Home, Sweet and Sour

There is never any pleasure in the realigning.

Whenever I go to Anissa, the chiropractor of every bone in my family's collective body, I fear the alignment. The whole process begins with a problem - an unsettled joint, a strained muscle, an ache, a pain, a problem. After greeting the receptionist you sit down in the chair with the funny back rest and realize just how terrible your posture has been as of late; sadly, you realize that your back pain is at least partially your own fault. Keep those shoulders back, and you might be in this office less.

The next part is wonderful: Anissa (or Meegan, sometimes) ushers you into the first room and ask how things have been going in life. While you give updates on siblings and school or work (or neither), she lays you down and puts weighted heating pads all down your spine and tells you to relax and have a little nap. Then she leaves, to align another client or get a glass of water. I never actually know what happens at this point, as I tend to actually fall asleep.

Inevitably your ten minutes of warm and peace conclude with a buzzing, bleeping timer and your chiropractor returns. She removes your heat, makes you stand, waits patiently as you steady yourself and escorts you to the next room. In contrast, this room is always colder (or feels it, as you've just been in the dozy, dopey sleep-heat a moment before), and the light is more diffused. During my last visit, Anissa spent a fair amount of time letting me cry and explain why I was feeling so heartbroken and miserable... a double fix. The psychologist bit doesn't last forever though, and eventually I find myself face down again (this time on chilled leather/vinyl) with Anissa's hands preparing to crack my back. "Deep breath, and, out..." she says.

It is incredibly difficult to relax your muscles at this point. Anyone who has gone through this before knows exactly what it takes to realign: your breath is pressed right out of you, a sharp pain jolts through your body, and you can hear it. The problem, what was out of tune and out of place, is set to rights again, movement restored, things are as they should be once more... but the alignment itself is an unpleasant process.

I feel like I'm waiting for God to crack my back.

When I moved to Hamilton this fall, it was an act of hopeful necessity. I had a problem; spiritual heartache and the burden of a perennial depression several years old (which I will argue is just as or more debilitating than back pain). I felt the need to move somewhere that I saw God healing/working/acting in obvious ways - I wanted to get into His "office," and the MoveIn program, and this city, seemed like a good waiting room. The first few months here were spent primarily in observation - looking on in envy laced with hope at the people around me who seemed to have such straight backs and pain-free promenades. I sat in the proverbial funny chair and realized more acutely that I wasn't okay - and that I was, in deed, part of the problem. I needed to change something.

Then I went home for Christmas and out West for the last two weeks. It was definitely my heating-pad experience, preparing my heart for the real work to be done. I truly rested while I was out there... but the point of the heat isn't to rock you to sleep - it is to prepare your body for the adjustment. Yesterday was the walking to the second room, and tonight I am fighting the impulse to flee.

When the buzzer goes, I often joke with Anissa that, should she want to leave me be for another ten, twenty, thirty minutes I'd be more than happy to stay put. She laughs good-naturedly but moves me right along all the same. The reality is, of course, the heat soothes but does not solve. Only the adjustment can put right what has gone wrong.

So tonight, alone in this place and feeling rather uncomfortable, I am trying to remind myself that the best way to brace for an adjustment is to relax... I have done my part in coming, and now I must wait for the touch of the Master's healing hands. He's the only one who knows what's out of whack, and He's the one who will have to set it right again. I can't do it on my own - that's why I came in the first place.

Adjust me, O God. Then let's work on my posture together.

Prayers of Psalm 51

Why am I resisting you? Now, of all moments when I should be clinging desperately, I am running like Jonah from the hands that will save and guide me, into the middle of the one thing you have told me to flee - the one thing that will lead my mind to destruction and my heart to misery. Why am I giving in to these temptations as the seize me? Why do I turn from what I know is truth and peace and light only to intentionally grapple along in the dark places that my flesh is so actively seducing me to? Why have I lost my hope? To what place has my joy vanished? How have I walked so far away from you, Lord?

Hear my tears and see my guilt. Come after me like you promised to. Look for your lost sheep. Break me, if I need to be broken. Hold me, Father, for I know that I need your care and your love. I am lost. I have wandered. Pull me back to you and your flock, Jesus. I am yours. Call me yours.

Heal the pains I have but can not name. Temper my trembling spirit and the shaking of my shamed heart. Restore me like David. Forgive the sins I so frequently and carelessly commit. Clean my heart, cleanse my eyes, renew my memory and wash it to new.

God, I am sad. The cause of this burdening has been buried away from me, but you know even the secrets that we keep from ourselves. Heal my unknown pains. Strengthen my weakness, calm my fears, settle my body. Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me, Father.

Wrap me in your arms.

The Umbrella

It was raining again. It had been raining for weeks on end, drowning her world and her basement in inches of water. She had bail buckets scattered and often floating around her feet as she stooped to scoop her floor dry – an impossible task between the attack of the rain and the thaw. If her street flooded it would be the end of her foundation altogether and she might as well install a diving board. How had it come to this?

Upstairs things were not much better. Her boyfriend was sitting by an open window, watching the water pour in over the sill like the Niagara. “Look sweetie,” he said with a dopey smile on his face, “I put a bucket under the flow, so it wouldn’t ruin the floors!” She gave him a sharp look of “Actually, right now? Are you an idiot?” and pointed to the window. “Why didn’t you just close the window?” she asked aloud. “Why didn’t you?” he countered. It was a fair point. She had been living in her house with the windows open for so long that she hadn’t even thought to close them when the rain started to come. She had been distracted with the basement immediately and had only thought about the windows being open when she started to see water damage not only from the walls but also from the ceiling of the basement. Jack could have been a little more help, though. He was sitting right there, after all. But she said nothing in correction and rarely gave suggestions; instead she spent her time criticizing his choices and mocking him in her mind. It was a kind of release for her, in a way, albeit a selfish one.

She went into the kitchen and opened a drawer, rummaging through the mess of disorganized odds and ends. Rubber bands, scissors, a flashlight, Kleenexes, a ruler, three dried up markers and a few candle stubs, but no matches with which to light them. “Jaaaaaack,” she called back into the living room with an exasperated tone. “Do you know where I put the matches from the campfire last weekend?” There was no response. She walked back into the other room, each step squishing audibly as her socked feet took on all qualities of a sponge. Jack was lying on the couch, half-asleep with the bucket balanced on his chest as though he had attempted but not quite made it to the sink. The still-open window was drenching the rug. She thought about tipping the pail into his face but opted for her jacket instead. She needed space. She needed time away from this place and this life. She let the front door slam behind her.

The world outside had turned into a puddle. It was as though they were living in the first few days of Noah’s deluge and now the precipitation pace seemed to be picking up. Her jacket was thin and she felt every gust as though she were in nothing more than a tissue-paper robe. The night was overcast and chill, and the store was a fifteen minute walk away. She began to wish for her winter coat, or the umbrella still hanging on the kitchen hook – something, anything, to protect her.

Lightning illuminated the sky as the storm flexed its power over the small town. In that moment the whole street lit up and she saw, or perhaps she only thought she saw, a man standing at the corner. The otherwise deserted street was plunged back into the darkness that she had known only seconds before, but in that one moment with hardly enough time to breathe she knew that the man was waiting for her. Her body tried to turn and run, but her eyes had met his in the flash and her curiosity could not resist... she needed to talk to him. Deep thunder shook the earth, as though to agree.

With resolve she continued down the street. The lightening split the sky again and she looked intently at where the man stood. He was tall, with dark skin and a kind face, dressed in a tan coloured trench coat, collar up. He was holding a large, white umbrella and he had begun to walk toward her. They met part way to the corner a moment later.

“Where are you headed? It’s cold and you look like you could use a little shelter. I’m happy to walk you there, if you don’t mind the company.”

She smiled in appreciation and although she would normally turn down a stranger’s help, especially that of a man, she decided against pattern and thanked him. “No,” he said. “Thank you. The truth is I was hoping for a purpose in this walk. Now I have one.” They paced in silence for a minute, synchronizing their gate and then he picked up the conversation again. “My name is Ben. What’s yours?” He looked at her with a sure, encouraging kind of confidence. “River,” she answered. She looked at him expectantly; her name always caught strangers off guard and even now some of her closer friends were just getting used to it, but Ben was un-phased. “Glad to meet you, River. And happy to hold this umbrella as well, but something tells me I could do even more for you tonight. You look like you could use a listening ear. I love stories of all kinds and I’ve been told I give pretty sound advice. We’ve got a few blocks, if you feel like talking.” He smiled as he spoke. It was the kind of smile that you usually find on the face of a grandfatherly caregiver, a smile that calms and invites and promises the helping words that come with personal history and yet this face was also young and full of colour and life. Without permission her eyes filled with tears.

“It’s raining,” she laughed as the tears fell. “It’s raining and there is nothing I can do about it! It’s been raining for days and weeks without relief. My house is flooding, the water damage is irreversible and even my socks are wet! Everything is wet in my life. Nothing is dry or clean or simple or right anymore....”

Her voice broke into sobs and she stopped walking. Ben faced her and put his hand on her shoulder saying nothing for a few moments. “River, child.” He spoke softly with an accent reminiscent of African roots. “It sounds like more than your basement has been feeling the rain tonight. It sounds to me like maybe you’ve been battling a flood in your heart too. Am I right?” She nodded slowly. Ben took a step and they continued on their journey. “Let me tell you two familiar stories, River. The first is about two carpenters, both in the business of building great, large homes. The two men chose very different locations for their homes, one on the lakefront, right in the sand and one further up, on the bedrock of the mountain’s base. The man with the waterfront property, knowing about tides, built the house up high on stilts that were buried deep into the beach. The house was beautiful and its construction was good, but it had no support in its foundation. Now, the other man who was drilling and blasting and securing his house to the land took a long time laying out his plans. When he finally set his foundations they were strong and sealed and sure. Then the storm came, a storm much like this one, and it did it’s best to shred the houses. It beat against the glass and the ground. The rock was tough and held its house secure, but the sand gave way to the fury of wind and tide, and the supporting pillars collapsed. The house was completely destroyed.”

“I’ve heard this story before,” said River with a hopeless look and a heavy sigh. “I built on the Rock.” Ben smiled. “I know.”

They paused at a stoplight, waiting while for the walking man to signal a safe crossing. A few cars dove by, one splashing water up at them from the street in a wave - but the wave did not hit them. It was almost as though the water itself had second thoughts and made a decision against soaking the pair. River did not pay the moment or the direction much mind. She was waiting for the second story.

"Consider that the houses were not uninhabited... within the walls dwelt the architects themselves. With the beach house, the creator of it was destroyed, while the other survived with conviction, for a time. You see, even if the foundation is strong, it does not necessary secure the strength of the rest of the building, and it is the roof and the walls, not the foundation, that take the beatings of a storm." As they turned another left she found herself back on her own road, only a few doors from her own home. Ben stopped walking and faced her, his back to her house with windows lit and windows open.

"The owner of the house has a decision to make. With neglect the house will be destroyed by the wind. Only the foundation, deep and strong will outlast the weathering of a storm if all defences have been abandoned. If she does this, she will have to start from nothing - Jesus and nothing. It is not impossible, but it will be very hard, and she will have to work through great disappointment and bitterness. If, however, she recognizes the dangers that her house, her life and her mind are so aggressively faced with and she blocks them out, shuts the door to them and seals her windows, her home will prevail even in the fiercest of trials."

River looked over his shoulder at her house. Could it be salvaged? Could it be renewed? Was this an offer for her heart as well as her home?

Ben didn't answer her questions, not even with his eyes. He smiled, handed her the umbrella and turned away. She called a "Thank you" after him, but he did not reply with a standard. "Don't thank me," he said in a whisper that she was surprised to be able to hear, "I am only a messenger." And he was gone.

River shook the umbrella dry as she opened her front door again. Nothing accomplished, but much learned. She walked into the living room and closed the window. "There is hope," she said to her reflection in the rain-braten glass keeping the water away.

"There is still hope."

The Healing Touch

Jesus is a very affectionate person. He understands the healing power of a simple, caring touch, and he used it often throughout his ministry. Did He heal physical disease, deformation and disability? Yes. But I think He did much more than that when He made intentional, non-intrusive, personally loving contact with the people he met. Allow me to call upon one such example.

"As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them" (Mark 1:29-31).

This simple interaction between God in the flesh and the flesh of humanity has spoken volumes into my heart today. At face value this story is incredibly short and finite: after church Jesus and His core disciples are walking home, they meet up with Simon/Peter's sick mom-in-law, Jesus heals her and she serves them. But what the account says and what it is saying are two different things entirely. This is an amazing God moment. It is a snapshot of the entire gospel. Did you miss it?

In verses 21-28 of this same chapter we learn that Jesus had just spent the Sabbath morning declaring the Truth from God's word and being revealed as the Messiah/Christ by an evil demon that obediently shut up and left, an encounter which naturally caused a bit of gossip. Immediately after this story Jesus hits the road with his young gang of rabble-rousing disciples and they head over to Simon/Peter's house, for brunch, perhaps. When they arrive, however, they are not met with the customary, expected greeting from a traditionally hospitable Jewish woman. Instead of Simon/Peter's mom-in-law welcoming them into the home with food prepared and places set she is in bed, weakened, sick and rendered effectively helpless by a fever. Catch what happens next; the disciples explain her ailment to Jesus. Whether they were providing a reason to excuse her social offense or whether they were simply alerting Jesus to her situation, his attention is immediately focused on the woman in question. In response to her need, Jesus goes to her. He comes up beside her and takes her hand – unsolicited aide, but the crossed boundary is quickly appreciated. He helps her. Hand in hand Jesus takes this woman’s weight on himself and helps her to her feet. He takes the fever and gives her the support of his arm. He takes her pain and sickness and restores her body to health, simultaneously restoring her heart to a place of natural servitude – the willing sacrifice of a grateful heart.

Jesus pursues a person in need, makes the move to humbly help, offers his strength, takes her frailty and heals her, body and soul, freeing her to serve him back with natural and instinctive love. This is the man I love; this is the God I serve; this is the example I choose to follow.

A hundred times throughout my day I pass people who are living with physical, spiritual and emotional needs. Nearly every time I see one of those people I pass by with little more than a thought in their direction, whether I consider them a stranger or a friend. But what if? What if I choose to stop in the hall and pull them aside? What if I put my life on pause long enough to address the heart issues of others with prayer? What if I took a moment to share the burdening pain and grief that weighs and weakens both mind and body? What if I responded to need with action, even if the only healing I can offer is the simplicity of company and a caring touch, or a hug?

What if we all did?

I’m not necessarily suggesting that you organize a Free Hug campaign. I’m not necessarily promoting public displays of godly affection in every possible circumstance. I’m not necessarily forwarding the idea of a designated room where lovers of God would welcome anyone in want or need of prayerful intersession or encouragement or comforting. But I might be. I’m certainly putting myself to the challenge of Love. I’m certainly advocating that Christians allow Jesus way more room to work miracles through their lives. I’m certainly saying that this world needs a whole lot more of what we can offer.

Take a lesson from Jesus: you don’t have to go very far or do very much to change somebody’s life. Just respond to the need, and Love.

Growing Up

His shoelace was dragging on the ground behind him as he trudged up the stairs on his way home from school. "Hey, little man! What did you learn today?"

His Mum smiled down with her warm, steady smile and held her arms open to the little boy in front of her. His mouth was turned down and his eyes were diverted and sad. "Honey, what's wrong?"

"Franklin died today. At recess."

His mother let all of the air out of her body with a long, reflective sigh. She closed her eyes and breathed a silent prayer for her son's little heart. Franklin was a chickadee that the kindergarten class had adopted after an intermediate student found it with a wounded leg, back in the spring. This was the first time that her boy had to face the loss of a life. Slowly she knelt down in front of her son, until they were eye-to-eye. She took the book-bag from his back and set it aside. "How do you feel?"

The little boy dropped his gaze as his lips began to quiver. "Oh, baby. My little man. Come here." She pulled him into a hug, wrapping her love around his five-year-old frame. He accepted and returned the embrace but he did not cry. He was already learning to balance compassion with bravery. Every day she was blown away and humbled by her beautiful man-child.

She leaned back and put a hand on his shoulder. "Mum," he said after drawing in a shaky breath, "do you think Franklin is in heaven?"

Oh the thoughts he could think. She smiled. "Let's find out what Jesus says."

She stood up and walked into the living room, reaching for her big leather Bible and his red-bound children's version and they sat together on the floor in the middle of their thick braided rug - as they always did with questions.

"Let's start at the beginning." Together they flipped to Genesis 1:1, as they so often began their family Bible studies. She read aloud from the first verse until she came to the fifth day, where she paused and pointed to his Bible, lying open on the floor. "Day five. Ready for this?" She read from hers first and then moved to his version, reading slowly and pointing to each word as she went. "'On the fifth day God made creatures to fill up the new oceans and the new skies. He invented all kinds of fish, great big ones and littler ones, and he designed every kind of bird. Then He told them to fill up the world with more swimming and flying animals like them. God blessed his creations and saw that they were good.'" Her son looked up expectantly. "Well," she said, "What do we know about birds from these verses?" She could see the wheels turning in this mind as he thought over the question. "God made birds..." he started, "so... God made Franklin?" She smiled. "He sure did, baby. Let's read another part."

The next passage was already in her mind and although she knew how to find it, she flipped to the back of her Bible and scrolled through the simple concordance under the word bird, teaching with every moment she had. "Ah ha," she said. "Matthew, chapter six. I thought so, but I wanted to double check." She gave him a wink and he blinked back. Again she read the passage from her Bible and then switched to his. "'Take a look at the birds - they do not work hard to plant or harvest from the earth, but your Heavenly Father feeds them. And you are much more important to God than birds are.' This part of the Bible is talking about people who worry and stress out about parts of their lives that they should just trust to God, but it also tells us about birds." She read the verse again. "Not only did God make the birds, but he also takes care of them and feeds them." Her boy looked hurt. "But Franklin died, Mum." "I know baby. Keep going, we'll find His answer."

This was about more than a dead chickadee. This was about all death - the why, the why now, the what after. She needed to take her time with this and explain it right. And bring it back to Jesus. Bring this back to you, Lord, she prayed, guide me through guiding him through.

They flipped to a few more bird passages, talking about the bird that signalled the end of the flood to Noah, and the ravens that God sent to save the Israelites from starving. They looked into all four gospels and noticed that the Spirit of God came on Jesus like a dove, and they read about how God often asked for birds to be part of the people’s worship services and sacrifices – that He favoured them, even over really big animals, because they were considered pure and innocent. “God definitely likes birds,” his Mum concluded. “He created them and He talks about them a lot! But that doesn’t really answer our question, does it?” The little boy shook his head, but not sadly. He had forgotten most of his sadness with the excitement of learning more and digging in to a challenge, very much a trait of his father, but he was not yet satisfied.

“I have a question for you now,” she smiled, a little wryly. “A bit of a test from Sunday school and from all the other times we have sat down. What does the word sin mean?” The little boy laughed his airy, melodic laugh. “Mum! That’s easy!” It wasn’t easy for everyone to define something like sin, but he had been taught these things from the cradle, so in an almost jesting way he sat up and assumed the position of a teacher with his hands stretched out in front of him to do the actions that went along with the routine explanation. “Sin is anything you say, think or do that breaks God’s laws, and it’s when you don’t do good things that you know you should do.” He was a little smarty-pants, but she loved him for it all the more. “Right on. This one’s tougher: if I wanted to find out about the very first time God told people about the consequences of sin, where would I have to look?” Immediately he flipped back to Genesis chapter two and pointed to the familiar passage. She read from his version.

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden in the land of Eden so that he could work the ground and keep everything healthy and in order. Then God said to the man, ‘You can eat any of this fruit – I give everything in the garden to you except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Do not eat from that tree –if you do, you will die.’ But what did they do?” “They stole and ate the fruit.” “Does it matter who told them to?” “Nope. They did it and that’s what counts.” “So what happened?” “They got kicked out – and God said when Eve had a baby it was going to HURT! AHHH!” He grabbed at his belly and screamed in mock labour, falling over and rolling around on the floor. She had a second of flashback to his birth… it was a pretty accurate representation, all things considered. “How do you know what it’s like to have a baby?” she asked. “Dad told me.” Figures. She smiled and pointed back to the book. “There were more consequences, more after-shocks of their disobedience. What was the one that God said right off the bat?” He took her 'serious' cue and settled back down a bit. “He said they would die.”

His Mum took about three minutes to simply explain why God couldn’t put up with human sin and why death had to be the price for the trespass. She ran through key verses in his Bible, many of them already underlined from previous talks. She flipped to Numbers 15 and paraphrased a large section. “The Israelites had one priest who was allowed to go between God an His people. The priest, called the High Priest, made sacrifices for the people for the sins they committed, whether or not their sin was on purpose. Even if only one person sin by accident the sin still had to be paid for with death. When the price that God set out for disobedience right from the beginning was paid, it is called atonement, like at-one-ment, and the people were put back into a perfect relationship with God, with nothing in the way, no sin between them. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, this was a band-aid fix. It only worked until the next time somebody sinned then they had to do the whole thing all over again.” The boy scrunched up his brow. “That’s a whole lot of band-aids.” “You’re right,” she smiled. “And it wasn’t really working for anybody, and God wasn’t satisfied with it either. So he came up with a solution – a master plan.” She drummed her fingers together sneakily. “Do you know what that plan was?” He nodded that he did, but she was on a roll and the whole thing came out anyway. “Jesus came into time and space and history to become the High Priest and the Sacrifice all at the same time. He had a physical body and physical blood, but he also had an eternal spirit – a lifeblood that didn’t have a beginning and doesn’t have an end. When Jesus died he took on the sins of ALL people forever and because he was an eternal sacrifice, and his lifeblood became a replacement for our lifeblood that never had to be renewed. He became a substitute sin offering for the past and the present and our present and the future. No matter when we live in history, all we have to do is claim his blood as our blood – his sacrifice as our atonement (or at-one-ment) sacrifice, and God accepts us as perfect and clean again – at one with His perfect Love, with nothing in between us – with no sin.”

She took a minute to breathe and let what she had just said sink into the air and into both of their hearts. She was always surprised at how much God could teach her through His Word, even in moments of her own explanation. “So, Jesus became our sacrifice, paid for our sins and came between God and His people once and for all. But unlike the animals of the Old Testament, Jesus did not stay dead – not even physically.” She flipped to Hebrews chapter 10 and he followed. She paraphrased: “The laws from the Old Testament told the people to sacrifice animals to atone their sin – but this wasn’t God’s ideal plan – it wasn’t what He really wanted. This passage explains that those sacrifices were only temporary and that Jesus alone was the ultimate, lasting solution – but then it says this part…” She pointed to the eleventh verse in his Bible and read the next three aloud. “The priests in the temple over sacrifices over and over again every day – but they do not remove the sins, and they have become only habits and duties. But this priest (Jesus) offered one sin sacrifice for all time, and then he sat down right beside God, at his right hand. Since that time he waits – he is waiting for his enemies to become his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made the people who are being made holy perfect forever.”

The conversation had already been a long one at almost 20 minutes and her son was doing very well with only mild fidgeting and wandering gazes but she knew she didn’t have long to keep his attention. Time to get back on track with his agenda.

She flipped to Isaiah 44. “This is a prophesy,” she said, “which means it’s a part of the Bible that was written about something that was going to happen in the future, something revealed by God. This book was written about 700 years before Jesus lived as a man on earth but even though it is so much earlier, it still talks about him and about his work. Listen to verse 22 and 23: ‘I have swept away your crimes like a cloud and your sins like a morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing for joy oh heavens, for the Lord has done this; shout aloud, O earth beneath! Burst into song, you mountains, you forests and all you trees, for the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and he displays his glory in Israel.’ Did you catch that? Not just people were getting fired up because there was freedom for God’s people… all of creation was getting involved! Even the trees and the forests and the mountains! Guess why?” She started moving fast, flipping pages like crazy, praying wild, silent little prayers all the time. God, I don’t even know how I know this stuff - thank you for highlighting my memory! Thank you for teaching me these lessons before now and for making this all so fresh in my mind!

She flipped to Romans 8 and read from his Bible, from the 19th to the 21st verse. “All of creation is waiting for God’s sons to show up! The whole world was brought under the curse when humans sinned – not by its own choice – but it was cursed only for a time, and now creation itself waits to be liberated in the same freedom from death and destruction that has been given to the children of God!” She was beaming and growing a little louder as her lesson began to reach its climax. She flipped once more into Isaiah, chapter 11. “Listen to the description of heaven that is given as prophesy here: ‘The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the colt together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.’”

She could barely contain herself, but she slowed her pace for the sake of her son. Working through something like this makes her heart race and it’s hard to temper that kind of passion. “So here’s what the Bible says. God made all animals, birds included, and he loves them and cares for them. Even though creation apart from people has not sinned against God and broken his rules the whole world, maybe the whole universe, has suffered the consequences of human disobedience. For a long time God allowed people to make a temporary atonement with him by using an animal’s blood to replace their own blood, but Jesus came and sacrificed his eternal lifeblood, offering us permanent at-one-ness with the Father and with himself. By doing this, Jesus brings not just the people who choose to love him back into a right relationship with God, but also all of creation is redeemed or atoned for… the whole world, at the end of time, will be at one with God! And how will we know this? The animals! There will be peace among the wild animals and the barn animals – they won’t be fighting with each other or eating each other. There will be perfect harmony between all animals and between animals and people, even children. A viper is a huge, poisonous snake with long, hollow fangs that could stab right through your arm in a second flat! You sure don’t want to mess with one of those right now, but in heaven, when Jesus comes to finally restore peace to this whole planet and to make everything right in his own way, there will be no need to fear anything – not even a viper.”

The little boy’s eyes had grown larger and larger at her description of the snake and it took a few seconds for him to follow through with the rest of her statement. “But there will be animals in heaven?” It wasn’t really a question, so much as clarification, but it was good to know that he’d been able to keep up with her. “Sure sounds like it to me,” she said, closing her Bible for the first time since they had sat down on the floor together. “The Bible doesn’t tell us directly what happens to animals after they die. Animals are different than people – they don’t have the same kind of mind or heart or soul as we do – they can’t choose whether or not to love God and obey him. People and angels are the only two elements of God’s creation that God gave the choice to say yes or no to His Love. But you know what? God is very just and fair. If he has given all creatures an eternal nature – if they go anywhere after they die – I don’t believe he would send them to hell. God doesn’t give us all of the answers to all of our questions – if he did, we wouldn’t need to trust him with anything, would we? But he does answer all the really, really big questions and for the rest of it, he gives us enough information in the Bible to make a good guess at what he might do. This is one of those cases – we don’t really know, but I think we can guess. The animals in heaven just might be the same ones that have lived on earth already… but to be really, very sure we’ll just have to wait and see.”

The front door swung open with a creak and they both turned to watch Dad walk in carrying something that smelled a whole lot like dinner. In a flash the little boy jumped up and ran over to the man, wrapping his little arms around his legs. “Dad! You’ll never guess what we just learned… vipers have hollow fangs and can snap right through your arm like this!” The boy clamped his hands around his Dad’s arm and pretended to bite down but quit a second later in a fit of giggles.

“What have you been teaching our son?” She smiled, and he gave his wife a welcoming kiss. She laughed, “You should have heard him talking about childbirth a little while ago.”

With the smell of chicken floating in from the kitchen and with tears quite dry and the bird almost forgotten the family of three sat down together and prayed over the meal. “God, thank you for being so real and so good. Thank you for your Word and the lessons that you teach us every single day. Help us to Love you with every part of our minds and our hearts and our actions… and our bellies. We praise you for everything you have made and everything you are. We pray together in the name and authority of your son, Jesus. Amen.”

Ponder, Ponder...

Some lessons are very quickly learned. For example: music is absolutely EVERYWHERE and I think not all secular media is bad.

I'm in a familiar place. I commit to do something and I quickly discover that "maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all." I think we're allowed to have these moments. I think that it's in these times of consideration and reconsideration that we learn a little more about reality. So, now I'm trying to figure out exactly what I really want to accomplish by a "detox." Here is some of what I'm thinking through... and, considering my audience of friends who are close enough to care about all of the random things my artsy fingers can plunk out and family that is obliged to such attention, I'm looking for feedback if you're willing to offer it because I think I'm not really sure what I think.

I want to be like Jesus. And a lot of the Bible is pretty clear cut about how to accomplish such goals: "Whoever says 'I know him' but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked" (1 John 2:4-6). And further along in the same chapter, verses 15-17: "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions — is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."

I'm at a loss, guys. How do I balance this? I need some insights.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've already sought some of this advice. I've been challenged to keep my one-month commitment, if only for the purpose that I have said that I would. It was a decision quickly made, but every commitment deserves completion (and it will re-teach me the lesson to really think through these commitments before I decide to express them). Am I going to stick my fingers in my ears and yell "LALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING" when someone else is playing their music? No. But I'm going to clean out my iPod (...when I find it...) and I'm going to skip out on movie nights for the next few weeks. Excellent timing, what with reading break and home only a few hours away, but I'm going to stick with it.

Do you think I'm wrong? Do you think I'm right?
Either way I welcome advice and commentary.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well I've been challenged yet again, and it's just confirming my conviction. If you use iTunes, look up Pastor Tim Lucas and his series on Porn. Then we can talk about our culture and our minds.

Filter the Incoming

I'm sure you've had one of those moments... the kind when you know you're getting a talking to. Sometimes the person doing the talking doesn't really know that they're speaking such a direct and sharp word into your life, but you know it and once the fact is realized there is no escaping the conviction that grips your heart in the hearing.

On Sunday morning my pastor was preaching at me - right between the eyes. I've had this experience before, especially with pastors, where their message is so applicable that it's not even funny. It's like God sat him down and they went over exactly what I needed to hear and then together they delivered the blow.

Usually my pride takes a hit in such heavenly ambushes. I am a terribly proud woman - of my skills, of my thoughts and sometimes of my actions - and the vast majority of the right-at-me lessons I take in from church follow this simple yet poignant pattern: "Hey girl. You need to step back and remember who you are and who I AM. You are a girl, a small, weak, limited little thing. You are no better than that person or that person. Child, I am God. Now, I love you, but you had better check that attitude of yours mighty quick or there's gonna be trouble." (In my mind, God has the voice and vocabulary of a black man, rumbling and deep, like that of James Earl Jones, right to the point, no side stepping the matter at hand, just laying it all out in the open in a gentle, friendly sort of way.) That's my Father for you - and so I respond, bite my tongue, say I'm sorry and temper my ego. But today's lesson was not about pride. Today was about the filter... or lack there of.

Allow me to briefly summarize and paraphrase part of Pastor Tim's lesson: "Consider airport security. Why do they check you on the way in? You go through metal detectors and x-ray machines, they root through your luggage, they give you "the look" and you run the gauntlet of precautionary measures. If there's a threat, it's met on the way into the plane and immediately eliminated, blocked out, guarded against. But when you get off the plane, you're free to go - you can walk right into a giant crowd of people and disappear without so much as a once-over. There is no check-out checking. Why? Well, the answer is, perhaps, obvious: by the time you're on the plane, it's too late to check for problems and threats. By the time you get off, the damage you could have inflicted to the passengers of the plane would already be done and so there is no need to re-scan and re-secure the exiting passengers. Whatever has gone into the plane has come off again, and as long as the security was tight upon entrance then you don't need to worry about what comes out again - it is clean, bomb-free, secure, good. And it's the same thing with the heart."

So, the old adage of "garbage in, garbage out" proves true even in the practical circumstances of life. Jesus says it this way: "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45). Your heart (mind and emotion) feeds your action. How healthy is your heart?

I thought my heart was healthy, but God has shown me otherwise.

I think I can compare my metaphorical heart to the physical heart of an athlete who trains regularly and eats well and does much to care for himself, but also has a drinking problem. The athlete looks really good until you discover his one weakness and when you get an eye-full of that, you start to realize just how much it affects the rest of his lives. My parallel runner is healthy... except for his booze. I am healthy too... except for my lust: mental, sexual and emotional.

Feel free to take a moment and knock down that pedestal you've put me atop. I am not the spiritually righteous person you have believed me to be. And please don't excuse my behaviour and my failure because I will tell you openly that much of my sin has been absolutely, deliberately defiant. I have seen the escape from temptation that God promised and I have slammed the door in his face so many times. I have given the devil a hold in my life that I very much want to shake him from and part of that process starts with confession... even if it's the awkward blog kind.

Let's jump back to the airport imagery. What I've been doing in my life is scanning the exit. I carefully control every thought that leaves my mind, every action that is performed, every word that escapes my lips and when I find something that I know shouldn't get out I thrown it back onto the plane by the collar... where it does who-knows-what to the other thoughts, potential actions and yet unspoken words that are waiting to get out and do some good. On the entrance side of things I'm pretty welcoming to all sorts and kinds of input. Without questioning I let in the good stuff - the Bible lessons, the sermons, the love, the friendships, the prayer, the school (sometimes), but with them I'm also saving seats for their opposites: the supersexual music videos, the violent television shows, the angry music, the cursing, the perversion of our culture... all of those things that I hypocritically criticize and then secretly indulge in, the things that are slowly poisoning the clean thoughts and the pure ideas and the godly influences of my life. It seems inescapable and easily justifiable, but is it really? Is sex so unavoidable? Is it truly impossible to block it out?

I don't think so. I think it is going to be stinking hard to fix my filtering system and it might take some very dramatic measures to move my security guards back to the in-cues without letting the filth I've been collecting in my heart and my mind to get off the plane. I have this mental image of my burly body-guards pushing their way between the seats, dragging the crap with them as they go while giving the good thoughts a brush-off and a straighten-up. Then my guards will chuck the slimy, lusty, disgusting and shameful memories out of my heart, over the barricades and back to the cue on the outside of the airport. It doesn't mean they will go away... but it might give me the time I need to get my feet under me again, to re-organize my filtering systems and to mop up the plane, as it were. Unfortunately I do not have microscopic security guards who are going to do this for me... it's just me in my mind and so the plan has to be something I can do on my own.

I am going to fast Secular Media.

I don't know if this is going to work, but I think it's worth a try. With the exception of anything directly assigned for a class, I am locking out all television, all explorations of YouTube and all music that does not honour and glorify Jesus. Sadly, this will include girly, "harmless" pop. More sadly, this includes country.

I don't know how long I need to detox my spirit. I'm going to start with a month and see how I feel and how I think after that. Maybe this needs to be permanent, I don't know, but I do know that I need some pretty dramatic change in my life and this is step one for me.

What is step one for you? What are you letting sit on the plane that should be locked out of the port? You don't have to expose your heart to the world and confess your vice in the open, but open your eyes to your own downfalls. Acknowledge your weaknesses and stop giving in to them. Choose to fight. Choose to guard. Choose to filter the incoming.

Heart in Hand

I scrape out my heart, and cup it in my hands
Please, won’t somebody take it?
I look down at the blood, the emotion, the ache
Won’t somebody take it from me?

It beats so loudly, it longs to be known
Won’t somebody take it from me?
It cannot keep still, yet it withers alone
Please, somebody, take it.

I stand on the street with my beat up old heart
Tattered by years of distress
I hold it out in the light to the men who pass by
But each one refuses my best.

“I know it looks rough.” I choke back the tears.
“But this broken heart can love.”
Yet one after the next, they walk by and scoff.
Please, tell me I am enough.

Each day it grows darker like meat at a market,
Colder and harder inside...
No wonder they pass by and divert their eyes
And no one will take it from me.

I drop to the ground and lean back to a wall.
My heart feels dead in my hands.
As pulseless as stone, as worthless as ice
As shattered and sharp as glass.



“I will take it,” he said. “I want to take it from you.”
I look up with death in my eyes.
A man. He looks down at my shredded, gray heart
And stretches out his hand.

I scramble up to my feet and hold my heart out
“Please!” I beg, “Take it from me!”
“What is the price for this heart?” he asks.
“Nothing, just love, just love...”

His eyes grow heavy in memory of sorrow.
“No, not nothing,” he said.
“But it was paid for by Great, Incredible Love.”
And again reaches out his hand.



There was already blood on his palm.
Each finger stained.
Dark red scars wrapped up the length of his arm.
And his eyes... His eyes...

He cupped his hands over mine and
My heart lept. It was newborn:
No hardness, no bruises, no cuts, no gray.
Reborn, both tender and strong.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;
I will remove your heart of stone
And give you a heart of flesh,” He said slowly.
“And I will put my Spirit in you.”

He did not take my heart – He filled it.
He planted it back in my chest
And sealed it there, with Love I can’t understand
And he held my hands.

“Your heart is exceedingly precious to me.
Do not give it away.
It is filled with My Love, and that you must share,
Openly, every day.

“But your heart as a whole is mine to keep
And mine is shared with you
So do not fear, but rejoice and draw near.
Because you have got work to do.”

And His Spirit remains, holding my heart in hand
And His eyes watch over me.
As I move through my life I will share out His Love
That fills and overflows my soul.

My hands are now empty and lifted to Jesus
The replacer and healer of hearts.
They are Yours as I am Yours, stained with Your Love.
Use me. Fill me. Take me.

A Mary Christmas Eve

I woke up this morning to a comfortable room in a bed piled high with blankets and pillows. My house was still and warm as my family dozed on and off for the next few hours, happy and cozy and safe, all once again under the same roof. I love coming home for Christmas: hugs that somehow turn into headlocks and far more meals than necessary, the pulling out of old instruments and the wrapping of gifts, silly photo shoots and there is bound to be a snowball fight... home, family, love, affection. This is Christmas.

But as I woke up this morning I had another kind of thought that was a little less like mistletoe and chocolate... it was of the first “Merry Christmas Eve.” And tonight I had the pleasure of living something quite akin.

Every Christmas Eve since before I can remember we have been one of two places: in a room packed with cousins at extended family Christmas, or at Church for the candlelight service. Tonight was the latter option and the gymnasium that doubles for our chapel was full of people from the Sunday-morning-and-night regulars to families that rarely see the inside of a church but make exceptions for such special occasions. Kids that I haven’t seen since they were reaching up to grasshopper’s knee are now looking me square in the eye and old friends who have moved on and moved away reunite with wonderful hugs and smiles that pour out love to all generously. The service began late, as it always does, allowing time for the stragglers and those who had a distant parking place to make their way to the seats that have been carefully and apologetically saved for them in the business of settling down. The lights dimmed, the music began and right on cue the babies cried. And cried... and cried.

A few of the little voices behind us were familiar in nature. I looked over my shoulder a few times before passing a note down the row to my Mum: “Should I go and take him out?” She shook her head but a minute later, Care began to move and the two of us slipped out the chapel’s side door, looking to help if we could.

When we got to the Nursery there were already a few sets of parents running around after their kids. They were all dressed up and we could tell that they wanted to be in the service much more than either of us did so we opened an unofficial, impromptu childcare service and the two of us did our best to entertain the seven babies and toddlers who were living on the tipping edge of too-much-sugar and past-your-bedtime. It was exactly the emotional change of pace I needed – a personal connection to that first of Christmastime anniversaries. This, children running and playing and listening to stories and singing and laughing and enjoying the simplicity of company, this is Christmas. This was Mary’s kind. Well, this was Mary’s kind post-labour and after a long nap... maybe it was more like this the year after His birth... haha.

When the service ended we were paid well with many appreciative smiles and “Thank you”s full of blessing. I think the half hour we spent with those kids is likely the most important gift I will give this Christmas, and definitely the one that most harkens back to the Christ child – the gift-wrapped Redeemer, the little swaddled Saviour, who would, in the blink of His mother’s eye, grow up and take on the world.

So, as I head off to a night of home-made tradition and celebration and a day of such activities to follow in haste, I wish you all a very Mary Christmas. May God bless you with hope and love this year and all of those to come.

A Million Directions

I feel like I'm standing inside of a dark sphere. The globe that surrounds me is gray, like lead, like the graphite line of a pencil marked by a sure hand with intentional pressure. The sides of this space feel like carpet and as I lightly pass my hand over the soft, bristly wall it ripples around in every direction. It moves like water and like light. It seems nearly alive, but it is something far more mysterious even than life... it is potential.

This dome, this place, this room... it is the ultimate crossroads. Each speck on the wall, each point of the room is a choice. I am standing in choice. When I leave this place I will follow one of these lines. I will choose one path and I will go to one place. It is here, now, that I am setting my course. It is here and now that I must make my decision.

I single out a single route, separating it from the others and holding it between my fingertips. Each strand no wider than the breadth of a hair, nigh invisible amongst the others and yet as dark and gray and full of promise as the sphere itself. What does this path hold? A life of security and luxury and comfort. I set it back and move a few steps to my left. Again I select one line from the wall of lines and press it between my forefinger and thumb. Where will this road take me? A life of adventure and tragedy. The next, a life of poverty and love. The next of influence, the next of risks and purpose, the next of sun, the next of snow. How do I choose? How do I move from this place?

Hopelessness overwhelms me. I feel as though every direction is out of my reach, that I have no way of knowing the right path and that I am bound to failure. I sit down in the bowl of this room and drop my face into my hands and close my eyes. I feel nothing. I feel numb. Numbness is worse than sadness and hopelessness worse than defeat because they are motiveless and static.

Then somebody gives me a hug. A voice, deep and warm fills my ears and my heart... It wraps around me like the thickest and softest of furs, comforting in a way than nothing else can and filling me with sound so rich and so full that I am completely disarmed and yet held, somehow, in perfect peace and safety.

"Choose with confidence," He says, "and I will be there. Wherever you go I will protect you. Whatever you do I will guide you. I will comfort you in tragedy and humble you in wealth. I will watch over you in danger and equip you in risk. I will provide for you in poverty. I will sing over you when you fear. I will arm you and guard you, I will be with you in sickness and I will fill your heart with hope and with love. I love you. You are my girl. And I will care for you always."

Relief floods my soul. He is at the end of every path. He is there in every step along it. I do not have to fear these choices because whatever I do, if I do it seeking Him and His heart, He will make good of it and He will use me.

I open my eyes to thank Him, the Voice of Truth and Hope and Peace...

And what I see takes my breath away.

A million faces look back at me. Children unknown and unnoticed, teenagers alone and afraid, young men fighting for their country and their hearts, young women struggling with image and expectation, men crying out for leadership, women crying out for justice, every different age and colour and culture, all of them looking at me, looking to me... and then, suddenly something changes. One by one in a ripple that turns into a mighty wave, each face is changed. A smile, a look of hope, an expression of peace and joy. This is the change that God can make. But it doesn't change all at once. It ripples out. It ripples out from one path.

The Voice returns for a moment and echoes His own great Word: "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter — when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings."

I reach out to the place where the ripples began. I will, with trembling hand and willing heart, take that path of change. I don't know what it brings for me. I don't know how long it is or where or how I will live, but I will take it.

Jesus, take it with me. Help me find my way in Your Way and lead me to You in every step. I love you back, and I am ready.

Morning Glories

I woke up with the sun today, just before he crested over the treetops, just was he was completing his morning stretches of purples and pinks and yellows across the clouds. I’m sitting on my bed, still, simply enjoying the moment, staring out my window. The maple outside is silhouetted against the blue rainbow of the sky, the frosted windows and roofs are still covered in white and I know that when the sunshine finally does hit them they’ll sparkle like nothing else and then quietly melt away, for now. This is truly the beginning of a new day.

I did not enjoy yesterday. I did not make the simple pleasure of spending time in this life a priority – I felt overwhelmed by thick clouds of doubt and guilt, mostly associated with my academics. But now, as I stare out of my window at the ever-brightening morning, at the gulls that seem to dance across the mid-air path between the sun and my room, out at the melting, colourful clouds, I am reminded.

God gives each day unique purpose. He makes every day new and every human experience of that day unique from every other. “The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.” (Psalm 50:1) He is in ultimate, powerful control of this universe... and yet is delicately aware of even the smallest of details. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26)

What an amazing God I serve.

And so I will serve Him today, with this day He has given to me, a day He has shaped with intention and careful design for His own pleasure and for our pleasure and benefit and instruction. What will today bring? I think it’s fit to say that “God only knows,” but I will know soon as well and I pray my eyes will be opened to everything it may hold for me.

The sun has hit the frosted housetops... my cue to go.

Keep your eyes and your heart open today. It is full of promise and beautiful potential.

Snowfall in October

There is nothing quite so perfectly charming as a blanket of sparkling, crystal flakes falling on a winter’s evening. When you are snuggled deep in blankets on a comfortable couch near a roaring fire, there is little that can compare with watching the snow fall... but isn’t it interesting that there is absolutely nothing quaint or wonderful about the cold when it comes nipping so aggressively at summer’s heels? The leaves have barely turned and already the winds blow hard and the temperature has dropped so far below normal that I no longer believe a word of the global warming hype. In fact, I wouldn’t mind it if our arctic chill would heat up a little more.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the snow... but it has a time and place (which is, of course, neither here nor now). October should be the time for raking falling maple leaves into piles and taking a flying leap. It should be the time for long walks through the woods admiring the vivid reds and oranges and yellows that trademark our great land. It should be a time for stargazing in a field and taking in the smells and sounds of fall... and instead we are shut up indoors for fear of hypothermia and the flu. Winter, please hold off! Just a few more weeks of jeans and jackets before we have to pull out our mittens and parkas!

Well, I guess there isn’t much that anyone can do about the situation. The weather is as the weather does all by God’s prerogative... but let’s just say that if God doesn’t change His mind about the environmental state in Ontario, I predict a large number of trick-or-treating Eskimos and polar bears this season! Who knows, we might even catch sight of a giant penguin or two.

Stock up your igloos, Canada. It’s going to be a cold one this year!

Time Off

*Insert one large, heavy but freeing sigh here.*

Time off.

It’s a bit of an interesting concept if you take it at face value. We don’t, of course, meddle in the verbal punctuation of such common phrases day to day, but if you think about the idiom “time off” I suppose if can mean a few things. If, by the definition of our culture, “time off” means a time set aside from work to relax or busy one’s self with things completely unrelated to the responsibilities of the workplace, time off is a bit of a rarity for me these days. If, however, we re-tone these two words and throw in a comma, time off becomes something completely different; it’s a state of being, a gap in reality: “time, off.”

Yes, this is the kind of thing I think about.

Here at camp I am convinced that time has, in fact, ceased to exist. I believe that between Sunday morning and Friday night someone flips a building-sized switch that turns time into fluid jelly. It’s really a strange experience, living a life disconnected from the world’s movements and goings on. I feel like I miss out on a hundred birthdays, engagements and get-togethers simply because I step back from facebook for a day or two. I realize that close family and friends who rely on my blog for quasi-regular confirmation that I still have an intellectual pulse are beginning to harbour concerns. I am missing the action... but I am missing in action, as well.

Please be assured: I am fine and well. I am doing far better than surviving this summer – I’m enjoying it. Please do not mistake my disconnectedness as disinterest or take offence in my delayed responses... I’m here and I’m safe, I’m just busy and happy... distracted by the bubble, but loving the diversions from what one might call my “normal life” at school. Camp is my home right now. I feel so welcome here, so spiritually active here, so alive in this place. The friendships I am creating this summer are such a godsend in my life, and I can feel myself growing quickly as a leader and a follower as God shows me more and more ways to serve Him. I am learning to count my blessings and pray through my struggles. I have re-discovered my passion for teaching and for the kids that God has made, as loosely connected to sanity as they are sometimes. I am learning not to overlook the things I do not understand but rather to take time to discuss, discover and inquire. I’m even getting a little natural vitamin D. We are officially half-way through the summer. If time was a reliable, consistent thing up here I might ask where it has gone, but of course a question like that is senseless in Muskoka. Nevertheless, with five weeks of program under my belt I’m feeling more confident, more supported and more excited than ever before. Each week is better than the last – each day is better than the last. Life is very good: Pura Vida! And, as always, God is very good as well. He has been teaching me so much in the past few weeks, and He seems to be specifically focusing on one major lesson: purpose.

Let me explain: God has made you on purpose, with purpose. Everything He makes He designs for it a list of things which it must accomplish, on, I believe, several scales. What is His plan for your whole life? I don’t know mine, much less yours, but I’m praying that He’ll show it to me as I need to know. What is his plan for your summer? Again, I’m no more enlightened than you are – I just ask the questions. And one more... what is His plan for your day? Ahh, the point: time is flexible – it moulds to our moods, attitudes and experiences. The sensation of passing time changes – but it does always pass, whether we acknowledge and embrace it or not. Every moment, every second however fleeting, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something. Never again will this moment be here. Never again will you have the chance to do with your life what you can do with it today. Each day is as unique as the people who live it; circumstances, “chance” meetings and encounters – think about it. Time is a non-renewable resource that so often we throw out the window on our way to death... dramatic? Morbid, perhaps? But while I have your attention, let me challenge you thrice.

Challenge one: open your eyes to the world around you. What are you presently doing with time? How are you spending the few precious years that God has given to you? Are you pursuing your self-interests? Are you reaching out to others as they ask for assistance and rescue? You are serving – you are worshiping – but what and who are the focuses of your attentions?

Challenge two: open your eyes to the temporary nature of the world around you. In case you’ve missed this fundamental fact, I will bring it to your attention now: you are dying. Everything is dying. This life is such a hollow, empty, insignificant, short, angry, dark and painful one however beautiful and love-filled it may be. This is not the ideal. If you can think of even one thing you would change to improve this world, it is not what you are looking for – so why do we so often live in pursuit of this flawed, evil marinated, broken, empty world? There must be something better... and yet, there must be something worse...

Challenge three: open your eyes to the choice you have. On the one hand, you can live your life focused solely on this world and the pleasures and pains it offers. You can close your mind and your eyes to the your deepest of deep desires which inevitably seem to come down to a handful of things, and you can let your flesh rule your life. You will find something that our culture calls love and you will use it to be kind and gentle and manipulative to others. You will get what you want, but rarely what you need. On the other hand lays a different life altogether, with two more divisive options; it is the life focused not on what we can see – the world, the stuff of materialism, the physical appearances – but rather it is about making an intentional paradigm shift and learning to see the unseen – to fix your eyes on the grander scheme, to ponder the deepest of man’s questions and perhaps the shallowest of God’s: is there life after death, or is death the afterlife?

Welcome to the crossroads between philosophy and theology. It can be a messy place to take a stand and opposition come from every direction, but it is here that I am anchoring today.

I know... you signed up for a nice, light read about my summer so far, and you were looking for a laugh, not a lecture. Believe it or not, this is what my summer has been about. Along with the slimy watermelon games and neptillion rounds of ping-pong we have been studying spiritual warfare and praying for a boy who is dying of cancer at 19 years old. Life is short and death is real, and so the questions of “what next” and “what now” have been weighing on my heart and conversation all month. I’m writing it out to clarify it for myself, as much as to share it with you, so please hear me out. Maybe you need to hear these words as much as I need to write them.

As I understand it, there are only four possible scenarios post-death: reincarnation, nothingness, heaven and hell. Reincarnation is the idea that your spirit will take on a new physical life when you die, based on how you live while on earth. If you give a good life you will have power, authority and wealth in your next. If you live a bad life, you will likely come back as a housefly or a mosquito – the kind of thing everybody just wants to kill and be done with. This kind of system holds your future in an eternal blackmail with the gods deciding “good” and “bad” standards in an invisible realm. You will live a life ever trying to please beings that you do not know and cannot know – like an endless job interview, until, eventually, you will become a god yourself. It is a cyclical eternal life of ups and downs with no guarantee of happiness. Doesn’t that sound awesome? And, if you don’t recognize the gods in this life, you can always try again next life... as a fly. Personally, I think that this version of post-death reality is a copout and is not really worthy of a life-long dedication or focus. If I am going to commit my life to something, I want guaranteed results.

The second option is nothingness. You die, and then you’re dead. That’s the end of the story. There’s no motivation in this plan whatsoever for living a life that anyone would label good. Often I think that this one is favoured by those who also believe that we came from nothingness. From nothing to nothing: an inspiring mantra to be sure.

The third option is also incredible popular: heaven. When you die, if you have lived a good life (usually in contrast to those around you) then you have a spot guaranteed behind the pearly gates. There is life after life, the place of peace and comfort designed for our hedonistic, pleasure-seeking selves. White clouds, feathery wings, personal man-servants, Philadelphia cream cheese and eventual boredom.

The fourth option is in contrast to the fluffy hyper-feminine version of heaven that everyone talks about at Christmas and most funerals: hell, the party zone for those of corrupt life to continue abusing alcohol, drugs, themselves, each other, etc. They imagine moshing to the famous musicians who will be joining them there – Eminem, Marilyn Manson, Michael Jackson and the like – some kind of eternal rock-concert where anything and everything goes.

These four options are heart breaking to me. If this is what you’re expecting, I believe that the Devil’s done his job. These views are rooted in lies and egocentric attitudes and lust for this world. These options are not options: I believe that each one is a clever mask for one of two true options, and both of them come down to Jesus.

The Bible, upon which I base all of my beliefs, creeds, philosophies and goals in life, speaks quite frequently about the glory or doom to come. The distinction is made unavoidably clear. You are either invited to the banquet or thrown to the dogs (Matthew 22), you will be crowned with life or you will fade and wither and die (James 1), you will either find rest or you will be eternally tormented (Revelation 14) and you will either fight with Him or against Him (Revelation 21). One day you are going to die. If any of the world’s other religions and philosophies are true, you are either going to heaven or slipping into nothingness or you’ll get a second chance... but what if they are not true? What if the Way the Truth and the Life, the only way that claims to be the only way, is in fact real? What if Jesus really is the only access to heaven and the only escape from hell?

It has been said that death is the only life experience that no one is able to live through. Physically, that is very true... but what about spiritually? No matter your age, no matter your heath and no matter your social status you are on your way out of this world. Time here, however warped it feels some days, is limited and finite. When your time runs out, what do you think will happen? If you have to stand face to face with Jesus, what do you think He will say? What would you say?

I am not afraid of death because I am confident in what my eternal future holds for me. I am very much looking forward to a day when I will praise my God and explore His world without the restrictions of time and this body. I know, however, the time that I do spend here, the time that you have been given to live as we know life, has a purpose. This is a world of second chances – this is when the mercy of Jesus shines – He is waiting to talk to you. He is camping outside of the proverbial door of your life – and every once in a while He knocks. So, here is the choice: lock the door, leave Him outside and when you die and He breaks down that barrier and you are forced to look Him in the eye, try to explain why you shut Him out. Or, open the door, give Him a chance to introduce Himself and let you know exactly how much He loves you and ask Him about the plans He has not only for now but also for the rest of your life and afterlife... trust me. As soon as you meet Him, personally, genuinely, there is nothing – nothing – that could ever make you want to close that door. Before you know it you will be wrapped up in the craziest bear-hug your heart has ever known. You will find rest and energy, strength and security, mutual love and someone thoroughly worthy of your adoration. He is an incredible man. He is an ever-constant no-drama betrayal-free best friend. If you want to know more, I love talking about Him; it’s a personal pleasure of mine.

It’s your life. It’s your choice. It’s your soul. But you are my friend, and so I wanted you to know.

Pistachio.

I have missed you.

It has been a busy month in my life and there is so much that I need to take time to recount, but it is not the Florida story nor the mint-stealing story nor even the secret hide-out story that I want to tell you tonight -- the tales of my many adventures on Spring Crew are going to have to wait a few posts longer -- because tonight my heart is living at a deeper place. Please take a moment to find your reading glasses and grab an air tank and some flippers because tonight we are indeed taking a dive.

In preparation for my job this summer I have been doing a lot of thinking. I'm planning curriculum for every day of the ten-week break from school, and though the paperwork of it all is enough to drown a bookworm it is the content of my reading material that has been weighing most on my mind. I've been... opened.

Vainly, perhaps, I like to think of myself as a bit of a pistachio: certainly a cracked nut but with a bit of a shell to keep the world at bay. Turns out the shell was mostly made of ego - and ego doesn't hold up that well when it's God prying away at your heart. If the metaphor is too vague or too much feel free to just nod and smile and pretend like I'm making sense. This note is largely to try and reconcile and process this to myself. The point is, I have been emotionally de-shelled.

Allow me to help you get inside the mind-frame of a nut that has lost it's shell. The first thing you discover is the sunshine... there's more of it! More air, more space, more everything. You begin to realize just how much you'd been missing about reality locked inside the shell. But then the exposure hits you - you feel incredibly insecure, you've lost your protective dark nooks and crannies, you begin to feel the scorch of the sun against newly uncovered skin and the shell you had just relished in releasing suddenly seems like the only safe place to be. You are acutely aware of being watched. It's not exactly a warm or fuzzy feeling. There is a certain shame in not only action or word but thought - there is no getting away with it now - and when you try, the guilt is unbearable. So what is a bare little pistachio to do with herself?

God, with his paring knife of conviction and instruction, is cleaning me up a bit. there are a few bad spots of thought and action that need to be cut out; there is some doubt and judgment and denial that needs scraping off - and I think there may still be more that I have not yet realized - but as the sun's glare begins to dim I am seeing more and more of the one who is cupping my shell-less rotten little life in His hands, and as I see more of Him and get to know Him better I am getting more and more convinced of His care and less and less threatened by my surroundings. I have begun to see a whole new kind of security, found in the deep lines and the soft touch of the gardener's hands -- of the Creator's hands.

This summer will be a challenging one; I will be teaching and leading, but I will also be learning and led. As God shaves away at my tough outer layer and shapes my into the kind of "pistachio" I ought to be, I pray I will be cooperative and flexible. Please pray that for me as well.

And while you're on your knees, please be praying for my staff. I still need one more person and we're working on filling the last few pieces both here and at Widjiitiwin. I will write a few more normal posts throughout the summer to keep you updated, whenever I find a few motivated moments. But for now just know... You too are held in the hands of the Creator. Whether he has cracked you open recently or if you're waiting on the lightening bolt, I hope that God will show you whatever you need to see or hear to understand.

The Tears Fall

When life is lost, even when it is not fully lost in the truest sense, I cannot help but cry. I cry for the pain of her family, for the ache of a mother to be seen next in heaven, for the nights that each of her children will spend crying, inconsolable, until the light of dawn brings a short relief of hope for the future. I mourn for her husband who's bed will be empty forever, and for the sorrow he will feel when he picks up something that still smells of her perfume. My tears flow for her friends that will have to wait a very long time to hear her laugh again, and my heart breaks for her friends who have seen this kind lady for the very last time because they, unlike she, will not rest forever in the arms of the Saviour.

But she is there... she is embraced by arms and by love so much deeper, so much greater than anything she could find here. She is warm and strong and in Love. So in Love, at peace in the arms of the one who has loved her since before she was made - since before the world.

So I am going to let me tears fall a little while longer, for those left behind, for those in pain, left here in this world without their wife, mother, sister, neighbour, leader, friend... but then those tears will stop and the prayers will overwhelm. The most powerful and purposeful and effective cry is the one for help from Jesus... He is the consoler; God is the healer of all wounds, and he does what is best in his eyes. We must trust him if we are to make sense of anything. We must hold fast to his will and his choices, and learn to cope - learn to lean even more into his great arms. Climb into his embrace. Hug back. He is present on both sides of this world. Join her in songs and shouts of praise - he is the Creator, the Renewer, the Father. He is Love. And he will care for her. He will care for all of us.

The Nurture Reflex

Boys and girls are different creatures. The knowledge of this fact is something I have possessed for a long time; physical dissimilarities have been pointed out since, memorably, my fourth grade Sex-Ed class with that far-too-repetitive song, “My body’s nobody’s body but mine” and other such public school scarred-for-life nonsense. I’ve notices emotional differences as well, generally associated with the response to a heartbreaking country music song or sappy “chick flick” farewell scene... ladies tend to bat their lashes rapidly, pretending to be subtle about the coming tears in the presence of certain company, while guys usually crack a few well-timed jokes that serve to spoil the mood and break the tension. Last week I witnessed yet another distinction between the two sides of the gender coin: social response to injury.

If you have ever played any kind of hockey, be it on street or rink, you are well aware of the potential for injuries and the natural roughhousing play that comes with such team sports. If you haven’t already come to understand this as true, let me assure you, accidents do happen, and they are dealt with promptly by those close by. Allow me to provide you with an example which is, conveniently, the true inspiration for this particular piece.

I live down the road from a house full of guys and last Saturday they organized an event of sorts – hockey day all day – kicking off their celebration of everything sticks and jerseys with a game of road hockey, which seems to be the recent male-bonding activity of choice (bringing us to another point of difference... girls bond better over munchies, football and red-rover). The guys had been out there for a good amount of time in the many-degrees-below-zero weather before the hand of fate (or more accurately the elbow of Tim and face of Kyle) interrupted their fun.

In the World of Girl, when someone starts to bleed seriously from any part of their body, there is a very specific and well practiced routine that takes action at first sight of the wound. It’s our Nurture Reflex that all women, at some level, are born with. Here is the system for injures in a nutshell:

1. Everyone is involved and active. Quickly someone take the organizational command of the group, delegating tasks for efficient recovery of the down-and-outer, no matter how down and out they happen to be. Calls of “Get some ice” “Bring that water here” “Tip that head back now and let’s get a good look at you” can be heard for several minutes following an accident.

2. All other activities that might be labeled “fun” and that could cause the injured person to be left out are ceased immediately and plans for the rest of the afternoon are put on hold indefinitely.

3. Everyone who needs to be called is called, and probably some who don’t even really need to know. Prayer requests are sent out like lightening and if the problem is deemed serious enough by either the person who knows the most about “these things” or otherwise by the one who has taken leadership of the situation, a hospital ride is figured out.

4. If the case is emergency worthy, one or two girls are elected to travel with the injured party to the hospital while the others busy themselves with making “Get Well Soon” cards and the like. The rest of the day is spent nursing the poor soul back to health.

In Man World, the Nurture Reflex shows itself a little differently...

1. If the injured party is hurt but can still see, breathe and stand normally, he’ll be fine.

2. If he’s hurt badly (i.e. cannot see, breathe or stand normally), one or two of his buddies will help him to wherever he needs to go (i.e. living room, bathroom, emergency room or snow bank).

3. If he’s being taken care of, everyone else should continue on with whatever they were doing before the accident happened. The game must go on as life will go on. He’ll understand.

4. When the injured party returns, looking a little roughed up with stitches or cast or sling, everyone pokes lighthearted fun at his expense, to hasten the healing process. (I’m not actually sure that this last one is a considered a positive reaction or that it is even welcomed at all - as I am not actually a guy, nor have I shown up with a sling or cast or stitches after being wounded - so, call it keen observation or poetic license, whichever is closer to the truth.)

Guys and gals... we’re different creatures, no doubt. We live our lives differently, and we respond to life differently, but there is one bond of sameness that I find undeniable in any situation. We are all made in the image of God... and God has a Nurture Reflex too. “Praise be to the LORD, for he has heard my cry for mercy. The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one” (Psalm 28:6-8).

God definitely has an advantage in the care-giving department of life, because he not only protects us from danger ahead of time, but he also gives us what we need to prevent problems and helps us pick ourselves back up when we fall – and not just physically – the physical element is pretty important - a broken tooth and split lip need to be attended to, but he has given the means to mend those particular problems to people. God looks after us in ways that we can’t look after each other – in spiritual matters, in the eternal issues. In some ways we can help to protect each other in these ways as well (most effectively by making sure that we are living our own lives in line with what God outlines through His Word), but ultimately God, and even more specifically Christ, is the one who we trust (or don’t) with our souls.

So here, I suppose, is the thought challenge: if you skin your knee, you can take care of yourself and if you break your arm, there are people who will come to your rescue... but if you are in a car accident tonight and die, who is going to have your back?

Death is not something you can kiss better.

The end of this note has taken a rather serious turn, but I suppose the same is true in life – when it comes time to wrap up, you make your decisions and face the music, if it is indeed music that you will be facing...

There is much, much more to say on this topic. If you are a Christian reading this note, please think about what this really means and talk to someone about it. If you are not a Christian reading this note, by now probably wishing that you hadn’t, please, think about what this really means and talk to someone about it. Come talk to me, go talk to a friend or talk to God, perhaps. Deal with the questions and doubts that you have before it’s too late to pose them. Don’t be afraid of an awkward conversation... sometimes they are the ones that can teach you the most.

Merry Christmas Letter

Happy Belated Christmas! I am writing today for more than one reason; the first is that I have not found the time or the inspiration for writing a letter before this morning, and the second is that Boxing Day gives me a unique opportunity to share with you some of the reasoning behind the joy I have found this Christmas... joy that came after Christmas was over, after all of the presents had been unwrapped and friends and family had been visited and everyone else was tucked into bed once more, donning new pyjamas. Last night I had a bit of a revelation, my own little Scrooge moment when I too was in bed with a new nightdress. Though it was quite late at the time, I had finally stopped moving, stopped bustling about the way that we do even in rest on Christmas, and I lay quite still for a moment before I began to pray. This is about the point that my stomach churned and I began to realize that I have let yet another Christmas slip through my fingers.

Christmas eve, morning and night were a visual memory but a spiritual blur... while my family was gathered around the tree downstairs, opening gifts from each other, we each made sure to respond with thankfulness and smiles and genuine gratitude from the heart, but when I removed my thoughts from the paper and ribbon before me to the holy gift of God’s son, to the gift wrapped in the womb of a young woman and opened to everyone in history, I turned away quickly, almost impatient for another gift to be opened. It was quite late last night or early this morning that I was caught by my internal foolishness. I was shamed and blessed, convicted and encouraged and challenged by my thoughts, finally Christ centered.

You see, the concept that "it's better to give than to receive" is an idea that, ironically, comes from the lips of Christ himself. I say ironically because, although I am sure that God found pleasure and joy in sending Christ to us, in giving us the ultimate of all Christmas gifts, I think that He got the proverbial short end of the stick. When we, as a race of broken, short-sighted, bustling, hopeless and easily distracted souls first opened His gift, we met the baby with mixed feelings: some of us rejoiced, some of us feared, some of us turned a blind eye or cold shoulder. As the child grew up, or as the gift lost its novelty, we left it alone. For years we completely ignored it, until it started causing us trouble, and just like a small child would with a simple doll that seemed dull or troublesome, we began to abuse the gift – to take it for granted, to push its limits, to hurt and harm on purpose – we broke the precious gift He had given to us. We broke him and could do nothing to repair the damage done; like a shattered porcelain mannequin, we looked upon the broken body of Christ and finally realized the importance of the gift, the value of His Son, and the terrible guilt and shame of ruining something that has been given with such care, sacrifice and love. Facing the broken-hearted face of God, the giver of the gift and the Father of the Son, is a thought more dreadful than any of us can bear.

But the heart of God holds so much more than disappointment and pain. He looked down at us and met our trembling hands and tearful, fearful eyes with love so abounding, mercy so healing, passion so filling, grace so forgiving and care so deep that we had no idea what to do with ourselves. Then, God did something that I cannot understand. He took our hands, cut by the splinters of a broken doll and covered in the blood of His son and He washed us clean of our crime; then He took him from us to His place and fixed him, completely, better than we had ever seen him before, so much more vibrant and so much more alive... and then He gave him back.

Even God re-gifts. God sent Jesus to us once so long ago in a stable in Bethlehem with only a few witnesses. He gave him to us again in another miracle that we did not deserve, in the partial majesty and wonder of His holy character. I cannot wait for the day when He offers Christ to us once more, when He will send him back with all of His amazing and truly awesome glory. We didn't deserve him the first time, but we needed him so much more than we had known. We didn't deserve a second chance at showing our appreciation, loyalty and respect, but He has given it to us as He has given him to us for this life and for this time. We do not deserve eternal life no matter what we have done or what we are doing and no matter our efforts to come, but I know that He has already given us this gift, this priceless and inexpressibly valuable gift, forever.

And so we come to Boxing Day. Traditionally, this is the time when we begin the process of favouriting gifts, of setting aside others, of contemplating exchange or re-gifting. I pray that you will act carefully with the gift of God. I pray that when we are boxing and shelving and shuffling the presents we have only yesterday unwrapped that the gift of Christ, of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, of the promise of his return in full glory and the activity of God in our lives will not be forgotten as quickly as some of our other presents. I pray that you and your family will continue to celebrate although the festivities of the world have passed. I pray that we will continue to express our gratitude with genuine smiles, with the thankfulness of people in great need and with the praise, honour, joy, love, hope and sacrifice due to the giver of such a gift.

And so, I wish you a very merry Christmas not only this day but the next and the next, and may the Christmas season and the true spirit of this holiday extend in your heart long into the coming year.

With faith in the truth of His word, God bless.

A Little Encouragement

This letter comes from North Bay and from the desk of a very tired, very stressed and very encouraged young woman. It's the encouragement part of my life that I want to pass along briefly, in case you are finding yourself in one of the other two categories.

Life is beginning to wrap up here, partly in the completion-of-tasks sense, partly in the shiny-paper-everywhere sense. In less than a month we will all be sitting in front of a tree with wrapping paper and ribbon at our feet, and if that mental image isn't quite enough to pull you through the next couple of weeks, here are a couple verses that will hopefully encourage you as you work through the rest of life until Christmas:


"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful." (Hebrews 10:23)

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen for what is seen in temporary but what is unseen is eternal." (2nd Corinthians 4:18)

"Find rest, oh my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him. He alone is my rock and salvation. I will not be shaken!" (Psalm 62:5-6)

"The end of all things is near. Therefore, be clear-minded and self-controlled so that you can pray." (1st Peter 4:7)

"Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7)


I hope that the next little while will be a productive and successful time for you, whatever you have on your plate... try to get a little sleep from time to time, proofread your homework, crack open the advent calender, eat some fresh fruit and smile as much as you can!

And so, with a prayer and a smile of my own, I leave you to tests and papers and work. Keep your chin up and God bless.

Pip, Chip and Theodore

Over the past few weeks our cottage has been steadily collecting tenants. Unwelcomed as they may be, our new roommates have settled quite comfortably into their new home where they are apparently warm, dry and well fed. As a general statement they keep to themselves – they don’t use up all of our hot water and they don’t blast their music late at night – but there is an odd combination of severe territorialism and a complete lack of respect for personal space that has created some tension between the human and chipmunk populations.

We’ve tried asking politely. Chip, please stay out of my dresser drawers. There are things in there not for rodent eyes. We’ve tried demanding our privacy. Theodore! Get out of my space! And stop eating the popcorn. When you start paying for it, you can have some. Until then, back off! We’ve warned, begged and threatened with no avail. Even our heavily overused air fresheners won’t keep them away for long. It’s getting a little ridiculous.

With professional exterminators out of the question, Pip, Chip and Theodore have thus far been able to postpone their inevitable demise. We only know of one chipmunk that has met his Maker in our home, if chipmunks do indeed come face to face with the living God, and that poor rodent drowned in our toilet prior to our arrival. (We buried him respectfully in a closed casket service provided by the nearest Wal-Mart shopping bag, the strength of my slinging arm and the forest behind our cottage.) But the dead ones are of little consequence to us now; it’s the ones that refuse to leave and refuse to die that really irk the spirit of our home.

We have run out of viable options. We have done everything we can thing to get rid of these vermin pests. We have been left with no alternative action.

This.
Means.
War.

Apartment 714 has turned into a battle of wit. By rummaging through our bedrooms, the Chips have learned everything they need to know about us, and have used this information to abuse their stealth powers. Desperate times are upon us and we have called in for back up.

Meet our secret weapon of superhuman handy-man skill: Carl. Armed to the teeth with nails and with a hammer in hand, Carl took immediate action with no direction necessary and in moments everyone in the house knew that Pip, Chip and Dale had stolen their last chocolate malt ball.

Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from our experience with the not-so-friendly chipmunks of MBC; I have a professor who has said many times that a good story must reach beyond the fictional narrative and into the real world if it is going to be of any lasting influence, so allow me a moment to overlay the framework of this little allegory. Consider a simple substitution of title for each of these characters: Pip, Chip and Dale become Anger, Deception and Lust. If your life is open to them you won’t have to look far; they find their way toward the source of your survival (popcorn to prayer life) and ruin it, so slowly at first that you barely notice, then more and more directly until you feel like there is nothing you can do to stop the attacks. My personal efforts have no lasting affects and I feel not only invaded but also exposed, as though everything in my life has been tainted. Eventually there comes a point when you cannot help yourself any longer. You must call out for help or struggle forever in a winless war. So, who are you going to call? Not a handy-man, though the answer does lie in a carpenter...

The truth of the matter is that the things that hurt us the most, the things that get into the cracks of our will and corrupt the spirit are things that we invite into our lives; we ignore them or feed them and then fight the consequences instead of the root issue. The footholds of sin are secure; however, there is one who can free us from the burdens we carry and the messes we make... Carl used nails in the wall, Christ used nails in the cross.

So, I suppose this is the first of my “choose your own adventure” stories with a few possible morals and endings to choose from. The first is obvious; invest in some solid Tupperware and lock up your goodies. The second; protect yourself actively against rodents and the alluring snares deployed against mind and body... sin is attractive, chipmunks are furry and cute, both cause harm far beyond the mischief of the first impression. The final moral is a lesson I am struggling with on a daily basis; we are not created to be independent. God designed us to need Him, and as much as I love working on my own and trying to figure out the answers, there are times when I must, we must, surrender independence before we can ever be free.