E's stories

E is my cello student in third grade. It all started when he went off on a long story about something that happened in his (very full) life (he's lived in three or four very different countries already), like how he broke his shin or something. Now he can't wait to tell me a story every time we finish our lesson for the day, and he asks if I want to hear a "real" or a "fake" one. These are two of the "fake"stories, recorded from my memory to the best of my ability (I've taken the liberty to title them myself)...

1. Music solves all conflicts
"Once upon a time there was a group of hamsters, and they all played instruments, like cello, and violin, and flute, and saxophone. Two of the hamsters, the one who played violin and the one that played cello, were brother and sister. One day they were all playing music, and suddenly they saw a cat. The hamsters ran away but then they ran into the leader of the cats, and then they were all surrounded by cats. The leader cat had some hamsters in his mouth! The hamster that played the cello used the strings from his cello to attack the cat and let the cat open his mouth and let all the hamsters free. Then the cats decided they wanted to play instruments, too, so they all played music together."


2. Playing music cooler than any other job
"So there were these cats. They had a band, with instruments like...violin, cello, drums, guitar...anyway, one day they were playing, and they saw another cat in a tree nearby. They asked the cat to come join them and he said "no." But the cat that played the cello said, "you have to come and play this cello, I'm leaving." So the cat in the tree came down and played the cello, and he really liked it, so he stayed. They played music together and lived happily ever after."
"What happened to the one who gave up the cello?" I asked.
'Well, he left because he really didn't like it. He got an office job."

Supreme Hero

From Richard Foster's "Celebration of Discipline" (the chapter on confession):

Jesus knew that by His vicarious suffering He could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it.

This is why Jesus refused the customary painkiller when it was offered Him. He wanted to be completely alert for this greatest work of redemption. In a deep and mysterious way He was preparing to take on the collective sin of the human race. Since Jesus lives in the eternal now, this work was not just for those around Him, but He took in all the violence, all the fear, all the sin of all the past, all the present, and all the future. This was His highest and most holy work, the work that makes confession and the forgiveness of sins possible.

Some seem to think that when Jesus shouted 'My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken Me?' it was a moment of weakness (Mark 15:34). Not at all. This was His moment of greatest triumph. Jesus, who had walked in constant communion with the Father, now became so totally identified with humankind that He was the actual embodiment of sin. As Paul writes, 'He made Him to be sin who knew no sin' (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus succeeded in taking into Himself all the dark powers of this present evil age and defeated every one of them by the light of His presence. He accomplished such a total identification with the sin of the race that He experienced the abandonment of God. Only in that way could He redeem sin. It was indeed His moment of greatest triumph.

Having accomplished this greatest of all His works, Jesus then took refreshment. 'It is finished,' He announced. That is, this great work of redemption was completed. He could feel the last dregs of the misery of humankind flow through Him and into the care of the Father. The last twinges of evil, hostility, anger, and fear drained out of Him, and He was able to turn again into the light of God's presence. 'It is finished.' The task is complete. Soon after, He was free to give up His spirit to the Father.

 When I read this this morning, all I could say was wow. Wow. Amazing. In light of the latest superhero movie I watched last night, the imagery is especially penetrating. We all love a good Righteousness vs. Evil story, latent with tension and conflict but with Virtue, a little battle-scarred and war-weary, emerging triumphant in the end. And yet superhero movies always fall short: evil is never fully destroyed, and even heroes have their weaknesses. How wonderful it is to find the final resolution here in the pages of Scripture, pointing right through to the last Amen in Revelations that Jesus is the One and Only who has Overcome, who destroyed evil by actually taking it into Himself and conquering all. What a great mystery hidden in the heart of God! Jesus IS the SUPREME HERO because His work is finished, once and for all. Though evil still crawls to skirmish with Righteousness, and though Satan heaves his final shuddering breaths to overthrow what remains of his dominion, the final Victory and the everlasting Yes is already set in motion.

Jesus wins. Love conquers all. Stunning.

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”

Rev. 5:12

commute

The highway lends itself to its name--suspended high above the slow crawl of street traffic, I see the setting sun cast its glow across the cityscape as I make my way home. I check the car's clock, but I already know what time it is -- it's the golden hour: the magical hour when the soft fading light draws out otherwise unperceived shades and hues, making any subject come alive.


My eyes narrow to focus, trying to take it all in. The sun is setting in a sea of concrete and steel--buildings; buildings upon buildings. Smokestacks puff, neighbor to apartment blocks and high-rises in various states of construction and disrepair. Shacks perched upon warehouses, both manufactured from the same metal of shipping containers. The scene takes me back (or forward) to movies on post-21st century times: overcrowded, overbuilt, overpopulated.


The bend shifts on the overpass and in front of me I see the waves that lap into this mechanical ocean--vehicles lined up in streaming floods, each a pod encasing an individual, each individual as a drop, drop upon drop to expand the swelling masses. These are the people that fill the buildings I drive by each day.

My picture from this hour could be from anywhere -- any densely populated city outside of the pristine prestige of the West. But it could even be from a future America, one of these days.


Each day the stream trickles into rivers, rivers into oceans. People on routine, people with business, people with somewhere to go, something to do, someone to be. What is it all for? The futility of human existence apart from God pulls at me like a haunted dream.

Back on the ground, I wait at an intersection with a rusty red Daihatsu, its large and minute parts rattling with every rotation of the engine. Beside me, a shiny white new Benz impatiently creeps forward, willing the light to turn green. The juxtaposition is discordant. Many would say the white car far outweighs the red in worth. But in the end, in golden hour's glow, I see it's all the same.





Last week I was again on the highway on the eve of super typhoon Usagi. In the near distance I spied some shiny objects floating at the same level as the thoroughfare; about 25-30 stories high. Closer inspection revealed them to be balloons: bright, shiny, festive red. They did not appear to be attached to anything--yet free as they were, they remained suspended in the still, heavy air. Caught in the atmosphere too dense for upwards travel, they smothered.

Daily pressures, confused plans, and distracting spiritual powers can envelope and paralyze. One day a storm will come of supernatural proportions, and all that is unclear or untrue will be laid bare. Until then I ask for unfettered purpose that will keep my direction continuing upwards... into the life-giving glow of the golden Sun.

Wake up, wake up, the sun cannot wait for long
Reach out, reach out before it fades away
You will find the warmth when you surrender
Smile into the fear and let it play

You wanna run away, run away
And you say that it can't be so
You wanna look away, look away
But you stay 'cause it's all so close
When you stand up and hold out your hand
In the face what I don't understand
My reason to be brave

Brave||Josh Groban

You make it beautiful

"We are family here."

These are words my friend spoke as we gathered in her home--they were there to welcome us back to the island, and we were grateful for the warm hospitality that greeted us. In a circle of friends to find little inhibition and no need for adhering to politeness or manners, there was a glimpse of home-away-from-home: a place to rest and feel safe.

"It is a sacrifice."

These were words spoken of our return. It was hard to come back this time. We were tearing ourselves away from familiar comforts, family ties, our new baby niece, close friendships. Nearly overwhelmed with a sense of loss (and perhaps lost-ness), I wondered what was worth it all and clung to the memories we had made with our friends made here.

He fills the empty places.


There is no grime that He cannot wash clean; there is no brokenness that He cannot heal; there is no ugliness that He cannot transform to beauty. I know this because I see it in the lives of my brothers and sisters; I know because this, too, has been my life.


A group of us gathered in a home the other night to hear testimony of God's pursuing love, covenant faithfulness, and transforming power. The night felt raw and tears were shed and I wondered what it is about God that makes us cry -- are these tears of joy or of longing?

There are many things that I fear for the future, but it all comes down to a lack of faith in a faithful God. My heart is weak and my knees wobbly but one by one I pray to take back the Truths for all the lies I have bought. As He lifts the scales from my eyes, I will see the dead bones take on life, and it will not be a sacrifice to be here, but a privilege.

It is a privilege.

Hold on to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons, they fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home
"Home," Phillip Phillips

a long journey

Photo Credit*

 From where I sit at the window, the broken, weather-beaten corrugated tin over our neighbor's porch flaps in the hot summer breeze. There is a sad melancholy to it. Snapshots of decay and ruin surround me here, affront my senses wherever I go. There is a desolation in my heart. Here there is little assurance that this is the good life; instead all is struggle--buildings struggle against disrepair, cars struggle against rust, atmosphere struggles against dust and smog. Even human existence is a struggle. People struggle to survive, to get ahead, to win, or at least look like it. To have "enough." And the eternal tragedy is that there is never enough. It is never enough.

The bleakness within is a raw and palpable sense that this is not my home. But isn't this an abiding truth? That we are actually sojourners far from home, and Jesus is the One Who has come to find us, and then take us Home one day? Perhaps until now the reality has never been clearer to me.

The challenge to me is this: to take the broken bread, the cup, and give thanks.

“Something always comes to fill the empty places. And when I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me. This, this, makes me full, and I ‘magnify Him with thanksgiving,’ and God enters the world. What will a life magnify? The world’s stress cracks, the grubbiness of a day, all that is wholly wrong and terribly busted? Or God? Never is God’s omnipotence and omniscience diminutive. God is not in need of magnifying by us so small, but the reverse. It’s our lives that are little and we have falsely inflated self, and in thanks we decrease and the world returns right. I say thanks and I swell with Him, and I swell the world and He stirs me, joy all afoot.”
--Ann Voskamp, "One Thousand Gifts"

  I need to know that God is here. God has gifted all these to me and more, and He Himself is more than Enough.

“...He takes the empty hands and draws me close to the thrum of Love. You may suffer loss but in Me is anything ever lost, really? Isn’t everything that belongs to Christ also yours? Do I not own the cattle on a thousand hills; everything? Aren’t then all provisions, in Christ also yours? If you haven’t lost Christ, child, nothing is ever lost. Remember, ‘through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God’ [Acts 14:22], and in ‘sharing in [My Son’s] sufferings, becoming like Him in His death’ you come ‘to know Christ and the power of His resurrection’ [Phil 3:10]”
--"One Thousand Gifts"

Jehovah-Shammah, Fill the empty places.

things I've learned from [teaching] a 5 year old

• Stick to your guns. Make decisions carefully, but once decided, commit to that decision.
• That being said, listen for what is trying to be said. A 5-year old is a person, too. Perhaps not the most articulate or rational, but there are ideas and thoughts there, and they should be affirmed.
• Don't be afraid to say you're sorry, you were wrong.
• Model the character you desire to instill. Character trumps book smarts.
• Sometimes bad attitudes and uncooperative behavior comes from a deep-rooted fear of failure.
• But in those times, the external assurance of another imparted through praise and encouragement is the best motivator and the best cultivator self-confidence.
• Learn by doing.
• Sometimes homemade play-dough is a little too messy for more refined tastes.
• When in doubt, make cookies.
• Spelling by "sounding out" is doubly hard when the only other English that is used to being heard is pronounced with a foreign accent.
• In an educational culture of serious book-study, imagination and hands-on can be an unequaled mollification.
  

What I miss about America

Today I woke up and it felt different. I wasn't sure what it was, but there was a happiness of being alive, of making plans, of having work and rest. I chalked it up to being Friday.

But then I looked out the window and something made me catch my breath for a nanosecond. The sky.




It was blue.


You don't even understand. I have not seen the blue sky in what seems like over a year. In spite of living in the sunny south, the sky is almost always shrouded in a thick gauze of smog. Just the other day I realized how I had almost forgotten what a blue sky looks like until I saw this picture in my newsfeed, an instagram from an acquaintance (in the US of A).

"This must be what it's like when the sky smiles," was the caption. Something within my heart was stirred.


To me, this instagram captures a sense of the hidden yearning that resides in my heart as a pilgrim in a foreign land. Before I moved I considered myself pretty transient to my surroundings; dependent on my culture-crossing upbringing, a knack for adapting, and thirst for adventure. But I've come to realize in time that there are things inbred into me that I never would have recognized before. An indelible mark impressed upon me -- that where I grew up has become a part of me that I cannot deny.

And as much as I would (or would not) be loathe to admit it.... I do miss America.

I miss crystal blue, sapphire skies
I miss purple twilight when the sun just goes down and the lightning bugs come out
I miss sitting on the deck with the big backyard in the cool evening breeze
I miss chic shopping centers
I miss wide, smooth roads, free of scooters
I miss the cherry blossoms blooming in the spring
I miss barbecues
I miss ethnic food
I miss seeing the stars
I miss open landscapes
I miss big houses
I miss seeing farmland and livestock grazing
I miss long summer days when the sun sets at 9
I miss thunderstorms
I really, really miss stepping outside and breathing in clean, fresh air, air that is not laden with exhaust or sewer smells.

But on the rare day that the skies do reveal itself, and the air disperses itself to a purity so clear that the distant city skyline can be seen, a palpable sense of grace is bestowed. An awakening that yes, there is a joy to simply being alive.

And indeed the sky smiled on us today.