moonlight and holiness

i woke this morning before the sun.  in fact, i began my morning in moonlight.  that happens occasionally.   there were no birds chirping brightly and no sunlight streaming warmly.  but there was the moon - bright and warm through the sliver of shutter i had failed to secure.  as i lay deep in soft flannel i had little motivation for anything more than nestling down deeper. further. softer. safer.  i didn't ask to be pierced by the hard stare of this glaring crescent just outside my window.  i didn't desire to be pricked with its celestial whiteness. its heat.  that was for the midnight.  the moon had no business taunting me out of bed at this early hour.  the moon is for sleep-heavy children.  it is for lovers and dreamers.  it is not meant for my morning start in quiet.  it had been given no cordial invitation to sit with me and my coffee and my solitude. certainly not my sleep.   i closed my eyes to it.  i closed my mind to it.  sleep.  there was sleep to continue.  there was sleep to complete.  but it was not so.  i had failed to secure the shutter.


there have been other prickings.  other moments of exposure.  other moments when i left a crack in the covering of my soul.  so often we are careful. careful to keep things closed up, buttoned up and picked up.   we draw the shade.  we fasten the latch.  we pull the curtain.  tight.  tighter. tightly.  we tell ourselves it is for our protection.  we assure ourselves it is in our best interest.  we pass it off with words like self-preserving and self-defending. we assign it lingo.  we attribute position.  we convince ourselves that vulnerability brings too great a cost.  and it does.  of course it does. we are protectors.  there aren't many of us journeying toward a wound.  we see the approach of something sharp and we change our course.  turn.  run.  flee.  we have learned it from our time in childhood.  that stove is hot!  don't touch!  no touch!   and so we learn to be careful.  we travel with caution.  we dream delicately. we skate the surface of our living, glossy and impenetrable appearing.


but what if we have to be burned?  what if we have to taste tears of pain and disappointment and even,  sorrow?  can that hot-white piercing of moonlight be good for us?  you already know my answer.  i am not pretending to like it.  i don't.  i already confessed my instinct to nestle down deeper into the soft flannel comfort of numb.  i would rather not see my dirty layers and dusty soul exposed for what they are.  with pricking and piercing comes tearing and torn.   i am not always ready for that kind of abrupt exposure.  i am hardly ever prepared for that kind of pain.  but it comes.  i cannot stop the moonlight.  i cannot secure the shutter always.  forever.  i may desire to languish deeply in comfort, but my God desires to work even more deeply in me.  His work in me is more than moonlight through the haphazardness of loose shutter.  there is no mistake in His piercing.  no accident in His pursuit.  He wants me.  all of me.  He wants the deepest recess of my heart.  it belongs to Him.  and no matter how much i yearn to pad it with the cooling items of ease, He will expose it.  there is light to be shed.  there is dirt to be seen. and there is healing to be had.


with our layers peeled back we are left feeling wide-open.  cleft and bare. and in this wide-open God proves tender and merciful.  ever-gentle.  there is a sweetness even when it tastes of sorrow. even when mixed with tears. sweet-bitter. hard-good.


because that is it.  He doesn't work randomly.  He doesn't pierce without purpose.  there is a plan. and it is holy and i hardly ever know it.  at times i can't even begin to guess.   i try.  i fail.  but i cannot.  i am left unsettled.  my frailty wishes for shelter.  my humanity wishes for easy.  my body wishes for mild.  but my soul knows i need holy.  my God desires it all.  He has taken my heart of stone...my heart which was hard and safe and cold and numb and mine...and He has replaced it with flesh.  and now it is His and it is tender.  "I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh..."  (ezekiel 36:26).   and now His piercings come and they are poignant.  His refinement burns fast.   He desires all.   "to the israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain." (exodus 24:17)  i am an israelite. stiff-necked. stubborn.  doubtful. wandering.  but i wonder if i truly know this consuming.  have i really stood near enough the fire.   i know there are places closer. hotter.  and like the moonlight, i want to shut my eyes against these close places. move further. forgotten.


and so i hunker down and play dead.  i hide under the table of my fabricated self.  but He knows where i am and He has a plan for holy.  and sometimes it burns. and sometimes it tears.  but, always, it is good.  because He has a plan and it is for holy.  and though i can pretend to hide from the early morning moon.  i cannot hide from the ever-present,  always-loving and most-unflagging pursuit of my Holy God.  Holy God.  God.

"so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.

and a sword will pierce your own soul too."  ~ luke 2:35

only a review: one thousand gifts

today i challenged the girls in my bible study to dig into the book, one thousand gifts.  ann voskamp is the author.  God is the inspiration.  i will simply be the reader.  a humble reader. a grateful reader. a thirsty reader. and an incredible read it is.  my friend, karen, had to write me two separate emails encouraging me to go get the book.  she knew i was meant for it.  though she apologized in her second email for pestering me, something in her knew this book was meant for me.  right now.  right here.  i am so thankful that my friend is not only beautiful and inspiring, but she is a listener and maybe even, on occasion, a pesterer.   she heard something which encouraged her to push me....and she pushed.  and because of this i am now pushing countless other women. this is a book for women to read.  to absorb.  to consider. to treasure.  
i really am not sure what to say about ann voskamp.  she is the mother of six.  she homeschools the entire half dozen.  her husband is an organic farmer of corn and she refers to him in her book as, The Farmer.  i love that.   i laughed out loud at first reading.   i must warn rick, i could easily copy her practice.  how natural it would be for me to over coffee and scrambled eggs refer to my business-minded husband as, The Executive.  i chuckle writing this...i can only imagine his expression and his first thought:  i knew she was on the edge.  i am now quite convinced. poor woman.
so this ann voskamp,  this ann without the sophistication of even an "e" is a writer for the times.  if you haven't heard of her, i am pretty certain you will.     ann lightly weaves together thoughts, ramblings and words about women and the stuff we mess around in. the simple and the substantial.  she addresses the myriad of messy issues which touch the lives of us girls.  it is spirtual.  it is provocative.  it is passionate.  and it is, unquestionably, beautiful.  
late friday night i climbed old and tired into bed with my new and shiny copy.  at 1:35 am rick rolled over and asked what in the world i was doing. 
still reading.  i can't put it down. sorry.
 you can't put it down?
 no.  i can't put it down. 
he rolled back over in his blanket of disbelief.  he knew from experience not to question me any further. he needs to be sharper for this kind of conversation...much sharper than is humanly possible at 1:35 am.
 there is something about this book which compels me.  as i read it, it makes me want to meet her for coffee.  i am pretty sure this farmer's wife, mother of six and inhabitant of ontario canada will not be scheduling coffee with me anytime soon.  but i can't help but wish it.  she gets me.  i get her.  is that weird? perhaps.
so what is the 1000 gifts thing?  what is this?  another list?   it is indeed!  and i get this.  i connect with ann on this exercise of list making.  she explains it as "coaxing the ink out of the pen."  those of you who know me well,  know i am a list maker extraordinaire.   i adore lists - practical and impractical - it matters little. i very much just like the process of lists. the comfort of them.  it is as close to an art form as my mommy-self can get these days.  i take pleasure in carrying around these remnant scratchings.  though i don't pretend to consult them all that often, i find myself completely dependent on their physical presence. their nearness.  maybe it is just the reassurance of having a list in the deep recesses of my pocketbook or tucked in the scribbled pages of my journal or on my blue high-piled desk. sometimes they are desperate acts...urgent dispatches to my muddled mind -  DON'T FORGET to sign this paper, pick up this child, make this appointment, check this rash, deposit this check, cook this meat.   regardless, these lists help me  feel better about things.
but, back to ann.  so she was challenged to write a list of 1000 things for which she was thankful.  a friend made it a dare:  can you?  can you write a list compiling ideas and thoughts and words and images and pictures of things which make you truly grateful?  this is her book.  she is a story teller.  she is a list maker. she is a dream weaver.  she is a poet.  the words tumble out across the page and the reader can't drink them up quickly enough.  at least this reader cannot.  i read them over and over.  i underline them again and again.  i am startled by her phrasing and refreshed by her images.  i am captivated by her keen understanding and i am completely taken with the beauty.  i read with arched eyebrows,  wearing the expression of sheer astonishment.  it is almost unsettling.  but i have to tell you, friend, sometimes we need to be unsettled.  we need a bit of astonishment.  sometimes we need to be swept off our feet by something new and passionate and life-provoking. 
ann's entire premise rests on the theory that we are a joyless people because we are not a truly thankful people.  i couldn't agree more.  i mean we all sit around and offer a general sense of thanksgiving. most of us at some point in our day, in our year, in our life give God or some higher power some mindless and unenergetic thanks.  that sort of just happens.  it was required by our parents and our sunday school teachers. we were taught Give Thanks.  it was expected.   but do we really rejoice?  do we really praise Him for the minute and specific.  do we see His Glory in the common and His Majesty in the everyday?  we thank Him for the morning, but do we thank Him for the morning mist settling across dark pine?  do we thank Him for the morning light streaming through the fingerprinted panes of our dirty child-laden homes?  do we thank Him for the cold morning's hot coffee in our pottery-fired blue mug?  i do not.  i have not.  because of my frazzled and frenzied pace, i, often, cannot.  i want to change that. 
ann mentions in the book we must Learn.  we must Learn a new habit.  the encouraging fact:  we can Learn.  we can Learn to pause and  ponder and appreciate.   we must be intentional and intent and intense in our quest for finding Beauty and Truth and Grace.  it will lead us to JOY.  we are joyless, because we are thankless.  true joy must be preceeded by a truly thankful heart.  oh, sister...friend...stranger...don't you know it?  don't you feel how steeped into this racing, raging, wild rushing world we are?  i do.  i feel it every day.  i have found myself near tears in the past few years longing to sit in the sunshine of my yard but knowing a meeting or an appointment or a thing was waiting expectantly for me.  i get this at a level i cannot express in one mere blog post.  i get it and my guess is that many of you get it too.
some days we will only have a passing minute to notice.  that is life.  ann is the mother of six...i am the mother of five...i can assure you both our lives are busy enough to spin heads.  but, notice We Must.  We Must stop and Take Note.   i was quite young when i heard the phrase "stop and smell the roses" ...i think my wise and gentle grandfather might have first shared those words with  me.  it seemed silly then.  i had balls to chase and boys to chase and dreams to chase.  i am not quite done with my chasing (well, maybe chasing of the boys)...but i am more aware of my need for pausing. 
so, i don't do this justice.   when you read her first few chapters you'll know i barely have scratched the muddy surface of this book.  you'll read the first page and you'll know.  i am okay with that.  i am writing this post to encourage you...even one of you...to read.   i believe i may have actually scared a few of the girls in my study this morning.  at one point, i jumped up out of my seat to read ann's section on photographing shredded cheese.  i couldn't help myself.  my girlfriends are generous.   at the dinner table tonight i shared the book and the list idea with my family.  oh, i wish you could have been a fly on the wall.  arched eyebrows...sideways glances...furrowed brows and squinty eyes all around the table.  after some hmms and some huhs....my husband, The Executive, chimed in, "well...now, kids, this sounds like a good plan.  i am fully in support of mom and her uumm ...idea."   a chain reaction of whiplash occured as the children fixed eyes on their dad.  who was this father of betrayal? exactly what was taking place?  they expected this occasionally from mom...but dad was another story.  i had to laugh.    

tomorrow i will leave them journals - list making journals - i will leave them at their dinner places. and they will glance at their dad.  eyes watching. wondering what next.  i can hardly wait. 

a moon like this

don't speak to me of sink dishes and punctutation marks
with a moon like this.
hanging high.  held heavenly.

don't tell me about spaghetti stains or broken door hinges
with a moon like this.
white-washed and wooing.

don't say there is a kitchen spill or a faucet leak
with a moon like this.
silent and silver.  a saturated solace.

don't bring me a sock to darn or a nail to trim or a phone to answer
with a moon like this.
bright and beckoning.  beacon.

don't talk of the teeth to brush or the dog to feed
with a moon like this.
ephemeral. ethereal.  effervescent.

don't hint at the apple to core or the crumbs to sweep
with a moon like this.
inspiring and illicit.  indeed.

don't suggest there are clothes to fold or children to hush
with a moon like this.
diaphonous.  delicate.  delirious.

but sing to me of this hand i hold and this cheek to kiss
with a moon like this.
sing to me of this hair of silk and this eye to close
with a moon like this.
oh sing with me of the dreams to dream and the love to love
with a moon like this.
a moon like this.