Powells

There is not a bookstore anywhere like it.  It covers the whole city block-- five stories high--and carries new and used books.  I like the used ones because they're cheaper.  Then I found out I could have them shipped from Portland to PA for a small flat fee. 
I spent 3 hours in the theology section before heading over to poetry.  I found a couple gems--a compilation of Jim Elliot's Journals, a few books by Ryken and Boyd.  I loved the thought of buying books written by two theologians who might not want to have lunch together.  I think I'll put them next to each other on my shelf, maybe they can sort out their differences, or at least learn something from each other. 
I prayed for a book--just one--that I would know I was to read.  A gift.  Something that would be exactly what I needed.  In that three hour period, there was only one moment I had a sense--though I wasn't sure I trusted it--that the shelf that I was looking through held the book.  I said it out loud, "I think my book is going to be on this shelf." 
Less than a minute later I pulled it out, looked at the title and knew when I held it in my hands that it was the one,  that it was time for this lesson, for this chapter in my life. 
The charge from years back whispered to life in my ear.
"Run with the horses."

Here's a excerpt from Chapter 1:
Something very different takes place in the life of faith: each person discovers all the elements of a unique and original adventure. We are prevented from following in another person's footsteps and are called to an incomparable association with Christ. The Bible makes it clear that every time there is a story of faith, it is completely original.  God's creative genius is endless...Each life is a fresh canvas on which he uses lines and colors, shades and lights, textures and proportions that he has never used before...And we see how it is possible: by plunging into a life of faith, participating in what God initiates in each life, exploring what God is doing in each event.  The persons we meet on the pages of Scripture are remarkable for the intensity with which they live Godward, the thoroughness in which all the details of their lives are included in God's word to them, in God's action in them.  It is these persons who are conscious of participating in what God is saying and doing that are most human, most alive.

"So Jeremiah, if you're worn out in this footrace with men, what makes you think you can race against horses?  And if you can't keep your wits during times of calm, what's going to happen when troubles break loose like the Jordan in flood?" (Jeremiah 12:5)

The response when it came was not verbal, but biographical.  His life became his answer, "I'll run with the horses."  Eugene H. Peterson

I hope my life is my answer too.

Say what you need to say...

So many things I could say about today. About this year.  About life. 
But at the bottom of it all is just this...
I am blessed.
I am full.
I am happy.
I love my life.
And I don't know.  I just don't know.

Back

I am not leaving my house for three months.  I've just decided.  Except to go to Giant.  And to Annapolis.  And to the Hershey Hotel Spa for my Birthday.  And to take Grace to dance.  And  Sarah to school.  And church...(maybe).  No--I'm not going Christmas shopping.  I'm doing it all on-line.  I mean it.  I'm not going anywhere.  Oh, and Matt's Christmas Party at some fancy shindig hotel in Lancaster.  That's it.  Except for Grace's performance at F&M. But other than that...Oh...bother.

When grace comes...

I wish I could explain the feeling.  There really is nothing like it.  I remember first hearing about it years ago from a girl who was battling cancer.  As the beams of light streamed through the window behind her, she seemed to glisten, and she said ever so tenderly, "Sometimes all you can do is wait, and then there are times when you must pray for grace to wait." 
I had never thought of praying for grace.  I didn't even know what that meant. Now I understand.  It is when you are past all your capacity to live in love and at rest.  Or to do what you need to in a given situation.  You have reached the end of yourself and really don't have any strength left in you to give or maybe even to move.  You pray and ask for help.  Then you wait.  Sometimes a minute, sometimes days.   Then, out of nowhere, it might seem, grace comes.  You know it is not coming from you--you have no power to contrive such a thing.  It is a power unlike any earthly thing, and you can feel it.  Soon it washes through you and you have what it is that you need in that moment--compassion, patience, strength, mercy, insight...God gifts are always fitting. 
It is always enough for what is at hand.

What is real...

"He never loved me.  I've known that."
She spoke quietly with a gentleness that seemed like it should be out of place and yet somehow, it wasn't. 
"He loved my love for him."
Slowly her head moved from left to right and back again and her eyes closed against the words,
"It is not the same."
"Love, real love, withstands the demands of sacrifice.  We don't all forge that kind of love, we're not all tested the same.  But real love, when given the choice, always determines to bleed. 
Real love embraces the darkness in another.  It does not excuse or explain away or keep it's eyes half-closed against corruption.  It opens it's eyes wide and takes the whole landscape into view, then leans the force of it's wholeness into brokenness, chasing away the darkness with the light of it's goodness.  It doesn't expect that which it is unwilling to give."
"Who wouldn't want to be loved like that?" My voice cracked as the beauty of her explanation caught in my throat.
She looked at me then, and saw my sorry eyes.
She smiled an old smile.
"Don't be sad for me my dear," she spoke intensely, "Don't you dare think I've lost."
"What is better?  To be the object of whimsy and poetry and vapor?
Or to know you carry in your being the capacity to love beyond yourself, beyond your own blood and your very own breath?"
She quieted then and I saw her chin rise just an inch in defiance.
"I will choose to love every time.  It is how I become like the one who loves me most," she whispered carefully and clearly, though it didn't seem like she was speaking to me.
I pulled the blanket up over her frail shoulders, tucking them under her chin.  I leaned my forehead lightly onto the side of her head and spoke quietly into her ear, "I love you Grandma Grace."  I hesitated, "At least, I hope I would, if I had the chance to." 
Her chest rose and fell and her breathing deepened.  I would have liked to hear more, but she was already resting...deeply resting.

Chess

He sat there then, in the way that he does, with his eyes half closed, shaking or nodding his head now and then so you know he's listening.  We sat far enough away from the fireplace that I warmed my hands on a half-full mug of coffee.  I spoke quietly and confidently, not so full of trepidation when sharing my journey as I used to be. 
"I don't know when it happened.  I can't put my finger on a particular incident or time.  One day I just realized that I believed.  Didn't really have anymore understanding or clarity.  Just faith. In that place that courses through the very depths of you, that holds more weight than your mind or your feelings about everything that surrounds you, I had been persuaded. I didn't know why or how, and it didn't matter.  My soul rested in the belief of God.  I stopped wondering, vacillating, needing evidence, needing to prove myself.  I gave up needing to be believed.  I even gave up needing the promises to come true.  They were God's.  He could do with them as He saw fit.  I trusted Him."
"And you don't understand how huge that was for me," I continued, "For so long I felt like I was a pawn in some divine chess game."
He looked at me then, in the way that he does, his eyes piercing out over his glasses and beneath his graying brows. 
"I don't think you were a pawn," he said definitively.  "You were a bishop."
I looked at him fondly, like I sometimes do, and quietly and gratefully took in the honor of what he had said.
Somehow then, I didn't mind the game so much.

This House

There's a lot of things I like about this house.  Window lights in the high and lofty ceilings.  Massive marble encased fireplace.  Long patio off the back that looks out onto a quiet reserve.  White everywhere.  Hard floors and soft rugs.  Piano and paintings and warm maple shelves. But all that is just the stage.
The great big buck lowering the weight of his rack to the ground and pushing it up to the sky as he scattered when Ted shooed him out of the yard waving and yelling in a most undignified manner. Chester pouncing and sprawling and batting at imaginary enemies and curling up with me in the deep leather chair.  Nancy giggling at Matt's dry humor while cooking up meals that rival Ina's entertaining.  Ted's deep voice thundering out a great laugh at some assertion I've made just to press his buttons.
Those are the sights and sounds of life here; the things about this house I'm gonna miss.   

Sleepless

"Remind me again, why didn't we move here?"
My deep, slow sigh echoed his question.

Here, where the trees wear sequins and
all the stairs lead down to the sea.
The market bursts with the fragrance of flowers, pepper bouquets, and
the shine of coffee bean constellations.
Art bleeds out of every ware and shouts from high risen edifices
Defying the grey, graceful clouds.
People know who they are, or at least who they're pretending to be.
When light pushes through and the skies break into clear blue,
You see the swarms of hopeful souls
Under all their costumes.
Creation hovers and swims;
Seeps out her pores
Creeps in through her doors.
God watches--waiting, whispering.
Seattle, I love you.

G.N.O.

They carry their stress in their shoulders, I carry mine in my face, but there was no sign of it tonight.  What elusive formula is gathered up in our dispositions, intellects, characters, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, experiences, difficulties and dreams that makes for such a camaraderie?  Such trust and acceptance exists there is nothing we couldn't share, and yet no pressure to tell anything at all.  No landmines to tread lightly around or closet doors that can't be opened.  Every time we come together, we anticipate the strength of our bond and enjoyment of each other and the comfort and sympathy of close community with a good dose of humor.    To know and be known and to love and be loved.  We're fascinated by each other's little cares and widely contemplate the greater ones.  Does anyone laugh more in deeper waters?  We could have talked all night but for the responsibilities that awaited us elsewhere.
There will be more nights full of niceties and naughties, secrets and shoes, loyalty and love.
Annapolis here we come...

Work

Maybe it's like the artist who hasn't picked up a brush for too long,
Who is surprised his first mix of paint matches the color in his mind's eye.
Or like picking cherries for the first time since last summer,
Popping one in your mouth and being surprised again at how the juice hits you sweet and tart in the same burst.
Somehow it's like the ocean in June, wonderfully uncomfortable, uncontrollable, and irresistable.
You tingle all over stepping back onto shore.
"This is who I am and what I was made for and how I'm supposed to live," I think.
But it's not really true.
It's a work, a taste, a dip of the toe into the ocean of what is to come.
I really, really like it.