Held

We spent the evening with friends of ours discussing the aches and opportunities of the church we're attending, and while our kids ran around their living room and up the stairs, and I scratched the ears of one of their pups, I said the thing I keep saying about this church community: I laugh every time I think about where we're at and how it doesn't make any sense, but here we are, filled with peace and joy for this place in spite of what would make more sense. Something has bound us here for the time being, for such a time as this, and that mystery and misty hope keeps me coming back, excited to see what's next.

The opposite is true for me with my mom and her health right now: wrapped up in that is fear and anxiety, worry and stress, uncertainty about what the holidays hold, what next year holds, what the future holds. It feels dangerous to plan for the future, even as God says he knows the plans he has for us, plans to give a hope and a future. It is much harder for me to trust that mystery in the face of the realities of disease - dis-ease - it is much harder to hang on to hope.

But that is what we have, isn't it, what we must have, what we say we have when we say we love Jesus and God loves us, we say we have hope. Joy. Peace.

Even on this rock life finds a way to keep on living.

Tonight I am warm, held in the majesty of love and communion with my family and with my friends. My husband is strumming his guitar. I spent 30 minutes holding my daughter, talking about sex and marriage and belly button lint and how the Earth was made and how babies are made. She asked whether Grandma Rose is feeling better and we talked about cancer and upcoming doctor's appointments and God's love, and Lydia said, even if she dies (oh God, oh God, oh God) it will be okay because we will see her in heaven again with Great Pop and Pop-O.

We are all made of dust, made of the stuff of Earth, all of which was made by the hands of God. We are held. We are held in this warmth and love, and it is this love--capital-L Love--that delivers joy. Peace. Hope.

I will say I love you and you are loved a thousand times in as many ways as I possibly can to every person I come in contact with every day because it is the only thing proven to conquer death and fear of death. It is the only thing that carries me over this chasm of fear and anxiety. It is holding my daughter who is holding me and it holds my mom, even now, even in her anxiety and my anxiety, in her worry and my worry, in all of the unknowns about tomorrow that are always there but strikingly clear now. What a gift to be reminded that today is all we know for certain? So, love.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Neither death nor life. Neither death nor life. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Love, love, love. I wish to stay right here, replicate tonight in its hope and vision for the future, extend that faith and hope and love out for all my days. No more fear. No more anxiety. Just peace and love and being held.

Bad People Go to Hell and Other Parental Panic Moments

My lovely blue-eyed seven-year-old daughter giggled. "Bad people go to the devil when they die," and my charming bow-tie and button-down-shirt wearing son giggled, too, "Yeah, but we're going to heaven because of JESUS."

I stuttered and stammered, "Well, it's true that Jesus saves us," I said, "but I'm not sure about the devil. It'd be a bad place to go, that far away from God.  I don't know about the devil." Or something like that. Yammer. Stammer. Pause. Continue eating pizza. End of theological discussion.

Oh, Lord.  Lord, Lord, Lord.  It's moments like this that cause my adult brain to short circuit. What do I say?  What do I believe?  How do I say what I believe without oversimplifying to the point of error?  Can I even communicate a non-deistic, grace over deeds, mercy over judgment concept to my children?  

Can I just hand them some Popsicle sticks and glue?  Here, stick these together. They make a cross! Wee!

I've thought about and pondered the existence of God for twenty years, ever since my best friend scribbled, "At least I know where I'm going when I die," in a folded and creased sheet of notebook paper, ever since I asked my mom, "Do you believe in God?" and I thought to myself, Of course she does, everyone believes in God, but she sat on the beach blanket next to me and said, I don't know.

I don't know.

It's possible that the greatest gift my mom ever gave me was this uncertainty.  Maybe that sounds crazy.  Maybe if she had said, "Of course I do," I would have nodded and thought, "well then, there you have it. There is a god."  

But wrapped in that single, simple, honest answer was this: permission. Permission to doubt. Permission to seek. Permission to question. Permission to believe.

Freedom.

She could have said, "Of course I do," her heart racing, ready to deliver the sinner's prayer to me right there on the shore of Lake Erie, right there, perform the accept-Jesus-into-your-heart prayer, and maybe it would have meant something to me.  She could have said, "No, I don't. I think it's ridiculous to believe in god," and I might have nodded, okay, that takes care of that, Lisa can eat her perfect cursive handwritten note.

But no, with one sentence a door opened, because paired with faith is always doubt, and what is the good news of Christ if not freedom?  Freedom to question?  Freedom to wonder?  Freedom to demand answers and freedom to rest in mystery?  

And then there was that note.  I think about that note often, how it's hot poker burned and I flinched.  Where will I go when I die?  Is there an afterlife?  Oh, the many ways I've answered this question, heaven, hell, dust, earth, eternity, purgatory, asleep in the ground, awake in the clouds... and yet even today Idon'tknowIdon'tknowIdon'tknowIdon'tknow.  

Oh, I believe in an afterlife.  I believe in heaven, the love of Christ, ever-presence in a place as good as and better than this world, a place of wholeness and healing.  But also there is (or can be) heaven on earth, healing and redemption here, now.  That is a message I can hear and understand with more clarity and immediacy than any eternal heavenly location - that which is unfathomable, mysterious, but no less real... or possible.

But the question of the devil, well, maybe?  Why not?  I don't know anything about hell, its physical location, whether a loving God would condemn a mortal being to burn for all eternity, but I know there is (or can be) hell on earth, a life spent in bitterness and ruin, destruction and vanity and greed, a life spent entirely separate from God, serving one master, serving one's own interests, or maybe even serving the burning desires of Satan who wants to kill and destroy, to drive people away from God.  Maybe?  

"At least I know where I'm going when I die."  My best friend's note was a catalyst.  What do I know?  What do I believe?  That note was followed not by condemnation but by invitations, to Bible studies, dinners with her parents praying, the Billy Graham revival in Cleveland, our shared college dorm room, worship services we attended together, prayers we uttered together, and Bible verses we exchanged. All of the merciful, miraculous, and mysterious ways our paths have intersected these twenty years are an entirely other kind of testimony to the grace and power of Christ.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Grace.  Permission.  Freedom.

So what do you give your children?  I want to give them an open hand.  I want to invite them into "Here's what I believe, but."  Yes, I believe in a huge, loving, powerful, merciful, just, faithful, mysterious God of the universe.  Let me show him to you as best I can.  I hope that you will see him and feel that presence in your life, that faith will surpass doubt.  I hope that the love of Christ will be real to you, that it will ever change you, ever humble you, ever shape you into a fuller version of yourself, the very best version of yourself, and that the same love of Christ will compel you to love others deeply and fully, so they too may experience the love of Christ.

And when you ask me a question I don't yet know the answer to, please dear God let me have the humility to simply say, "I don't know," and may the mystery be enough to keep both of us searching.

Well, Hello There

Would ya look at that?  It's been a month.  The MFA summer residency was here and then gone, those two weeks that last two months and then feel like just days once it's over.  I think it might have been the smoothest residency we've run since 2007, which is saying something, since I was also in class this time.  It was an extremely productive and inspiring two weeks, to say the least.  And then, I hopped on a jet plane to North Carolina to meet my lovely family for a week of vacation.

Oh, sweet, sweet vacation.  How I miss you.

While I was on vacation, I devoured The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby and The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard... and also crab cake sandwiches. I've wanted to read Beard's collection of essays since I read "The Fourth State of Matter" in Tell It Slant last semester, and I was not disappointed. The trouble is that now I'm feeling that intimidation that comes from reading really, really good writing--will anything I write measure up? Ever? I'm tempted to write everything in present tense now, though, so watch out.

I also started to read Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. I read a book of hers about her 40-year-long marriage over the summer, and I gathered that probably Madeleine and I would be BFF's. I was right. I struggle to write about faith, mostly out of fear that I will come across too sentimental, too didactic, or too cliche, and that fear is extremely stifling. I tend to stare at my screen and then sigh dramatically before typing "God." In L'Engle, I've found a kindred spirit, willing to speak honestly and frankly about faith and doubt, love and art. I'm really enjoying this book.

While I was on vacation last week, I had a lot more time to write and read than I usually do, and it was great to take a more focused look at the work. I finished a first draft of an essay about camping that I'm excited about, and I played around with some revisions to other essays.  But most of the time, I did this:

Which is exactly how I hope to spend heaven-- on a beach, looking for shark's teeth, chasing children through the incoming tide.

Fruit

I almost didn't write a poem tonight because, well, I'm lazy. And my body said no. But since my body didn't have to do much to write and since I followed the lead of a friend to make the "Mosaic of Me" on Facebook (which should technically appear below), I decided there had to be a poem in some of these pictures. So here's what came out tonight. I don't know what the deal is with all of the other-worldly thoughts lately, but I guess I just like to think about heaven. And the process of getting there. Something about the season I suppose.

Fruit

*poof!*