preoccupied with all sorts of wild adventures, but I can't. Instead, I can explain my absence in a few rather unflattering ways:

1. I have Senioritis.

What they don't tell you when you contract Senioritis — an imaginary illness characterized by exhaustion and apathy — your senior year of college, is that you will experience seasons of Senioritis forever and ever, until you die.

Two weeks ago I entered a season of very, very severe Senioritis. I've had to give myself daily pep talks about the victories that await me when I've finally trudged through all my grading. I've had to lay on my bed for hours at a time staring at the ceiling and listening to "Oceans" on repeat. I've had to bribe myself out of bed with waffles every day since the onset of Senioritis. I've even caught myself wringing my hands and performing an impassioned speech to my students that goes something like this:

"Stop giving me so much to grade you guys; just stop it already!"

My students wish I'd stop assigning them so much for me to eventually grade, too.


2. I've gotten sick.

An end-of-the-semester bug has bitten me with its germ-y fangs and I've been rendered unable to do much more than re-watch season three of the Office. It ain't a bad situation.

3. I became Chicken Little for a bit. 

This is the story:

It's a Tuesday in April and grey clouds have enveloped Portland like a comfy blanket. The city streets are slick with rain and the day is fading into dusk.

My friend G and I are tucked in the corner of a cheery delicatessen, chatting, when the waiter brings us each a reuben sandwich piled high with steaming salami. We look hungrily at our dinner and just before we dig in I whip out  my ever-present bottle of hand sanitizer.

"Do you want some?" I ask G. "This could be the one thing standing in the way of you and a parasite." I grin mischievously, 50% joking and 100% serious because, thanks to my eighth grade science class, I know that parasites are serious business.

"You're afraid of a lot, aren't you?" G observes as I squirt sanitizer into his open palms.

I'm surprised by his candor, but I shouldn't be because this is one of the things I love about him.

I answer yes, and explain that I've always been a worrywart, but the trauma of my illness has acted like a fertilizer to my worry, growing it into full-blown, full-time fear of more sickness. I'm especially concerned with keeping my house safe as I fight to get healthy. If my body won't stay safe, then I'd like my home to be. So my impulse is to try to protect myself, insulating my life from more pain. I tell G I'm making progress on my journey toward conquering the fear of more loss, but it's slow. He listens quietly and soon the conversation turns to motorcycles and dance moves. Then we clean our plates, lick our lips, and hit the road.

Days later I'm back in Orange County hanging out with my plumber and his entourage. We are exploring the upper part of the property, which is currently for rent, when one of them notices that the unit above me is a garage. My very old apartment is built on the side of a steep hill, which is why the garage is above it. The tenant who eventually rents the main house on our property will get to park his car above me. Until then, it remains empty.

"Is that wood on the floor of the garage?" the worker asks. "Wow," he remarks as he walks into the garage and begins to investigate. "That's really old wood. It doesn't look sturdy at all. It cannot be safe for you to live under this garage when there's a car in it, especially a big car. Who knows what kind of termite damage, or just plan aging damage, has been done to this wood."

I gulp big because the concerned worker has voiced a fear I, and number of others in my life, have had for awhile now. I try to shove down the worry that's welling up inside of me.

A few days later the plumber returns to do more work while I'm at school. When I return from school my neighbor, who talked to the plumber in lieu of my absence, says they discovered a broken pipe under my house that will remain broken and could cause a sink hole.

I gulp again, and wonder if my bright and airy bungalow is actually a death trap.

That day the new tenant for the main house — the one who will park above me — arrives. He is driving a Chevy Tahoe the size of Rhode Island. I feel quite certain I know how I will die now, and death by SUV is not the way I want to go.

In fact I realize, with great fervor, I am not ready to die. I want to live. Oh! how I want to live! And the sneaky tentacles of Fear begin to wrap around my heart and squeeze, like a hungry boa constrictor.

For days I battle periodic bouts of fearful paralysis. I try to grade, but I can't. I try to clean, but I can't. I try to write, but I can't. Instead, I sit there waiting for a Chevy Tahoe to fall on my head. Chicken Little and I are two peas in a poisonous pod sometimes.

My tendency when I'm anxious is to retreat into myself, but I know that I must reach out to people in this post-sickness battle with fear. So at small group I tell my friends that I'm battling fear again, and I need them pray. The next day, I call my brother and ask him to pray. The day after that, I ask my students to pray. And all of them pray, not only for my safety, but for Fear's tentacles to dissolve and for God to fill my heart with peace.

It's been a few days since I asked my community to pray for me, and since then my worry has begun to dissipate. Instead of feeling weighed down by fear of that heavy SUV, I've been bombarded by true things. I remember that God is always at work, fighting on my behalf. I remember that Satan is looking to incapacitate me, and he's likely using fear to do it. I remember that God does things differently than I would because he is infinitely more good and powerful than I am — and should a Chevy Tahoe fall into my studio, his grace will be sufficient. And I remember that God will use any and every painful thing in my life for my good, his glory, and the good of everyone around me.

And grace upon grace: I've been able to rest in these true things. I even feel a sort of supernatural confidence and bravery that I haven't felt in a long time (Take that, Satan!).

So this is the moral of my story: When worry begins to gobble up your peace, joy and productivity, find safe people, invite them into your worry, and ask them to pray for you. It's a sure-fire way to transform Chicken Little into a spiritual William Wallace of sorts:

And hey, it's a mighty good switch, Jack.

Have you had adventures this week, my friends?! I hope they've been enriching, at the very least.

Happy Wednesday!

-Sarah



© by scj

When the World knocks

I'm finally back in my apartment, and everything is warm and....ready for it?: DRY!!! Well, mostly dry. I caught a cold the night I moved back in, and all I have to say about that is: snot. Loads and loads of it, flowing incessantly from my spigot of a nose. Life is just an ebb and flow of different kinds of floods, I guess. I much prefer the snot kind to the water kind.

I had plans to spin the last few week's difficulties away salsa dancing tonight, but I'll be curled up with a movie and soup instead. Bean and sausage soup is one of God's great gifts to mankind, but it sure can't beat moving to pulsing Latin rhythms. Also, I'm craving bacon. Also, pasta. Also, my nose is about to fall off. So I'll be sure to catch the sunset from my backyard lookout point tonight. Watching the sunset has become the spoonful of sugar that helps all my medicine go down.

In fact, watching the sun set has become a balm to almost all of my life ills. When I'm sick or discouraged or afraid of the future, I try to catch the sunset. And for seven minutes it makes me happy to be me, right where I am. It feels like a warm breeze stirring up something new inside of me. It reminds me how small I am and how big and beautiful God is. It makes gratitude easy. It opens me to joy.

Last Tuesday, a couple of days into my flood mayhem, a girlfriend and I decided to catch the beach sunset. When we arrived, the beach was almost deserted, except for a few surfers. The wind whistled and the seagulls settled on the sand to watch the sun sink into the sea. We stood with them, looking at the expansive sky, a pale canvas of wispy clouds. And then, right on God's cue, the sun reached across the sky-canvas and began to finger-paint with fire.

Amber, tangerine, and pink pulsing with electricity — it was a sunset for the history books: a glowing reminder that life is a gift to be unwrapped with gratitude and stewarded with joy. 

 

 © by scj

My Flood: Gift #2

This is the third post about my apartment's flood this weekend. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

Most of the time, when God pulls back the curtain and shows me how he's using temporal difficulties for eternal good, it's enough. It's enough to give me peace, contentment, and deep satisfaction. It's enough to keep me hoping, my hand still at the plow. 

For 24 hours, anyway. 

Because often, not long after the curtain closes, anxiety suffocates and darkness settles, and it's hard to remember how God is using the sandy right now to prepare me and others for his glorious, eternal Kingdom, and God, don't forget about me, because I'm made of dust, and I need you to comfort me and remind me, again and again, that you love me and are attentive to me and I don't have to be afraid of the future. 

This week, a few days into the tearing up and repairing of my flood-affected apartment, I stopped by my place to pick up some more clothes and my mail. And by mail, I mean bills. Because what other kind of snail mail is there in this technology-dominated world?

But lo and behold, there was a letter sitting on top of that pile of bills! Addressed to me! With an accompanying package mailed from the same person!

I tore the letter open and read the first line as I walked down the steps to my place:

"Dear Sarah,

Ever since you were a little girl you have been special to me."

I stopped walking to blink back crocodile tears, because if there's one thing I needed to know that day, it's that I was special to someone. 

I looked back down at the pale yellow paper and read the next line. I recognized the handwriting. It belonged to a woman who attends my family's church and has watched me grow from the time I was two. She'd written me before, when I first broke off my engagement, and then written me again, and then again, when my illness raged on. I can't know, but I suspect she has been one of my most faithful prayer warriors these last 3 1/2 hard years.

A few minutes into the morning quiet, I finished reading the letter, my eyes wide with awe. Because the date was postmarked two days before my flood, so she couldn't have known, and I haven't had more then a few brief conversations with her when I've visited home these last several years, but somehow she knew. She knew that I've been treading quicksand, that my life is not what I've always hoped it would be, and that the future often seems dark and unbearable. She knew that I needed reminding that I am deeply loved by a God who is always at work and who inhabits the past, present, and future. 

I finished reading the letter and then stood in silence, feeling certain that God had prompted this woman to write me, days before my flood, with the knowledge that I would need some extra encouragement when I was feeling especially disoriented, displaced, and anxious about my post-flood future. The realization reminded me of a verse from one of my favorite Psalms:

As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

For he knows our frame;

he remembers that we are dust.

This letter felt like the Father's compassion, scribbled across lined pages, stuffed into an envelope, mailed several hundred miles, and prompted by a God who knows the future. A God who has promised that he is abounding in love and quick to show compassion because he remembers our weakness and need. Because God's promises turn dusty people in trusted servants, and pits of quicksand into wells of Living Water. 

I turned to the package accompanying the letter and open it up. Inside was a short book entitled, "Parables by the Sea," written by a Christian woman who, in the middle of long, sandy seasons, found reminders of God's promises scattered across the sea shore. I turned the pages brightened with photographs of sandy shells, tide pools, and ocean waves, and felt like the parables were written just for me — more gifts of compassion from the Father who wanted to use my apartment's flood to remind me of his love for me and intention to use this little life of mine for big things.

The parables reminded me of God's plan for my life — a plan that predated my conception. They assured me of God's desire to do more in my life than I could ever dream — to invade my barrenness of spirit and put his vibrant life in me. And they redirected my gaze from my own insufficiency to the power of a good God who will 

And then I turned to the last page of the book, a full-page photograph of a woman walking down the sand with ocean waves crashing at her feet. In the bottom left corner of the page, I read,

Three times the Promiser had spoken...

His pattern for me,

His pulsating life in me,

His power through me.

God's flood tide!

A couple of days later I headed to the beach near my aunt and uncle's house where I've been staying. The sun shone and seagulls soared while I watched the waves ripple and churn and lick the sandy shore. As the sun sank lower, the waves reached further, creeping toward me, engulfing the sand. And I remembered the last line of my letter:

"The future is as bright as the promises of God."

God is kind, compassionate, mindful of our weakness, working to grow his life in us, and waiting for us to call on his power. It's a flood of promises that Christians can't escape — come what may, these promises will creep nearer and reach further, engulfing our sandy disappointments and reflecting the Light. 

 © by scj

The flood that felt like a bucket of sand

This morning I'm sitting in my aunt and uncle's kitchen while fog steals over the hills from the ocean and settles in their backyard. It's a quiet, sleepy morning, perfect for curling up with good book and a cuppa tea. But first, I need to tell you about what could've been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week.

It could've been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week because my bathroom flooded on Saturday, for the second time. This time, however, I didn't realize it was flooding in time to prevent damage, so the water gushed into the living room and kitchen, forcing me to use every towel, blanket, and sheet I own to soak up as much water as I could. Also, it turns out sweat pants are highly absorbent and quite useful when you've run out of blankets and towels. I always knew it was a good idea to accumulate a wardrobe in which sweatpants are a staple.

Here is the thing about this flood: it felt less like a load of water and more like a large bucket of sand. Dumped, unexpectedly, on my head.

Remember that day at the beach when you and your cousin Sam decided it would be fun to bury you in the sand? And remember how, when he was dumping a bucket of sand on your chest and shoulders, the wind picked up and sent that load of sand flying into your face? Sand burning the eyes, sand in your snot, sand in your earwax, sand grinding in your teeth, sand in your hair, for days and days and days. And days.

Sand in your eyes, sand in your snot, sand in your earwax

This flood felt much worse than that.

I've been fighting really hard to pull out of my illness and its accompanying grief these last 3.5 years. But trying to pull out of this illness and its effects has felt like trying to get out of a pit of quicksand. Not surprisingly, trying to get out of quicksand is exhausting and discouraging, and has made difficult, unexpected external circumstances — normal life things, like floods, gas leaks, break-ups, and moves — feel 5 times harder than usual. It's made them feel like heaping buckets of sand that Life has decided to dump on my head while I grasp and gasp to get out of quicksand.

This flood felt like a big ol' bucket of sand. It felt terrible. Horrible. No good. Very bad. "Whhhhyyy, God?!!!!" I asked, while I dragged furniture out of the water's way and wondered where I'd stay during repairs. "I don't think I can handle another bucket of sand," I told him. "Please, no more quicksand, and no more buckets of sand."

And then I braced myself for what I thought would be a terrible week. But you know what? It's been a great week. A week full of joy and grace. And I wish that, instead of crying anxious tears or feeling frustrated with God the first 24 hours of that flood, I'd thanked him for the flood. I wish I'd thanked him in the midst of the hard stuff the way 1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us to. I wish I'd thanked him for the thing that felt like the last straw, the way Corrie Ten Boom thanked God for the fleas swarming her concentration camp barracks, with the knowledge that God will transfigure the bad, hard stuff for his glory and our good. 

I'm not great at thanking God for the good stuff. I have to work really hard at it. I'm way worse at thanking him in the midst of the hard stuff, trusting that he'll use it for good. Thankfully, this week has buoyed my faith, once again, in a God who uses bad stuff for good. So the next several days I'll be sharing snippets from my flood experience — evidence that God is always at work in everything, and assurance that he is compassionate and mindful that we are dust. 

Stay tuned for more!

And now, I have some news completely unrelated to my flood, I've had a technological breakthrough! I've set up an account on Bloglovin and figured out how to post a Bloglovin button on my blog. Can I get a hallelujah?!

Bloglovin creates a feed for you with updates from all the blogs you read, so all your favorite content is in one place. If you don't already use Bloglovin, you should! And then you follow this little blog of mine! Just click the Bloglovin button under my picture and blog description to the right of this post, or click the button at the bottom of this post. See you over there!

-Sarah


Read part 2 here and part 3 here!

© by scj

Sister's visit, day 1: In sickness and in health

I'd like to start this post off with some plain, old fashioned bragging.

If you were to hug me right now you'd probably think to yourself, "My, but the shirt Sarah's wearing is so soft. I imagine it's also quite lightweight and breathable — a real must for this glorious SoCal sunshine."

Then you'd probably step back to take a good look at my soft, lightweight, and breathable shirt. You'd no doubt notice it's a Nike women's tennis shirt that's super cute. So cute, in fact, that, if you're a girl, it's likely you'd decide to take up tennis then and there, just so you could start wearing cute shirts like the one I'm wearing.

If you're a guy, then I have no idea what you'd think upon seeing the shirt I'm wearing. I imagine you'd also be tempted to take up tennis. The shirt is generally inspiring.

[This photo of me wearing said shirt has been temporarily removed; I will repost it soon. In the meantime, please use your imagination.] 

Isn't it cute? My sister produced it. She's the reason you just signed up for tennis lessons.

Anyway, my sister just flew back to Oregon after a weekend visit with me, and I'm missing her already. So I'm wearing the shirt she recently gave me, and smiling while I blog about what a talented product creation-ist she is.

I have lots of other stuff to blog about, too. So I'll break our sister's weekend up into a couple of posts. Mostly because we had a funeral for a hummingbird on Saturday that deserves its own post. But I'll get to that later. First, day one (and a half) of our sister's weekend:

I picked my sister up on Thursday afternoon, and first things first, we went shopping.

We were so excited to see each other, and so engrossed in catching up and tackling our shopping list, that we only took one picture. But you can imagine the evening was full of sisterly chatter, cute clothes, and funky jewelry.

On Friday, we did what sisters do when they haven't seen each other in a few months: we lounged in our pj's, watched T.V., did coconut oil hair masks, and snacked. It was good for our souls. And our hair.

One bag of chips, 1/2 a bag of cashews, and a few fistfuls of raisins later, we rolled off the couch, put on our Friday night finery, and joined some of my closest girlfriends for an event I'd planned a few weeks back: a "Toast to God's Goodness."

Do you remember in the book of Exodus, shortly after God splits the Red sea in half, when Miriam leads the Israelites in song? She pulls out her tambourine, and I imagine she spins and laughs, her hair flying in the wind, as she and her people sing praise to a good God.

Together, they remember the good things he'd done for them — how he'd rescued them from slavery, and thrown their enemies into the sea. And then they looked forward to the promised land God would surely give them. They were certain of the good things God would do, because of the good things he'd already done.

Our experience of God's goodness should buoy our faith in a good, gift-filled future.

And so I've made it a practice to occasionally raise my glass, instead of my tambourine (mostly because I don't own one), in remembrance of the ways I've experienced God's goodness.

My first toast to God's goodness was with my roommates, 3 1/2 years ago.

The first ceremonial toast, with my roomies

At the time, the Holy Spirit had begun to talk to me more clearly and frequently than he ever had. He'd told me to quit my job, move, and do lots of other risky, unpredictable things. And gosh, things started a changin'.

It was one of the most exciting periods of my life. I felt like I was flying down a river, swept up in a current that was leading me somewhere wild and divine. I couldn't wait to see where God was taking me. But I also had bouts of anxiety about where, exactly, this winding river was running. What if it led somewhere. . . scary?

So I resolved to rest, and trust in the current by pressing into God's goodness. The toast with my roommates was an occasion to choose trust — to look back at the good things God had done, and look forward to the good, unknown gifts he'd give in the future.

Sisters

And boy, did adventurous things happen that year. I moved to a new city, and got a new job. And a year after my first toast to God's goodness, I toasted to God's goodness again, this time with my fiance on our engagement day. Together, we looked back at God's good, guiding hand in our lives, and looked toward a good future of serving him together. I can't remember ever feeling so full in my 25 years of living.

And then, in the ensuing months, I contracted what turned out to be chronic illness, and I broke off my engagement. And, for years, I cried myself to sleep, and wished the ground would swallow me whole before I awoke the next morning.

But the ground never swallowed me whole, and each morning I'd have to bravely face the day. And I'm swallowing hard and blinking fast, even as I type, because I remember how, during that first year of illness, I'd wake up every morning and feel the Spirit of God hovering over my bed, tenderly watching me.

I remember how it would take every last ounce of energy to roll out of bed and eat breakfast, and how I'd sense Jesus sitting next to me while I ate, so I'd never be alone. I remember how I learned to talk to him during that time more intimately than I'd ever talked to anyone. I'd tell him I hated where the river had led, and how felt like my heart was bleeding, and my body dying.

Over and over again, he'd listen, and draw close, and if he talked, he'd remind me he was the Lover of my soul. And in those moments, I learned he was good. More good than I'd ever dreamed, back when my life looked the way I wanted it to.

And now, as I'm feeling strong and healthy, I've wanted to look back, surrounded by my friends and sister, and thank God for the good things he did, and is doing, through my illness and broken engagement. I've wanted to thank him for the ways I saw him preparing my life for illness 3 1/2 years ago — for prompting me to quit my old job, move, and shuffle grad programs, so that my work, school, and finances would accommodate the years of illness I couldn't foresee.

My girls

I've wanted to thank him, surrounded by some of my community, for using the sharp scalpel of suffering to do renovative surgery on my soul. I've wanted to thank him for teaching me the certainty of his tender, relentless love. I've wanted to thank him for his financial and medical provisions over the years. I've wanted to thank him for my family, who walked this journey with me. I've wanted to thank him for teaching my soul to rest. I've wanted to thank him for recently renewed health.

I've wanted to toast to his goodness that will, no doubt, touch every part of my future.

So here's to a God who is always good — in sickness, and in health; in loss, and in gain; in life, and in death. And here's to my illness, because it gave me clearest glimmers of how wide, deep, and high is God's goodness — a goodness that makes me want to spin and shake a tambourine, my hair flying in the wind.

*Cheers*


© 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

My Body, My Friend

Won't you join me at Prodigal Magazine today?

© 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

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

Today I am Celebrating...

...Because today marks the 14th consecutive day that I've been up out of bed and really participating in life. This is the longest stint of good health I've had in about a year, and let me tell you, my soul is shimmying and shaking with delight!

This is my 'my soul is dancing!' face. It also happens to be my best Wallace and Gromit face.

Throughout this 15-month battle with debilitating illness the Lord has been teaching me to live in the moment by drinking deeply of the grace that is everywhere. To celebrate his grace today I've listed 14 things that make my soul dance:

1. Beetles gleaming emerald by the side of the road (and looking, upon closer examination, like Power Rangers wearing turbo packs).

2. Nimble fingers that can use keyboards, pens, fabric, and food to create.

3. A God who teaches us the worth of our souls.

4. Laughter that rolls out of my belly like undulating ocean waves.

5. Laundry machines that wash the grime out of my clothes for me.

6. Sherbet-streaked sunsets.

7. Coconuts. (And coconut sugar, coconut ice cream, coconut oil, and coconut milk).

8. California mandarin oranges. They smell like Christmas, don't they?

9. Trustworthy friends that have traversed the years with me.

10. A job and ministry I love.

11. Students who energize me and pray for me.

12. New friends.

13. The Biola library. Still shoots thrills through my soul every time I step through its doors.

14. Severe mercy. The kind that strips away the props we rely on for our well-being* and teaches us to dive into the unconditional love and grace of Jesus.

Hope your Tuesday is grand and grace-filled, dear friends.

~S

*I've borrowed this idea from Gerald Sittser's book A Grace Disguised

© 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

Aslan On The Move

A few weeks ago a group of friends and I were hiking through the autumn splendor of the Rocky Mountains when, on my friend Jonalyn's cue, we stopped walking, ceased our talking and listened. I hardly dared to breath, straining to hear what she heard. A few seconds passed and then I discerned the far off, almost imperceptible burbling of a brook: the last of Winter's melted snow, winding its way down the mountain.

We stood still for awhile, hushed, wondering at the tinkling music of melted ice, and I remembered a country where it was always winter but never Christmas.

Where Narnians waited for someone to rescue them from the icy jowls of winter and give them a reason to celebrate the towering snow-covered pines and knolls frosted with fresh powder.

Where, one glorious day, the fierce whip of icy wind and silence of falling snow were replaced with the sound of far-off liquid laughter,

and the icicles began to shrink and wink in the sun's warm light, sending droplets cascading down snow-burdened boughs like tears of thanksgiving.

 The White Witch saw the changes to the world she'd turned into a prison and shuddered, but Mr. Beaver lifted his head and in joyful murmur announced to his friends: Aslan is on the move.

The Highest of High Kings may be called Aslan in Narnia, but here we call him Immanuel, God with us. We called him that 2,000 years ago when he came to live among us to make sure we'd never have to live through winter without Christmas, and to show us that winter's death will not have the last word.

Two thousand years later we continue to call him Immanuel because he's not sitting somewhere far-off watching us sweat, heave, and weep as we struggle to love him and live well. He is in us, among us, fighting for us: on the move.

So listen close for that far-off gurgle, that sound of life in a wintery world. Be still and ask Immanuel to pull back the curtain for just a moment, to show you what He is doing unseen right now for his glory and your good. He will show you.

 He will show you that the smile from your distant husband, the hug from your rebellious daughter, the Facebook message from a long-lost friend, the reduction of your last medical bill, the cookies fresh from your neighbor's oven, and the anonymous check that came in the mail are all signs of spring.

There will be days though, many many days, when even in still and silent searching it seems like spring cannot be found. When all you can see is icy grey and all you can hear is your heart creaking and cracking, splintering into jagged pieces. Be assured: your heart does not break from the weight of the snow.  This is the sound of ice that thaws. This too a sign of Aslan on the move.

© by scj

Autumn Repose

This week the autumnal days have composed a soft and steady symphony; a fluid ebb and flow of sun and moon, breeze and rain, muted gray and smiling blue, curling leaves and unfurling blooms.

My soul has been still—settled and satisfied with the lot that has been dealt me, and my body, for the first time in 13 months, feels my own.

This, a most gracious gift, after learning to live a long and tiring year of chronic illness in a body that felt like a stranger's;

a frame broken and unrecognizable, an impostor in my once familiar world.

A body that didn't—couldn't—respond to the signs of the changing seasons with thrills of joy and remembrance the way it did when it was healthy and whole;

that shuddered at Winter's foreign frost, retreated from Spring's scouring rains, and squinted at Summer's bright light.

But today God has replaced the throbbing tempos of grief and the aching silence of sickness with the gentle, healing rhythms of Fall, and I remember what it is to have a body that I know and that knows me and my world.

A body that remembers Autumn, that recognizes Her dry warmth, earthen perfume, gypsy breeze, and early dusk;

that has stored in its cells Autumn memories captured by senses—sight of golden leaf, smell of rising smoke, taste of tawny russet, sound of sighing trees, chill of clearest night.

It has been two years since I last had a body that knew this gypsy breeze and could grant her passage into my soul, allowing her to swirl and stir within, unearthing the Fall memories that Winter buried there.

And so I walk into the setting sun, breathing deep, trying to swallow pools of sunshine and taste the azure sky;

my body welcoming Autumn, letting Her seep into every familiar pore,

and my soul remembers...

...Riding my little pink bike, wiry legs pedaling fast, wheels splashing through puddles and whizzing down hills, my lungs full of fresh air seasoned with the smell of wet earth...

...Sprinting laps around a stadium, face dripping with sweat, chest heaving; my teammates running behind and before me under an October sun....

...Shuffling through crunchy leaves toward the Glendora foothills while chatting with dearest friends, then stopping downtown for steaming peppermint mochas...

...Piling dirty dishes snugly in the sink, the smell of pumpkin spice wafting through the house, roommates waiting patiently for a slice of sweet bread—a taste of Fall...

...Helping twenty five pairs of little hands pick from piles of orange, yellow and green fabric scraps and tangled balls of yarn, the ingredients for third grade pumpkin patch collages...

These memories rise and rush out my eyes, wet and salty. The wind wraps around me and my spirit settles into my body, quiet and content. And in this settling there is a shedding of pain of loss and fear of the future: a lifting of my spirit. For in this reunion of body and soul is freedom, the feeling of coming home.

I close my eyes and spread my arms wide, welcoming the release, hoping never to forget this feeling: a foretaste, I hope, of heaven.

© by scj

Ode to a Dying Earth

Today the mountain wears a golden burial shroud, welcoming winter’s death as a crown.

Autumn pine peer solemn and silent at the dying earth through her cathedral windows of deepest amber and caramel, framed by slender branches.

Aspen quake and shiver, death staining their leaves with brilliant orange,

And the meadows stand still and breathless,

Waiting for the mountain that once quivered with life to die

So that she can live again.

And I, I sit at her base and sup on bread and wine,

This once living food now dead, coursing through my dying body so that I might live.

This, a reminder of the only Living Food; the grain and the vine, the Bread and the Wine;

The One who died and then lived.

And in this communion with death surrounded by the dying I know it’s true what they say,

Beauty is the Resplendence of Truth;

For the colors ring and the silence sings of death that gives life,

Of the Living One,

Who makes all things new.