When you remember me

“You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.”  ― Frederick Buechner

John 6:47 I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.

“When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.”
― Frederick Buechner

John 6: 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.

38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

John 6:68-69, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

Whenever we tremble

Credo Noli Timere

We know we belong to You.
When we lose heart, when we despair,
Whenever we tremble,
                                        tremble
                                                tremble,
It means we have forgotten You.

Bring us home with every breath,
With every beat of the heart
We in You and You in us,
And remember
              remember
                     remember
The freedom of our belonging to You.

All flesh comes to You
All the beautiful names are in You
All rivers and veins and sinews of the sea
All languages, all silences
All leaves and flames and blossoms and rains and wings
All voices we have ever longed to hear

Help us to know ourselves
        always worthy of Your love
                                               credo alpha, omega
To know how we deserve Your joy in us
                                         credo corazon
Help us to heal our world’s divided houses
                                          credo sangha
Help us restore and bless and release
                                          credo sunyata
Lead us from the real to the unreal
                           Abwoon d’bwashmaya
May we sing out in every holy tongue
                                      credo neshamah
And freed from every fear
                                     credo noli timere
                                                              noli timere
                                                             noli timere
May we be Your mouth
May we be Your music

Michael Dennis Browne

Taglines, profiles, and descriptions, oh my!

Certain sites and endeavors require profile making and tag line creating. Each site seems to offer a clean slate for creativity... Or alternatively, the overwhelming potential of decisions. Will I share it all, or what part of myself will I highlight? What do people in this community value, and do I want to impress them? So much pressure!

Someone recently noticed my Google profile, which I'm saving below for posterity. I created it a few years ago....I can honestly not say I'm a backpacker anymore. It's funny how things change. Themes that were once strong become fainter. And maybe there is less of a need to prove or express myself I certain ways? But on the other hand, isn't that an opportunity, to share my life and my God? Or is it all meaningless?

I'm not sure. It's digital, which can be ephemeral or annoyingly permanent. 

Google profile circa 2011 (?): Food & agricultural enthusiast, live music fanatic, coffee drinker, God lover, song singer, car camper, backpacker, crier, writer, photo taker, artsy fartsy crafter.

A decade of blogging. Uffda.

Also, November 16th was this blog's 10 year anniversary! Wow. That seems cake-worthy. 266 posts filled with prayers and poetry and pain. It hasn't all been pretty. But hopefully it has brought (and brings) praise to the original blogger.

Valuing the maker

"Walk through a museum. Look around a city. Almost all the artifacts that we value as a society were made by or at the order of men. But behind every one is an invisible infrastructure of labor—primarily caregiving, in its various aspects—that is mostly performed by women…. The cultural primacy of making, especially in tech culture—that it is intrinsically superior to not-making, to repair, analysis, and especially caregiving—is informed by the gendered history of who made things, and in particular, who made things that were shared with the world, not merely for hearth and home.

Debbie Chachra, “Why I Am Not a Maker”  (Via Austin Kleon).

I haven't read the article, but I resonated with the quote. I just was struck by the concept of "invisible work" and the connection with prayer and spiritual work that I am ruminating on. But I think the relatively low-valued work of prayer highly relates to its invisibility- in a sense the "not-makingness" of sitting in a room (or standing, walking, kneeling) with a humble heart in conversation with my Maker. That doesn't feel "productive" in my "making=value" sense... and I think that's true for many Americans and it affects church culture and, frankly, the Kingdom of God, in incredible ways. 

Oh, to see and live for the invisible city, whose designer and [home]maker is GOD.

Large plans

If God be your partner, make your plans large. D.L. Moody

Time for turning

Most people want a God who requires nothing of them, who is easy to figure out and who allows himself to be under their control. They do not want a King who is inflexible toward rebellion, unmoved by the arguments and whims of people, and incapable of compromise. Thus the earth is not ready to be ruled by Jesus. It must be prepared. (38)..."Now therefore," says the Lord through his prophetic messenger, "turn to me with all of your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with morning." (42) 

-End Times Simplified, by David Slicker.

(Notice the faint rainbow in the center of the picture... Covenant reminder above St. Paul! He has mercy. But the gate of mercy is narrow and the path of destruction wide.)

Closer

Did growing older bring me closer to Jesus?
-Henri Nouwen

Father's heart/father's ghosts

Words.

Those living breathing knotty things

Welling up in throats

Tangling the ankles

Beseeching the dead

Griefs that plague with unasked for thoughts.

Words of the intention,

Taken as grace from an impure heart salvaged from a bondage

So great, limbs were torn and flesh ripped,

And a flock gripped and ransomed

And becoming.

I taste the salt leftover on my father’s head,

From sweating and a silly ritual of giving him a “sloppy”

Kiss.

I see the lines as he worries for me and happiness,

Worries to an unseen and unknown god,

Worries to a decaying body

Worries to a numbed mind

Worries to a deceived heart

Worries becoming pathways engrained, frames unchanged

Lines un-receeding,
like the tide. 

I take up the words, now,

Take them up like a plow,

Not looking back,

Forward yet and coming 

Again and again 

To the Eternal breast of rest. 

Inspired by “Have you Prayed?, from Behind My Eyes by Li-Young Lee.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182921

Simple conversation

 “Conversation with God leads to an encounter with God.” Tim Keller

Jon Thurlow, simple conversation: http://youtu.be/SYyqGY4AtUo

Slack and work

C.S. Lewis reminds us, “It is much easier to pray for a bore than to go visit him.” So prayer is slacktivism. But then Oswald Chambers asserts, “Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.”

It's better than perfect, it's done.

It's better than perfect, it's done.
—Peggy Knapp

Living witness

The multitudes cannot know the Gospel unless they have a living witness. Merely giving them an explanation will not suffice. The wandering masses of the world must have a demonstration of what to believe they must have a mentor that will stand among them and say ‘follow me I know the way.’

-Robert Coleman.

The Purpose of the Covenant of Two/Mustard Seed Shade

Was quote-hunting and struck by multiple deep and lovey quotes about marriage.

“Lovers must not, like usurers, live for themselves alone. They must finally turn from their gaze at one another back toward the community. If they had only themselves to consider, lovers would not need to marry, but they must think of others and of other things. They say their vows to the community as much as to one another, and the community gathers around them to hear and to wish them well, on their behalf and its own. It gathers around them because it understands how necessary, how joyful, and how fearful this joining is. These lovers, pledging themselves to one another "until death," are giving themselves away, and they are joined by this as no law or contract could join them. Lovers, then, "die" into their union with one another as a soul "dies" into its union with God. And so here, at the very heart of community life, we find not something to sell as in the public market but this momentous giving. If the community cannot protect this giving, it can protect nothing...” 
― Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community: Eight Essays

“If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.” 
― Madeleine L'Engle

“What marriage offers - and what fidelity is meant to protect - is the possibility of moments when what we have chosen and what we desire are the same. Such a convergence obviously cannot be continuous. No relationship can continue very long at its highest emotional pitch. But fidelity prepares us for the return of these moments, which give us the highest joy we can know; that of union, communion, atonement (in the root sense of at-one-ment)...To forsake all others does not mean - because it cannot mean - to ignore or neglect all others, to hide or be hidden from all others, or to desire or love no others. To live in marriage is a responsible way to live in sexuality, as to live in a household is a responsible way to live in the world. One cannot enact or fulfill one's love for womankind or mankind, or even for all the women or men to whom one is attracted. If one is to have the power and delight of one's sexuality, then the generality of instinct must be resolved in a responsible relationship to a particular person. Similarly, one cannot live in the world; that is, one cannot become, in the easy, generalizing sense with which the phrase is commonly used, a "world citizen." There can be no such think as a "global village." No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it. Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity. We thus come again to the paradox that one can become whole only by the responsible acceptance of one's partiality.
(pg.117-118, "The Body and the Earth")” 
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essay

I also found a "essay" I wrote dated 9/9/14. No title. Who was I thinking about? Or was it a dream for myself/dear ones in the future?

            Their family- their marriage- the coming together of those two individuals into a couple has proved to be a bulwark for many. As if the promises that kept them from uprooting from each other grew deep roots and then branches that spread out to shade and shelter. The lonely ones, the orphaned ones- came and found shelter under them. Their commitment to each other invited the trust of the lonely, the isolated. In their love and unity others found strength and belonging. "I will take shelter here," they thought, "under this imperfect roof. They will be for me a home, a resting place, at least for this time."
            It wasn't' that either individual was particularity special. It was that each of them looked beyond their own interests to the cares and needs of others, so their world expanded. It never shrank with their own cares. It was always growing, like that mustard seed tree. It was always spreading, so more birds of the air flocked and landed, flourishing on those branches, in that shade.
            Why is two so much stronger and more stable than one? Trouble shared is trouble halved? The weaker one is made strong? Wisdom and council gained in cooperation? That proverb about being kept warm? Helped? I'm not sure. But here is a cry to the God who created community and family out of his very nature to unfold the riches and beauty of fellowship among his people more and more.

Solstice Words

Romans 1/Father's Day

I dove above and below, skimming the waters, halfway 

in and out and

I cried out

He's got an exo-skeleton                                     (I will not be ashamed)

               a parched tumor of neglect                   (I will still pray)
               a vacant tare, un-embodied stare          (The righteous shall live)

               a pew bench beat                                 (Revealing faith for faith)
               a scar and an obtuse mouth                  (I am under obligation)

               an itch and a chemical feel                    (Your faith is proclaimed all over)

               a diesel engine procession                    (That we may be mutually encouraged)

               an anger dilemma, wait, it's a dungeon  (That I may reap a harvest) 

               a spelled out fate                                  (Is it too late?)

Thank you/belonging

Clothe me in your love and acceptance- I belong to Abba Father.

A rigorous advocate is the man Christ Jesus, the power of God resting on Him.

Who left his Abba Father to clothe himself, in humility and loneliness.

Thank you for this bitterness.

Thank you for this loneliness. 

Thank you for the unfulfilled yearnings. 

Thank you for the pit of pain and tears.

Thank you for coming, for leaving the Father's right hand, forsaking the glory from time immortal.

Thank you for wondering, your wonder on me.

Thank you for breaking in on bleakness and striving, and mediating a peace that now clothes me.

So clothe me in your love and acceptance- I belong to you, Abba Father. 

Justice and mercy

“Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.” 
― Wendell Berry

Go.

Go where your best prayers take you.

Frederick Buechner

Call me a ham, okay?

In some circumstances, I love to be the center of attention. In my family we called that being a "ham." At one point I lost my "haminess" and started going to Toastmasters, and regained that natural love of public gab.

I think I'm at a place where I can present confidently and authentically- but know I am a work in progress. I found these notes from a friend (thanks Margaret!) and am sharing the highlights so I can refer to this again in the future.

• Cut down on background. For a 15 minute presentaton, background should be less than a minute. I know it's important to you, but NO. ONE. CARES. (Or they can ask you in the Q&A.)
• Begin with the bottom line- it reigns in expectations and makes everyone happier.
• Include a call to action before the "Questions?" slide. A call to actions keeps the momentum from the presentation and reinforces your bottom line.
  
• And, from Toastmasters, "Take a breathe. Slow down. Smile." 

Calling Upon the Name

"And Seth, to him who was born a son, and he called his name Enos; then began men to call upon the name of the Lord"

Not until then? Was it because the memory of Eden was becoming dim, and the easy communication with the Lord who walked in the garden In the cool of the evening was no longer possible? Was it a longing cry of homesickness as the Lord called out when Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit of the forbidden tree, "where are you?" In wounded love, so were el's people now beginning to ache from their wounds and to call out to their begetter? Was that the beginning of conscious, verbalized prayer? In the Garden, prayer has been all of life; eating, knowing each other, sleeping, all were part of prayer. So wasn't the Fall the braking of life into fragments which needed to be put back together by prayer? (83)

From "And it was good" by Madeleine L'engle.

Nothing but Prayer

Perhaps, if we walk with God our sense of wonder is untouched, we retain our joy at being simply who we are, faulted and flawed, but God's. Perhaps if we walk with God, our lives are truly nothing but prayer (85).

From "And it was Good" by Madeleine L'engle

Crosswalk Musings

I was just standing at the crosswalk watching multiple cars speeding by without stopping- like they legally should- and I was getting so angry I stuck my tongue out at one! That did a lot of good (ha ha). And I realized (correction, He convicted me) how much I was sinning by being angry and hating the people, and the Holy Spirit said, "what if you bless them instead of cursing them?"

I don't know what will happen. I think it would change my attitude for sure.

 "So Lord, bless the women going 40 miles an hour in the black SUV, bless her day, in Jesus name! "

I do feel better. Thank you Lord!

One goal

My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.

-Oswald Chambers

Compass of Company

"In the desert of anonymity Jesus made peace with God's timing and concluded that Father God's companionship in his life was enough." (50).

"There [at Jesus' baptism] we saw that Jesus did not have to make a name for himself. His hidden years granted him (and can grant us) the space to make peace with God's pace.

We also witnessed Jesus' willingness to follow God wherever he led. Surrendering to hidden years enabled Jesus (and can enable us) to desire, above all, God's company and not be distracted by life's scenery. Over long, uncelebrated years while Jesus stewarded God-size dreams in anonymity, Father God had become his soul's true point of reference. That compass would serve him well as he walked into dry, troubled times." (56)

Excerpts Anonymous by Alicia Britt Chloe

Otherwise

Prayer

Is the power

By which

That comes 

To pass

Which otherwise

Would not take place.

-Andrew Murray

The Rule of the Kingdom

"Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the kingdom."

- Charles Spurgeon 

Door in an alley off of West 7th, St. Paul. "Ask, seek, knock."

Meditative Dishwashing

"Stop striving for the position of sonship you've already attained."

Thank you, Holy Spirit, for a truth like this to meditate on during the morning dishwashing. I highly recommend listening to the prayer room (ihopkc.org) and worshipping and praying while dishwashing... don't waste those "mundane moments"! He answers in the most beautiful and unexpected ways!

Seasonally, the Lord is circling me back the truths of how I live out of an orphan heart (striving for a Father's acceptance) to a Child's heart (trusting and resting in the acceptance and love of the Father).

The good news is this- Jesus paid a costly price to take away my shame, purchase my redemption and adoption. It is finished. I am secure. I belong to the Father.

Father, Abba, God, help me to stop striving for acceptance I already have in you.  Thank you for Your goodness to me, in calling me to be Your daughter. Thank you that You delight in me (Isaiah 62) and I can believe on that and revel in it. Even during the dishes. Especially while returning to work on Monday. Thank you in Jesus' Name.

Emergency only?

Corrie Ten Boom once asked, “Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”