Archive for December, 2007
to the trumpet’s blast
“…you will sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you will…proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee…”
~ Leviticus 25
“But this is supposed to be my jubilee year,” I pouted as I held the hardcover in my lap. The Pressure’s Off, a book I’ve been reading the past couple months, takes nearly everything I’ve learned as a God-follower and turns it upside down. Different than all the other lifestyle and self-help-ish books I’ve read recently, The Pressure’s Off has given me a powerful, grace-filled, liberating paradigm for living.
Some of the truths within sound like this:
There is no ‘If A, then B.’
Rain falls on the just and the unjust.
God is not interested in our happy little agenda…He’s interested in us being close to Him.
It’s not about His blessings; it’s about Him.
I was all in for the longest time, welcoming this freer, fuller life in Christ. The pressure is truly relieved, the idea of perfection obliterated, the inclination to perform annihilated, releasing me to simply be and be His. I had just started to celebrate this, to announce the festival season, to usher in my jubilee year with trumpets and fanfare, when I saw that word on the final pages:
Brokenness.
Didn’t I just come through a season of brokenness? I thought, remembering the past couple years and all I’d encountered within and without.
Aren’t all the Pendroppers gonna be sick of hearing me talk about brokenness for another year? I wondered, thinking about how serious my posts had been as of late.
I was ready to drop the mic on some celebration, I whined in hip-hop fashion as I stared at that word on the page.
Crabb says it like this:
“The New Way begins with brokenness.”
In my black-and-white, compartmentalized thinking, I had decided all my confrontation with brokenness was behind me, especially after the stuff I’ve faced down and faced up to the past couple years. But there it was; even with all I’d cleaned up, a dirty little mess stinking up my jubilee celebration.
But now, a few hours before a new year, I look back, look ahead, and breathe the oxygen of this moment, & I can’t help smiling. This jubilee year is awaiting me. A year where both brokenness and rejoicing will be themes – even within the same instant. A year where I will hear bitter death knells harmonizing with strains of celebration. A year where broken bones will dance to the trumpet’s blast.
No Commentsbreaking light
Because of God’s tender mercy,
the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide us to the path of peace.
~ Zechariah’s Prophecy, Gospel of Luke
May you know His mercy, His light, His peace, & His presence – this season and always.
Happy Christmas from Pendrops.
No Commentsjust really blind
“Recognize that the other person is you.”
That’s what the tag dangling from my bag of steeping peppermint tea reads as I wait for Jason in the lobby of the Bellagio in Las Vegas. It’s a difficult sentiment to grasp as I people watch this Sunday morning, the day after my sister-in-law’s wedding. Especially when the outer shell of everyone swirling and speeding by me looks so different than my own shell.
Still, the more people that pass by (and there are hundreds of people, even early on Sunday morning), the more I begin noticing a common denominator. It’s not numbness, drunkenness, giddyness or guilt. It’s searching. A desperate kind of searching glaze that covers the eyes of everyone I watch over the course of 20 minutes.
In a city where every addiction is easily accessible and encouraged – shopping, gambling, sex, alcohol, drugs, to state a few of the obvious – there’s something for everyone. And everyone appears to be looking for which craving to feed first. But I feel immune. I hate shopping. I have no pull toward the noisy, lit-up slot machines or roulette tables. I only drink with respect, caution and care. I’m not interested in drugs. Vegas simply doesn’t tempt me.
So I stand in the midst of this pulsing horde – bumped, banged and even walloped with a Gucci bag although I stand in the least-trafficked spot I can find – and I watch bloodshot-eyed grannies push slot machine buttons, girls drunk at the bar before noon, old men with young well-endowed “escorts” on their arms. And I try to see their eyes. To understand. Many have sunglasses on; big, dark sunglasses. But some don’t.
It’s their eyes I study. Where have I seen that shifty gaze, I wonder. And then I recognize it. That familiar look. It’s the look I’ve seen so many times in my own reflection.
The same desolate search for some thing to give a quick fix; some thing to numb or fill or feed. I won’t end up with an empty wallet, a hangover, or an STD in my search, but my grasping glare can be just as desperate, just as glazed, just as bloodshot.
You’d think in a city with so many lights we’d be able to see better. I guess we’re all just really blind.
No Commentswho’s gonna love you
But I’m tired, 900 sit-ups a day.
I’m painting my hair the colour of mud, mud, OK?
- Outrageous, Paul Simon
I had just come from the cardio section of the gym, found a slot of space in the free weight area, and was on my last set of curls with a couple 10-pound dumbbells when no less than five earphone-clad men walked rudely in front of me on their way past the wall of mirrors, flexing their pecs and biceps as they did. A moment later, as I raised the dumbbells in a set of shoulder lifts, three woman pranced in front of me – again, rudely – on their way past the wall of mirrors, flipping their blond hair (dark roots) and puffing up already enhanced breasts.
But before I could get really indignant, my ears perked to a song filtering through the speakers above my head. The voice belonged to Paul Simon, that troubadour of justice and rightness for so many generations. The beautiful words and funky backbeat filled every inch of the large building, somehow redeeming this ugly and all-too-common mirror episode:
Who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Tell me, who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Ah, who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone?
Who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone?
“Is anyone else getting this?” I thought, looking around to see if anyone besides me was laughing at the irony, the absurdity, the perfect-ness of the moment. They weren’t, but I chuckled out loud and shook my head as I walked past the over-sized cardboard cut-out of a ”flawless” woman lowering her bikini bottom enticingly so you could see her tan line. (Maybe we’ll all look like her if we buy a tanning package, huh?)
But by the end of the song, the irony had worn off and I was feeling – what was it? – plain old sadness for these people who put all their stock, all their time, all their hope into what they look like.
You see, the two years that Jason and I have frequented this particular gym have been thorn-in-my-side kind of days. Upon setting foot through the doors, I find myself jealous, insecure, sweaty. I become frustrated, annoyed, flustered. I run out of breath and out of patience for the guys who gawk and the girls who flaunt. And all of this happens on the ten-second walk from the entrance to the Stairmaster.
But in recent days, I have started to realize that these are not just primped princesses I see at the gym for 30 minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They’re not just grunting, sweating, testosterone-tweaked men I have come to loathe on my every-other-day visit. These people have lives outside the booming walls, off the treadmill, far from the free weights.
They have insecurities, too. And broken marriages. And fears. And dreams. And addictions. And uniqueness. And wounds. And memories they’d rather forget. And deep inner beauty more weighty than any trimmed waistline or rippling triceps. And I can see them – see them all – if I’ll actually look in their eyes.
When I remember these sorts of things, I see clearly and soften a bit. But some days, I need a little more help remembering. And seeing. And today, Paul Simon came in with his unassuming strains, reminding me that these people don’t know that they’re chasing an empty thing. Reminding me that even my own pursuit of flawless appearance is vain. Reminding me that the answer to his question is simple, beautiful, true:
Who’s gonna love you when your looks are gone?
God will, like he waters the flowers on the windowsill.
And maybe, if I’m seeing things right, I will, too.
1 Commentthe splendor
Call me thick-headed, but I saw it for the first time today. Beauty begins with the word “be.” Maybe that’s because all expressions of beauty emerge from a still, simple act: being. But not only being. Because we can be false. We can be unkind. We can be ugly. But when we be our intended self, fashioned of dust and, yet, imago Dei, beauty is too small a word to convey the splendor.
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