Humble Orthodoxy

So often we falsely contrast truth and grace. I like this little film riff on Josh Harris' new book, Dug Down Deep. Words & visuals beautifully woven.

DugDownDeep_Shook.mov from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

Seeking True North

When I started chemo, several friends who have survived cancer advised, "When you begin to lose your hair, just take charge and shave it all off. You need to have some way to take control." I liked that idea. Me over cancer. Me wryly living that dream all of us women have embraced on some dark bad-hair day of simply shaving it off and starting over. I'm a take-charge kinda gal.

But when the hair began to fall in sheets and clumps, I knew there was something else I needed to affirm. I have cancer because God is in charge, not me. All the things I have taken charge of have been taken from me - at least for a time - because I need to remember that truly I am NOT in charge. And however it looks from here and now, that is a good thing. So I needed something to remind me that I will seek God's direction and be still under His guidance.

No, I didn't shave. I tried to enjoy the emotional satisfaction of actually being able to tear my hair out when things got intense. But it wasn't fun enough. I knew I was just waiting in a trackless darkness for God to...do something.

Then Richard Fudge's Visual Prayer Journal project came across my radar through the Creative Edge Artist's Network. He and God arranged for the Journal to reach me during my most discouraged cancer time so far. Designing a page that reflects my determination to wait on God's direction helped me come to terms with the feelings of helplessness, and to frame my prayer for His will to be done in and through me.

The background is a map of the Arctic Ocean sea floor, the darkest, most trackless place on Earth, a place where even a compass is useless. As the tsunami of troubles obliterates all known landmarks, God's Will is the only true north my heart will seek.

Photo is True North by Kim Anderson, 2010. Click on photo for a larger view.

New Year's Eve - the Backward Glance

Something old seems new in present circumstances. Do you look back on brokenness? What comes next?

Mary's Ointment

Have I been broken…nothing works.

exposed I try to be good

That was lovely once upon a time

I thought you loved me....it wouldn't

Be safe, but glorious. I never

spitting blood dragging limbs

Dreamed true.

He was smell the myhrr shattered

alabaster. Fool. Spent too much

To tell a dead man scent-gilded hair

she'd mourn. All one: feet or floor,

Puddled perfume mortar won't she

Artist! clean up this

Perfect mosaic of Redemption!

Let me bring the shining shards of ruined

Hopes, of half-made glories

To You whose broken body is my health.

Make me, like You, to show

In glittering tesserae God's grace as I could

Never know or tell

While whole.

Copyright 1996. Kim Anderson. All rights reserved.

Photo of Sonia King's mosaic, "Spinoff". http://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/mosaic-art-source-summer-news-update-mosaic-art-source-gallery-featured-mosaic-artist-sonia-king-dallas-texas/

A Sense of Place

We are developing the life of the mind. Does it matter where we do it? I am a radical fan of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The Word that deigned to become flesh. Oh yes, place, food....stuff matters. Place, like clothing, reminds us of who we are and what we are doing.

Now that my two eldest are studying in parts distant for the present - one in music conservatory in California, and one in St Petersburg, Russia - I am especially delighted that my at-home student wants to study wherever I am. Our favorite spots therefore, have to have room for at least two.

So, the kitchen table...Especially for the last couple of weeks, when I have been teaching, discussing and dispensing aid while stirring up fresh bruschetta, freezing green chili sauce, drying tomatoes and herbs, and baking zucchini herb bread. The harvest not only of garden gems, but of camaraderie has been bountiful.

Though our girls are gone, we are still a productive family.



And since autumn has come in with darkling rain and frosty mornings, we curl up with our books and cups of hot mocha before the fireplace. We revel in the delicious warmth of fellowship with great minds - some of them in our books, some of them right there by the fire in the flesh.



Our tech den is really more of a wired library. Desks tucked between bookshelves lit with Tiffany lamps and softened with a futon where we can both settle with laptops to get down to business. Witness to our labors are the beautiful paintings and photographs the children have created over the years. We remember there that the works of our hands will endure, so we should labor to craft them well.



And finally, we love to study with our speech and debate club, Counterpoint Cultural Alliance. We explore the interface between philosophy and theology and find ways to speak to those around us who are still lost in a closed universe where God doesn't burst through the brazen heavens. We make history come to life in documentary films and inspirational one-acts. We make opportunities to bring our book-learning into real world impact today. So our study spot might be the classroom, but it might just as easily be pounding the pavement promoting the Denver Rebelution Tour or questioning defendants in Teen Court, or jolting a jaded church youth group out of their rut with hilarious and searching dramatic presentations.

Most of all, we love to study wherever our Lord places us. We are everywhere He wants to be (apologies to VISA).

The Beauty of Red

"Something in the cosmos speaks to the deep places in us." Just not the same message Carl Sagan claims to have heard in his wildly popular Cosmos series. No the cosmos speaks the identity of its Maker.

Suns blaze His glory. Stars clock His precision. Wind whispers His omnipresence and His upholding power.

But we are here today to praise the beauty of Red. In the heraldry of the rainbow, red speaks to us of passion, heat, fire, rage, love and sacrifice.

Red is the color of Pentecost, when the Spirit's passion burned into the hearts of Christ's followers and blazed out across cultural boundaries, language barriers and spiritual blindness to spark new life in the thousands gathered for the old feast.

Red is the color of transformation. As the bloody sacrifice was burned on the altar, that dead meat was transformed into something ethereal and glorious: the glowing red-gold flame and curling smoke. Passion and prayer. A model of the glory-cloud that led Israel through the wilderness.

My guest this week for the Carnival of Beauty, Susanna at Through a Glass, reflects on the many shades of Red and the blood of Christ.

This week, I hope you'll see red. Really see it.

Bread of Heaven

All Creation speaks to us of God and His works. That is why no occupation, no matter how mundane, is merely drudgery.

Others may feel trapped on a treadmill of meaningless repetitions, but children of the Creator should understand that it isn't a treadmill. It's the stairway to heaven. Every task can speak to us of something He has done for us or in us or by us.

It's a fractal universe. Every shape is made up of shapes just like the larger shape. Our gestures echo, in microcosm, His. He uses our own small hands to teach us the cosmic textures of spiritual realities.

Take bread. For most of the world, it's the strength-for-the-day staple. Bread and salt; the invitation to life. Bread is the foundation of hospitality. The aroma of baking bread draws us into "Welcome home!" and "Remember when?"

It is the mystery of secret growth; sin and righteousness, the Serpent's seed and the Church. Revolution hiding in plain sight. Penicillin and the death of men's plagues.

Bread is the appetizer for the Lamb's wedding feast. It is the memorial of Christ's ordinary, gracious, invitational, mysterious, nourishing, healing sacrifice.

Break it. Drink in the steamy fragrance. And, with the disciples at Emmaeus, recognize Him.

This recipe was a gift from a dear friend, who brought it to our Thanksgiving feast one year. Isn't female bonding all about food 90% of the time?

Cheese Bread Knots

Combine:

10-11 cups white flour

4 pkgs. Dry yeast

Heat in saucepan until just warm:

4 cups milk

12 oz. Swiss Cheese

1 cup sugar

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter

2 tablespoons salt

Combine milk mixture, flour, and 2 eggs. Beat for ½ minute at low speed of mixer. Beat at high speed 3 minutes. Stir in enough flour to make a soft dough, then knead until smooth and elastic (5-8 minutes).

Shape into a ball and place in greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled (1 ½ hours). Punch dough down and turn out on floured surface. Divide dough into four equal pieces. Shape each into a ball. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.

Roll each ball into a 12x16 inch rectangle. Cut crosswise into 6x1 inch strips. Tie each strip into a loose knot. Place on a greased baking sheet.

Cover and let rise until doubled (about 40 minutes). Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

These freeze well.

The Perfect Gift

"No gift unrecognized as coming from God is at its own best... when in all gifts we find Him, then in Him we shall find all things."

~ George MacDonald~

"So tell us about your walk with God." The elders leaned into the membership interview. The organist was practicing in some far gallery, and the library shelves embraced them all with the wisdom of the ages.

"Well," she began, "I can't ever remember a time when I didn't know about God." (And how did that ever save you sorrow? she wondered. ) "But when I was three I had a problem with guilt…"

The afternoon sun dusted into the room where the tiny girl squirmed on her rose-crusted quilt, tears dry on her hot cheek. "It's not fair. I can't do it. I have to be perfect. I can't ever do it. They’ll never believe I'm really sorry. How will they ever forgive me?" She looked around desperately, raking long scratches down her arms, trying to shed the loathsome skin.

“My parents would discipline me – appropriately – and send me to my room to think about what I had done. But it never seemed enough to me.” (Why? What would drive a three-year-old to self-mutilation? A three-year-old who had never heard of such a thing?)

A dusky early morning. Her father with a suitcase and a business suit bending down, down to catch her as she danced to the fizzy hi-fi and to kiss her good-bye. “I’m going on a business trip. Don’t know when I’ll be back.” He paused, “Who do you love best, Mommy or me?” Suddenly, all the dance drained out of her. Hardly breathing, she remembered the shouting, the weeping in the night, something in a bad dream…but no. Surely what she said now would either bring her Daddy home again or never again. She would have to hold them together. All of them. Now there was a baby sister, too.

A perfect answer. It would have to be a perfect answer. No second chances.

“So in the interval for thinking, I would…hurt myself. Biting, bruising, scratching. It was best if I could bleed. My mother was beside herself with worry. She consulted with older women, who taught her to tell me the Gospel very simply. I remember asking Jesus to pay for my sins with His blood. And I never needed to hurt myself again.” (The abuses continued. Dad was …the pressure never let up, she realized. I would never be perfect enough to make life OK for Dad. But someone else had bled. Someone else had died, as I would have died. It was the perfect gift.)

Liturgy for Living

"I'm overwhelmed!" "I'm just exhausted." "My life is crazy right now." Sound familiar? All too often this is not a temporary condition. It is our normal state. Americans in general and Christians in particular seem to feel that being too busy is a virtue. Homeschool moms seem particularly prone to this. And the corrolary of that attitude seems to be that our extraordinary busy-ness justifies sloppy, shallow living.

But this is not what we have recieved from God. His routine is "Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work..." (Deut 5:13, 14) The Exodus 20 giving of the Law cites as the reason for this command that we are made to imitate God's work of creation: "for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day..." Deuteronomy 5 goes on to give a further reason, "...Remember that thou was a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm..."

We are made for rest in the midst of work. Further, God has purchased a holiday for us one day in seven. The Sabbath is a constant reminder that where merely human strength cannot cannot bring our work to fruition, God's might can - even without us. God's people ought not to be slaves of the urgent.

But we ought not to be slaves to a slate of Sabbath-Day do's and don'ts either. The rhythms of God's work and the dance of our Sabbath worship ought to be teaching us music that we can embellish, rather than merely repeating. Sadly, our anything-goes age has forgotten most of the steps, so here is a brief of the dance. (Deb over at On the Vine is doing a whole series on this.)

In worship we
1) Come near and know our unworthiness
2) Confess our sin and recieve forgiveness
3) Respond with thanks and praise
4) Recieve God's nourishment in Word and Sacrament
5) Go out rejoicing in God's strength and commissioning

So rightly, the Sabbath could properly contain so much:
1) Reflection, journaling, scrapbooking
2) Letting others off the hook in various ways, letting yourself off the hook (He has), napping
3) Singing, making music, writing thank you notes or calls
4) Feasting, discussing the Scriptures and their applications in our day, exercising hospitality, seeing a movie or reading a book that will flesh out the implications of God's Word...
5) Planning the coming week in light of the Biblical admonitions received, laughing

Leave the rat-race. Join the dance!

Limiting Chaos

I have been relishing the challenge of this week's Carnival of Beauty topic: the Beauty of Limits. Have you noticed how often beauty arises within limits, where none was visible before? Ordinary life crowds in all around us, and we seldom notice anything spectacular, but a visionary with a camera imposes the limits of a tiny frame on reality and suddenly - beauty!

Moderns have forgotten this. We tend to think that good only rises from natural chaos. (I believe we have Darwin to thank for this nonsense. The Ancients knew better.) Our art reflects it from John Cage's experiments in musical chaos to the midden-heap of random poetry.

Moderns have particularly forgotten that limits create forms, and that forms themselves carry meaning. Deliberately formless expression can only carry a couple of meanings:
"I, as a human being, refuse to "replenish the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:28); or
"Look, randomness is actually impossible."

Limits actually make possible multi-layered delights; beauty within beauty. Watch. C.S. Lewis' little verse imbedded in his Pilgrim's Regress describes Hell:

God in His mercy made
The fixed pains of Hell.
That misery might be
stayed,
God in His mercy made
Eternal bounds and bade
Its waves no
further swell.
God in his mercy made
The fixed pains of Hell.

Lewis argues that Hell is like a "tourniquet on the wound through which the lost soul else would bleed to a death she never reached. It is the Landlord's last service to those who will let him do nothing better for them." And his poem is shaped like a tourniquet: the couplet "God in His mercy made/The fixed pains of Hell", binds up the poem at beginning and end. The rigid rhyme scheme and rhythm emphasise the strength of the bounds God places on misery. And, in the tradition of the ancient chaiastic poets (like David of Israel), Lewis places the most important point at the center of the poem, "God in His mercy made", framed by balancing ideas on either side like pairs of parentheses working out to the edges of the poem.

You just can't get that much meaning, that much beauty into such a small package without using limits. Limits are the antidote to ennui, as poetic forms are the antidote to grey prose. When life seems flat, an undistinguished sequence of hours and days, perhaps it is because we have too few limits.

The Sky's the Limit

On the eve of the New Year the limit of 2005's blessings and banes, I've been thinking about the star of the Magi. I'm not sure whether it was one of many natural phenomena that have been suggested or a manifestation of the Shekinah glory like the pillar of fire that Israel followed in the wilderness. But the question remains: How did the Magi know to follow the star?

(Gen. 1:14-18) "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
And let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day."

The Magi were practiced observers of all the heavenly bodies they could see. The sun and moon set limits on the day and the night; and all the stars have fixed patterns of motion. It is what God made them for. Suddenly, there appeared a deviation. The terra firma of time and space had been altered. Who wouldn't, given the resources, want to discover the cause of this cosmic change?

But there was more. Something about the timing, placement and motion of the star clued the Magi that this alteration had significance in terms of human kingship, divine visitation, and life-and-death. Their conviction was displayed in their gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. They may have guessed this by studying the works of Daniel, who had lived among them centuries before. But they certainly knew it by studying the works of God in the limits of the sky.

Unlike the Magi, my generation has spent enormous energy dissing the value of limits of any kind. What poverty! This generation is no longer able to discern events or changes of importance unless they appear in tabloid headlines wearied with a catalog of detail. The liturgies of nature, courtesy, poetry, human relationships, worship, music, all have ceased to speak to us, because we deny there is a language beyond bare proposition.

My New Year's resolutions this year will have to do with recovering the grammar of limits, learning the steps of the dances all around us that lead us, like Bethlehem's star to the side of the Dayspring. I will look up. The sky's the limit.