Before she died, Maureen wrote a farewell address with instructions for it to be read out at her memorial and funeral services. The address is reproduced below....
Steve and I had only just arrived back at my parent’s beach house for a brief vacation when I got Taylor’s message. The message says that two of the women from the cancer group Taylor facilitates have died. This makes four women I know from the group that have died in the last 2 months.
Safely alone with my confusion, I lay in bed with thoughts churning. My eyes begin to sting under their lids. I’m struggling. I want to live in the joy of the truth of who You are, Lord. Help me.
I fall asleep. And I dream.
Steve and I stand face-to-face in a dimly lit drawing room entirely crammed with furniture. Music can be heard – something like a waltz. Steve extends his arm and offers me his hand, inviting me to dance. Warily, I accept, glancing around the crowded room. Surely, there is too much furniture here for dancing. Steve encourages me simply to follow his lead.
I raise my chin up and our eyes meet with my best attempt at a confident smile; his hand gently but firmly presses on the small of my back. We move, cautiously at first. After a hand full of steps I realize we’ve missed the furniture and I relax. Our eyes focus on each other; to my delight we glide rhythmically, gracefully, step after step.
The room falls away.
There is only me and Steve. Attentive without strain to the smallest nuanced movement of the other, we dance. A shot of peace and joy pierces my heart and radiates outward, filling me. I suddenly know I am dreaming and that this dancing is a snapshot of the deepest foundation of our marriage. It’s a taste of pure, undefiled love between man and woman, and it’s rich beyond description. It is beyond that which any of us have ever experienced, but perhaps have glimpsed in the best of fleeting moments. Yet the glimpse has been enough to inspire all manner of love song and story and poetry down through the ages. As the dream dance continues for a few more moments, I am deeply awed and deeply grateful.
The scene changes and then several follow quickly, one after the other, bursting with life: friends gathered on deep plush sofas while a strange variety of food – bite-sized chocolates but also bite-sized fish cakes – is passed around on silver trays; two long-haired cats of splendid rainbow patterns startle my eyes and – oddly enough – want to fight each other; misbehaving dogs perform ridiculous, endearing antics for their people like naughty, beloved children. They are all scenes of Life with a capital L. Teaming Life: rich and full and – I don’t know why this should surprise me – quirky.
And then, finally, I am in a vast outdoor expanse: a hillside. Throngs of people sit on the ground in front of me, filling my vision as far a my eyes can se. We are all people who have cancer, surrounded also by loved ones. Mom and Barbara sit beside me. We are listening to people tell their stories. My attention is drawn to one particular Asian man, about sixty years old, who sits a couple of yards away. I look into his shining brown eyes into an immense grief, sadness and fear. He’s overwhelmed by the cancer he has and by the life he has led.
He is in the middle of his story, and as I listen I am moved and broken and begin to sob.
I hear the utter beauty of the story he’s telling. It’s a story rife with joy and pain, comedy and tragedy. It’s a strange story: there are aspects of it that I understand but many more that are way beyond me. I weep for the sheer immensity of it, in gratitude. Somehow it’s my story too. Somehow it is ours. Somehow it is bigger than all of us put together.
I awake, sobbing, my face and pillow wet with tears. When I’m able to think, I realize that God has answered my prayer, and I thank Him. I know I have been given a vision of reality: Life, so big it feels like it is – like I am – going to burst. Life as God created it and intended it - the Life for which Jesus died. The promise.
The promise is real – if not the rainbow striped cats.
I feel like I just got to visit the place where fairy tales come from . . . where great fairy tale writers like George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis get their inspiration . . .
The next morning I ease out of bed to the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen.
I settle in next to mom on the white wicker sofa, and mom asks,
“Honey, in that group you go to at the cancer hospital . . . well, they must sometimes … Does anyone ever die?
I figured it must happen. And, honey, I know the answer really … and I know you have told me before. But how is it that you are so peaceful? So … hopeful?”
she says.
I smile back and feel an energizing surge of excitement.
“Let me tell you about the dream I had last night.”The Truth is . . .
I don’t know how to deal with this without God’s guidance. That’s the truth about this situation and all others. I’ve learned over and over that I need God’s guidance.
I’m comforted knowing God assures us that if we ask Him for this wisdom, He will give it to us. So I can rest in that. God knows I’d like to help my family and friends as they live this out.
I long for them to know the thrill and deep satisfaction that comes from relating back and forth with God! There’s a whole world that will open up for them that will knock their socks off, in the best possible way.
Lord, I know You love these people more than I ever could.
I pray that You draw them close to You; that they submit and allow themselves to be drawn.
Lord, help me to have patience. Build my character. It needs building. Show me how to live well and – if that is what is happening – to die well.
You do test us, Lord… You strengthen, build character, increase our patience, our love our compassion. Does our journey – in all these areas – go on after we die? If You bring about all this strengthening in us, is it for reasons that transcend our lives – as we know them – here?
Please give me words for others.
I have great hope for all our lives. If God is taking me home to Him, He is taking all of you so much closer to Him too.
Back on my right side now, an inevitable and recently recurring reverie: what will it be like for me after I die?
I don’t care about mansions or jewels or even chocolate. Stuff (and stuffing myself) never did much for my loneliness. What about all these people in my life now: Steve and my parents; my sisters and brothers; and all my friends; the folks at church? Why have I felt it right to spend so much time trying to share my life with them and sharing in theirs? After so many years of wanting to feel such care and love for others, and to receive it back, what’s the point of it all happening now if I’m just going to up and die? It doesn’t make sense.
In the darkness, again, I remember God. It helps me to be a little didactic with myself. I remember that He’s really really big and really really good. He tells us that we are to love him and each other.
And now I get a little excited, feel my hear flutter and stretch. Relationships matter to Him. He’s gone through all kind so of trouble to show us that He is for us, that He loves us. He’s all about us caring for each other, building strong relationships. It gives me hope that somehow, in some way that I can’t fathom, I get to stay involved in the lives of people that I love after I die. It gives me hope that part of worshipping Him with all the hosts of the angels and the saints includes caring for the people He cares about. Jesus was crucified, but He was resurrected. And even after He ascended again into heaven, we’re told – and I experience it – that He’s still alive, active in the lives of people in the world. And if I am to become like Him, well then I hope that means somehow my relationships continue and also that I’m infinitely better at loving after I’m in Heaven than I’ve ever been on Earth. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, likens our current bodies to seeds with potential to blossom into fully-flowered bodies of unimaginable splendor.
Currents of quiet excitement run through me.
Outside in the garden, I hear the two-note trill, a tiny dawn trumpet. The first note is higher than the second; the second sounds longer than the first. This solitary singer always begins the bird’s morning sound, “Yoo-hooo . . . Yoo-who,” over and over again, eventually joined by a cacophony of cheerful chatter.
Splendor? I know I can’t figure it out with my puny little self-consciousness. Instead I doze in and out of the twitter-patting of the birds for several more hours, automatic, hoping that I get to love these people forever.
Don’t forget we can’t fathom the depths of God. He is beyond us, but has come down to be with us, out of love and goodness. That is really who He is – really, really big and good – The Source of all love, the Rock. You can count on it.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Friday, November 10, 2006
Poetry by T.S. Eliot
I do not remember when I first read T.S. Eliot's final stanza of Four Quartets. Certainly it was prior to 1996, more than ten years ago. The poetry - written below - always makes my heart catch in my throat. At this moment, I wonder if there is someone out there who needs it to speak to their heart too.
Excerpt from Little Gidding (No. 4 of Four Quartets) from stanza IV
by T.S. Eliot
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heart, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
Excerpt from Little Gidding (No. 4 of Four Quartets) from stanza IV
by T.S. Eliot
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heart, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Wilderness and Wonder
The following reflections date back to summer 2003, when I took a course exploring the themes of Technology, Wilderness and Creation through Regent College. The setting for the course was a week-long camping and row/sail-boating trip throughout the magnificent Gulf Islands in British Columbia, co-taught by Loren and Mary-Ruth Wilkinson – two of the most generous, self-giving people I’ve been privileged to know.
In several months, I would learn that the breast cancer – treated several years before – had progressed to my bones. In those same several months, I’d be dating the man I would marry. I also would no longer be able to row in a boat or carry heavy packs on my back up mountain trails, or sleep in on the ground, or sit for hours on rocky shores exchanging ideas, cooking food, smiling at otters’ antics…
I look back on what I reflected on then, in the light of all that happened afterward, and see a sort of foreshadowing that only hindsight can provide. God's the best story-teller, story-maker.
And, of course, today as much as ever I find relevance in these themes. I'm walking through days filled with new sorts of difficulties...illnesses among much-loved family members, efforts among us all to hold onto our kindness toward each other when we're being stretched and strained and drained. Our questions rise up, sometimes angrily and insistently. I think God can take it. I think we need to take the questions to him.
On another note, if you read further you'll see scepticism about the value of the oodles of technology so embedded in our lives. Even while using it gratefully to share my thoughts here, I do still wonder...
[With regard to format of the writing below, I started with journal entries (small font) from my trip and then expounded a bit more on some the themes that arose (in regular 12 point font), after I returned from the trip. ]
Wilderness and Wonder
by Maureen Morley
Sunday, June 22, late morning. Coon Bay (Dionysio Point Provincial Park)
It’s pretty here and quiet, sitting on these rocks looking over the Bay. For some reason I’m reminded that the Lord answers prayer. We need to come to him with our simple requests….I’m struck by Genesis 1:2b, “…and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Is that why the water has always called to me? The Lord’s spirit was there during all my bad times on the water, bearing witness? I like the fresh eyes with which some of the folks in our group look at the world. We have “woolies” to sit on – little squares of pure sheepskin - and I’m reminded of Dottie and Bob and sheep and Gracestoration…all the ways that the Lamb provides for us.
So here we are in the Lord’s creation with all of its exuberance and vitality. I’d like to say that we – all people – are in the same boat as part of God’s creation…all just as poor in that which really matters. But is it easy for me to say this because I have plenty of stuff? Lord, where do I begin to learn about creation? And what is beginning? Teach me to think, to ask questions. I pray I’m here for good reasons rather than the escapist sort of reasons Wendell Berry[1] warns about.
I close my eyes and images flow through my mind of throwing away food or letting the water run at the kitchen sink while doing dishes. Truth is I feel ashamed of my lack of attention to how to live respectfully with nature on a personal level. Looking back at these images, I recognize in me a sense of unease with how I’m living in the ‘modern’ world – just going along with what prevails and is common in culture. Not knowing enough to make real choices about matters. Not knowing how to make a piece of clothing; not knowing how recycling works. Not living at all within the “proper scale” that Berry writes of; not knowing where to begin. Lord, have mercy. But here I am, amid his mercy. And I sense that he wants to teach me how to better walk with him.
---------------------------------
Albert Borgmann, in the “Introduction” to Power Failure talks about the inverse relationship between standard of living and faith, and the problems that technology poses for Christianity. He notes that important questions about the effects of technology on our lives often go unasked. I agree that on a cultural or national level or within popular media these questions are seldom raised, but they do arise in individuals who think and try to be honest about their experience in the world. Because amidst all the technology and the “freedom” that we enjoy, amidst the “extreme sports” this or that and the many highs we can create there is still an emptiness inside us. I certainly felt it and I can see it in others, in all the angst that rules the days of so many. I agree with Borgmann that “underneath the surface of technological liberty and prosperity there is a sense of captivity and deprivation….” Yes, we feel stuck; stuck on the proverbial high-tech treadmill. But I think this is good news, ultimately, if the result may be stumbling off it to search for truth – which it was for me. And then the One who is the Truth can guide and teach. Then perhaps He can lead us to ask the meaningful questions posed by Borgmann and Berry, and others questions besides.
Monday, June 23, morning. Coon Bay (Dionysio Point Provincial Park)
Last night we discussed Wendell Berry and I find him to be an interesting thinker and writer. But there were beautiful moments aside from that. The sky darkened into restful shades of purple…people spontaneously spoke words of kindness to each other for no other purpose but to edify. That’s beauty. And you have to watch for it because moments like that are rare…too pure to be common. It is seeing Christ alive. O ye speakers of kind words, praise ye the Lord! But is it really praising the Lord or is it the Lord himself doing these things? Didn’t the Son glorify the Father’s name? Does it matter to make a distinction?
The servanthood of Mary Ruth and Loren is striking. They work all day and into the evening doing things for us.
Rowing in the boats provides some food for thought! We’re sitting pretty close to one another, and I find I’m seldom quite comfortable. There’s either too much stuff at my feet to give me the leg and knee room that I want or there’s too much stuff and furled sail beside me; I’m often wanting a better position. And then someone beside me will keep hitting my arm or taking more room than I think necessary; or perhaps someone behind me hits me in the small of the back now and then. I find myself noticing that I’m noticing all this garbage and I don’t like that it annoys me, but there you have it. I decide not to go there with the annoyance; notice it, let it go. Then later on, I find myself sitting in the spot of the one that was bugging me. And I notice that the stuff at his or her feet or beside his or her arm makes it not quite comfortable and difficult to avoid hitting the person in front of me in the small of the back or knocking into the person beside me. What a turkey I am and what a good lesson. Don’t judge. You don’t know another’s circumstances. Give grace. Keep your sense of humor. Why do I even notice when there’s so much else I could be seeing that is beautiful?
------------------------------------
I think about Berry’s 9th reason for not buying a computer (Wendell Berry, “Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” from What are People For? Essays by Wendell Berry), “It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.” There is so much to be gained by being in all sorts of relationships with others. Being in class with other people or working alongside others provides all kinds of opportunities to learn from each other and witness beautiful moments. (Add to that the wonder of holding class and working alongside others in a spectacular natural setting, and you’ve a recipe for blessings!) But technology does often remove us from direct interaction with others. I think we’re losing something valuable, many things. Now we have a proliferation of on-line courses where little direct interaction with classmates or teacher takes place. Learning through modelling is less likely to occur. Learning about yourself – because you see your inner reactions as you take part in a group – is less likely to occur. The moments of appreciating others simply for the pleasure of their company do not have a chance to occur. Like Guardini[2] I feel that something vital – many things vital – are being lost.
Tuesday, June 24, after dinner. Saturna Island
“Wilderness.” What does it mean? In the Bible it’s a place of vulnerability when you encounter your need that you can’t fill yourself. God dwells everywhere – not just in “untouched land” where man is not. But perhaps “wilderness” is that place, literal or figurative, that gets us to our place of need. It seems that man likes to take a concept, like “wilderness” and grasp it, over-define it for his own purposes and ultimately pervert it. Man wants to do something on his own apart from God. That’s the same old story. Man must take the totality of what God is saying! That is important!
Look at Ezekiel 34:25: “I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert [wilderness] and sleep in the forests in safety.” Do we see what it means? What does “desert” or “wilderness” mean? What are “harmful beasts?” We need to know the heart of God and the fullness of the Gospel.
--------------------------------
I remember writing this entry quite vehemently and even the style of my handwriting is more emphatic than most of the rest of it. Our discussion about wilderness reminded me about our basic (base) nature in that we want to know so much and define so much and control so much. It seems that men sometimes took the references to “wilderness” in the Bible as something untamed and said, “So that means we need to tame it!” And that became an excuse for all sorts of sin.
I appreciate Nash’s[3] observation that “Any place in which a person feels stripped of guidance, lost, and perplexed may be called a wilderness,” and that this could be an urban setting as much as a wild rural setting. It strikes me as quite true that there are two emotional tones to the word – one threatening and scary and the other capable of raising our spirits in delight. It seems to me that these two aspects are related. God is at work in us in the wilderness. He takes us to wilderness of all kinds, to our place of vulnerability, so that we might recognize our true state of need. And it is there that he meets us. That’s scary and wonderful all at once. There’s real life in that. But instead, we often seek to control, set about our work to make the wilderness less wild. As John Muir said[4], “Toiling in the treadmills of life we hide from the lessons of Nature.” And we hide from God.
I, like many people, am most often “on the world, not in it.” The readings and discussions we had during this course helped to jar me awake a bit, to draw me in.
Thursday, June 26. Taylor Point, Saturna Island.
Beginning the solo day. I walked up to a high point on Saturna Island. This is one of the most beautiful spots I’ve ever seen. I’m sitting on a ridge facing SE into Washington state. Water and mountains and then behind that, snow-capped peaks. Wakes of the boats extend on and on. There are half a dozen vultures swooping around wishing I was almost dead. I can hear voices of people in the distance, along with geese. I lay down to nap a bit. I awoke and lying here heard a big splash out on the water…Orca whales! A half dozen or so making their way across the water. Thank you, Lord!
I feel like I need a long time in the quiet of this place in order to simply wake up. My mind wants to come alive, but is so weighed down, burdened somehow by how I live my life…. I’m reminded of Hannah Hurard’s Hinds Feet on High Places. Lots of goat trail up here; an amazingly pretty bell-shaped flower that grows on the side of a path. Majesty and expanse. John Muir says, “go up and away for life; be fleet!” But I am struck by an idea from Annie Dillard’s essay, "Teaching a Stone to Talk": “the suppression of self-consciousness, and a certain precise tilt of the will, so that the will becomes transparent and hollow, a channel for the work.” Hmm. There’s that same theme written of by Guardini, that self-consciousness inhibits life. This has a ring of truth.
------------------------------
I think I need to read Jeremy Begbie’s “Christ, Creation and Creativity” over and over again. As I read, I kept thinking, yes! Begbie says, “To try and gain freedom through autonomous self-direction can only be self-defeating, for it is precisely this closed circle of self-centeredness which needs to be broken.” I have been struggling quite a bit with the whole realm of psychology as a legitimate way to approach helping people. There is much (not all) that seems to me to be wrong with it, be it secular or “Christian.” It seems to encourage the very self-centeredness that Christ discouraged. Is that really the only way to help people who are hurting? What about encouraging living that is in right relationship to God, others and creation? Can we encourage others to live more fully rather than try always to figure everything out by looking more closely at ourselves?
Saturday, June 28, afternoon returning to our starting point in the Islands, but before the ferry-ride to the Mainland
After arriving back…I’m aware of several themes in my thinking:
1. Anxiety – how people (and, hey, I’m “people”) aren’t at ease because they aren’t living right with God
2. The great importance of human relationships, inter-relatedness on many levels
3. “The sin problem” – how I can’t get away from it in my thinking…sin being the root of what’s wrong
4. Why is the Creation aspect of right living/right relationship so ignored? Why haven’t I been exposed to these sorts of ideas before?
--------------------------------
This whole boat course unfolded with understanding of how we humans operate. Respect for our humanity was inherent in all we did and how we did it. Our bodies were never pushed too long in the rowing. Food was prepared that delighted our palates. Bedtime replaced class-time when folks seemed tired and worn. There was much sweetness and grace and therefore so much beauty. It fills my heart with joy and thanksgiving. It makes me want to create such an atmosphere for growth and learning and community elsewhere – at some other time and place. I want people to experience this sort of vibrant living. I’m touched by the beauty of this rare and precious experience. And there was respect for technology as well, not a dogmatic shunning. Thank you, Lord. I’m grateful for the trip.
I think it was quite important for me; it shook me up a bit. The readings provided good food for thought. Yet it is more than just the readings that had this effect. Other aspects of the trip were critical. We read thought-provoking material, in an environment that was far closer to nature than I usually live. The majestic beauty of the water and the mountains draws me, creates a yearning to somehow enter into the majesty, to rise above the mundane. God calls. I remember the same yearning at other times in my life, prior to knowing Jesus at all, and feeling frustrated by it ultimately because there seemed to be something indefinable that was beyond my reach. Now, of course, there is much beyond my reach but it makes all the difference having the Lord’s spirit inside…I can sort of join in the joy of creation without wanting to possess it and with the hope and assurance of continuous transformation by His spirit.
And then, we worked closely with each other and had conversations…all with guidance from those who had greater experience in these things. And we so much need other people to share with, to learn from, to ‘be in the same boat’ with. We need relationship; it’s the core of who we are as creatures made in the likeness of a triune God. But we’ve become so isolated. And of course, all aspects of the course take their ultimate meaning from taking place under God, by his guidance and grace.
I suspect that my thought life is sluggish. Often during the trip I would sit down to write and be unable to remember what seem to me to have been the more important thoughts that arose within me during the last hours. And then when the thought would come, I’d find it difficult to communicate. It’s as if they float around the periphery of my brain. Yet the course has sparked something. Or, more accurately, it has created a stirring…perhaps taking some of what was already there and ordering it a bit, heating it up a bit. But it’s not cooked yet…not much form or substance. Still, the stirring seems good, vital…like a small beginning toward a more alive life.
[1] Wendell Berry is a Kentucky farmer, environmentalist, poet, essayist and novelist. We read several of his essays in preparation for this course. I can’t recommend his work strongly enough. [2] See Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como. [3] From Roderick Nash, “Prologue: The Condition of Wilderness” from Wilderness and the American Mind. [4] See John Muir, “The Philosophy of John Muir” from The Wilderness World of John Muir.
In several months, I would learn that the breast cancer – treated several years before – had progressed to my bones. In those same several months, I’d be dating the man I would marry. I also would no longer be able to row in a boat or carry heavy packs on my back up mountain trails, or sleep in on the ground, or sit for hours on rocky shores exchanging ideas, cooking food, smiling at otters’ antics…
I look back on what I reflected on then, in the light of all that happened afterward, and see a sort of foreshadowing that only hindsight can provide. God's the best story-teller, story-maker.
And, of course, today as much as ever I find relevance in these themes. I'm walking through days filled with new sorts of difficulties...illnesses among much-loved family members, efforts among us all to hold onto our kindness toward each other when we're being stretched and strained and drained. Our questions rise up, sometimes angrily and insistently. I think God can take it. I think we need to take the questions to him.
On another note, if you read further you'll see scepticism about the value of the oodles of technology so embedded in our lives. Even while using it gratefully to share my thoughts here, I do still wonder...
[With regard to format of the writing below, I started with journal entries (small font) from my trip and then expounded a bit more on some the themes that arose (in regular 12 point font), after I returned from the trip. ]
Wilderness and Wonder
by Maureen Morley
Sunday, June 22, late morning. Coon Bay (Dionysio Point Provincial Park)
It’s pretty here and quiet, sitting on these rocks looking over the Bay. For some reason I’m reminded that the Lord answers prayer. We need to come to him with our simple requests….I’m struck by Genesis 1:2b, “…and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” Is that why the water has always called to me? The Lord’s spirit was there during all my bad times on the water, bearing witness? I like the fresh eyes with which some of the folks in our group look at the world. We have “woolies” to sit on – little squares of pure sheepskin - and I’m reminded of Dottie and Bob and sheep and Gracestoration…all the ways that the Lamb provides for us.
So here we are in the Lord’s creation with all of its exuberance and vitality. I’d like to say that we – all people – are in the same boat as part of God’s creation…all just as poor in that which really matters. But is it easy for me to say this because I have plenty of stuff? Lord, where do I begin to learn about creation? And what is beginning? Teach me to think, to ask questions. I pray I’m here for good reasons rather than the escapist sort of reasons Wendell Berry[1] warns about.
I close my eyes and images flow through my mind of throwing away food or letting the water run at the kitchen sink while doing dishes. Truth is I feel ashamed of my lack of attention to how to live respectfully with nature on a personal level. Looking back at these images, I recognize in me a sense of unease with how I’m living in the ‘modern’ world – just going along with what prevails and is common in culture. Not knowing enough to make real choices about matters. Not knowing how to make a piece of clothing; not knowing how recycling works. Not living at all within the “proper scale” that Berry writes of; not knowing where to begin. Lord, have mercy. But here I am, amid his mercy. And I sense that he wants to teach me how to better walk with him.
---------------------------------
Albert Borgmann, in the “Introduction” to Power Failure talks about the inverse relationship between standard of living and faith, and the problems that technology poses for Christianity. He notes that important questions about the effects of technology on our lives often go unasked. I agree that on a cultural or national level or within popular media these questions are seldom raised, but they do arise in individuals who think and try to be honest about their experience in the world. Because amidst all the technology and the “freedom” that we enjoy, amidst the “extreme sports” this or that and the many highs we can create there is still an emptiness inside us. I certainly felt it and I can see it in others, in all the angst that rules the days of so many. I agree with Borgmann that “underneath the surface of technological liberty and prosperity there is a sense of captivity and deprivation….” Yes, we feel stuck; stuck on the proverbial high-tech treadmill. But I think this is good news, ultimately, if the result may be stumbling off it to search for truth – which it was for me. And then the One who is the Truth can guide and teach. Then perhaps He can lead us to ask the meaningful questions posed by Borgmann and Berry, and others questions besides.
Monday, June 23, morning. Coon Bay (Dionysio Point Provincial Park)
Last night we discussed Wendell Berry and I find him to be an interesting thinker and writer. But there were beautiful moments aside from that. The sky darkened into restful shades of purple…people spontaneously spoke words of kindness to each other for no other purpose but to edify. That’s beauty. And you have to watch for it because moments like that are rare…too pure to be common. It is seeing Christ alive. O ye speakers of kind words, praise ye the Lord! But is it really praising the Lord or is it the Lord himself doing these things? Didn’t the Son glorify the Father’s name? Does it matter to make a distinction?
The servanthood of Mary Ruth and Loren is striking. They work all day and into the evening doing things for us.
Rowing in the boats provides some food for thought! We’re sitting pretty close to one another, and I find I’m seldom quite comfortable. There’s either too much stuff at my feet to give me the leg and knee room that I want or there’s too much stuff and furled sail beside me; I’m often wanting a better position. And then someone beside me will keep hitting my arm or taking more room than I think necessary; or perhaps someone behind me hits me in the small of the back now and then. I find myself noticing that I’m noticing all this garbage and I don’t like that it annoys me, but there you have it. I decide not to go there with the annoyance; notice it, let it go. Then later on, I find myself sitting in the spot of the one that was bugging me. And I notice that the stuff at his or her feet or beside his or her arm makes it not quite comfortable and difficult to avoid hitting the person in front of me in the small of the back or knocking into the person beside me. What a turkey I am and what a good lesson. Don’t judge. You don’t know another’s circumstances. Give grace. Keep your sense of humor. Why do I even notice when there’s so much else I could be seeing that is beautiful?
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I think about Berry’s 9th reason for not buying a computer (Wendell Berry, “Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” from What are People For? Essays by Wendell Berry), “It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.” There is so much to be gained by being in all sorts of relationships with others. Being in class with other people or working alongside others provides all kinds of opportunities to learn from each other and witness beautiful moments. (Add to that the wonder of holding class and working alongside others in a spectacular natural setting, and you’ve a recipe for blessings!) But technology does often remove us from direct interaction with others. I think we’re losing something valuable, many things. Now we have a proliferation of on-line courses where little direct interaction with classmates or teacher takes place. Learning through modelling is less likely to occur. Learning about yourself – because you see your inner reactions as you take part in a group – is less likely to occur. The moments of appreciating others simply for the pleasure of their company do not have a chance to occur. Like Guardini[2] I feel that something vital – many things vital – are being lost.
Tuesday, June 24, after dinner. Saturna Island
“Wilderness.” What does it mean? In the Bible it’s a place of vulnerability when you encounter your need that you can’t fill yourself. God dwells everywhere – not just in “untouched land” where man is not. But perhaps “wilderness” is that place, literal or figurative, that gets us to our place of need. It seems that man likes to take a concept, like “wilderness” and grasp it, over-define it for his own purposes and ultimately pervert it. Man wants to do something on his own apart from God. That’s the same old story. Man must take the totality of what God is saying! That is important!
Look at Ezekiel 34:25: “I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert [wilderness] and sleep in the forests in safety.” Do we see what it means? What does “desert” or “wilderness” mean? What are “harmful beasts?” We need to know the heart of God and the fullness of the Gospel.
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I remember writing this entry quite vehemently and even the style of my handwriting is more emphatic than most of the rest of it. Our discussion about wilderness reminded me about our basic (base) nature in that we want to know so much and define so much and control so much. It seems that men sometimes took the references to “wilderness” in the Bible as something untamed and said, “So that means we need to tame it!” And that became an excuse for all sorts of sin.
I appreciate Nash’s[3] observation that “Any place in which a person feels stripped of guidance, lost, and perplexed may be called a wilderness,” and that this could be an urban setting as much as a wild rural setting. It strikes me as quite true that there are two emotional tones to the word – one threatening and scary and the other capable of raising our spirits in delight. It seems to me that these two aspects are related. God is at work in us in the wilderness. He takes us to wilderness of all kinds, to our place of vulnerability, so that we might recognize our true state of need. And it is there that he meets us. That’s scary and wonderful all at once. There’s real life in that. But instead, we often seek to control, set about our work to make the wilderness less wild. As John Muir said[4], “Toiling in the treadmills of life we hide from the lessons of Nature.” And we hide from God.
I, like many people, am most often “on the world, not in it.” The readings and discussions we had during this course helped to jar me awake a bit, to draw me in.
Thursday, June 26. Taylor Point, Saturna Island.
Beginning the solo day. I walked up to a high point on Saturna Island. This is one of the most beautiful spots I’ve ever seen. I’m sitting on a ridge facing SE into Washington state. Water and mountains and then behind that, snow-capped peaks. Wakes of the boats extend on and on. There are half a dozen vultures swooping around wishing I was almost dead. I can hear voices of people in the distance, along with geese. I lay down to nap a bit. I awoke and lying here heard a big splash out on the water…Orca whales! A half dozen or so making their way across the water. Thank you, Lord!
I feel like I need a long time in the quiet of this place in order to simply wake up. My mind wants to come alive, but is so weighed down, burdened somehow by how I live my life…. I’m reminded of Hannah Hurard’s Hinds Feet on High Places. Lots of goat trail up here; an amazingly pretty bell-shaped flower that grows on the side of a path. Majesty and expanse. John Muir says, “go up and away for life; be fleet!” But I am struck by an idea from Annie Dillard’s essay, "Teaching a Stone to Talk": “the suppression of self-consciousness, and a certain precise tilt of the will, so that the will becomes transparent and hollow, a channel for the work.” Hmm. There’s that same theme written of by Guardini, that self-consciousness inhibits life. This has a ring of truth.
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I think I need to read Jeremy Begbie’s “Christ, Creation and Creativity” over and over again. As I read, I kept thinking, yes! Begbie says, “To try and gain freedom through autonomous self-direction can only be self-defeating, for it is precisely this closed circle of self-centeredness which needs to be broken.” I have been struggling quite a bit with the whole realm of psychology as a legitimate way to approach helping people. There is much (not all) that seems to me to be wrong with it, be it secular or “Christian.” It seems to encourage the very self-centeredness that Christ discouraged. Is that really the only way to help people who are hurting? What about encouraging living that is in right relationship to God, others and creation? Can we encourage others to live more fully rather than try always to figure everything out by looking more closely at ourselves?
Saturday, June 28, afternoon returning to our starting point in the Islands, but before the ferry-ride to the Mainland
After arriving back…I’m aware of several themes in my thinking:
1. Anxiety – how people (and, hey, I’m “people”) aren’t at ease because they aren’t living right with God
2. The great importance of human relationships, inter-relatedness on many levels
3. “The sin problem” – how I can’t get away from it in my thinking…sin being the root of what’s wrong
4. Why is the Creation aspect of right living/right relationship so ignored? Why haven’t I been exposed to these sorts of ideas before?
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This whole boat course unfolded with understanding of how we humans operate. Respect for our humanity was inherent in all we did and how we did it. Our bodies were never pushed too long in the rowing. Food was prepared that delighted our palates. Bedtime replaced class-time when folks seemed tired and worn. There was much sweetness and grace and therefore so much beauty. It fills my heart with joy and thanksgiving. It makes me want to create such an atmosphere for growth and learning and community elsewhere – at some other time and place. I want people to experience this sort of vibrant living. I’m touched by the beauty of this rare and precious experience. And there was respect for technology as well, not a dogmatic shunning. Thank you, Lord. I’m grateful for the trip.
I think it was quite important for me; it shook me up a bit. The readings provided good food for thought. Yet it is more than just the readings that had this effect. Other aspects of the trip were critical. We read thought-provoking material, in an environment that was far closer to nature than I usually live. The majestic beauty of the water and the mountains draws me, creates a yearning to somehow enter into the majesty, to rise above the mundane. God calls. I remember the same yearning at other times in my life, prior to knowing Jesus at all, and feeling frustrated by it ultimately because there seemed to be something indefinable that was beyond my reach. Now, of course, there is much beyond my reach but it makes all the difference having the Lord’s spirit inside…I can sort of join in the joy of creation without wanting to possess it and with the hope and assurance of continuous transformation by His spirit.
And then, we worked closely with each other and had conversations…all with guidance from those who had greater experience in these things. And we so much need other people to share with, to learn from, to ‘be in the same boat’ with. We need relationship; it’s the core of who we are as creatures made in the likeness of a triune God. But we’ve become so isolated. And of course, all aspects of the course take their ultimate meaning from taking place under God, by his guidance and grace.
I suspect that my thought life is sluggish. Often during the trip I would sit down to write and be unable to remember what seem to me to have been the more important thoughts that arose within me during the last hours. And then when the thought would come, I’d find it difficult to communicate. It’s as if they float around the periphery of my brain. Yet the course has sparked something. Or, more accurately, it has created a stirring…perhaps taking some of what was already there and ordering it a bit, heating it up a bit. But it’s not cooked yet…not much form or substance. Still, the stirring seems good, vital…like a small beginning toward a more alive life.
[1] Wendell Berry is a Kentucky farmer, environmentalist, poet, essayist and novelist. We read several of his essays in preparation for this course. I can’t recommend his work strongly enough. [2] See Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como. [3] From Roderick Nash, “Prologue: The Condition of Wilderness” from Wilderness and the American Mind. [4] See John Muir, “The Philosophy of John Muir” from The Wilderness World of John Muir.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Wee, like Sheep
There was a thought-provoking comment on my Of Tunnels and Lights submission regarding desire and prayer, which prompted me to post this sermon now. I preached it at our home church two months ago. The title is not original, but comes from a lesson in a bible study series put together by Dottie Bingham, called Gracestoration. I had the privelege of a spending a week learning from Dottie and her husband, Bob, several years ago[1]. And since it is Sunday, why not a little sermon...
Wee, Like Sheep
by Maureen Morley
Ezekiel 34:25-31: “I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert and sleep in the forests in safety. I will bless them and the places surrounding my hill. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees of the field will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them. They will no longer be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid. I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Sovereign Lord. You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
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God says, at the end of the passage above in Ezekiel 34:31, “You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
We have heard this analogy many times throughout the Bible. God’s word, all the way from Genesis, throughout the books of the Law, the Psalms and the books of the prophets, through to the New Testament and in many teachings direct from Jesus’s lips insists over and over that we are sheep. And the analogy is almost always used in a way that highlights the relationship between the sheep and the shepherd.
For example, here are just a few scriptures:
Numbers 27:16-17: “May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all mankind, appoint a man over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the Lord’s people will not be like a sheep without a shepherd.” (Moses talking)
Isaiah 53:6: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.
Zechariah 13:7: Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.
Matthew 9:36: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
John 10:11: Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
Why does God tell us so often, over and over again, that we are sheep, that He is the Shepherd? It is helpful to ponder this analogy, thinking about how it might help us know ourselves and God better…and our proper place before him. Most of us today are far removed from the culture of sheep and shepherding that was so familiar to the people of Israel in both the Old and New Testaments, and I suspect we miss some of the richness of this analogy.
What are sheep like?
NOT Dumb, but Dependent, Defenceless and Directionless:
Sheep are one of the few animals on the planet who simply cannot survive on their own. Without a shepherd to care for them and guide them, they will die.
It is NOT that they are dumb - Those who work with sheep recognise that sheep have their own sort of intelligence. I don’t think that the Bible is calling attention to our stupidity. Rather, it is calling attention to our NEED. The key word here is dependent. Their other characteristics point to this dependency.
On their own, sheep are:
1) Defenceless: Sheep are not exactly fierce. Sheep are one of the most vulnerable animals to predators. When wolves come around, they can’t defend themselves. With their heavy coats of wool, they can’t outmanuever. They don’t have sharp claws to fight them off. And sheep don’t even have any upper teeth in the front. They chew by grinding their bottom teeth against the roof of their mouths. They can’t even bite a predator. Sheep are easily agitated and nervous. Being defenceless, their natural response is to cower when predators come, huddling together for protection, bleating out their alarm… Left alone, the predators easily overcome them. The sheep haven’t a chance. We people, God’s sheep, also have a predator after us. 1 Peter 5:8: “Your enemy the devil prowls around…looking for someone to devour.” Without the Shepherd – without God – we haven’t got a chance. The devil will have his way with us.
2) Directionless:
a) Even in the absence of predators, sheep can get into a lot of trouble. Sheep have no sense of direction on their own, but need to be guided by a shepherd. A lost sheep will wander around in circles, getting more and more anxious and upset. A sheep that likes to wander will also lure away other sheep after it – as sheep are prone to follow.
b) Sheep seek “greener pastures,” always looking for tasty grasses to chew. Sometimes this search will lead a sheep to the edges of a fence if they are fenced in (out where the predators are), or over hills and valleys, if there is no fence. Sheep have been known to wander down to a cliff edge, lured by the promise of tasty grasses, to areas from which they can’t climb out again. And they can be woefully stubborn and unaware of their danger. If a shepherd, noticing that a sheep has wandered off to the edge of a cliff, approaches right away or too quickly, the sheep might back away – determined to stay and eat that grass – and PLOP, fall off the cliff. A seasoned shepherd waits and lets the sheep graze there until he’s either had his fill or eaten all the grass there is to eat and perhaps begins to realize its predicament. Then, the shepherd will reach down and lift out the poor beast.
c) A sheep’s wool also grows over its eyes – making it very hard to see. Unless a shepherd cuts the hair, the sheep will panic, perhaps becoming stubborn and refusing to move, because on it cannot see. It needs the shepherd for clear vision.
d) And then, a sheep that has gone astray is also more likely to become CAST. A “cast sheep” is an old term for a sheep that is turned over on its back and unable to get up. It can’t right itself and is a very pathetic sight. It is more likely to happen to a poorly kept sheep, whose coat has been weighed down by brambles and other debris, but can happen to well-kept sheep too. Sheep in this position die quickly, because gasses build up and cause suffocation. Predators know this and are on the look-out. So the shepherd has to keep a very sharp eye and quickly come to the rescue.
Now “cast” also can mean discouragement, despair or even depression. It means, “to be low.” It is such a rich picture.
Have you ever been “cast?” Have you ever felt completely and utterly stuck? Have you ever had a problem that looked to you so bad that you simply had no idea what to do? You were sure you could do nothing. How about addictions? Despair at difficult news? This analogy is telling us that there are times when we ARE stuck. At that time, all we can do is cry out – all the sheep can do is bleat… King David cried out, in Psalm 42:6: “O my God, my soul is cast down within me.”
3) Dependent:
a) All this points to the key characteristic of sheep: DEPENDENCY. Sheep are happiest when tended by a caring shepherd, in the company of the other sheep in the flock.
b) Sheep can’t defend themselves from predators. They can’t find their own food. If they are hurt, they can’t heal themselves. If they are cast, they can’t right themselves. They are completely dependent upon the shepherd for care.
Does any of this sound familiar?
If it doesn’t sound familiar, I wonder: Are we seeing ourselves clearly? Are we like that sheep on the cliff edge, munching away on some little clump of grass, unaware that we’ve backed ourselves into a position that eventually will become dire – unless the shepherd rescues us? Have we turned away and stubbornly said “No” to the shepherd? Has, perhaps, the wool grown over our eyes so that we cannot see? Or, are we all too aware of our frailness, and feel cast down? Helpless and, worse, hopeless?
It is not a mistake that the Bible insists that we are sheep. And even more specifically, it insists that we are like the ones that go astray, always in danger from poachers and predators.We ARE like sheep…WEE, small, defenceless, directionless, dependent sheep.
But who is this Shepherd upon which we are dependent? The Bible has a lot to say about this too.
What is a Good Shepherd like?
1) Gentle: Isaiah 40:11 is instructive: “He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”
2) Strong – a defender. Some shepherds would sleep out among the sheep – at the entrance to the sheep pen…what would be the sheep gate except that there was no gate. The shepherd slept at the entrance area. Per Psalm 23, the shepherd would beat off enemy attacks with the rod that he carried, or use his staff to pull back and rescue a straying sheep.
Let’s hear God tell us what the Good shepherd is like.
Listen to Ezekiel chapter 34, verses 11-16: “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land… I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong [Hebrew word = ‘hazaq’] I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.”
(Note: ‘hazaq’ means mighty, powerful, strong, severe: those who think they can live out of their own power, turned away and rebellious to God, and ultimately harmful to themselves and God’s flock.)
In Ezekiel, the Lord is speaking to his people, Israel. Who are God’s people today? It’s the church, the body of believers in Christ. Jesus tells some of the Jewish leaders in Israel, the Pharisees, in John 10:16 “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”
Jesus continues to teach us, using the shepherd-sheep analogy. Can his words help us to understand who he, who God is, and who we are…and more, how we are to live? Listen.
Jesus said, John 10:14-15: Then in verse 27, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
What kind of “knowing” is Jesus talking about? It is a relational knowing. There are other Greek words for knowing that have to do more with acquiring technical or factual knowledge, or knowing a topic well. The word used here isn’t about that sort of factual knowledge. It means to come to know, to experience, to know and approve, to receive favourably. It is the same word that is used for sexual intercourse. It is a very intimate knowing. Jesus says “I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the father…”
Can you hear that this is a mutual knowing that Jesus is talking about? A relationship. Jesus knows us, knows what we are like, and speaks to us out of that knowing.
And then he says: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
The question arises: Do we listen? – and the listening he refers to here has to do with really hearing and following – obeying, when we hear.
We sheep, wee little sheep, can have power to live our lives with genuine joy and steadfast peace, only as we listen to and respond to the voice of the Good Shepherd. We have power to transform lives only to the extent that we follow and point others toward Jesus. This applies to all of us – no matter how long we’ve been following Jesus. (if we don’t know the way we could follow the guide for 20 years, but if we stop following, we’ll get lost again…doesn’t matter if you are 15 or 35 or 80.)
It isn’t about acquiring knowledge, although God teaches us many things and knowledge isn’t BAD. Questions are good, seeking is good. But God is quite clear: “You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.” We’re not ever going to become God. We won't know all the answers, and our peace does not lie in knowledge, but in right relationship with the living God who loves us.
Jesus calls to us, “Come, follow me.” He asks us to follow. He says, (Mathew 11:29) “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
God tells us much about himself in the verses that describe him as Shepherd. We need to really listen to his descriptions of himself as the GOOD SHEPHERD. He is a shepherd who leads, not a bad shepherd, what we’ll call a sheep-herder (like a cattle-driver) who drives the flock relentlessly, making them tired, keeping them anxious.
Look at some ways that the shepherd and sheep-herder are different, to help remind us of what the Good Shepherd is like:
Actions of a Shepherd vs a Sheep-herder:
Affirms vs. Abandons
Befriends vs. Bullies
Cherishes vs. Confuses
Disciplines vs. Demands (deceives!)
Encourages vs. Exploits
Forgives vs. Frightens
Gives vs. Goads
Heals vs. Harasses…(and on to Z)
When listening to the Shepherd vs. the Sheep-herder, the sheep will feel:
Appreciative vs. Afraid
Beloved vs. Berated
Contented vs. Confused
Delighted vs. Distraught
Enthusiastic vs. Exasperated/exhausted
Forgiven vs. Frazzled
Grateful vs. Guilty
Healthy vs. Hated…(and on to Z)
Whose voice are you listening to? If you are feeling alone, bullied, confused, scared…who is it that makes you feel like this? Yourself? Various popular voices out in the world? Friends or family who – though maybe they have good intentions – don’t speak with God’s voice? You would do well to question the voices that goad or harass or frighten. This is NOT God’s way.
When you KNOW Jesus, you will LISTEN to him. You will want to listen, because you will KNOW from experience that he alone knows what you need, what will bring you true peace, how to give you rest. As you get to know Jesus, you learn to tell the difference between his voice and other voices that ultimately harm you. Your relationship will deepen. Your trust will grow.
We know that this relationship begins by the initiative of God – He searches us out, goes out and finds his sheep and call to them. But the choice to follow, or not, is ours. He doesn’t force us.
Psalm 95:8 calls to us: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did at Meribah, as you did that day…in the desert. This is referring to when the Israelites didn’t trust in God and wandered around in the desert for 40 years. (I’m so often reminded of this – DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS!)
Again – hear the call of Jesus: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
There is mystery here. You must choose to enter into this relationship with Jesus Christ, with God. It is personal – between you and Him. And we enter knowing that He is God – the good shepherd, and we are sheep…his ways, no matter how much we learn…are beyond us, and we must trust. Over and over again, we choose to trust. We have to keep following…no matter if we followed yesterday, we’ll get lost again if we don’t follow today.
And although he IS gentle and his aim is to bring us into a place of rest, God DOES discipline his sheep. Here is a final story to ponder. This is the story about a certain kind of sheep that shepherds have referred to as “The Bell Sheep.”
The Bell Sheep[2]
When a young lamb continually strays from the flock at the risk of its own life and safety, the shepherd sometimes has to break the leg of the wayward one. The shepherd then carries the helpless lamb in his arms and tenderly cares for it until the leg heals. After the leg is mended, he sets the lamb down to walk.
BUT, a wondrous thing has happened. During the restoration period, the lamb begins to understand the caring and comforting heart of the shepherd who spares nothing to protect his flock from dangers. Never again does the lamb doubt the shepherd’s care, concern, and wisdom for whatever lies ahead. The humbled lamb stays at the shepherd’s side, never to stray again.
Commemorating this new relationship, the shepherd then places a bell around the lamb’s neck, designating the lamb as the lead sheep or the “bell sheep.” The continual tinkling of its bell draws the rest of the flock to the shepherd’s side.
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I’m guessing that the wayward sheep had no idea what was happening when the Shepherd broke her or his leg. The sheep was probably aware of a lot of pain, an inability to move around very well. It probably felt so vulnerable. But listen: Psalm 119:67: “Before I was afflicted, I went astray.” And Lamentations 3:32,33: “For if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness; for He does not afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men.”
I don’t know what you are facing today. Are you feeling broken, or useless? Have you hardened your heart? Can you hear the Shepherd’s call in the midst of your struggles, your day-to-day life? Can you dare to believe that He IS calling in the midst of your circumstances, today? That he can and will change you, your life, and through you the lives of others, if you KNOW him, if you FOLLOW him.
Maybe God is causing you to draw close to him. Maybe he’s seen into your heart and knows that are like a cast sheep – unable to help herself. Unable to help himself. Maybe he has heard your bleating cry for help. Or maybe you haven’t called out to him yet?
But be assured, He is seeking YOU. Your peace, your rest, lies in right relationship with your shepherd. Let him draw you close to his heart.
[1] The following books were also used as sources for the information here about sheep: W.G. Bowen, Why! the Shepherd, 1988, Good Shepherd Press, San Miquel, CA, and; Charles Jefferson, The Minister as Shepherd, Scripture Truth Book Company, Fincastle, VA.
[2] The Bell Sheep story is directly from the Gracestoration bible study.
Wee, Like Sheep
by Maureen Morley
Ezekiel 34:25-31: “I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert and sleep in the forests in safety. I will bless them and the places surrounding my hill. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees of the field will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them. They will no longer be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid. I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Then they will know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Sovereign Lord. You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
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God says, at the end of the passage above in Ezekiel 34:31, “You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
We have heard this analogy many times throughout the Bible. God’s word, all the way from Genesis, throughout the books of the Law, the Psalms and the books of the prophets, through to the New Testament and in many teachings direct from Jesus’s lips insists over and over that we are sheep. And the analogy is almost always used in a way that highlights the relationship between the sheep and the shepherd.
For example, here are just a few scriptures:
Numbers 27:16-17: “May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all mankind, appoint a man over this community to go out and come in before them, one who will lead them out and bring them in, so the Lord’s people will not be like a sheep without a shepherd.” (Moses talking)
Isaiah 53:6: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.
Zechariah 13:7: Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.
Matthew 9:36: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
John 10:11: Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."
Why does God tell us so often, over and over again, that we are sheep, that He is the Shepherd? It is helpful to ponder this analogy, thinking about how it might help us know ourselves and God better…and our proper place before him. Most of us today are far removed from the culture of sheep and shepherding that was so familiar to the people of Israel in both the Old and New Testaments, and I suspect we miss some of the richness of this analogy.
What are sheep like?
NOT Dumb, but Dependent, Defenceless and Directionless:
Sheep are one of the few animals on the planet who simply cannot survive on their own. Without a shepherd to care for them and guide them, they will die.
It is NOT that they are dumb - Those who work with sheep recognise that sheep have their own sort of intelligence. I don’t think that the Bible is calling attention to our stupidity. Rather, it is calling attention to our NEED. The key word here is dependent. Their other characteristics point to this dependency.
On their own, sheep are:
1) Defenceless: Sheep are not exactly fierce. Sheep are one of the most vulnerable animals to predators. When wolves come around, they can’t defend themselves. With their heavy coats of wool, they can’t outmanuever. They don’t have sharp claws to fight them off. And sheep don’t even have any upper teeth in the front. They chew by grinding their bottom teeth against the roof of their mouths. They can’t even bite a predator. Sheep are easily agitated and nervous. Being defenceless, their natural response is to cower when predators come, huddling together for protection, bleating out their alarm… Left alone, the predators easily overcome them. The sheep haven’t a chance. We people, God’s sheep, also have a predator after us. 1 Peter 5:8: “Your enemy the devil prowls around…looking for someone to devour.” Without the Shepherd – without God – we haven’t got a chance. The devil will have his way with us.
2) Directionless:
a) Even in the absence of predators, sheep can get into a lot of trouble. Sheep have no sense of direction on their own, but need to be guided by a shepherd. A lost sheep will wander around in circles, getting more and more anxious and upset. A sheep that likes to wander will also lure away other sheep after it – as sheep are prone to follow.
b) Sheep seek “greener pastures,” always looking for tasty grasses to chew. Sometimes this search will lead a sheep to the edges of a fence if they are fenced in (out where the predators are), or over hills and valleys, if there is no fence. Sheep have been known to wander down to a cliff edge, lured by the promise of tasty grasses, to areas from which they can’t climb out again. And they can be woefully stubborn and unaware of their danger. If a shepherd, noticing that a sheep has wandered off to the edge of a cliff, approaches right away or too quickly, the sheep might back away – determined to stay and eat that grass – and PLOP, fall off the cliff. A seasoned shepherd waits and lets the sheep graze there until he’s either had his fill or eaten all the grass there is to eat and perhaps begins to realize its predicament. Then, the shepherd will reach down and lift out the poor beast.
c) A sheep’s wool also grows over its eyes – making it very hard to see. Unless a shepherd cuts the hair, the sheep will panic, perhaps becoming stubborn and refusing to move, because on it cannot see. It needs the shepherd for clear vision.
d) And then, a sheep that has gone astray is also more likely to become CAST. A “cast sheep” is an old term for a sheep that is turned over on its back and unable to get up. It can’t right itself and is a very pathetic sight. It is more likely to happen to a poorly kept sheep, whose coat has been weighed down by brambles and other debris, but can happen to well-kept sheep too. Sheep in this position die quickly, because gasses build up and cause suffocation. Predators know this and are on the look-out. So the shepherd has to keep a very sharp eye and quickly come to the rescue.
Now “cast” also can mean discouragement, despair or even depression. It means, “to be low.” It is such a rich picture.
Have you ever been “cast?” Have you ever felt completely and utterly stuck? Have you ever had a problem that looked to you so bad that you simply had no idea what to do? You were sure you could do nothing. How about addictions? Despair at difficult news? This analogy is telling us that there are times when we ARE stuck. At that time, all we can do is cry out – all the sheep can do is bleat… King David cried out, in Psalm 42:6: “O my God, my soul is cast down within me.”
3) Dependent:
a) All this points to the key characteristic of sheep: DEPENDENCY. Sheep are happiest when tended by a caring shepherd, in the company of the other sheep in the flock.
b) Sheep can’t defend themselves from predators. They can’t find their own food. If they are hurt, they can’t heal themselves. If they are cast, they can’t right themselves. They are completely dependent upon the shepherd for care.
Does any of this sound familiar?
If it doesn’t sound familiar, I wonder: Are we seeing ourselves clearly? Are we like that sheep on the cliff edge, munching away on some little clump of grass, unaware that we’ve backed ourselves into a position that eventually will become dire – unless the shepherd rescues us? Have we turned away and stubbornly said “No” to the shepherd? Has, perhaps, the wool grown over our eyes so that we cannot see? Or, are we all too aware of our frailness, and feel cast down? Helpless and, worse, hopeless?
It is not a mistake that the Bible insists that we are sheep. And even more specifically, it insists that we are like the ones that go astray, always in danger from poachers and predators.We ARE like sheep…WEE, small, defenceless, directionless, dependent sheep.
But who is this Shepherd upon which we are dependent? The Bible has a lot to say about this too.
What is a Good Shepherd like?
1) Gentle: Isaiah 40:11 is instructive: “He tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”
2) Strong – a defender. Some shepherds would sleep out among the sheep – at the entrance to the sheep pen…what would be the sheep gate except that there was no gate. The shepherd slept at the entrance area. Per Psalm 23, the shepherd would beat off enemy attacks with the rod that he carried, or use his staff to pull back and rescue a straying sheep.
Let’s hear God tell us what the Good shepherd is like.
Listen to Ezekiel chapter 34, verses 11-16: “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land… I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong [Hebrew word = ‘hazaq’] I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.”
(Note: ‘hazaq’ means mighty, powerful, strong, severe: those who think they can live out of their own power, turned away and rebellious to God, and ultimately harmful to themselves and God’s flock.)
In Ezekiel, the Lord is speaking to his people, Israel. Who are God’s people today? It’s the church, the body of believers in Christ. Jesus tells some of the Jewish leaders in Israel, the Pharisees, in John 10:16 “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”
Jesus continues to teach us, using the shepherd-sheep analogy. Can his words help us to understand who he, who God is, and who we are…and more, how we are to live? Listen.
Jesus said, John 10:14-15: Then in verse 27, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
What kind of “knowing” is Jesus talking about? It is a relational knowing. There are other Greek words for knowing that have to do more with acquiring technical or factual knowledge, or knowing a topic well. The word used here isn’t about that sort of factual knowledge. It means to come to know, to experience, to know and approve, to receive favourably. It is the same word that is used for sexual intercourse. It is a very intimate knowing. Jesus says “I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the father…”
Can you hear that this is a mutual knowing that Jesus is talking about? A relationship. Jesus knows us, knows what we are like, and speaks to us out of that knowing.
And then he says: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
The question arises: Do we listen? – and the listening he refers to here has to do with really hearing and following – obeying, when we hear.
We sheep, wee little sheep, can have power to live our lives with genuine joy and steadfast peace, only as we listen to and respond to the voice of the Good Shepherd. We have power to transform lives only to the extent that we follow and point others toward Jesus. This applies to all of us – no matter how long we’ve been following Jesus. (if we don’t know the way we could follow the guide for 20 years, but if we stop following, we’ll get lost again…doesn’t matter if you are 15 or 35 or 80.)
It isn’t about acquiring knowledge, although God teaches us many things and knowledge isn’t BAD. Questions are good, seeking is good. But God is quite clear: “You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.” We’re not ever going to become God. We won't know all the answers, and our peace does not lie in knowledge, but in right relationship with the living God who loves us.
Jesus calls to us, “Come, follow me.” He asks us to follow. He says, (Mathew 11:29) “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
God tells us much about himself in the verses that describe him as Shepherd. We need to really listen to his descriptions of himself as the GOOD SHEPHERD. He is a shepherd who leads, not a bad shepherd, what we’ll call a sheep-herder (like a cattle-driver) who drives the flock relentlessly, making them tired, keeping them anxious.
Look at some ways that the shepherd and sheep-herder are different, to help remind us of what the Good Shepherd is like:
Actions of a Shepherd vs a Sheep-herder:
Affirms vs. Abandons
Befriends vs. Bullies
Cherishes vs. Confuses
Disciplines vs. Demands (deceives!)
Encourages vs. Exploits
Forgives vs. Frightens
Gives vs. Goads
Heals vs. Harasses…(and on to Z)
When listening to the Shepherd vs. the Sheep-herder, the sheep will feel:
Appreciative vs. Afraid
Beloved vs. Berated
Contented vs. Confused
Delighted vs. Distraught
Enthusiastic vs. Exasperated/exhausted
Forgiven vs. Frazzled
Grateful vs. Guilty
Healthy vs. Hated…(and on to Z)
Whose voice are you listening to? If you are feeling alone, bullied, confused, scared…who is it that makes you feel like this? Yourself? Various popular voices out in the world? Friends or family who – though maybe they have good intentions – don’t speak with God’s voice? You would do well to question the voices that goad or harass or frighten. This is NOT God’s way.
When you KNOW Jesus, you will LISTEN to him. You will want to listen, because you will KNOW from experience that he alone knows what you need, what will bring you true peace, how to give you rest. As you get to know Jesus, you learn to tell the difference between his voice and other voices that ultimately harm you. Your relationship will deepen. Your trust will grow.
We know that this relationship begins by the initiative of God – He searches us out, goes out and finds his sheep and call to them. But the choice to follow, or not, is ours. He doesn’t force us.
Psalm 95:8 calls to us: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did at Meribah, as you did that day…in the desert. This is referring to when the Israelites didn’t trust in God and wandered around in the desert for 40 years. (I’m so often reminded of this – DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS!)
Again – hear the call of Jesus: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
There is mystery here. You must choose to enter into this relationship with Jesus Christ, with God. It is personal – between you and Him. And we enter knowing that He is God – the good shepherd, and we are sheep…his ways, no matter how much we learn…are beyond us, and we must trust. Over and over again, we choose to trust. We have to keep following…no matter if we followed yesterday, we’ll get lost again if we don’t follow today.
And although he IS gentle and his aim is to bring us into a place of rest, God DOES discipline his sheep. Here is a final story to ponder. This is the story about a certain kind of sheep that shepherds have referred to as “The Bell Sheep.”
The Bell Sheep[2]
When a young lamb continually strays from the flock at the risk of its own life and safety, the shepherd sometimes has to break the leg of the wayward one. The shepherd then carries the helpless lamb in his arms and tenderly cares for it until the leg heals. After the leg is mended, he sets the lamb down to walk.
BUT, a wondrous thing has happened. During the restoration period, the lamb begins to understand the caring and comforting heart of the shepherd who spares nothing to protect his flock from dangers. Never again does the lamb doubt the shepherd’s care, concern, and wisdom for whatever lies ahead. The humbled lamb stays at the shepherd’s side, never to stray again.
Commemorating this new relationship, the shepherd then places a bell around the lamb’s neck, designating the lamb as the lead sheep or the “bell sheep.” The continual tinkling of its bell draws the rest of the flock to the shepherd’s side.
-------------------------------
I’m guessing that the wayward sheep had no idea what was happening when the Shepherd broke her or his leg. The sheep was probably aware of a lot of pain, an inability to move around very well. It probably felt so vulnerable. But listen: Psalm 119:67: “Before I was afflicted, I went astray.” And Lamentations 3:32,33: “For if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness; for He does not afflict willingly or grieve the sons of men.”
I don’t know what you are facing today. Are you feeling broken, or useless? Have you hardened your heart? Can you hear the Shepherd’s call in the midst of your struggles, your day-to-day life? Can you dare to believe that He IS calling in the midst of your circumstances, today? That he can and will change you, your life, and through you the lives of others, if you KNOW him, if you FOLLOW him.
Maybe God is causing you to draw close to him. Maybe he’s seen into your heart and knows that are like a cast sheep – unable to help herself. Unable to help himself. Maybe he has heard your bleating cry for help. Or maybe you haven’t called out to him yet?
But be assured, He is seeking YOU. Your peace, your rest, lies in right relationship with your shepherd. Let him draw you close to his heart.
[1] The following books were also used as sources for the information here about sheep: W.G. Bowen, Why! the Shepherd, 1988, Good Shepherd Press, San Miquel, CA, and; Charles Jefferson, The Minister as Shepherd, Scripture Truth Book Company, Fincastle, VA.
[2] The Bell Sheep story is directly from the Gracestoration bible study.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Of Tunnels and Lights
Maybe even now you are deep in a "tunnel" of your own. May the light be brilliant again. I wrote this piece as an article for a student paper at grad school, after my first six months or so of chemotherapy...so back around May 2004.
Of Tunnels and Lights
by Maureen Morley
I wish you could walk in my shoes for a day, on one of these days when I feel like the luckiest girl on Earth. On one of those days when I’m all a-bubble with joy, excitement and gratitude; when there’s nothing I’d change because the day is just right.
I’d avoid handing my shoes over on the chemo days, those days following chemotherapy when I feel like I’ve entered a dim tunnel. I have chemotherapy about once a month and the side effects are concentrated into the week or ten days following the treatment. So I know there’s an end to the tunnel, there’s some distant light, but while I’m in it my world shrinks. My view is restricted; I stay home and sleep it off. I become more dim myself too, losing much energy and any ability to think beyond the simple. My husband Steve once let me win a game of Scrabble on one of these occasions (I was that daft…he’s that competitive). No, I don’t want you to take my shoes on those chemo tunnel days.
Oddly enough, the day I have the chemotherapy wouldn’t be a bad day. You wouldn’t need the shoes, however, since you’d be sitting for the day in a little room at the Cancer Agency. If you are squeamish about needles, take my place after the IV has started. But those days have always been good ones. There have been six of them so far, and I’ve been in a good mood for every one. I’m not tooting my own horn here; I’m not the one responsible for the mood. I’m not doing mental gymnastics to see my situation in a positive light. Believe me. It just happens. I simply call it God lifting me up. And most of those days a special friend has sat next to me (I won’t embarrass you by naming names; you know who you are). We read aloud, we chat with each other, with the other cancer patients and their families, or the nurses. Toward the end of the day, Steve comes and hangs out with me. When we go home I’m tired but smiling, thinking, “Now that was a good day.”
But if you are a little wary of hospitals, then wait a week or so and then take the shoes. But I’ll warn you, wear your sunglasses. Because, man, the light is blinding! It might be a Wednesday when I go to class and hear the prof and other students talk about things that strike a strong chord with me – wasn’t it just the day before when I’d been pondering that very thing, and here it comes up today in this context! Then, you’ll go to lunch with a friend or two and it’ll be clear by the way they take time for you, talk to you, listen and look at you that they actually really care about you.
Perhaps it will be a day when an acquaintance, who you respect and admire but don’t know very well, calls to ask if she can cook for you and your husband. And when you get the food, there are 3 whole pots of it and it is delicious. You feel so blessed that it seems unfair to keep it all to yourself, so the next day you call up some friends and invite them to share it with you. Or perhaps you’ll get one of the days when you find out that a couple of your professors want to arrange a holiday for you – a holiday you weren’t sure you’d be able to have. It could be a day when a person from the school office that you do not know makes a point to stop, look at you searchingly and ask how you are doing.
There are many such days to go around. Toward mid-afternoon you’ll be walking home from the bus, knowing you are walking with a “terminal” diagnosis and at the same time the joy you feel is insuppressible. You remember that months before, you sensed God telling you that he would care for you. And you see the care happening, and the joy happening. And you are amazed.
So take my shoes; I want that amazement for you. Go ahead, call me a Pollyanna cancer patient. I don’t care. I know I’m not the one who brings the joy. As Maxine Hancock spoke of in chapel today, we can’t do a thing to generate this light ourselves. When I’m in that chemo tunnel, it is and I am pretty darn bleak. But then the light breaks in. And then, wow, I just have to thank God.
But I want to thank you too, all you friends and acquaintances and compassionate strangers, because a lot of the light that warms me shines from Him through you.
Of Tunnels and Lights
by Maureen Morley
I wish you could walk in my shoes for a day, on one of these days when I feel like the luckiest girl on Earth. On one of those days when I’m all a-bubble with joy, excitement and gratitude; when there’s nothing I’d change because the day is just right.
I’d avoid handing my shoes over on the chemo days, those days following chemotherapy when I feel like I’ve entered a dim tunnel. I have chemotherapy about once a month and the side effects are concentrated into the week or ten days following the treatment. So I know there’s an end to the tunnel, there’s some distant light, but while I’m in it my world shrinks. My view is restricted; I stay home and sleep it off. I become more dim myself too, losing much energy and any ability to think beyond the simple. My husband Steve once let me win a game of Scrabble on one of these occasions (I was that daft…he’s that competitive). No, I don’t want you to take my shoes on those chemo tunnel days.
Oddly enough, the day I have the chemotherapy wouldn’t be a bad day. You wouldn’t need the shoes, however, since you’d be sitting for the day in a little room at the Cancer Agency. If you are squeamish about needles, take my place after the IV has started. But those days have always been good ones. There have been six of them so far, and I’ve been in a good mood for every one. I’m not tooting my own horn here; I’m not the one responsible for the mood. I’m not doing mental gymnastics to see my situation in a positive light. Believe me. It just happens. I simply call it God lifting me up. And most of those days a special friend has sat next to me (I won’t embarrass you by naming names; you know who you are). We read aloud, we chat with each other, with the other cancer patients and their families, or the nurses. Toward the end of the day, Steve comes and hangs out with me. When we go home I’m tired but smiling, thinking, “Now that was a good day.”
But if you are a little wary of hospitals, then wait a week or so and then take the shoes. But I’ll warn you, wear your sunglasses. Because, man, the light is blinding! It might be a Wednesday when I go to class and hear the prof and other students talk about things that strike a strong chord with me – wasn’t it just the day before when I’d been pondering that very thing, and here it comes up today in this context! Then, you’ll go to lunch with a friend or two and it’ll be clear by the way they take time for you, talk to you, listen and look at you that they actually really care about you.
Perhaps it will be a day when an acquaintance, who you respect and admire but don’t know very well, calls to ask if she can cook for you and your husband. And when you get the food, there are 3 whole pots of it and it is delicious. You feel so blessed that it seems unfair to keep it all to yourself, so the next day you call up some friends and invite them to share it with you. Or perhaps you’ll get one of the days when you find out that a couple of your professors want to arrange a holiday for you – a holiday you weren’t sure you’d be able to have. It could be a day when a person from the school office that you do not know makes a point to stop, look at you searchingly and ask how you are doing.
There are many such days to go around. Toward mid-afternoon you’ll be walking home from the bus, knowing you are walking with a “terminal” diagnosis and at the same time the joy you feel is insuppressible. You remember that months before, you sensed God telling you that he would care for you. And you see the care happening, and the joy happening. And you are amazed.
So take my shoes; I want that amazement for you. Go ahead, call me a Pollyanna cancer patient. I don’t care. I know I’m not the one who brings the joy. As Maxine Hancock spoke of in chapel today, we can’t do a thing to generate this light ourselves. When I’m in that chemo tunnel, it is and I am pretty darn bleak. But then the light breaks in. And then, wow, I just have to thank God.
But I want to thank you too, all you friends and acquaintances and compassionate strangers, because a lot of the light that warms me shines from Him through you.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Hope in the Night
I've stopped the medication that booted me into early menopause and turned off the sleep switch in my brain. I'm hoping sleep will now come more easily once again. Yet sometimes, the stillness of the wee hours helped me think...
Hope in the Night
by Maureen Morley
(February 25, 2005)
The duvet rustles in the dark as I flop – a bit gingerly, which isn’t very satisfying – from my back to my side. I’ve got an assorted army of minor aches and pains in my body these days: a dull throb across my chest, a little stab on a lower right rib, soreness in my hip joints that radiates down my quadriceps, several tender spots along my spine. The cancer has pitched tents in strategic locations, is sending out troops and gathering reinforcements. I lie still and make sure I haven’t made anything worse by moving into this position, before straining my neck to take in the time: 3:15 am. I hear the drone of a car as it drives by the house, then the distant snore of Carrie, our landlady, sleeping soundly one floor above us. I listen to make sure Steve - an arm’s length from me in our king-size bed - is breathing. He’s only an intermittent snorer, although every so often his intake of air is so violent that I’m tempted to turn on the light to make sure he hasn’t engulfed his face. At those times, if he doesn’t wake himself up and I can’t take it anymore, I kick at the duvet so it will crinkle loudly, and he’ll stir and stop for a while. But tonight, he’s quiet. It’s not his fault – not the fault of noise at all – that I’m so often restless nowadays when I should be sleeping.
No, I blame it on induced menopause. That, and a system-shocking barrage of medication culminating in chemotherapy – the big guns – injected and ingested into my body since we learned, a year and a half ago, that this breast cancer had metastasized first to my bones and then to my liver.
I can’t complain too much. A couple of poor sleeping years out of thirty-eight aren’t so bad. I used to be the envy of my family for the ease with which sleep took me. Sit me in an airplane and I’d be out before the safety video ended.
I sigh – ah, the days – and flip again onto my back. But it really isn’t that bad. It’s not as if I have a hectic schedule that demands I rise at first light; I can sleep in, and by morning I tend to be more relaxed and comfortable. It’s just that the purpose of nighttime seems to have changed from rest to wondering. Something’s afoot. Reading Internet information sites that quote average life expectancy for someone in my shoes at eighteen to twenty-four months – and now eighteen months have passed – can make a girl think. Nighttime affords lots of time. Its quiet is long and uninterrupted, allowing my thoughts to steep in the darkness like tea in hot water, swirling and taking on deeper hues.
My friend Maria, from the women’s metastatic cancer support group, died last Friday. What has happened to her? Where is she now? Taylor, the woman who facilitates our group, sent around an email and I was shocked by the picture that was attached. It showed a Maria I never met: a confident, reasonably happy and plump woman of fifty. She looked ordinary, cheerful but not remarkable, unlike the Maria I sat beside at lunch a month ago, listening to her indict the vicious nuns that ran her primary school. The Maria I knew was a much thinner, balder woman, her face all eyes like a mischievous, but somewhat tormented, little girl. Her face had lost pretensions. She was beautiful.
I inhale, drawing on my counseling days (you can’t be anxious and breathing calmly at the same time), and see her eyes, feel the pool that springs up behind my own and exhale long and deliberately. I want to stay calm, to remain in this peaceful place even while my heart goes out to Maria, wherever she is. Has she found the rest that she wanted? Oh, God, I hope so. Lord, have mercy. Please, have mercy on us all...
I place a period on the end of the plea and Maria’s eyes recede as I drift elsewhere. I’m surprised I don’t feel despair. An acquaintance at school today told me he and his family pray for me and Steve almost every day. I don’t even know this guy, and Steve knows him only a little. People keep telling us they are praying, and I think I feel it. My thoughts feel supported and protected; the tea held in a sturdy mug. They don’t ooze out in a thousand potentially perilous directions, not anymore.
Back on my right side now, an inevitable and recently recurring reverie: what will it be like for me, after I die? I don’t care about mansions or jewels or, even, chocolate. Stuff (and stuffing myself) never did much for my loneliness. What about all these people in my life now: Steve and my parents; my sisters and brothers; Sara, Nikki, and all my friends; the folks at church? Why have I felt it right to spend so much time trying to share my life with them and sharing in theirs? After so many years of wanting to feel such care and love for others, and to receive it back, what’s the point of it all happening now if I’m just going to up and die? It doesn’t make sense.
In the darkness, again, I remember God. It helps me to be a little didactic with myself. I remember that he’s really really big and really really good. He tells us that we are to love him and each other. And now I get a little excited, feel my heart flutter and stretch. Relationships matter to him. He’s gone through all kinds of trouble to show us that he is for us, that he loves us. He’s all about us caring for each other, building strong relationships. It gives me hope that somehow, in some way that I can’t fathom, I get to stay involved in the lives of people that I love after I die. It gives me hope that part of worshipping him with all the hosts of the angels and the saints includes caring for the people he cares about. Jesus was crucified, but he was resurrected. And even after he ascended again into heaven, we’re told – and I experience it – that he’s still alive, active in the lives of people in the world. And if I am to become like him, well then I hope that means somehow my relationships continue and also that I’m infinitely better at loving after I’m in Heaven than I’ve ever been on Earth. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, likens our current bodies to seeds with potential to blossom into fully-flowered bodies of unimaginable splendor. Currents of quiet excitement run through me.
Outside in the garden, I hear the two-note trill, a tiny dawn trumpet. The first note is higher than the second; the second sounds longer than the first. This solitary singer always begins the birds’ morning song, “Yoo-hooo…You-who,” over and over again, eventually joined by a cacophony of cheerful chatter.
Splendor? I know I can’t figure it out with my puny little seed-consciousness. Instead, I doze in and out to the twitter-patting of the birds for several more hours, brewing on automatic, hoping that I get to love these people forever.
Hope in the Night
by Maureen Morley
(February 25, 2005)
The duvet rustles in the dark as I flop – a bit gingerly, which isn’t very satisfying – from my back to my side. I’ve got an assorted army of minor aches and pains in my body these days: a dull throb across my chest, a little stab on a lower right rib, soreness in my hip joints that radiates down my quadriceps, several tender spots along my spine. The cancer has pitched tents in strategic locations, is sending out troops and gathering reinforcements. I lie still and make sure I haven’t made anything worse by moving into this position, before straining my neck to take in the time: 3:15 am. I hear the drone of a car as it drives by the house, then the distant snore of Carrie, our landlady, sleeping soundly one floor above us. I listen to make sure Steve - an arm’s length from me in our king-size bed - is breathing. He’s only an intermittent snorer, although every so often his intake of air is so violent that I’m tempted to turn on the light to make sure he hasn’t engulfed his face. At those times, if he doesn’t wake himself up and I can’t take it anymore, I kick at the duvet so it will crinkle loudly, and he’ll stir and stop for a while. But tonight, he’s quiet. It’s not his fault – not the fault of noise at all – that I’m so often restless nowadays when I should be sleeping.
No, I blame it on induced menopause. That, and a system-shocking barrage of medication culminating in chemotherapy – the big guns – injected and ingested into my body since we learned, a year and a half ago, that this breast cancer had metastasized first to my bones and then to my liver.
I can’t complain too much. A couple of poor sleeping years out of thirty-eight aren’t so bad. I used to be the envy of my family for the ease with which sleep took me. Sit me in an airplane and I’d be out before the safety video ended.
I sigh – ah, the days – and flip again onto my back. But it really isn’t that bad. It’s not as if I have a hectic schedule that demands I rise at first light; I can sleep in, and by morning I tend to be more relaxed and comfortable. It’s just that the purpose of nighttime seems to have changed from rest to wondering. Something’s afoot. Reading Internet information sites that quote average life expectancy for someone in my shoes at eighteen to twenty-four months – and now eighteen months have passed – can make a girl think. Nighttime affords lots of time. Its quiet is long and uninterrupted, allowing my thoughts to steep in the darkness like tea in hot water, swirling and taking on deeper hues.
My friend Maria, from the women’s metastatic cancer support group, died last Friday. What has happened to her? Where is she now? Taylor, the woman who facilitates our group, sent around an email and I was shocked by the picture that was attached. It showed a Maria I never met: a confident, reasonably happy and plump woman of fifty. She looked ordinary, cheerful but not remarkable, unlike the Maria I sat beside at lunch a month ago, listening to her indict the vicious nuns that ran her primary school. The Maria I knew was a much thinner, balder woman, her face all eyes like a mischievous, but somewhat tormented, little girl. Her face had lost pretensions. She was beautiful.
I inhale, drawing on my counseling days (you can’t be anxious and breathing calmly at the same time), and see her eyes, feel the pool that springs up behind my own and exhale long and deliberately. I want to stay calm, to remain in this peaceful place even while my heart goes out to Maria, wherever she is. Has she found the rest that she wanted? Oh, God, I hope so. Lord, have mercy. Please, have mercy on us all...
I place a period on the end of the plea and Maria’s eyes recede as I drift elsewhere. I’m surprised I don’t feel despair. An acquaintance at school today told me he and his family pray for me and Steve almost every day. I don’t even know this guy, and Steve knows him only a little. People keep telling us they are praying, and I think I feel it. My thoughts feel supported and protected; the tea held in a sturdy mug. They don’t ooze out in a thousand potentially perilous directions, not anymore.
Back on my right side now, an inevitable and recently recurring reverie: what will it be like for me, after I die? I don’t care about mansions or jewels or, even, chocolate. Stuff (and stuffing myself) never did much for my loneliness. What about all these people in my life now: Steve and my parents; my sisters and brothers; Sara, Nikki, and all my friends; the folks at church? Why have I felt it right to spend so much time trying to share my life with them and sharing in theirs? After so many years of wanting to feel such care and love for others, and to receive it back, what’s the point of it all happening now if I’m just going to up and die? It doesn’t make sense.
In the darkness, again, I remember God. It helps me to be a little didactic with myself. I remember that he’s really really big and really really good. He tells us that we are to love him and each other. And now I get a little excited, feel my heart flutter and stretch. Relationships matter to him. He’s gone through all kinds of trouble to show us that he is for us, that he loves us. He’s all about us caring for each other, building strong relationships. It gives me hope that somehow, in some way that I can’t fathom, I get to stay involved in the lives of people that I love after I die. It gives me hope that part of worshipping him with all the hosts of the angels and the saints includes caring for the people he cares about. Jesus was crucified, but he was resurrected. And even after he ascended again into heaven, we’re told – and I experience it – that he’s still alive, active in the lives of people in the world. And if I am to become like him, well then I hope that means somehow my relationships continue and also that I’m infinitely better at loving after I’m in Heaven than I’ve ever been on Earth. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, likens our current bodies to seeds with potential to blossom into fully-flowered bodies of unimaginable splendor. Currents of quiet excitement run through me.
Outside in the garden, I hear the two-note trill, a tiny dawn trumpet. The first note is higher than the second; the second sounds longer than the first. This solitary singer always begins the birds’ morning song, “Yoo-hooo…You-who,” over and over again, eventually joined by a cacophony of cheerful chatter.
Splendor? I know I can’t figure it out with my puny little seed-consciousness. Instead, I doze in and out to the twitter-patting of the birds for several more hours, brewing on automatic, hoping that I get to love these people forever.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Not a Tragedy
The story below is true, as are all the stories you will find here. All names, except for mine and my husband, Steve, have been changed, in case anyone is shy. The following reflection details an evening of uncommon grace; there was goodness all around.
Not a Tragedy
by Maureen Morley
Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the Lord is good
(April 6, 2005)
“Logic!” said the Professor half to himself. “Why don’t they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn’t tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth.”
Sean is reading aloud – this Professor has a booming, Scottish lilt – from C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Sean’s a very good reader, his voice changing intonation with each character, his whole body tensing with the effort, his legs bouncing on the sofa. Each word is clearly enunciated; he is unselfconscious. I smile, tickled and grateful.
The gathering here was his idea; he suggested it to Steve recently when they met for coffee, knowing what a fan I am of the Narnia books, knowing what a difficult time its been lately, off and on, for me and for Steve. There’s been more chemo for me, a bulging disk for Steve, and a multitude of unanswered questions about the future for both of us. So Sean sent some emails around, and although it’s the last week of regular term, eight of us showed up tonight at Sean and Rob’s place, bedraggled and tired. We feasted on remarkably moist, barely-pink pork with rosemary and apples. There were loads of crispy roasted potatoes, a mixed green salad with toasted almonds and mandarin oranges, coarse white and brown bread with lots of butter, and a couple bottles of wine. Sean bragged about cooking the pork, joked that Rob – whose culinary talent is long-recognized – is preparing him for marriage, teaching him to cook and clean. The meal is delicious. Someone’s gonna be a lucky girl. But Rob himself brings out the piece de resistance – a flourless chocolate loaf that slices like thick butter, accompanied by spoonfuls of strawberries and whipped cream. Oh, my.
We linger over the meal for a long time. Gary, from Texas, tells us about meeting a rattlesnake along a dusty trail in Big Bend National Park.
“Let me show you why it’s called Big Bend,” he says theatrically, drawing a map of Texas in the air. “For all you UK folks, this is Texas. See? It’s…”
“BIG,” interrupts Steve.
Gary grins, raises his eyebrow at Steve. “Yeah. And the park, see, it’s BIG too. And then, down at the bottom of it…”
“…is a big BEND,” I say.
“Precisely,” says Gary, waving his arm in the air like an orchestra conductor.
“I’m from the states. That’s how I knew,” I laugh.
It’s a simple bunch of banter, but it works. Meg, sitting across from Gary, smiles contentedly and takes a sip of wine, her eyes sparkling. She just finished her comprehensive exam today – and cooked Steve and I a meal to take home with us for tomorrow. Scott, the Northern Irishman to my right, and Steve’s best man at our wedding, laments how his wife keeps giving away his favorite chocolate from home. Rob brings out dessert, serves all the rest of us before handing Scott a plate full of strawberries and cream.
“We ran out of chocolate,” he says and we all hoot.
“You’s people are supposed to be my friends!” Scott says.
And we go on like this, bantering and laughing and eating. Finally, around nine-thirty we look at our watches and turn toward the living room to begin reading.
Most of us can’t remember the last time we read aloud, and run a gambit from mildly to moderately self-conscious as we each read a chapter. It’s almost a lost art, this reading aloud, except to very young children – and even then I suspect it doesn’t happen as often or as well as it used to. I think we’re missing out. We’re all enthralled listening to him tell about how Edmund acted beastly to Lucy, how the Professor supported Lucy’s strange tale of a magical land.
“I wonder what they do teach them at these schools,” says Sean as Professor, scratching his head.
From the sofa to my right, where he lays stretched out resting his back, Steve giggles like a school-boy. Now that’s a soothing sound.
This night is a balm.
It’s great to get out and spend a few hours with friends. We have, perhaps, been a little too isolated, nursing our infirmities. These days, I feel a bit like a Munchkin from The Wizard of Oz. Not because I’ve lost more than an inch of height due to spinal compression, the ‘bone settling’ that occurs in elderly ladies with osteoporosis or late thirty-somethings with spine-eating cancer; I started out a bit over five-foot-seven, so I still tower above the little people. No, as I wake up in the late morning, groggy after a poor sleep, make some coffee, do a few dishes and feel like I need to rest my back again, it’s the song the Munchkins sing that runs through my mind and resonates with my life: “We get up at twelve and start to work at one…take an hour for lunch and then at two we’re done….” The range of activities that I do day-to-day has decreased, my experiences funneled over these months so that now I: walk a little, rest; write a little, rest; meet a friend for coffee, rest; go to church and perhaps out for lunch, rest. All this resting can be bad for your health. You can start thinking that the reason for your existence is to feel better, which means the reason for your existence is not for now, but for later. You might then put all your efforts into ensuring that better future, or, more accurately for me, stop making much effort at all until “better” occurs. But, come to think of it, isn’t that how so many of us have lived all along? Trying to make life better?
But that begs a question. What if it doesn’t get better?
Eugene Peterson, in Subversive Spirituality, says that our modern view of death underscores that death: a) is tragic, and b) should bed delayed as long as possible. But I don’t really feel that way. In my most recent angst-filled complaint to God, I cried out in both physical and emotional pain, “Lord, I don’t want to be here anymore!” But even in angst-free moments, when I feel a new ache or pain in my body, a number of feelings stir: fear, sadness, anger, resignation, but also excitement. Excitement? Well, I can’t help but wonder if this is the beginning of the end, and if so I’m not altogether displeased. If my faith in a good, big God – revealed to us through Jesus – is well-founded, my death is not tragic. Maybe it is true that I have to relinquish so much here: dancing lessons with my husband, long runs on the beach, face-to-face contact with my family, holding a baby in my arms. But then, perhaps it is also true that as I open my hand, God takes it in his own to lead me somewhere. And he will not abandon those I leave behind. Why, then, should it automatically be right to take any drastic measure necessary to procrastinate dying?
I feel a little guilty that I think this way. But I’m bucking a sacred cow, a defining myth of our day, the one that insists that the keys to a good life are staying young and healthy and as physically beautiful as possible, for as long as possible. I also don’t mean to imply that I lack love for Steve, my family or my friends. I do love them; I care about their lives; I’m committed to caring for them. But Jesus is a reality for me, the truest love of my life. He is the truth of the human heart’s desire. Still, I tell God that I will be here as long as he wants me here. I won’t mope around, I won’t check out before his whistle blows, only because he’s so big and faithful. Pour your love into me, so that I can give it back out. I’m sorry for my complaining. I know I’m safe. Your will be done. Really.
Still, I feel entirely comfortable saying, “No, thank you,” when well-meaning, even hurting people who struggle with the fact of my illness, offer me potential miracle-cures like consuming nightly bowlfuls of Tibetan Snowflake Fungus.
Steve’s animated voice as he begins his turn to read interrupts my reverie.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver (speaking to Lucy, Susan and Peter), “Who said anything about safe?
‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
Of course, Mr. Beaver is referring to – shh! – Aslan: the majestic, mysterious Lion, the gentle yet powerful Christ-figure. This passage used to puzzle me a little. Intuitively, I knew it was true – yes! Aslan isn’t safe, but he is good – but I wasn’t really sure what Mr. Beaver meant. How is Aslan unsafe? Now I think I get it. He might lead you up a mountain pass when none of your friends want to follow; he might rebuke you when you’re being a selfish, scared little prig; he might cause you to writhe in agony as he tears away your hard, scaly outer shell[1]. But then you are scrubbed-pink-new, trembling a little as the fresh air hits your vulnerable skin, refreshing, bracing.
Then again, he might lay out a feast before you, and plop you down in the midst of wonderful, silly, mixed-up, beautiful people who care about you and with whom you almost think you could live forever. Their food strengthens. Their voices soothe.
Still, I’m with Peter, as he replies to Mr. Beaver’s description of Aslan: “I’m longing to see him…even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point.”
[1] These are references to events from several of the seven books in C.S. Lewis’s series The Chronicles of Narnia. If you haven’t read them, oh please do.
Not a Tragedy
by Maureen Morley
Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the Lord is good
(April 6, 2005)
“Logic!” said the Professor half to himself. “Why don’t they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn’t tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth.”
Sean is reading aloud – this Professor has a booming, Scottish lilt – from C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Sean’s a very good reader, his voice changing intonation with each character, his whole body tensing with the effort, his legs bouncing on the sofa. Each word is clearly enunciated; he is unselfconscious. I smile, tickled and grateful.
The gathering here was his idea; he suggested it to Steve recently when they met for coffee, knowing what a fan I am of the Narnia books, knowing what a difficult time its been lately, off and on, for me and for Steve. There’s been more chemo for me, a bulging disk for Steve, and a multitude of unanswered questions about the future for both of us. So Sean sent some emails around, and although it’s the last week of regular term, eight of us showed up tonight at Sean and Rob’s place, bedraggled and tired. We feasted on remarkably moist, barely-pink pork with rosemary and apples. There were loads of crispy roasted potatoes, a mixed green salad with toasted almonds and mandarin oranges, coarse white and brown bread with lots of butter, and a couple bottles of wine. Sean bragged about cooking the pork, joked that Rob – whose culinary talent is long-recognized – is preparing him for marriage, teaching him to cook and clean. The meal is delicious. Someone’s gonna be a lucky girl. But Rob himself brings out the piece de resistance – a flourless chocolate loaf that slices like thick butter, accompanied by spoonfuls of strawberries and whipped cream. Oh, my.
We linger over the meal for a long time. Gary, from Texas, tells us about meeting a rattlesnake along a dusty trail in Big Bend National Park.
“Let me show you why it’s called Big Bend,” he says theatrically, drawing a map of Texas in the air. “For all you UK folks, this is Texas. See? It’s…”
“BIG,” interrupts Steve.
Gary grins, raises his eyebrow at Steve. “Yeah. And the park, see, it’s BIG too. And then, down at the bottom of it…”
“…is a big BEND,” I say.
“Precisely,” says Gary, waving his arm in the air like an orchestra conductor.
“I’m from the states. That’s how I knew,” I laugh.
It’s a simple bunch of banter, but it works. Meg, sitting across from Gary, smiles contentedly and takes a sip of wine, her eyes sparkling. She just finished her comprehensive exam today – and cooked Steve and I a meal to take home with us for tomorrow. Scott, the Northern Irishman to my right, and Steve’s best man at our wedding, laments how his wife keeps giving away his favorite chocolate from home. Rob brings out dessert, serves all the rest of us before handing Scott a plate full of strawberries and cream.
“We ran out of chocolate,” he says and we all hoot.
“You’s people are supposed to be my friends!” Scott says.
And we go on like this, bantering and laughing and eating. Finally, around nine-thirty we look at our watches and turn toward the living room to begin reading.
Most of us can’t remember the last time we read aloud, and run a gambit from mildly to moderately self-conscious as we each read a chapter. It’s almost a lost art, this reading aloud, except to very young children – and even then I suspect it doesn’t happen as often or as well as it used to. I think we’re missing out. We’re all enthralled listening to him tell about how Edmund acted beastly to Lucy, how the Professor supported Lucy’s strange tale of a magical land.
“I wonder what they do teach them at these schools,” says Sean as Professor, scratching his head.
From the sofa to my right, where he lays stretched out resting his back, Steve giggles like a school-boy. Now that’s a soothing sound.
This night is a balm.
It’s great to get out and spend a few hours with friends. We have, perhaps, been a little too isolated, nursing our infirmities. These days, I feel a bit like a Munchkin from The Wizard of Oz. Not because I’ve lost more than an inch of height due to spinal compression, the ‘bone settling’ that occurs in elderly ladies with osteoporosis or late thirty-somethings with spine-eating cancer; I started out a bit over five-foot-seven, so I still tower above the little people. No, as I wake up in the late morning, groggy after a poor sleep, make some coffee, do a few dishes and feel like I need to rest my back again, it’s the song the Munchkins sing that runs through my mind and resonates with my life: “We get up at twelve and start to work at one…take an hour for lunch and then at two we’re done….” The range of activities that I do day-to-day has decreased, my experiences funneled over these months so that now I: walk a little, rest; write a little, rest; meet a friend for coffee, rest; go to church and perhaps out for lunch, rest. All this resting can be bad for your health. You can start thinking that the reason for your existence is to feel better, which means the reason for your existence is not for now, but for later. You might then put all your efforts into ensuring that better future, or, more accurately for me, stop making much effort at all until “better” occurs. But, come to think of it, isn’t that how so many of us have lived all along? Trying to make life better?
But that begs a question. What if it doesn’t get better?
Eugene Peterson, in Subversive Spirituality, says that our modern view of death underscores that death: a) is tragic, and b) should bed delayed as long as possible. But I don’t really feel that way. In my most recent angst-filled complaint to God, I cried out in both physical and emotional pain, “Lord, I don’t want to be here anymore!” But even in angst-free moments, when I feel a new ache or pain in my body, a number of feelings stir: fear, sadness, anger, resignation, but also excitement. Excitement? Well, I can’t help but wonder if this is the beginning of the end, and if so I’m not altogether displeased. If my faith in a good, big God – revealed to us through Jesus – is well-founded, my death is not tragic. Maybe it is true that I have to relinquish so much here: dancing lessons with my husband, long runs on the beach, face-to-face contact with my family, holding a baby in my arms. But then, perhaps it is also true that as I open my hand, God takes it in his own to lead me somewhere. And he will not abandon those I leave behind. Why, then, should it automatically be right to take any drastic measure necessary to procrastinate dying?
I feel a little guilty that I think this way. But I’m bucking a sacred cow, a defining myth of our day, the one that insists that the keys to a good life are staying young and healthy and as physically beautiful as possible, for as long as possible. I also don’t mean to imply that I lack love for Steve, my family or my friends. I do love them; I care about their lives; I’m committed to caring for them. But Jesus is a reality for me, the truest love of my life. He is the truth of the human heart’s desire. Still, I tell God that I will be here as long as he wants me here. I won’t mope around, I won’t check out before his whistle blows, only because he’s so big and faithful. Pour your love into me, so that I can give it back out. I’m sorry for my complaining. I know I’m safe. Your will be done. Really.
Still, I feel entirely comfortable saying, “No, thank you,” when well-meaning, even hurting people who struggle with the fact of my illness, offer me potential miracle-cures like consuming nightly bowlfuls of Tibetan Snowflake Fungus.
Steve’s animated voice as he begins his turn to read interrupts my reverie.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver (speaking to Lucy, Susan and Peter), “Who said anything about safe?
‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
Of course, Mr. Beaver is referring to – shh! – Aslan: the majestic, mysterious Lion, the gentle yet powerful Christ-figure. This passage used to puzzle me a little. Intuitively, I knew it was true – yes! Aslan isn’t safe, but he is good – but I wasn’t really sure what Mr. Beaver meant. How is Aslan unsafe? Now I think I get it. He might lead you up a mountain pass when none of your friends want to follow; he might rebuke you when you’re being a selfish, scared little prig; he might cause you to writhe in agony as he tears away your hard, scaly outer shell[1]. But then you are scrubbed-pink-new, trembling a little as the fresh air hits your vulnerable skin, refreshing, bracing.
Then again, he might lay out a feast before you, and plop you down in the midst of wonderful, silly, mixed-up, beautiful people who care about you and with whom you almost think you could live forever. Their food strengthens. Their voices soothe.
Still, I’m with Peter, as he replies to Mr. Beaver’s description of Aslan: “I’m longing to see him…even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point.”
[1] These are references to events from several of the seven books in C.S. Lewis’s series The Chronicles of Narnia. If you haven’t read them, oh please do.
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