Month: March 2020

He Loves Us As We Are: Being Watched Over

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As a father steals into his child’s half-lit bedroom
slowly, quietly, standing long and long
counting the breaths before finally slipping
back out, taking care not to wake her,

and as that night-lit child is fully awake the whole
time, with closed eyes, measured breathing,
savoring a delicious blessing she couldn’t
name but will remember her whole life,

how often we feel we’re being watched over,
or that we’re secretly looking in on the ones
we love, even when they are far away,
or even as they are lost in the sleep

no one wakes from—what we know
and what we feel can fully coincide, like love
and worry, like taking care in full silence
and secrecy, like darkness and light together.
~David Graham “Listening for Your Name“

2 “How I long for the months gone by,
    for the days when God watched over me,
3 when his lamp shone on my head
    and by his light I walked through darkness!
Job 29:2-3

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
~Mary Oliver, “The Uses of Sorrow”


The season of Lent
is a box full of darkness
given to us by Someone who loves us
enough to watch over us even as we sleep.

The Light is already here
but the darkness has not yet dissipated.

It takes a lifetime to understand,
if we ever do:
we are watched over
as we watch over one another.

By opening the gift of darkness,
we allow a Light in
where none was before.

Light pours through the cracks
of our sorrow and brokenness
as we are watched with care,
as we illuminate amid the shadows,
as we are loved with the deepest of concern.

This year’s Lenten theme for Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

Another sleepless night
I’m turning in my bed
Long before the red sun rises
In these early hours
I’m falling again
Into the river of my worries
When the river runs away
I find a shelter in your name

Jesus, only light on the shore
Only hope in the storm
Jesus, let me fly to your side
There I would hide, Jesus

Hear my anxious prayer
The beating of my heart
The pulse and the measure of my unbelief
Speak your words to me
Before I come apart
Help me believe in what I cannot see
Before the river runs away
I will call upon your name

Jesus, only light on the shore
Only hope in the storm
Jesus, let me fly to your side
There I would hide, Jesus
~Elaine Rubenstein, Fernando Ortega

He Loves Us As We Are: Our Unquenchable Need

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The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.
~G.K. Chesterton from Orthodoxy

…the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
John 16:27

God has come to us, not because of the gladness of our earthly existence, but because we are falling apart, and only He is the glue.
We have unquenchable need, profound brokenness and at times, unbearable sadness. 
We are loved that much: when we are done with earthly things, there then will be nothing but gladness — no longer will clouds of our sorrow obscure His glory.

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

There’s a wall inside my heart
Can’t get around it
Keeps the two of us apart
Can’t get over it

But under my skin is where you begin
And your kindness leads me now

Oh mercy, Jesus Son of God
Oh mercy, shine your light on us

When you took your broken heart
And fed the world with it
You gave us all a brand new start
I can’t get over it

And under my skin, forgiveness sets in
And your kindness leads me now

Oh mercy, Jesus Son of God
Oh mercy, shine your light on us

And under my skin your spirit within
Is leading me home

Oh mercy, Jesus Son of God
Oh mercy, shine your light on us

He Loves Us As We Are: Even the Enemy

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…{His is} the love for the enemy–
love for the one who does not love you
but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain.
The tortured’s love for the torturer.
This is God’s love. It conquers the world.
~Frederich Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat

This is God with a man’s beating heart,
who bleeds from open wounds of a man’s skin,
while nailed to a tree,
considering His torturers below
and forgives them.

This is God with a man’s dry tongue
thirsting for relief
who ensures His love for us
will never run dry.

This is God with a man’s compassion
who grants grace to another who
confesses his guilt and shame.

This is God with a son’s love for His mother
who entrusts her future
to the care of His beloved friend.

This is God with a man’s debt to carry
who pays it all,
finished and done.

This is God with a man’s frailty and fear,
feeling forsaken,
conquering death and hatred
by dying for us.

This is God with a man’s last breath
giving His spirit into the hands of His father
and in so doing, ensures we live forever.

And now brothers,
I will ask you a terrible question,
and God knows I ask it also of myself.
Is the truth beyond all truths,
beyond the stars, just this:
that to live without him is the real death,
that to die with him the only life?
~Frederich Buechner from The Magnificent Defeat

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

He Loves Us As We Are: Draining the Ocean Dry

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Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
~from the hymn “The Love of God”
by Frederick Lehman, derived from Jew­ish poem Had­da­mut,
writ­ten in Ara­ma­ic in 1050 by Meir Ben Isaac Ne­hor­ai

We try to wrap our arms and minds around a love so immense, so infinite, so eternal, so mysterious, so unimaginable — in the hope we can hold it in our consciousness, even if momentarily.

We can try with metaphor and parable and poetry and our finite imagination.

Yet God’s love permeates everything from the empty space between tiny atomic particles to the clinging/flinging forces of the galaxies in the vast universe.  It is impossible to fathom or describe.

We may try but we can’t — so He writes it out for us to read and remind ourselves every day.

He loves us not only as He created us to be – His image bearers – but also as we actually are.

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

He Sees Us As We Are: Worrying A Lot

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So I tell you to stop worrying about what you will eat, drink, or wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes?
Look at the birds. They don’t plant, harvest, or gather the harvest into barns. Yet, your heavenly Father feeds them.
Aren’t you worth more than they?
Can any of you add a single hour to your life by worrying? 
— Matthew 6:25-27

Jesus does not respond to our worry-filled way of living by saying that we should not be so busy with worldly affairs. He does not try to pull us away from the many events, activities, and people that make up our lives. He does not tell us that what we do is unimportant, valueless, or useless. Nor does he suggest that we should withdraw from our involvements and live quiet, restful lives removed from the struggles of the world.

Jesus’ response to our worry-filled lives is quite different. He asks us to shift the point of gravity, to relocate the center of our attention, to change our priorities. Jesus wants us to move from the “many things” to the “one necessary thing.”

It is important for us to realize that Jesus in no way wants us to leave our many-faceted world. Rather, he wants us to live in it, but firmly rooted in the center of all things. Jesus does not speak about a change of activities, a change in contacts, or even a change of pace.

He speaks about a change of heart. This change of heart makes everything different, even while everything appears to remain the same. This is the meaning of “Set your hearts on his kingdom first…and all these other things will be given you as well.”

What counts is where our hearts are. When we worry, we have our hearts in the wrong place. Jesus asks us to move our hearts to the center, where all other things fall into place.
— Henri Nouwen from Making All Things New

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
— Mary Oliver from Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

I must confess I am a skilled and well-practiced worrier. It’s deep in my DNA: my mother had truly exceptional worrying capability, awake or asleep. I’m glad she is safe in the arms of Jesus during these uncertain times as she would be beside herself.

As a novel virus passes, person to person to person, from a market in Wuhan, China, to the farthest corners of the earth in a matter of weeks, I find plenty to keep me awake, personally and professionally. 

Yet I know my worry is wasted energy, and worse than that, it pulls me away from the center of all I really need to know: all will be well. It may take time to get there, but eventually all will be well.

Jesus wants my heart, not my worry.

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh,  
When the bird waketh and the shadows flee;
Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight,  
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee!

When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber,  
Its closing eye looks up to Thee in prayer;
Sweet the repose beneath the wings o’ershading,  
But sweeter still to wake and find Thee there.

So shall it be at last, in that bright morning  
When the soul waketh and life’s shadows flee;
O in that hour, fairer than daylight dawning,  
Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with Thee!
~Harriet Beecher Stowe

He Sees Us As We Are: Called to Transformation

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…difficulties are magnified out of all proportion simply by fear and anxiety. From the moment we wake until we fall asleep we must commend other people wholly and unreservedly to God and leave them in his hands, and transform our anxiety for them into prayers on their behalf: 
With sorrow and with grief…
God will not be distracted.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Letters from Prison

.…you mustn’t be frightened … if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you?
~Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet

Every day I see young adult patients who are so consumed by anxiety they become immobilized in their ability to move forward through the midst of life’s inevitable obstacles and difficulties.  They become so mired in their own overwhelming feelings, so distracted by their symptoms, they can’t sleep or eat or think clearly.  They self-medicate, self-injure and self-hate.  Being unable to nurture themselves or others, they wither like a young tree without roots deep enough to reach the vast reservoir that lies untapped beneath them. 

In epidemic numbers, some decide to die, even before life really has fully begun for them.

I grieve for them in their distress, my heart breaks daily.   My role is to help find healing solutions, whether it is counseling therapy, a break from academic and work pressures, or a medicine that may give some form of relief.  Yet I know all too well the ultimate answer is not as simple as the right prescription.

We who are anxious must depend upon a Creator who does not suffer from attention deficit disorder and who is not distracted from His care for us even when we turn away in worry and sorrow.  We magnify our difficult circumstances by staying so tightly into ourselves, unable to look beyond our own eyelashes.  We are called to be transformed, to reach higher and deeper, through prayer, through service to others, through acknowledging there exists a power greater than ourselves.

So we are called to pray for ourselves and for others,  and in doing so, we disable anxiety and fear as they meld into gratitude and grace.  

No longer withering, we drink deeply of the well, finally able to thrive.

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

It feels like falling.
It feels like rain.
Like losing my balance
Again and again.
It once was so easy;
Breathe in, breathe out.
But at the foot of this mountain,
I only see clouds.

I feel out of focus,
Or at least indisposed
As this strange weather pattern
Inside me takes hold.
Each brave step forward,
I take three steps behind.
It’s mind over matter –
Matter over mind.

Slowly, then all at once.
A single loose thread
And it all comes undone.

Where there is light,
A shadow appears.
The cause and effect
When life interferes.
The same rule applies
To goodness and grief;
For in our great sorrow
We learn what joy means.

I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to fight it.
I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to fight it.
I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to fight it.
But I will learn to fight, I will learn to fight,
‘Til this pendulum finds equilibrium.

Slowly, then all at once.
The dark clouds depart,
And the damage is done.
So pardon the dust
While this all settles in.
With a broken heart,
Transformation begins.
~Ryan O’Neal – Sleeping at Last “Sorrow”

He Sees Us As We Are: Weary of Routine

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Because children have abounding vitality,
because they are in spirit fierce and free,
therefore they want things repeated and unchanged.
They always say, “Do it again”;
and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.
For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.
But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.
It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun;
and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.
It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike;
it may be that God makes every daisy separately,
but has never got tired of making them.
It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy;
for we have sinned and grown old,
and our Father is younger than we.
~G.K. Chesterton from Orthodoxy

To an infant, nothing is monotonous — it is all so new.  The routine of the day is very simple and reassuring: sleep, wake, cry, nurse, clean up, gaze out at the world, turn on the smiles –repeat.

The routine becomes more complex as we age until it no longer resembles a routine, if we can help it. We don’t bother getting up to watch the sun rise yet again and don’t notice the sun set once more.

Weary as we may be with routine, our continual search for the next new thing costs us in time and energy.   We age every time we sigh with boredom or turn away from the mundane and everyday, becoming less and less like our younger purer selves.

Who among us exults in monotony and celebrates predictability and enjoys repetition, whether it is sunrise or sunset or an infinite number of daisies?

God does on our behalf as He sees our short attention spans.  He remains consistent, persistent and insistent because we are no longer are.

Do it again, God.  Please, please do it again.

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

Will You Come and Follow Me” (The Summons) by John Bell from the album God Never Sleeps

The Lyrics:
Will you come and follow me 
If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know
And never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
Will you let me name be known,
Will you let my life be grown
In you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind
If I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
And never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
Should your life attract or scare.
Will you let me answer prayer
In you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see
If I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free
And never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean,
And do this as such unseen,
And admit to what I mean
In you and you in me?

Will you love the “you” you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound
In you and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true
When you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you
And never be the same.
In your company I’ll go
Where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow
In you and you in me.

He Sees Us As We Are: Shedding the Fluff

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In the morning I take out
most of what I put in last night.

I cross out everything that seems
excessive, every frill and fandango,

anything fluffy—a word that should
never again appear in a poem,

along with blossom and awesome.
Once I have deleted everything

except the title—which now seems
to have been written by a poet

who knows something I don’t,
I delete that as well and turn

the page. All that empty space
is waiting. What will I say?
~Joyce Sutphen “The Art of Revision”

It is shedding season on the farm. Suddenly it feels like everything is being purged, leaving a blank slate, an empty canvas, a wordless page.

Someone who knows something that I don’t is directing all this dropping of the burdensome to make space for the shiny and new.

I wish my own extra insulation could just be brushed out and thrown away like horse and dog hair.  Mine clings to me through cold weather and warm, padding my hips and my middle and a few other spots I’d rather not disclose.  I know I don’t really need all this extra fluff, and I know what I must do to shed it, but somehow knowing and doing are not always in synch.

In fact I hang on to a lot that I don’t need, some of which only makes me more miserable, as it is no longer useful and is downright detrimental.    Some of it is tangible accumulation, in not-just-a-few piles and closets.  Some is not visible but is deeply seeded nevertheless.  The excess hurts to have it pulled out by the roots.

Yes, it is time to revise, start fresh, and figure out what is next.

I have an undercoat that I cling to because it guards my heart,  providing an insulated layer buffering against the chill and sharp edges of life.  I need a good stiff brushing from a strong arm.  The time has come for the coat to blow.  I’ll be smooth and free once again, feeling the breezes right through my skin, all the way to my heart.

I remain fluffy at my peril. It is time to figure out what comes next.

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

He Sees Us As We Are: Tending the Sick

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Keep watch, dear Lord,
with those who work, or watch, or weep this night,
and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend the sick, Lord Christ;
give rest to the weary,
bless the dying,
soothe the suffering,
pity the afflicted,
shield the joyous;
and all for your love’s sake.
Amen.
~Common Book of Prayer

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
1Corinthians 12:27

Christ has no body now but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands,
yours are the feet,
yours are the eyes,
you are his body.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
~Teresa of Avila

The whole mass of Christians
are the physical organism through which Christ acts—
that we are his fingers and muscles,
the cells of His body.
~C.S. Lewis

Thousands are working around the clock
to tend to those who are ill and hurting,
~even at their own peril~
just as those who love the body of Christ
have done through centuries
of plagues and pandemics.

They know,
despite their own weariness,
each one who suffers,
each dear one,
is part of His body,
part of Our body.

We are the cells of His Being
still walking, weeping, loving
on this trembling earth.

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller


From the love of my own comfort
From the fear of having nothing
From a life of worldly passions
Deliver me O God

From the need to be understood
From the need to be accepted
From the fear of being lonely
Deliver me O God Deliver me O God

And I shall not want,
I shall not want when I taste Your goodness
I shall not want when I taste Your goodness
I shall not want
From the fear of serving others
From the fear of death or trial
From the fear of humility
Deliver me O God Deliver me O God
~Audrey Assad “I Shall Not Want”

He Sees Us As We Are: Petals on a Bough

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The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
~Ezra Pound “In a Station of the Metro”

All flesh is as grass,
And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.
The grass withers,
And its flower falls away,
But the word of the Lord endures forever.
1Peter 1:24-25

We won’t be visiting Japan this spring as we have the past several years – we were there over Christmas to meet a new grandson and with the specter of coronavirus has dampened any desire to travel. There are millions of people there and here wondering how this new reality will impact their daily lives. It already has: the store shelves are bare of basic necessities as nervous families stockpile.

In the past, during our time in Tokyo, we are overwhelmed by the sea of faces — each man, woman and child with a place to go to work or school, a place to return home to, a bed to rest upon. Millions pass through the same place in one day and each person, each hair on their head, is cared for and counted by God.

Yet, we are like the transient flowers, reminded again by the emergence of a potentially lethal viral protein packet: we are mortal, each of us, in our clinging like petals to a wet bough – the word of the Lord, our Creator. Only then we become more than apparition.  We bloom where God has planted us.

This year’s Lenten theme on Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller