Category Archives: God

Clouds without rain

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Two days this week we had beautiful storms. There were dark clouds full of rain. Thunder. Lightning.

Only the rain never came.

I told my kids that I had to hope that it rained somewhere in the state of Texas. But the lack of rain makes my heart ache. We need it.

I think of Elijah, praying for God to hold back the rain because of the sin of his people. Mine are no better than his, am I praying the wrong prayer?

This week I heard a story of ordinary sin and degradation. Well…several. This one particular story was disheartening because a number of people who claim to ascribe to a clear moral code registered little or no willingness to apply that code.

When our moral code lapses we are clouds without rain.. The phrase comes from James. He is exhorting a young church to be active in applying the good news and power of salvation to a broken world.

If we don’t because we are uncomfortable we are as useless and sterile as clouds without rain.

Hydrate, Darling. Hydrate.

Do something (brave)

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My blog is littered with drafts. I haven’t published anything for awhile because I struggle with–why bother?

In the aftermath of what happened to my family, a lot of people let us down.

It could have been because I was too vocal. It could have been because we were too risky. It could have been a lot of things.

It took a toll on my evaluation of humans. How could so many “nice people” run like rabbits? Or worse. There was always worse.

I battled insomnia. If a person you have fed peanut butter sandwiches can hurt children, the world feels permanently unsafe.

I wrote. I wrote and then wondered why?

Then I began wakeboarding.

I like wakeboarding because no one tells me I can’t do the things that terrify me. In fact, they show me how.

I like it because the people there are brave.

Not just spin-in-the-air brave, but also push-yourself brave.

Many of these brave people restore my faith in our broken world.

Which leads me to “ordinary brave”–

Men who are faithful to their wives are brave.

Judges who prosecute pedophiles are brave.

Health officials who fly into an Ebola epidemic are brave.

Paying your bills and your taxes on time

Holding a lackluster job to provide for your family

Befriending the powerless–

All brave.

When I see brave, I want to be brave.

The Ebola epidemic

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I have been praying for the victims of the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

My prayers have led to fasting and also web research. The result of that research is so disheartening that I am not linking.

Ebola is a plague with the devastating symptoms and prognosis of a plague.

People die horrible deaths and the death rate is high, very high.

So I am asking for prayer. Please pray for the people exposed to the disease and their families.

Pray for healing, but pray for this as well–

Many people in the countries this virus inhabits do not believe in it or believe health workers are infecting them.

So pray for healing and truth as well.
And thank you.

A cage for freedom

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I read that Carl Sagan’s wife has interpreted the story of Eden lost as a triumph of human freedom.

Ironic considering she surely sees it as a mythical tale.

Ironic considering that we have chosen holocaust, genocide, neglect, and violence as the measures of our freedom.

And there is this as well–when you see ultimate love and beauty as a confinement, one might rightly ask–

what do you know of love?

Simple Rules

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The day I found out my adopted son was a pedophile was a rough day.

It remains with me with the grim clarity of a plane crash.

As I moved past simple shock and devastation I sought advice from Jesus.

How do I do this?

His advice was simple–the truth will set you free.

We all have the right to tell the truth, and yet there is such an extreme pressure from other humans to hide it.

We are afraid to acknowledge our monsters. As though they will befriend us if we just pretend they are not real?

There is a dark side to adoption. Not only are we adopting parents sometimes a rum bunch, we also are trusted with children who have been profoundly changed by their own biographies.

And the result can be quite difficult to parse.

“Normal” people may not get it.

But Jesus has never been normal, so he does.

The injunction to let the truth set us free can be terrifying and lonely.

But truth is the seminal condition of heaven.

And what is heaven if not the cure? The safe haven? A place where hiding things will be impossible and unnecessary forever.

The Hole in my Chest

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Four years it’s been since I knew I had an invisible arrow lodged in my ribcage–what comes of adopting “damaged” children.

We are all damaged somehow. Who can repair us?

I knew the answer–arrow or no. I knew the power of my salvific God.

But the arrow remained.

Sometimes it would hurt me less. Sometimes more–the ache rising with the deep regret of the past or knowledge of our frailty.

And then I began to wakeboard.

I learned that having this thing I could throw myself at would keep down the ache of the wound. I had let my children down. I had lived with a costly illusion for years.

Who else would he harmed before he was done? And who can fix such a broken soul?

The arrow remained
Lodged in my chest.

Last week I fell wrong off a kicker. I confronted the fear that had kept my mind off the arrow, and landed in a fast tumble.

Panicked, my son said, but I knew it was just speed and my characteristic lack of control.

No one tells you how much it hurts to hit water fast.

I think it is a cartilage injury to my left chest cavity. It makes some things harder.

But the arrow in my chest
Joined by a real wound now
Seems less intractable
Less lonely

With each small, survivable ache
I remember
The spear lodged in His chest
Eternal wound/God of resurrection.

Easter is a Doorway

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I read an article this morning about a little boy in Massachusetts who was gone for months before he was reported missing.

His body was found this week.

Stories about five year old murder victims whose whole lives were defined by abuse, neglect, and pain do not go with our Sunday best, our Easter celebration. These are hell stories.

These would remain hell stories without Jesus.

What Jesus does with the stories of lost children is what matters.

He takes the pain of broken lives.

He restores the impossible–life for death, peace for pain, love for hate.

The cost too high to calculate: he pays it.

So it doesn’t have to feel like Easter to me. I can face the loneliness of my own story–

Fostering the broken

Adopting the rebellious

Taking on the identity of the crimes committed against those I love.

No easy answers.

Just Jesus, alive, for me.

The Darkest Days

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Jesus gave them plenty of warning–he said he was going to die. He warned of betrayal and grief. He told them things they did not want to hear.

Even so, the space between the last supper and the resurrection was almost unbearable.

Almost because he took the unbearable part.

Just short of unbearable.

That is the promise of Christian life–it might get pretty awful, but it will never be as awful as the atonement.

The grief of the disciples seems so dark. So painful. And their brokenness was pretty broken.

But

It is finished

And Sunday is one Son-rise away.

A Metaphor for You

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You were the one
To tell me all the others did it too
With a percentage
A statistic
Because it is the way you roll

50% percent, eh?
Half of all you knew.
I took the statistic to the source
Never got an answer.

Not surprised…
Inclined to believe they, like you
Would tell the students

obey the patriarchal voice

And hell, eat your broccoli as well
As the water rises around us
To the end.

Divorcing Facebook

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In all fairness to Facebook, I was a failure from the beginning.

I never posted a grumpy cat meme. I posted Bible verses. I wrote about child advocacy.

I was no fun.

So the decision to exit stage right was overdue. I stayed for the people I knew I would miss. And I left for my family’s safety.

Several times this morning I found myself fashioning vestigial posts about ghrelin, Alice Monro, and a beautiful rainstorm.

Notice I am still blogging, so I am hardly cured.

But it is a start.

I believe in the power of prayer. With or without the artifice of social media to prove that I am real.

I want to be real–

A tree that merely grows quietly in the forest. Making little noise at all.