what's in a tense?

maybe you know the feeling...sitting or standing in church, and you find yourself singing along to the words of a song you're not so sure you can really agree with...maybe it's a season of life, maybe it's an issue you've long struggled with...and then there are others.  There are songs that you can hardly bring yourself to sing because they represent so much of what you long for it feels unreal that it could possibly be true.

The last few weeks I've felt both.

11 October:  

"Table of Plenty"  (Daniel L. Schutte)

Refrain: Come of the feast of heaven and earth!  Come to the table of plenty! God will provide for all that we need, here at the table of plenty. 

1. O come and sit at my table where saints and sinners are friends.

I wait to welcome the lost and lonely to share the cup of my love.  

2. O come and eat without money; come to drink without price.

My feast of gladness will feed your spirit with faith and fullness of life.  

3. My bread will ever sustain you through days of sorrow and woe.

My wine will flow like a sea of gladness to flood the depths of your soul.  

4. Your fields will flower in fullness; your homes will flourish in peace.  

For I, the giver of home and harvest, will send my rain on the soil.

 I couldn't.  I wasn't "feelin' it" to say the least.  My friends in South Sudan are quite literally running for their lives.  They have been forced from their homes by violence between groups claiming to want what's best for them, by tanks and air gunships firing on their homes, they're leaving their homes with whatever food they can carry on their backs/heads.  It's rainy season.  It rains...ahem, POURS...every day.  Sometimes ALL DAY.  They're sleeping in the bush.  Under trees.  You know that feeling when you get drenched in a downpour when leaving the grocery store as you run to your car?  You can't wait to get home to put on dry clothes?  What if there was no home to go to.  No dry clothes to put on.  No dry wood to make a fire to warm up by.  It's these little things that make their reality easier to imagine or relate to.  And then this Daniel L. Schutte fellow wants me to believe that my God,  my friends' God, is the giver of home and harvest?  Here at the table of plenty??!?!?!  Where?  what table?  The table of the "American Dream" the western table of luxury and choice and options?  The table set for a few?  My friends know not such a table.  This is my reaction.

HOWEVER.  We have an email chain, in which we share communications we've had with our South Sudanese friends.  And throughout the reports of conversations with all different people on the ground there, there is one overwhelmingly consistent thread.  "Lu mbara be"  (God is Greater).  Our friends consistently say 2 things:  "Pray for us/do not forget us" and "Lu mbara be."  They seem to know Him better than I.  These, my friends, who are suffering so, are, at least at times, better aware of the fact that God is greater than their circumstances.  Better aware than I am.  Maybe they'd been able to sing.  Maybe they'd be able to sing their hearts out in longing for such a table of plenty.  Maybe they'd rejoice for those times past when they've feasted on goat and beef and rice and tea sweet enough to make your hair stand on end...times when they have known such a table.  Surely they'd put my unbelief to shame.

18 October:

"We will feast in the house of Zion"

(Sandra McCracken & Joshua Moore)

We will feast in the house of Zion. We will sing with our hearts restored.

"He has done great things," we will say together.

We will feast and weep no more.

We will not be burned by the fire, he is the Lord our God.

We are not consumed by the flood; upheld protected gathered up.

In the dark of night before the dawn, my soul, be not afraid,

for the promised morning O, how long? O God of Jacob, be my strength.

Every vow we've broken and betrayed; you are the faithful one;

and from the garden to the grave, bind us together, bring shalom.

For some reason, only one week later, the feasting was more believable...was something I could grab ahold of.  I couldn't quite put my finger on why.  Until I realized that perhaps it was the verb tenses.  "Table of plenty" seems to communicate a plenty we know now, a sustenance "through sorrow and woe"...a feast table where everyone's friends, where fields produce everything you need to flourish, where there's peace in abundance.  I couldn't get on board.  It's just not the reality that so much of the world is experiencing, let alone my friends.

But, "We will feast" felt different.  It felt an acknowledgement of the floods, the dark of night, the vows broken, the betrayals, the tears...and a proclamation that one day we will weep no more.  That on the other side of the now, we will have hindsight and the the view of God's faithfulness, having done great things.  Our hearts restored while feasting at HIS table.  It felt like it was holding claim of what is to come.

Maybe some of you theological or grammar scholars would say I'm wrong, would dissect the verbiage in both songs and say they're both saying the same thing.  That's fine.  They still *felt* different to me.  And as I write, I realize that maybe it's not the verb tenses after all...maybe it's the presence of lament in the latter...you could call it the "tone."  The first was a "cheer up! this is what's true!"  which I didn't and don't feel capable of, and the latter is a "it's achingly hard now, and one day, that ache will be gone" and to THAT I say AMEN.  Let it be so.

"so that we could all have birthdays..."

Friday Night Lights.  Matt Saracen.  It's a show that's been around the block for a while now, but I'm just catching on (Job hunting is good for binge watching, ya know?!).  The episode I just watched, the character named Matt Saracen is faced with having to bury his father who died in the war in Iraq.  In his eulogy at his dad's burial he speaks of his dad's service to his country.  He speaks of the birthdays his dad missed while serving overseas, and then he spoke of his realization that his dad missing his birthdays was a service done so that he and everyone else standing around the casket that day could have birthdays to celebrate.

The tears started much earlier in the episode for me, but it's this line that I remember.

I'm looking for a job.  And for the first time in my life, it's been a long and discouraging process.  It'd still be long and discouraging even if my mom were around...it seems employers have trouble translating 5 years of experience of nursing in E. Africa into experience that might be beneficial to their American healthcare setting..it seems 18 months of part-time remote admin work done while caring for your terminally ill mother requires explanation...explanation I haven't effectively done without face to face time during an interview, which I can't get because it all requires explanation (I know I know, entre cover letter re-vamping)...and my mom couldn't fix that for me.  But she could have listened. And when she had two good arms to do it with, she could have given me a hug when I was down and discouraged by it all.  She would have been my I'm-a-nurse-and-I-understand-the-system sounding board and encouraged me that with God, we never know what's going on behind the scenes.  She was good at this stuff.

As I've thought a lot about her seasons of job searching, and remembering how down she got, but how she always tried to remind herself about what was true, I also remember she was about making it possible that other people had birthdays to celebrate too.  She wasn't in the armed forces, but the ways she served her country were sacrificial too...she believed in people when they didn't believe in themselves.  She rooted for them and tried to make sure they had every resource they needed and deserved to make it to their next birthday...she told them what they didn't wanna hear if it was what they needed to know...so that they and their loved ones could share more birthdays.  I miss her somethin' fierce.  I cry because I miss her.  I cry because I'm so very thankful for the woman and mother she was.

When you lose something or someone that you love, the important things in life take on new meanings.  This season in life is not my favorite.  It's one of a larger portion of loss than I would have chosen for myself.  The loss of my mom is the biggest loss, but the loss "for now" of a life and work and home and friends and family in South Sudan is huge too.  These losses though, make the sweet gifts...the "gains" in this season, that much sweeter.

It won't surprise you that most of these gains have faces.

photo cred: Louisa Wimmer-Brown

Like these two...who are a whole year more grown up than this now...and on whose actual day of birth I was actually present and accounted for...and one of whom when I got in the car recently said, "Hi Heidi, I've been missing you." (heart melted)

photo cred: Courtney Patch

and this darling who quite readily sits in my lap, waves incessantly to me, AND gives me kisses...

this cutie patootie who requests play dates and with whom I share a general fondness for exploring our surroundings

photo cred: Facebook

and these dudes who discuss with me their favorite animal factoids and let me join in on their hide and seek games

and, well, all their parents are all right too ;)  and there are so many more...

I'm thankful that all these fabulous kids get to have birthdays and that I get to be a part of them, for a season.  I'm desperately sad that I can't share my birthdays with my mom anymore, but I'm thankful for her life spent making sure other people could share theirs.

a rock cairn

Here's how I imagine surfing theory goes: "when the wave swells...ride it. "Don't FIGHT against a wave swell, but relax and RIDE the wave wherever it takes you.

This girl from the 'Merica interior has never surfed...and if my skiing skills are any indication, I should probably never try...BUT I'm doing my best to glean wisdom from wherever I can in this mess of a season called grief.  Grief is the name of my wave.  No board or "totally rad" lingo involved.  just tears.  Today's swell wasn't a quick slap in the face but rather a slow repetitive build in size and intensity.

The curvatures of the above "panoramic" photo are slightly misleading.  The place where I was standing was the southwestern most point of Africa...the point at which when sailing, you start going more east than south as you come around from the Indian to the Atlantic ocean.

Hope, is my word of the year.  If you think words of the year are corny or confining, tough tootsies - just roll with me, okay?  So, all day I've wondered what the origin of the name of this wildly fantastic place is.  The water is tumultuous, the rocks are impressive, the clouds are fast, the scene is incredible.

Evidently a Portuguese chap by the name of Bartholomew Dias named the place "Cape of Storms" due to his crew/vessel's perilous experiences on the rough and rugged seas around the southernmost tip of Africa.  Later, Portuguese royalty from the comfort of their own thrones, decided that the name "Cape of Good Hope" was more apt due to the benefits of trade routes Dias' discovery opened up for their economies.  It's all about perspective, isn't it!

The weather moves through there like a manic experience...seeming to change every 5 minutes from sunny and clear to stormy with rain (you can see a bit of that in the photo).  Cape of Storms seems more practically realistic to me for that reason.  But even places of storms can be places of hope, huh?  It's a good word lesson for me.

After climbing up some rocks/stairs to look out across the point from a cliff where I took the photo, I stacked 4 rocks on top of each other as a memorial of sorts to my mom; a cairn; an ebenezer of sorts. I couldn't stop thinking of her there.  She loved the water, she loved God's wonderfully wild natural world and the fantastic diversity it holds for us to experience and enjoy and wonder in - and I wanted to call and tell her about it (she always talked about how she loved to travel vicariously through me - wanting to know all about what I was seeing and hearing and smelling and feeling).  But I couldn't.  Actually I won't ever be able to ever again.  First lap of today's grief swell.  In the rain, I quickly stacked 4 rocks, one for each of the 4 of us remaining in our nuclear family.  I said "this one's for you mama" and Bethany and I did the right-arm-to-the-sky-"pentecostal" move she had become fond of in her last few weeks of life, and said "Praise Jesus" (that's what I always imagined she meant with the arm move).  We scurried back down the wet rocks and wooden stairs to sea level where Lesley and Finch were doing the same thing for Camille.

Camille, Lesley's sister died the same day that my mom died.  Lesley and her family are the reason Bethany and I picked up and decided to come to South Africa this week.  To share your days with someone you know is building cairns with rocks and in their heart everyday too, if even for a short while, is a gift.  If you know Lesley, you won't be surprised to know that her cairn for Camille was much prettier than mine...the rocks smoother and flatter...a little flourish of greenery on top...no water droplets on the lens for her photos ;)  Yet another lesson...you can't compare your grief to anyone else's...we all do it, and it's always useless and counterproductive, it feels like.

This is just the "tip of the iceberg" as they say...or "just the cape point of Africa", as it might be in this case...there is so much more to think about and process...me staying home from dinner tonight to write this, is my effort to ride the wave...trying not to fight it but ride it.  It's harder this way, it's more inconvenient for everyone, but it feels honoring of the woman my mom was and the gift of relationship God gave us.  To you! mama.  And to God! for giving you to me...or me to you...or both.

sailing blind

...yeah.  that's kind of what it feels like.  grief does.  losing your mother does.

it's been two weeks.

so far mostly it feels surreal.  I've lived most of the last 18 years of my life without interacting with my mom on a day to day basis.  it feels like I've just reverted to one of those years.  one of those weeks.

but the first crashing wave hit me hard just now.  I guess surreal felt like a calm sea. productivity.  things to do.   mental check lists.  deep cleaning the upstairs after a few months of domestic neglect.  returning medical supplies on loan.  preparing for the work retreat coming up.  emails to write.  more lists to be made and checked off.

remember, I'm blind in this grief thing, so I don't really know what's coming or when or how.  that's okay.  I've made my peace with that - to the extent that you can when it comes to not knowing.

there was a ripple in the surreal the other night when I thought about the strife and struggle and loss in the lives of people who I love in various parts of the world.  of death.  of conflict.  of lack of honor and respect.  and then the thought came full circle around to me.  to mom.  it was a moment.  a moment of heaviness.  hm.  a moment that passed quicker than I anticipated.  couldn't see it coming or going.

last night there was a swell when I dropped off groceries downstairs where dad was watching 24.  alone.  dad never watches a tv show, at night, alone.  always with mom begging for "just one more" episode.  he explained Jeff was no fun since he falls asleep during everything.  might as well watch by yourself.  chuckle.  well, I guess.  I guess this is something dad does now.  wow.  then my book ended with more death than I expected.  than they expected.  people who loved.  people who lost.  whoah. and again, away it went.  I wasn't sure if I should expect a flood yet...

between the ripple and the swell there was more surreal.  there were more lists and emails and errands.

tonight there was dinner with aunt and uncle.  family.  we want to hear your memories they said.  so we shared.  we laughed.  we paused in silence now and again.  thoughts.  momentary realizations.  there was the drive home.  the collecting of mail. the discussions of plans for the coming week.  up in my room I opened the mail.  a dear family friend who lost his wife had written.  about mom.  about his wife. and about tears. hm. I haven't had as many as I thought.  then there was a poem.  maybe it was his tender care in writing us.  his words carefully chosen and from a place of deep understanding.  maybe it was the words of the poem about tears.  but the stormy wave crashed down.  there they came.  sobs.  sobs of sorrow.  crashing down my cheeks.  I miss my mama.  I've lost her to heaven and she's not coming back.

I didn't see the storm coming. this expedition is blind.  remember.  there were no sailing lessons this time out.

I went and sat with my dad.  He feels the waves.  We sail blind, but we are not alone.

smiles.

it's late and I'm tired and I'll probably regret this in the morning, but I'm realizing that if I don't write in the moment, it won't get written...and I feel really strongly, tonight, that this needs to be written.

I came home from praying with "my people"...my small group from church that gathers weekly to pray for each other, and I opened Facebook on my phone, which at 9:30pm, is usually a mistake.  Tonight, however, was different.  Some of the things we had prayed about together were really hard, really heavy...involving a lot of pain/isolation/division/disease/violence that is our world these days...the fact that hope is often hard to see.

Then, on "the Facebook," I watched this (posted in my feed by Nicholas Kristof, a NYTimes journalist who I respect).

Now.  Let me get a few things out of the way: dramatic video production designed to invoke emotion? yes.  any idea if this story is legit? no.  Do I think Patrick lived everyday prior to beginning to learn sign language without a genuine smile on his face like you're meant to believe in the video? no.  Does it bother me that the camera gets all up in this boy's face who clearly wishes it wouldn't? YES! (He can't hear but for goodness sakes, he can SEE!)  Is this clip even more emotive for me having lived in Uganda (and in neighboring South Sudan which visually looks and likely culturally is much more similar to Patrick's village than the part of Uganda where I lived)? yes.  BUT, all that said, this story still has immense power.

Have you ever had a life experience that distances you from those around you?  That makes you feel alone?  That separates you from community?

Do you know anyone who has a disabling condition of any kind?  Who feels isolated because of it for whatever reason?  Who you long for a community of genuinely common ground for?

Have you ever been overwhelmed by the hurt that we cause each other as humans?  Have you ever been overwhelmed by the violence/disrespect around the world?  In your own community?  Have you ever wondered if we as a modern day society will ever recover from the hurt we cause each other?  Have you ever struggled to see the hope in a situation?

Have you ever hoped to see people empowered to serve a community of people like them in a life-giving way - both for them and their community?

Have you ever experienced a moment of breakthrough in someone's life?  Have you ever had the honor of watching a person come alive in a way they haven't before?  Have you ever had the privilege  of catching a glimpse of a downcast person smiling?  Of a sick child made well?  Of an outcast finding a unique role?  Of someone finding someone else who gets it?

It's utterly amazing.  Jaw dropping.  Tear jerking.  Breath taking.  Awe inspiring.  Flabbergasting.  absolutely incredible.  These, my people, are powerful moments in life.  Moments which need to be recognized.  Moments which need celebrated.  Moments which have the power to unite all of us in the desire for more like them.

These stories, like Patrick's are happening everyday, all over the world.  They're just as real as the war torn, pain-filled, heart wrenchingly sad stories we hear...and the reality is, they're often intertwined with such pain...because it seems to me that it's true when they say that the most beautiful things come from the most painful...it's the pain that *makes* them beautiful.

There are tears streaming down my face as I sit writing...so much of this that I long for in my mom's story...so much of this that I long for in communities I've had the honor and privilege of calling home in Uganda and South Sudan...so much of this that I miss about daily life in those places...so much that I love about how wonderfully powerful smiles can be.

the pain and comfort of small

holiday movie season is the best.

they wait and release the year's best movies all at once...which, in my logical, practical mind is not the best of ideas...what are we to do the rest of the year?! best to spread the enjoyment out evenly...fairly...but in my childlike heart it is an extension of the extravagance of Christmas.  Call me gluttonous, but, I love it.

Yesterday it was the third and last installation of the Tolkien fantasy, The Hobbit.  Today the historical biopic The Imitation Game.  Not much in common with these two, but both poignant and wonderful and awful in their own ways.  

There is one poignancy in common though...one which I was not at all expecting...the lesson of appreciating/acknowledging the reality of our small-cog-ness in the big-wheel-world.

Bilbo and the code breakers both need reminded (or perhaps informed), that they are small pieces of a much larger puzzle...that they are not the only, and more importantly not the main, characters in their life adventures/discoveries/events...it is all so much more complex than their own experience of a thing...so much more to be taken into consideration...

I'm struck.  Not sure why.  But as I stop to consider the possibilities, one comes to mind on this day in particular.

I'm just a small cog, in a big wheel world, and I am SO VERY thankful.  In Tolkien's Hobbit, Bilbo's response to Gandalf's instruction on this topic is "Thank goodness!" which I echo emphatically.

Today was my first day off.  As of late I have felt the weight of the last year in new ways.  For lots of reasons, most of which I don't really understand completely, I need a break.  And that's really really really really hard for me to say.  Again, it's hard for lots of reasons I don't completely understand, but I know enough to know I need it.  And in the end, I know enough to know that I'm a small cog in a very big wheel world, and saying "I need a break" is my way of echoing Bilbo's "Thank goodness!"  It's my way of honoring God's sovereignty and power and control and relinquishing my own.  God d*@& it, it's hard.

It's difficult to write in this type of forum about this stage of my life.  It's hard to honor my mom's life and privacy while my life is so tightly woven with hers on a daily basis.  But this need for a break, the excruciatingly painful process of admitting that to myself and even more painfully to others, is my story, it's not my mom's...well, but that's not actually true, is it?  That's Gandalf's whole point...that's what Alan Turing and his team needed to learn before they could be of real service to their country...and it was excruciating.  It is my story, it's my pride being broken, my idols crashing down, but it's mom's story as well.  It affects her, it affects our whole household, and our community...it's our story.  Well, actually, it's HIS story. 

"Thank goodness!"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PS - I feel like it's dishonest to stop there when as my mind carries this thought on, I realize the irony that the awful, tragic charging, sentencing, "treatment" and death of Alan Turning and thousands of other gay people in Germany and likely elsewhere as well, because of their sexuality, was and still is probably argued "legitimate" with the same reasoning...that they are "just small cogs in a big wheel of a world"...but somehow I believe that while it is wonderful that we are but small cogs, we are wonderful small cogs and the loss of/injustice done to any one of us is done to ALL of us...it's HIS story remember? we are ALL part of the picture.

jumping fountains

I drove by a scene much like this one this evening.  Kids running around in a jumping fountain...shoots of water squirting up from the ground at seemingly random intervals and in seemingly random locations.

Grief is a lot like these fountains.  I never quite know where or when it's gonna pop up...where or when it's going to gush out.  Last night at small group was one of those places and times.   I was asking the group to pray for the Muslim world in it's current state of what seems a bit like chaos from this vantage point.  I'm reading Malala's story, and my heart strings are tugged by the realities that have been her life, yes, but I don't usually weep when my heart strings are tugged by books I'm reading or articles I read online.  I think that was just the release of the flood gates.  My parents left town on tuesday for a few weeks of rest and relaxation on the west coast.  I think with their departure, my heart relaxed a bit, and so tugs on it's strings made bigger ripples than usual...to mix about 7 metaphors ;)

The group lovingly asked what was going on, as the tears continued to stream down my face as others continued to share and request prayer, etc.  I shrugged my shoulders.  I had no idea.  I've talked and thought about it since and I think it's just how grief works.  I've heard others say this is just how it is - it hits you when it hits you.  Unlike the jumping fountains though, grief does not seem to elicit the shrieks of joy that seem common in the children running around getting soaking wet, whether they were dressed for the occasion or not ;)  Alas.

There's this thing among Christians that we don't talk about.  Well, we do talk about it, but it's all in the name of spiritual growth and edification.  We talk about what "grieving well" looks like, what "suffering well" looks like.  Missionaries talk about "healthy cultural acquisition" or "good language learning technique" or "good goodbyes."  So a gold standard is set - for better or worse.  For better: they provide us a guide along the way as wisdom from those who have gone before.  For worse: they just allow us to judge one another - measuring each other against these standards.  Same with grief and suffering.  I know, because I've done it to other people.  Sizing up their emotional and spiritual life from what I perceive on the outside.  Now, I'm wishing for more grace that I've in times past given to others.  When it comes to grief,  I've decided I only know how to process feelings I'm experiencing.  It has done me no good to try to talk about things I think I should feel or think others think I should feel.  It does, on the other hand, a world of good to go get ice cream with a couple friends after I fall apart and try to figure out where that was coming from and what it was really about, and reflect on whether I'm doing what I can to engage my emotions from day to day in a healthy way.

People make off handed comments about how they think our family is or is not dealing with the current realities of mom's illness and this season of life.  Maybe you think we are putting on "happy faces" too often - which means you think there is a way our faces should look instead. Maybe you think I should cry more - maybe you think the jumping fountain effect is just a because I'm suppressing all my emotions and just need to "deal with them" more...or better.  Maybe you think when I'm at a party, I should rise to the occasion and not be so glum - it's not about me after all. The thing is, my grief seems to know no schedule or social norms, and neither does this terminal illness.  All I can say is that I think I'm not alone in the jumping fountains.

discombobulated

I don't think this is an actual thing, but the word *looks* like it's definition.  or is it me?
like a visual onomatopoeia.
l o n g. short and TALL. complicated AND simple. jumbled.

this is what I get for not writing in far too long.

maybe it's what paradox does to you when you don't talk about it.

so, let's get that out of the way right here.

Grief AND Gratitude : the unbelievable/indescribable sadness that is ALS AND the unbelievable/indescribable gifts that are encountered along the way

Hope AND Doubt/Fear/Inattention : those squeaks that come from your heart singing when it comes upon something it longs for AND the squeaks of the brakes that is your heart backpedaling in doubt / fear of disappointment / and scramble for inattention.

Fast AND Slow : the pace of life...where did the day go? There was no time for pondering AND there was nothing on the calendar.

just to name a few.

paradox = tension...balance...walk the line...discomfort AND settle...rest...kick back...Confidence...

it's not something I particularly like, but it seems to like me.  Bundibugyo? Mundri? Hotbeds of paradox.  it's not something I'm unfamiliar with.  yet it discombobbles me every time.  but naming it, helps.  saying the words helps (which of course requires the work of coming up with the words in the first place).  describing where it's visible, helps.  the work is worth it.

{ worth it. }  the entirety of a text I just got from a friend to whom I was failing to describe my discombobulation adequately.  a response to my { I don't know...but I'm trying to pay attention }.

I often wonder about the narcissistic side of this whole blogging thing...especially when I'm not globe trotting around the world, experiencing exciting new things / people / places / cultures / smells / tastes ...and settling into life amongst them.  but, the longer I'm alive, the more I realize that this life is so very commonplace.  the things we get ourselves steeped in and convinced we're alone in - are really actually so very common.  yes, they are remarkable - worth remarking about - interesting / valuable / engaging - but also so very common - we're all human and at the core of our lives, though they may look very different on the outside, are such common processes / thoughts / loves / fears.  I think that's why I write publicly, because people tell me "me too!" and it normalizes the whole bit, for both of us.  Because in this season, telling each of you these things over an iced beverage in the humidity of a sidewalk cafe, isn't possible.  And if you want to read, you will, and if you don't, you won't.  And, like I said, for me, the work of naming it is worth it.

so here's to writing more often...

it's been a while...and hope

Five and a half months, to be exact.  I last posted 10 days before leaving South Sudan.

my oh my. all that's happened since then!  it simultaneously seems like eons ago and like yesterday.  How is it that time does that...or that memory does that to time...?

6100 block of Washington ~ 2 weeks ago

Here in St. Louis, the crocuses and daffodils are poking their heads up, some already in bloom, along with the forsythia and the buds on all kinds of flowering trees lining the streets.  

Four Corners @ Des Peres & Kingsbury this morning

It's a season of hope.  In Mundri, the season of hope looks like this:

One word.  mangoes.  Just waiting to turn a hint of yellow and be knocked from the tree by hungry young hands with sticks and rocks...a dry season provision from the Lord in a time when other crops/food are scarce...the confidence in and anticipation of this turning from green to yellow, from tart to sweet, from firm to tender is such a tangible hope.

The current season of my heart is in a daily, hourly, battle for such hope as these.  My dad requested prayer from our church community last night in a congregational prayer meeting, and in his words "the Fall is overshadowing the Gospel."  Ditto.  The Gospel has shown it's Face in remarkably tangible glimpses...and to those I fight to cling.

Day by day my mom's body is breaking down in front of my very eyes.  Whatever God has for us in this...whatever wretched exercise in Hope or Faith or God knows what else - it is not for the faint hearted...and I feel faint hearted.  Then I hear the opening of Psalm 46...

[Heidi, I am y]our refuge and strength,

    a very present help in trouble.

 

Therefore you will not fear though the earth gives way,

    though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

 

though its waters roar and foam,

    though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

To leave Mundri for this valley, it all feels a bit like the earth is giving way...that the mountains might just be moved into the sea...in the least the waters are roaring and the mountains are trembling...

Refuge and strength.  Refuge and strength.  Refuge.  Strength.

Katherine and Tim

They make a good pair.

“And another set of questions nagged, about profound and juxtaposed inequality - the signature fact of so many modern cities...Some people consider such juxtapositions of wealth and poverty a moral problem.  What fascinates me is why they’re not more of a practical one.  After all, there are more poor people than rich people in the world’s Mumbais.  Why don’t places like Airport Road, with their cheek-by-jowl slums and luxury hotels, look like the insurrectionist video fame Metal Slug 3?  Why don’t more of our unequal societies implode?...In the hours that passed, I arrived at a certain clarity...I had little to lose by pursuing my interests in another quarter - a place beyond my so-called expertise, where the risk of failure would be great but the interactions somewhat more meaningful...The slumdwellers I’d already come to know in India were neither mythic nor pathetic.  They were certainly not passive.  Across the country, in communities decidedly short on saviors, they were improvising, often ingeniously, in pursuit of the new economic possibilities of the twenty-first century.  Official statistics offered some indication of how such families were faring.  But in India, like many places in the world, including my own country, statistics about the poor sometimes have a tenuous relation to lived experience.  To me, becoming attached to a country involves pressing uncomfortable questions about justice and opportunity for its least powerful citizens.  The better one knows those people, the greater the compulsion to press...There being no way around the not-being-Indian business, I tried to compensate for my limitations the same way I do in unfamiliar American territory: by time spent, attention paid, documentation secured, accounts cross-checked...When I settled into a place, listening and watching, I don’t try to fool myself that the stories of individuals are themselves arguments.  I just believe that better arguments, maybe even better policies, get formulated when we know more about ordinary lives.”  

 - Katherine Boo (Author’s Note: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity) (finished yesterday)

“Do you know how Satan tempted Jesus? [turn this rock into bread, throw yourself off this cliff]...He’s trying to say, I want you to be like Merlin, and I want you to be like Superman, because the powers of Superman, the powers of Merlin, made them in-vulnerable, made them impossible to attack.  You couldn’t spear Superman, you couldn’t nail Superman, you couldn’t kill Superman, because their supernatural power made them in-vulnerable.  Jesus’ supernatural power does not do that.  The grand miracle was the incarnation in which God, the glorious God, the Son of God, became vulnerable.  When the woman with the hemorrhage touched Jesus’ garment, do you remember what happened? How did he know that she had been healed? He said ‘power went out from me’ - he felt weak.  In other words - his strength went to her.  Her weakness went to him.  Isn’t that interesting?  Do you know how often, when Jesus Christ did a miracle, it made his enemies more angry at him so finally when he raised Lazarus from the dead in John 11, his enemies said, “now we’ve gotta kill him.”  Jesus’ supernatural power not only did not make him in-vulnerable, it made him more vulnerable, more spearable, more nailable, more killable.  Why? The very last verse tells you.  How does Jesus deal with our brokenness?  He bears it.  He bears it...not just the disease, all the brokenness, death itself, the curse of us turning away from God, the disintegration, the weakness the suffering the death that is our lot now, fell on him on the cross....strength through weakness...Jesus Christ saves us by becoming weak, by going to the cross and dying for us....how are we going to bless the country, the neighborhood, how are we going to bless the world? How are we going to deal with cancers and slums? We have to become weak and to pour yourself out and to do the great works that Jesus did, is to give your money away, is to give your time away, is to give your heart away, but that’s what we have to do. 

Rodney Stark, who was a great historian, and who wrote a great book called Rise of Christianity [tells of eyewitness accounts from the plague in the early centuries of Christianity]: 

‘The doctors were quite incapable of treating the disease, the people became afraid to visit anyone, and as a result thousands of people died with no one to look after them.  Indeed there were many houses in which all the inhabitants perished through lack of any attention.  The bodies of the dead were heaped one on top of the other and half dead creatures could be seen staggering about in the streets, the catastrophe became so overwhelming that men became indifferent to every rule of morality, many pushed sufferers away, even their dearest, often throwing them into the road before they were dead, hoping to avert contagion....Most Christians in the plague showed unbounded love and loyalty never sparing themselves and only thinking of others, heedless of danger they took charge of the sick, attended to their every need, ministering to them in Christ and many departed their life serenely happy for they were infected by their neighbors and cheerfully accepted their pains.  The best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner, a number of elders, many in nursing and curing for others transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead.’

Where do you think they got that idea from?”

- Tim Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, [“Healing the Sick” : Matthew 8:5-17] (listened to today)

bearing each others brokenness...Katherine Boo did.  No indication she believes in Jesus... “the profound and juxtaposed inequality” she wrote of and her perplexion at how the walls we insulate ourselves with don’t just collapse on top of us...we as Christians, yes, but also as humans in general, do not love our neighbors by creating walls of insulation/protection/security/peace/beauty...but by going and crossing those lines of “expertise” and comfort that Katherine speaks of, where “the risk of failure would be great, but the interactions somewhat more meaningful”...those lines that protect us from the brokenness and suffering of others...those lines that put us not only at risk of failure, but also put our lives themselves at risk...our “happiness” at risk...our contentment with the status quo...and from experience, when we do, we not only have the honor of bearing the burdens and brokenness of those around us, but also learning from and experiencing their glory...this ingenuity Katherine writes of, their sense of humor, their intellect, their simplicity of life, their creativity, their beauty amidst their brokenness.  Getting into the muck of ordinary lives instead of cruising by on the Airport Road past our luxury hotels and glossy billboards with photos of starving children...the better we know people, the stronger our desire to press into and against the injustice and suffering in their lives.  Jesus could have used his power/position to make himself “in-vulnerable” as Tim points out - preventing all possible harm/threat, but He didn’t...quite the opposite.  Maybe I should take note.

What's in a voice?

Pittsburgh, PA NLDS Game 3 (October 2013)

What's in a voice?

I have known the sound of nothing so long

Since I was just a flutter

from the tenderness of her "shhhhh...."

to the distress of her "[sigh]......"

from the stern holler of "HEIDI!!!"

to the delight of "Heidikins!....."

her inquisitive questions

her seldom shared life suggestions

There's reason

There's reassurance

There's familiarity

There's functionality

There's correction

There's compassion

There's conversation

Then it creaks and groans and slows...

threatening to halt

A word here, a throat cleared there

I want to pull it back

back from the ALS abyss

A voice, you say?

Would by any other name sound so sweet?

Not hers.

It's just a name - letters, sounds, syllables - you say?

Yes, but it's hers.

It's just a body - bones, muscles, joints - you say?

Yes but it's hers.

It's just a voice - tones, pitches, vibrations - you say?

Yes, but it's hers.

God made this name, this body, this voice.

and He made them hers.

He made my name, my body, my voice.

and He made them hers.

What's in a voice, you say?

It's hers.

Susie

"Hello, is Susie there?" - anonymous caller to 5445 Kincaid St., Pittsburgh, PA ~ circa 1985

"I'm sorry, you have the wrong number." ~ 6 yo Heidi, sure that there was no one by the name of "susie" living at our number.
Sue? yes, but Susie? no.  Turns out it was my aunt Cynthia, calling for my mom, who at the time went by Sue, but back in the day was known by her family and others as Susie.  And these days she's known as Susan.
whoops.

Yesterday was "Susie's" birthday.  She spent it in the black Honda Civic with her hubby of 37 years,

Labor Day Weekend 201

driving across the flat plains of IL, IN, and OH headed for Pittsburgh, the first stopover on their much needed R&R trip to a family favorite, Maine.  If there's one thing the Lutjens' are good at, it's road trips...

one such infamous trip - to Maine I believe - in the Dodge Caravan

...long hours, long distances, but usually pretty spectacular destinations.

Thunder Hole - Acadia National Park - Bar Harbor, ME

This was one of those destinations (stollen from google images...I can assure you there was not this level of photographic technology around when we visited this spot when I was small - well, or if there was, this pastor's family for sure didn't have it). I don't ever remember Thunder Hole being so sunny and clear, usually overcast and misty...I also don't remember those snazzy guard rails, but maybe they were there and I was too young to notice.  I'm not sure if you've had those experiences in life which when recalled, the sheer memory of which is a visceral experience...feelings I'm sure I cannot put adequate words to...standing on those rocks, covered in sea spray and shivering, watching/listening to/feeling wave after wave CRASH and THUNDER into this rock cove along the ME shoreline...grabbing onto mom or dad or brother/sister for security...not so much in fear, but more in awe, wanting to touch someone else and be sure this was real...imagine our small minds and bodies, literally quaking in the wonder and power of these waves, this noise, this marvel created by the expression of life by God's creation.  May very well be one of my favorite places on earth.

I've been thinking lately that one of the things I'm thankful to my mom for, one of the many things that I love about her, is her shared sense of wonder and marvel in what is around her.  Her facial expressions when she finds out something fascinating or surprising, the dramatic "you're kidding?!?!?!" that often follows such expressions...her love and recognition of the wonder that is physiology and the inner workings of the human body, her appreciation of natural and created beauty of all kinds, from simple things like the color in her salad, to the complexities of pieces of music and grand works of art...her intrigue about people and places that are different from her own experience, her enjoyment of the pursuit of really understanding something and not just glossing over the seemingly "small and unimportant" details...all of these things and more I've experienced all of my life and grown in gratefulness for as the years go by - here's to the hope and prayer that some of it has rubbed off on me!   Marvel she does.  Wonder she knows.

Thanks mom.  I love you.

He knows

“Daniel answered and said, 

Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to him.  And it is He who changes the times and epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding.  It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him.’”

~ Daniel 2: 20-22~

darkness...

physical pain/disability, emotional distress, spiritual distance/isolation/dryness, mental reality distortion, grief, loss, change, unknown, unbearable circumstances, hateful people, corruption, deceit, theft, violation, war, complete exhaustion, presence of enemies, sin...

“there’s a light at the end of the tunnel...” 

- if things are bad now, don’t worry, there’s hope [light] ahead

“shed some light on the situation...”

- if things are difficult or murky, the light will help make things clear

“lights, camera, action!”

- first part of the movie making sequence? you need to SEE what’s going on, then you start recording 

                                  what’s going on, THEN you cue in to what’s actually going on

“make a right at the second light...”                        

                                - landmark

- (ever heard “make a left at that place where you can’t see anything”?)

“this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine...”

- “lemme show you my dark corner”? nope

“scared of the dark...”

- place of fear not of comfort

“I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley...” 

- place where bad things are done and no one can see to rescue you - unknown

“lurking in the dark corners...”

- places where people do not often choose to go

“he has a dark past...”

                                - he has done the kinds of things he would rather keep hidden

“those were dark times...” 

- periods which you would like NOT to revisit

“It’s too dark in here, I can’t see anything! Turn on the light, will ya?”

- The antidote for the darkness? Light.

to know: (verb) = be aware of through observation, inquiry, or information

“know” the facts (information)

“know” the feeling (experience)

“know” the place (observation)

Daniel says God knows what is in the darkness.

He KNOWs it.  He knows all the facts.  He knows the who: names, faces, and stories of all people involved, or not involved.  He knows the what: every detail that makes up this particular story.  He knows the when: the timing of the circumstances, what came before and what will come after.  He knows the night or day, weekend or weekday, the day the month the year the hour the minute, and how inconvenienced/stressed/pressured you are as a result.  He knows the where: home or work, street name and address, state, country, continent, and climate.  And maybe most importantly AND most puzzling, He knows the one we rarely if EVER know...He knows the why:  not the means but the END, the purpose, the goal, the justification, the motivation, the cause, the value, the benefit, the role in your life and the lives of those near or far.

He’s KNOWs it.  He’s experienced it.  Been there.  Felt that. Seen that.  Heard that. Smelt that.  He’s NOT unexperienced, immune, or naive.  He notices.  He’s read the briefing and the background checks.  His nerve endings are sensitive.  All 5 of his senses (and maybe more?) are not only functional but keen.

He KNOWs it.  He’s the ever-present observer.  Nothing has gone on that he is not privy to...not only has he been on the receiving end of all of it already, but he’s also been the witness to ALL of it.  It’s a different perspective than that of participant, but just as valid and important and pertinent...

In our Bible Study chapter on El Elyon last week, in the verse after verse that we read about our God Most High, this is the one that stuck out: 

 “...He knows what is in the darkness...” - Daniel 2:22

What is it though, about these simple words? Well, this post is me working that out...And in the end, I realize that the comfort is in the fact that He knows...not just in fact, or witness, but in experience...the feeling of, the reality of the darkness.  

Now that I stop and think about it, the fact that “He knows” was also the main take home lesson I learned from Dr. Calhoun’s class I took at Covenant Seminary entitled “Sickness and Suffering.”  Dr. Calhoun started the class off by telling us he was not, in fact, going to be able to answer the “WHY?!” question that He knew was looming large in all of our minds, and in his own as well...but he did remind us that God was not untouched by darkness [sickness and suffering] himself - the loss of His only Son, the betrayal and rejection and violation from His people...and the list goes on.  THAT was “worth the price of admission” for me.  After watching children die day after day in Uganda, after watching “big men” eat money and resources out from under their neighbors and those they are intended to serve without accountability, after struggling to  love my teammates well and them struggling to love me well, after hitting rock bottom emotionally, after having every single prop or buffer I was used to leaning on knocked out from under me, and preparing to head back to a long term commitment of more of the same, THAT was what I needed to hear, THAT was the lightbulb I needed turned on.  I needed to know that He didn’t look down from his comfy throne in heaven where everything is peachy keen all the time.  I needed to know that the suffering, the darkness, was not something He doled out to all of us, but something He knew something of Himself.  He knows what it’s like...He knows what is in the darkness...my darkness, your darkness, his darkness, her darkness, OUR darkness.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PS: The same week as the Daniel light bulb, this Op Ed article, coming in from Japan, was published in the NY Times.  A Facebook find for me from a friend from college, it was timely, fascinating, and powerful.  I don’t think Pico Iyer knows this line from Daniel about the darkness.  I don’t think He believes in the God that knows said darkness, but his reflection on darkness or “suffering” is spot on in many ways.  See for yourself.

partial truth

one of those days.  one of those belly-rumbling, slightly-more-aware-of-ones-muscles-and-joints, dizzy-headed-even-while-lying-down, days.  This one spent in bed, reading.  Book of the month = Cutting For Stone.  I’m not a very good missionary, in that I’ve read very very little of what’s written (fictional or non) about the countries/continent which I call home.  This particular choice is a fictional tale set in our neighbor to the east, Ethiopia.  I have some faint recollection that President Obama made a big deal (in a positive way) about it when it was first published...and several members of my family have read and recommended it.  So far tales of medicine, that since I’ve been mostly out of the acute clinical practice setting now for a year and a half or so, I can enjoy in my “time off”...a tale of family and it’s looser-than-biology definitions...a tale of culture...a tale of hearts and souls and life and the lackthereof and the stuffs of those lives that are important.  It’s good.  I doze in and out as a read, not yet sweating in my pajamas.  Various teammates come in to check on me, and eventually I emerge for something for lunch.

After achieving nourishment, I head back to the Shire and on the way notice that there’s an issue of Outside magazine I haven’t read yet on the coffee table.  I swipe it and continue on.  The cover promises a never yet told version of the famous American ascent of Mt. Everest 50 years ago along with something about a speed run down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and racing horses across Mongolia.  Sounds hopeful for proper sick-day escapist reading material.  I lift up my net and along with my magazine climb back into the happy place otherwise known as my bed.

See, every few months, we get an installation of our mail from friends in Arua.  We brought said installation with us last week when we returned from R&R in Uganda.  Included in said installation was several months worth of Michael Masso’s Outside Magazine subscription.  We’re always eager for current-ish reports of the goings on of the “outside” world, and this publication never seems to disappoint.  Well written, often blunt and amusing reports of people even crazier than we are, doing things we would never dream of doing...okay, things I would never dream of doing (can’t speak for our slew of 23 year old male interns...one never knows what they deem reasonably do-able) in places we’re easily convinced need to be on our next travel itinerary.

I open up to the Everest article because when downloading Cutting for Stone from the St. Louis Public Library onto my Kindle, I’d looked for Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer but was disappointed not to find it available in ebook format...so, the mountain was already on my mind.  Christine asked me if I’d ever try to climb Everest...clearly she was never present on any of my family backpacking/hiking/camping vacations growing up...I quickly told her absolutely not...it doesn’t sound to me like fun by any stretch of the imagination ...well, except the beauty...okay, AND the adventure...AND the thrill of summiting...but lets be honest, I could never EVER hack it...even without the oxygen tanks and frostbite and altitude sickness and such...so, no, no thank you.  But reading about it?! Fascinating...

“Like all great feats of alpinism the West Ridge is only possible for those who fully commit.  Perhaps Hornbein put it best, describing his mentality that final day as ‘the total feeling of detachment with anything else in the world that seemed to matter - family, child - only Mount Everest was there at the time, and only the summit above us seemed to be beckoning me.” 

- Grayson Schaffer’s last paragraph in the article

...and after a glance at the Marmot Polartec NeoShell jacket ad opposite the end of the article, I turned the page... “Born on the 9th of July”...and a dramatic photo of an ash covered Mundari cattle herder with his white long horned cattle in the background...whoah.  taken aback.  South Sudan was born on the 9th of July, 2011...South Sudan is home to the Mundari cattle herding tribe...and the Dinka, called in the article “the Tribe of Hummers” (refering to their affinity for the oversized and over priced 4x4 vehicles)...and the Moru, the predominant tribe here in Mundri where we live...wait wait wait...hang on...flip back the page... “Jon Krakauer”... “Life magazine”... fallen climbers’ bodies emerging from the icefall 6 years after their climb attempt of the highest mountain in the world...and an insullating shell jacket ad promoting their product with the phrase - “What gives you life?”...let’s try this again, and I flip forward a page...same Mundari shot...same mentions of Juba and brand spankin’ white Land Cruisers with the light blue and yellow EU symbol on the sides and road travel held up by potential land mine extraction procedures...from Everest to Juba, from frostbite and down insulated jackets to the dust covered bodies and stiff bone/rubber bracelets of the Mundari...un. real.  striking. along the lines of an out of body experience, to see the place you call home presented as such a wild and untamed wilderness with vast potential for tourism and adventure capital...in the context of this adrenaline rich publication geared towards people with way too much time and money on their hands...

Most of what this article about South Sudan presents is truth, but it’s only part of the truth...the photos are real, and dramatic, but really only represent a part of what I see and hear and smell on a daily basis.  It’s exciting to see and hear people “talking” about South Sudan, to see it get a place “on the map” so-to-speak...to see people write about the vast resources this land has to offer the world, to hear outsiders comment on the reality that is your life in ways you’ve never heard/thought of before...

“We are headed out of the dismal capital, driving south for four hours toward the Imatong Mountains...The ambassador wants to tour the south of South Sudan, get some exercise, and then fling himself off the peak in his paraglinder, avoiding a crash landing in the Central African jungles while claiming some fun distinction like First Unpowered Descent from a Place No One Has Heard of...”

- he he he :) and...

“South Sudan is not a society in recovery: there never was any real infrastructure, government, civil society, rules, laws, or rule of law here, so there is nothing to recover.  Instead it’s a scratch country, invented as a solution to an insoluble problem of semi-permanent war and defined by what it lacks.  There is no electrical grid, no mail service, almost no roads even of the dirt kind, and perhaps a few hundred miles of asphalt if you count every paved block in Juba.  The have-nots have a lot of not: barely a smidgen of schools, almost no health care, a population living on zero dollars per day in a subsistence-farming economy where cattle are traded like currency.  There are more guns than people who can read; refugee camps are more common than towns; snow would be easier to find than a road sign.”

wow.  well when you put it like that...or...

“Juba is more encampment than city, a sprawling settlement of homely huts and instant apartments whose population has swelled to more than a million as waves of returning exiles and rural people have moved in.  Many thousands of foreigners have come here as well, riding around in white Land Cruisers during the twice-a-day traffic jams that are a mark of pride for locals.  The most common signage is anything beginning with the letters “UN,” and a trip across town uses reference points like “Go past WHO” and “Turn left at WFP”... “In a place where hotel rooms are made from empty shipping containers and everything from gasoline to rice is imported on the back of a truck from Kenya, inflation has sky rocketed: a taxi across Juba costs twice as much as in New York, hastily built apartments are priced as if in central Rome...”

hm. crazy but ‘tis true.

But Patrick Symmes doesn’t mention the toothy ear to ear smiles that I love so much,

Mary

Vicki

 the cozy crackling sound of charcoal with a pot of, well, anything on top,

Mary & Mel making sweet potato fries 

the taste of a too-hot-to-touch cup of kere kede that’s been simmering for a while with sticks of cinnamon and is chock full-o-sugar...the waves and greetings along the road, the turn of a child’s face from wide-eyed wonder at your strangely pale skin to a smile creeping across their face when they look you in the eyes and realize you’re smiling and not going to eat them or hurt them like they’re told in the stories they hear...

Caleba

he doesn’t mention the teachers that really care and really are trying with what little they have to give the future of their country an education,

 he doesn’t mention the injections given by staff that care in health centers across the country that save lives from malaria, the wounds cleaned and dressed and healed as a result,

Mama Roda and yours truly

the babies born and thriving,

Salome and baby "Heidi" - my namesake - spelled for accuracy by request

the churches rockin’ with handmade drums and gourd shakers...he has only told half of the story.  But that’s okay, he’s left the other half for me.