Eyes Bright Again

Eyes Bright Again

I pulled out a celebrity-gossip magazine that happened to be in my seat pocket on a flight to Denver. You know the type: oh-my-gosh,  The Perfect Little Black Dress of the Season—or—Three  Ways Your Partner Might Be Secretly Cheating! These kinds of articles seem to be the grist of today’s Western culture.

By the time the plane landed, I was made to feel thoroughly undersexed, unsophisticated, and deserving of costly beauty products. The underlying message? —If you aren’t really working on being one of the beautiful people, you’ll end up alone.

Modern culture promises us the moon with superlatives: perfect skin in three applications or idyllic sleep with the right kind of mattress. We hope to find ecstasy in a perfume, identity in an expensive car, and attitude in owning the latest gadget. These things make us feel more attractive, momentarily. We turn a head or two.

But attention doesn’t satisfy, because it only parades as love. Many sacred hours are wasted with this kind of distraction. It’s a pretext, a facade, masking our fundamental need for relationship.

Loneliness seems like life’s albatross. We are required to hold all relationships loosely. Beloved grandparents and parents fade in their vitality and pass away. Colleges and careers take us away from extended family. We lose our original sense of community, the familiarity of a hometown. Marriage has empty spaces with its own unique set of vulnerabilities. Children grow up and find their own lives, as they should. Even lifelong friendships can change overtime or be lost unexpectedly. Single, divorced, or widowed people may think loneliness is their singular struggle, but the experience is common to most everyone I know.

Through good times and hard seasons, loneliness still hovers. We seek out a diary, a dog, or an online friend, looking for solace in some kind of connection.

But down deep, the connection we really need is with God…Continue reading

Letters to Myself

Letters to Myself

It was as if a ten-year-old had slipped into the classroom. She sounded joyful, but had to pause. Deep breaths, long exhales…and then tears.

“You love the sea. You love finding things on the beach, the smell of oil on tugboats, the wheelhouse, watching your Dad work, navigating. You love everything about boats—the engines, hull, decks, galley, cabins, crew, & more. You love sailboats. You love going on trips on the sea. The sea is in your blood.”

Her voice was childlike, but also insistent.

“Remember when you used to play 4-square, baseball, basketball, imaginary games, space adventures, games in the field, fish, build forts, talk about God with friends, sit in the trees, search for pretty rocks?”

She spoke as if she knew her very well. 

“You know everyone’s name in the church. You talk with people others ignore. You know that everyone is special and somehow others have forgotten this. You connect people with others. You know about people because you ask questions. You include people. You like to play board games and other games with family and friends. You feel what others feel. You don’t always know what’s going on or why someone feels good, bad, depressed, etc. But, you can feel it.”

Her words came from that “knowing” place, deep inside. The same way God knows things about us.

“Your soft heart sees what others sometimes ignore. You see the loneliness in older couples that have lost their families or spouses. You see the person who’s ignored. You also see the details that are overlooked. You see when people are overlooked. You see others grow old and wonder where they went off track in life. You see many people lose a sense of wonder, curiosity, friendliness, and imagination. Keep these things in your heart, even when you grow old.”

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These excerpts came from a letter written by my friend, Julie Lanaker. It’s part of a creative writing project I’m teaching at Journey Church called, “Letters to Myself.” Basically you write two letters–and thenContinue reading

Signposts – Part V

Signposts – Part V

A tapestry, yes, something like that. A fabric with woven design—varied and intricate. And each interlaced thread part of a developing picture. I’m trying to describe my life, but specifically my life with God.

So far, I’ve mentioned some of the threads—how God led me into the writing life through a miraculous healing, several vivid dreams, a message in a dictionary, and prophetic words from both a pastor and a stranger. God made it exceedingly clear that He wanted me to write. But more importantly, He wanted me to unpack the mystery of intimacy with Him through simple stories.

I am no one, really. A Montana housewife. A person who loves to swim and play piano. A painter who dabbles on canvas to make Van Gogh-like landscapes. A cook with a pretty good chocolate sauce recipe. A feeder of birds—always watching for bluebirds, hummingbirds and chickadees. A wife, daughter, sister, mother and friend.

I’m not an authority, an expert, or a theologian. I don’t write from that kind of platform. I am an ordinary person with real experiences to share. Woven together, they form a story of a living God in a tangible world.

So I began to write and simultaneously discovered just how real God could be, even after twenty-five years of being a Christian.Continue reading