Lilies Have Dreams

Announcing a Lilies Facelift

2011-09-19T22:12:00.000-04:00

My favorite place, where I do all my work

Hello, my sweet friends!

I made a decision over the weekend to extend my commitment to this Lilies blog space of mine by purchasing the domain name for www.lilieshavedreams.com. And then in the midst of that decision, I decided to give this blog a total makeover.

If you head over to www.lilieshavedreams.com, you'll find the new "lily pad" I'm inhabiting for this personal blog of mine.

Will you join me there?

xoxo,
Christianne

A Peek Behind the Scenes

2011-09-09T21:40:00.000-04:00

Hi, friends!

I've got some fun things to share with you today that will give you a peek into what I've been up to lately. I've been busy behind the scenes working on several special projects, and today I'm going to pull back the curtain and let you get a sneak peek at some of them. Sound like fun? I hope it will be as fun for you to sneak-peek as it is for me to share. :-)

So, first -- drum roll please! -- I'm so excited to share with you a new website I finished creating today. That's right, today! It now serves as my online home base to communicate who I am and what I'm about to people who meet me for the first time.

As a bit of explanation behind the decision for the site, sometimes I suspect it's a bit confusing to grasp who I am and what I do because I manage a couple different online spaces and keep tackling different projects. This new website will, I hope, serve to communicate in one concise place who I am, what I do, and where I do it.

So, here it is . . . introducing the site I've affectionately nicknamed CS.com: my very own URL at www.christiannesquires.com.

(Woot!)

Also, I've mentioned before that I'm developing my first online course, and this is really exciting to me, too. I never realized I would experience so much joy and passion from doing something like this, but joy and passion is exactly what I have experienced in great measure through this process. (This is the point at which Kirk usually tells me, "That's what we call a clue.")

In case you don't visit my spiritual formation site, Still Forming, I recently shared a video over there about how this first online course came to be. You can watch that video here. In the video, I also shared that I've named the course Look at Jesus: a Gospel immersion course, and I will be rolling out registration and more details about all of it in about a week. (Eeeep!)

So, for a sneak peek for you here, I thought I'd share with you a few glimpses into my creative development process for the course. Sound fun?

One of the first things I did in creating the course was to clarify my heart for it. What did I hope people would experience in taking the course? What were some of the desired outcomes I had for it? What did I hope people would receive?

I spent some time getting colorful and creative in my journal concerning those questions, as you can see above and below!

The next thing I did was ask the question, Who would take this class? I knew the course wasn't for everyone, but who was it for? Again, I let loose with the markers and allowed myself to brainstorm ideas and decorate the page with doodles concerning this question. (I really loved this creative process . . . can you tell?)

What I found so interesting about these creative brainstorms was that each of them seemed to have a single unifying thread -- a word that I felt summed up my answer to each question.

For the first brainstorm, the unifying thread was revelation. For the second, it was desire.

And then on another creative Saturday, I spent time writing down my assumptions about Jesus that I'm carrying into the course. You can see from the journal photo above that I have some pretty strong assumptions about one point in particular on that score. :-)

Throughout the process, I've also written down some of the things I believe about myself as its leader (instructor?), as well as my declarations about what the course is not. When it's time to roll out registration, I look forward to sharing more of those specific thoughts with those considering taking the course.

Lastly, I'm privileged to be working on a very meaningful project at my church these days. I was invited several months back to serve as the project manager for an online resource that ministers to people facing a variety of emotional and spiritual struggles. It's been fun and invigorating to work with a talented and creative team of people on the site design, the content it covers, and some of the multimedia aspects we're creating for it.

Along the way, I've learned how to be a video producer . . . something I never envisioned I would learn how to do but that I've discovered I absolutely love.

Can't wait to share the resource with you when it goes live!

And that about sums up my world these days. I've missed posting here on a regular basis and look forward to getting back into a routine of sharing with you the dailiness of life and the ways God is continuing to teach and grow me.

xoxo,
Christianne

Coming Out of the Woods

2011-08-18T01:06:00.000-04:00

The morning after the most amazing day I have ever spent with Jesus was the last morning of my silent retreat. I woke up, showered, tidied up the spaces I had used in the house, and then packed my bags and car for the long drive home.

Next, I drove to the Starbucks parking lot.

I planned to get a coffee before driving off the island and heading home, but before I officially re-entered civilization -- starting with something as simple as ordering a tall hazelnut latte from a Starbucks barista! -- I wanted to have my final session with my retreat director by phone. So I sat in the Starbucks parking lot for that next hour and filled her in on what had happened the previous day.

We were both pretty amazed at the story of what had happened between me and Jesus the previous day, especially because I'd had such an experience of struggle getting there. So for a while, we both just sat in silence with our minds collectively blown. :-)

It was so meaningful to me to have walked through those five days with her, to have in her someone who listened to my experience of the retreat as it progressed each day, who let it be whatever it needed to be, and then to sit with me in amazement at what God had done.

This is one reason I love soul friendships and also why I love having a spiritual director back here at home with whom I meet with on a regular basis: over time, these individuals learn the length and breadth of your story. They walk with you through your story and are with you in it and can then speak into future conversations because of what they've learned about the landscape of your heart and soul from having witnessed it.

Having a retreat director in Barb was kind of like that, too, but in miniature form. This dear friend of mine traveled the length and breadth and depth and height of that 5-day silent retreat with me, and it felt so meaningful to have her witness it and be amazed right along with me at what happened. She could be amazed at the heights because she had been with me there in the depths.

You know what I mean?

Toward the end of my time on the phone with Barb that day, I asked if she would mind my taking a few minutes to sit with the image of the woods again. I sensed that Jesus and I had returned to the woods at the end of our incredible day together on the low beige wall in the sunshine, and I wanted to see if that was true.

When I closed my eyes, I saw that yes, Jesus and I had, in fact, returned to the woods. We were walking hand in hand now, back on the path, and right in front of us was the final edge of the forest.

I didn't realize this retreat would land me at the end of the woods journey, but there it was.

Jesus and I came to the edge of the woods and stood looking out over a vast expanse of fields and hills covered in grasses for miles and miles. The sun was shining, and it was peaceful out there. I had no idea what lay ahead of us next, but I felt okay with that as I considered it. I knew Jesus and I would go wherever we were going together.

As we stood there, I noticed that I kept turning to look back at the woods . . . the woods that had become our woods over the course of the last few months, not just the woods. We had come so far in those months of walking and traveling together. From where I stood, looking back, I could see all the twists and turns we had taken, all the bends in the path.

I could see the place where I first came upon the woods and recognized God's invitation to enter. I could see where the woods began and I learned I had to say goodbye to my cohort. I could see the places where Jesus and I stopped to face one another and talk. I could see where I'd held the white cue ball of my ego, and also where I'd discovered the three humiliations. I could see the spot where I bowed and wept at the feet of Jesus and then spent five days in the grave. I could see, not too far back from where we stood, the place where I had given Jesus as much as I could and then got stuck at the last three objects.

So much ground covered between us, just the two of us, through those woods.

I never expected to reach the end of the woods while on my silent retreat. When I first entered the silence, I noticed that I sensed the end of the woods to be nearby, perhaps not too much further along on the path, but I had no sense or expectation of how long it would take me and Jesus to get there. I had lingered in some places on the path quite a while before taking new steps forward prior to this point. It could still take months to reach the end, for all I knew.

And yet here we were. Such gift.

For several days following the retreat, I held that image of Jesus and I standing at the wood's edge, looking out over the grassy hills and the expansive terrain beyond the forest of trees. It was a new country of sorts we were about to enter, and Jesus allowed me the time I needed to reflect on all that the woods had held for us and then to prepare my heart for a new journey.

Then we started walking into the hilly, grassy terrain ahead.

We walked together, sometimes side by side and sometimes stopping to talk or sit on a bench and rest a while. There was no urgency to this walking we were doing, nor was there any strong sense of destination. I still had a sense that eventually, at some point, we would land upon that village he showed me way back at the beginning of this journey. But for now, we just walked and talked.

Each day, we talked quite a bit about the posts I began writing for my Still Forming site later that month. I had made a commitment at the end of May to write a contemplative, reflective post each weekday in that space, and it has been such a joy to enter into the practice of writing those posts each day. The process always begins by asking Jesus what he thinks needs to be said, and so much of our conversations on the grassy hills beyond the woods in the months that have followed my silent retreat have concerned that online space and what Jesus wants to say in that space each day.

Some surprising things have happened since Jesus and I left the woods in May, too. I plan to share those stories with you here, of course. I also plan to continue sharing with you the ongoing process of discovering my life's work and vocation, of taking new risks, and of doing life with Kirk, the kitties, and with God.

I'm so glad you're here for the journey with me.

xoxo,
Christianne

PS: In other news, I'm launching an online course in October called "Look at Jesus" and could not be more excited about it. It will be offered through my Still Forming site, and I'd love for you to join us! I'm posting an intro video over there later today, so be sure to check back in and preview it. (Doing a little happy dance over here regarding this big step!)

The Most Beautiful Day I Spent With Jesus

2011-08-15T20:18:00.000-04:00

When I think back on the 5-day silent retreat I took in early May, one day among them all stands out. It's the one that springs immediately to mind and invariably brings a secret smile to my lips because of what it held and what it means for me and Jesus.

That is the day I'm going to share with you today.

I'll begin by saying that over the last year or two, I have begun to experience contemplative prayer in small doses here and there. These are times when no words or images are shared between me and God at all, but where prayer becomes more like a pure and wordless offering of my heart and mind to connect with the vast, unexplainable reality of God. Thomas Merton and the anonymous writer of the Cloud of Unknowing wrote quite a bit about this sort of prayer, which they termed contemplation, and I've written previously about this shift toward pure contemplation in my prayer life as well.

That pure form of contemplation, when I began to move toward it, was a very different way for me to commune with God after many, many years of holding images and practicing imaginative prayer in my journey through life with God. For about ten solid years, in fact, images and imaginative prayer were a central feature of my prayer life, and God has used images and imaginative prayer over the years to heal so many broken pieces of my heart.

Although there has been a shift in the last year or two toward that more pure form of contemplative prayer, images began showing up again for me last October. First there was the image of the red glass that transformed into a communion cup over the course of a few months, and then came the image of the woods in February. And when I went away for my 5-day retreat in May, that image of the woods was still a very present reality in my prayer life with God.

Again, the mystics call that pure and wordless form of prayer contemplation. They also refer to it as a form of ecstatic union between the soul and God, and from the small amount of time I have spent practicing that wordless form of prayer in the last couple years, I can understand why they refer to it that way. In contemplative prayer, there is a sense in which the soul forgets itself and is caught up entirely into the unending reality of God that is perfection, wisdom, beauty, truth, and all that is real. The soul experiences a pure ecstasy of sorts when encountering this vast, unending perfection of God that cannot be explained or even contained by words.

But on that day during my silent retreat in May when I sat on the denim couch in the front room of the house for six straight hours, by no means experiencing the pure form of contemplative prayer because I held a very clear image in my mind of Jesus and I sitting on a low wall together, enjoying one another and talking deeply about the three objects I had yet to surrender to him . . . even though that day was not comprised of that pure and wordless form of contemplation the mystics talk about, the most fitting words I can ascribe to the experience of that day are the words ecstatic union.

I shared in my last post that initially, when Jesus first presented that image of us sitting together on the low wall, all we did was sit and enjoy each other's presence. He smiled and laughed a lot, and I just let him smile over me. It made me feel a little shy, but it also made me feel incredibly loved and enjoyed.

And then, shyly, I asked him if he'd like to spend some time talking about the three objects: the earrings . . . the ring . . . the slip. And he said yes.

So that's what we did the rest of the day.

First I talked with him about the earrings. I pulled them out of my ears and held them in the palm of my hand between us. As I began to talk with him about those beautiful earrings and all that they represented to me, I discovered that it wasn't just riches or a life of comfort that they represented. It was also all the hopes and dreams Kirk and I have carried about our future, all the ideas we've had about things we hope to do someday: live for months at a time in Europe, travel around the world to attend conferences or study in other parts of the world, own a home where people can come for spiritual retreat, travel to various parts of the country and perhaps live in some of those places, too.

Those earrings represented all of it -- any claim I/we might have on our future, on choosing to do what we want with our life, of pinning our hopes and dreams on certain things instead of being fully open and available to God and his plans for us.

As I sat there holding those earrings in my palm between us, I began to think about the way God has always worked in our life together, all the stones that have emerged out of the water without our expecting them to or ever even trying to make that happen, how often God has presented us with ideas and opportunities we would never have dreamed for ourselves or thought we were even ready to have. The way we found our home was that way. So was the way we discovered the opportunity for me to complete my master's degree at Full Sail. Several of the jobs we've secured over the years happened that way. And our relationship happened that way, too! Stones emerging from the water at just the right time, more perfect than we could ever have planned or imagined for ourselves, presented with such grace and ease that choosing to step upon them was obvious and natural.

Giving the earrings to Jesus was, I learned, ultimately about accepting that continued movement and direction of God in our lives continually: his plans, not our own. Could I trust him to continue showing us what to do, allowing stones to emerge out of the water at just the right time?

I gave him the earrings.

The wedding ring was so much easier to give Jesus than I expected it to be. I'm sure a big part of that had to do with the work that had already been done in my heart at the discovery of the three humiliations the previous month.

All it took was reminding myself that Kirk is a man after God's heart, a deeply spiritual, God-fearing, and God-honoring man who wants to live for and with God. Should God ask something of us that I fear will create friction between us, I have to trust that the God in him is also the God in me and that the two of us will recognize God between us and around us.

So I took off my wedding ring -- literally, in real life, as I sat there on the couch inside the house, I took it off and put it on the pillow next to me -- and gave it to God. Inside the image, I gave the ring to Jesus, too.

Then I watched as Jesus put the ring back on my finger. What a beautiful gift.

After a little more time had passed, I asked Jesus if he'd like to talk about the shame, which is what I knew the slip represented to me.

I began by saying that my body has always been a source of shame for me, that it never developed quite the way I expected it would and hoped it would as an adolescent, and that various experiences in my life had only served to reinforce that shame.

I also said that who I am, as a person, has always felt on the fringe of groups, that I've always felt a bit like an oddball, never quite fitting in with those around me.

Then I reached a stopping point.

I didn't know how to keep talking about the shame. In some ways, it felt too big and too deep to even know where to start. It was everywhere.

Then I looked at Jesus, and a new thought occurred to me. I asked him, "Do you have anything you want to say to me about the shame?"

And he did.

I want to stop and say that everything up to this point had been so beautiful. But this next part, my friends, is the most precious part of all.

Jesus looked at me and said, "You're beautiful. You are beloved. Every single part of you was created by me and is celebrated." I sat and received those words, just letting them sink into me. I imagined what it was like for him to dream me up and spend time creating me. I closed my eyes and began to really feel those last words: that every part of me is celebrated. My body is cause for celebration in his eyes.

Then, concerning my feelings of being an oddball who never quite fit in, he said, "You are not an accident, an anecdote, or an afterthought." Wow. I let those words sink in, too. I'm not an accident, an anecdote, or an afterthought. I'm intended to be here. I mean something. I hold weight and value. I matter. I'm noticed. I'm wanted. I'm desired.

I just sat there for a while and let all these words he spoke to me sink into the depth of my being. And then I looked at him, sitting there with me on the wall, and just smiled at him, over and over and over. I couldn't stop smiling at Jesus, and I couldn't get over his beautiful smile, either. I could have sat there forever and been completely content never to move for the rest of my life. I didn't want to be anywhere else but where he was. I didn't want to move.

Even from him, I felt an elimination of time. He had nowhere else to be and all the time in the world to sit there with me.

I looked at Jesus and said what was in the fullness of my heart: "I was made to love you."

I had come to that retreat with every expectation that God and I would talk about my vocation and the possible next steps for my life. But where I landed was someplace altogether better: at the most fundamental truth of my being. I am made to love him. If that's all I do with my life, that is enough. Vocation, ministry, other work I might be given to do . . . it's secondary. Loving him is what I'm meant to do. It's all I need to do.

I felt myself on cloud nine the rest of the night, as you might imagine. Such peace pervaded my heart, soul, and mind. I took communion with a Ritz cracker and sip of Pepsi in a eucharistic goblet Kirk had packed in my bag before I left. And in that moment of eucharist, I asked God to consecrate my hands, my lips, my eyes, my ears, and my feet and for him to be with me as I went forward from that place so that I would return home changed.

Stay tuned for the last installment of this retreat series and what happened with the image of the woods . . .

Jesus Rescues Me

2011-08-12T16:05:00.000-04:00

Sunlight on greens

One of the hardest things about getting down to those last three items on my body and being unable to give them over to Jesus was that it meant we just stood there and stared at each other, neither of us moving, for what seemed like forever. Occasionally, I would bend my elbows and lift my palms in an attempt to indicate my desire to surrender, but that was all I could do.

He just kept looking at me, and I just kept looking at him.

I never felt shame from his gaze. Rather, his gaze held truth. He looked at me and knew the full truth of me. He wasn't pushing or prodding me to do anything differently or be anything different, but he also wasn't hiding from the truth of who I was. We both knew the next step that was needed, but he was content to wait with me until I was fully ready to take it.

I loved that in his gaze, I never felt pressure or shame or disappointment, just truth and love and infinite patience. I had experienced that same reality about him in the woods earlier in the journey, such as when I didn't want to leave my cohort group to venture into the woods with God, or when I encountered the three humiliations that landed me on the ground and in the grave for five days. It wasn't just in the hard places that I experienced that infinite patience of his, either. It was also found in the moments I wanted to savor great joy and love inside me, such as when I stood up from the grave and basked in the sunlight and the fact of my love for him.

With Jesus, there is always time for whatever needs to happen. No rush or hurry, ever. I love that so much.

Ivy crawling the fence

So as I stood before Jesus in my eyelet slip dress that day, my wedding ring on my finger and the sapphire and diamond earrings in my ears, I saw him just continuing to hold the space and gaze at me with eyes of truth and patience and love.

I felt disappointed in myself, though. As I shared earlier in this story, I drove down to Captiva Beach with my love for Jesus overflowing and overwhelming my heart. I desired to give him everything. I thought nothing stood between me and that desire coming to life.

But that was clearly not true. And I didn't know what to do next because it seemed I could not move. I felt stuck and helpless.

I love that light green wandering vine, don't you?

When I spoke to my retreat director on that Wednesday morning that I could not get out of bed, she helped me talk to Jesus a bit more about what was happening. I told him I felt helpless and didn't know what to do. I told him I was embarrassed. I told him I needed his help.

And I can't even explain how the next thing happened. All I know is that we were standing in the woods, facing each other, neither of us moving, and the next thing I knew, we were sitting next to each other on a low, beige brick wall in the sunshine. The woods were nowhere to be seen. Rather, it was like we were sitting on a wall outside the yellow house where I was staying that week.

Our knees were turned toward each other, and Jesus was looking at me with the biggest smile on his face I'd ever seen. His eyes danced as he looked at me, and it was like perpetual laughter and enjoyment and playfulness emanated from his being continually toward me.

Again, there was no shame. Only enjoyment and welcome.

Sun-kissed

I could hardly believe this change of environment. It was like he knew I was stuck in the woods and needed a completely different scene to disarm all that was stuck. I was back in my outfit of a purple corduroy skirt and small blue jacket. My hair was back on my head, long and curly like it had been years ago.

I felt like I was seeing my true self, the way he sees me all the time, totally and completely loved and free.

I just wanted to savor that image for a long, long time, so when I hung up the phone with my retreat director, I got out of bed and went to sit on the couch in the front room of the house.

I sat there for six hours.

All that mattered to me the entire rest of the day was sitting and holding that image with Jesus. At first we just sat in pure enjoyment of the moment and each other, him laughing and smiling at me. I could feel there was no pressure to do anything or say anything at all. We could just be together. But I felt so comfortable with him on that wall in the sunshine that I shyly asked, pretty soon after that image emerged, if he wanted to talk about the earrings . . . and the ring . . . and the slip.

He stopped laughing and held my question with seriousness, knowing it was a big step for me to broach the subject. And then he said yes.

And so slowly, slowly, over the course of those next six hours, we talked about each one of those objects. And in the next installment, I'll tell you what was said . . .

I Just Couldn't Get There

2011-08-08T21:31:00.000-04:00

I love these pink flowers. Don't you?

My 5-day silent retreat lasted from Sunday through Thursday. On the drive down to the beach house on Captiva Island on Sunday, I began to get in touch with my expectations for the week, and on Monday night, I kneeled on my bed and sought to offer Jesus everything I had.

But on Tuesday, I faced the hardest of days.

I shared in my last post what all the items left on my person symbolized and why I couldn't give them up. When I talked with my spiritual director about my inability to give these items over, she sat with me in the quiet as I sought to talk to Jesus about my lack of trust in handing those items to him. I stood there on the path in the woods with Jesus, facing him, wearing only my cotton, knee-length, eyelet slip dress, my wedding ring, and those beautiful diamond earrings in my ears.

As I sank into that moment with him on the path, I told Jesus about my inability to give him all I had left. I guess I didn't know how to live that fully surrendered life in the end, but would he maybe show me how? He said of course, that it was his desire for me to live that way as it was, and so of course he would show me how.

By the end of that prayer, I thought I had moved forward in the image, thought I had reached a point of giving Jesus the last of what I wore -- or at least one of the items -- but after the call with my retreat director ended, I realized that I hadn't. Only then did I realize that I was no more near doing so than I had been before we talked.

The rest of that day -- Tuesday -- was so, so difficult for me. I watched Jesus and I stand there, facing each other, neither of us moving, with those three items still sitting on my body. As we just stood there, I couldn't stand it. So I avoided the image that day. A lot. I got up and made some lunch. Then I went back to the couch, and suddenly all the research books I had brought with me to work on my capstone thesis project for grad school were the most interesting books in the room. I picked one up and read most of the way through it. Then I picked up another and read deeply into it, too.

The plethora of books

Over the course of that day and evening, I read most of several of the research books I had brought with me. I found it ironic, even before I left on retreat, that my chosen subject matter was the interplay between spirituality and digital connectivity. So there in the quiet and disconnection of that silent retreat, I read books and books about the "loudness" of the internet. Irony. But on that day when I could go no further in my journey into the woods or surrender with Jesus, it was the only thing I wanted to do. I threw myself into research that day.

Every once in a while, I would check in with Jesus in the woods to see if anything had changed. But, no. There I stood in my knee-length cotton slip dress, staring at him. And there he stood, staring back at me.

That was the only night I felt incredibly tempted to break the silence. I wanted to call several people in my life: Kirk, my friend Barb, or my friends Sara and Kate. I wanted to text message them, just to feel a connection. I also wanted so badly to access Netflix on my iPhone that night in order to watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy! Instead, I played an abacus word game on my phone, telling myself it wasn't cheating.

When I went to bed that night, I checked in with Jesus again. Nothing had changed. Still I stood there facing him, and still he stood there facing me. He said nothing. I said nothing. I willed myself to move, but willing myself to do it accomplished nothing. He stood there, looking at me with eyes of truth yet waiting, not making any movement to advance further along on the path with me. We were in a holding pattern.

I fell asleep defeated and sad. When I woke in the morning, I couldn't get out of bed. Every morning at 11 a.m., I would call my retreat director to connect for an hour by phone about the progress of my retreat, and every morning until then, I had woken early to make coffee and sit on the couch in the morning sunlight, just reading and praying in the quiet.

But not that Wednesday morning.

That morning, I stayed in bed until the clock on my phone turned over to 11 a.m., and then I called her, still in my pajamas and not moving from bed, barely able to move just to hold the phone up to my ear. It was the most difficult place I had been all week, and I didn't know what to do. I had zero energy and felt myself in a really bad place.

Stay tuned to hear what happens next . . .

We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Program . . .

2011-08-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

A sweet decorative art girlie that sits on my desk,

created by KRR, who inspires me

Hi there, friends.

I've been slowly (slowly, but surely!) making my way through the story of my 5-day silent retreat and where it took me on my journey through the woods with Jesus. There are just a couple more installments to that story before I'll be ready to catch you up on all the goodness and life and light that has been happening in the more daily details of my world over here. I'm looking forward to catching you up on the current happenings!

But for now, I wanted to pop in with a little note that shares some words that deeply inspired and encouraged me deeper into my life's path today. They come from Kelly Rae Roberts, an artist and lover of life, who wrote these words on her blog today:

Recent gratitude . . . for being witness to other people standing in the center of their gifts and serving those gifts up to the world for our taking, our nourishment, our inspiration, our transformation. There is nothing more inspiring or moving to me than being witness to another who has found their truth, is living that truth, and offering it up for another in the spirit of serving, inspiring, changing people's lives.

Kelly Rae wrote these words about an artist she'd witnessed over the weekend, but as I read them, they lifted and encouraged me to keep going deeper into my own path right now. Because the truth is, I believe I have found the path I'm meant to walk now, and it is more deep and true than anything I ever expected to find.

It has to do with unashamedly speaking my love for Jesus. It has to do with writing daily contemplative blog posts over here for those who want to go deeper into their spiritual and inner landscapes. It has do with creating a course that invites anyone who wants to know Jesus better to come and take a look at who he is.

I'm going deeper into my truth these days, and it's an exhilarating and terrifying ride sometimes. Yet it's also the most at-home I've ever felt. Every time I lean deeper and deeper into it, I know it's a reflection of who I really am and my deep heart of love made as an offering to others.

It's so encouraging to hear that others find such standing in one's truth and offering it up for the benefit of others to be a needed, inspiring service. Thank you, Kelly Rae.

xoxo,
Christianne

What the Three Items Symbolized

2011-07-21T23:21:00.003-04:00

Self-portrait

Spring 2011

On the second night of my silent retreat, when I knelt on my bed and offered Jesus as much as I could of what I wore, I got stuck. As I shared in my previous post, I got to a point where I'd given him everything but three items on my person: a lightweight white cotton tank slip, my wedding ring, and a pair of diamond and sapphire earrings that sparkled so brightly in my ears.

The next morning, when I met with my retreat spiritual director, she asked if there was any significance to those three items. Did they represent anything specific?

They did. I knew very clearly what each one meant.

The wedding ring represented my marriage . . . my way of being with Kirk, the way we relate, and how the specialness of what we share makes me scared sometimes to rock the boat and disrupt our idyllic union. I shared recently on my journey through the woods about the three humiliations I encountered rather early in the woods journey. One of those three humiliations was my relationship with Kirk and how I'd come to realize ways in which I'd been holding parts of the truth of myself back from him in order to preserve what I thought was our perfection.

That wedding ring on my finger was related to that. Would I give it to Jesus, allowing God and his truth-telling to become more important? Would I allow God to use me to not only make Kirk happy but also, perhaps, to make him more holy by being willing to be honest and say the hard things that might need to be said sometimes? Would I allow God to be more important to me than Kirk? Was I willing to make God my Lord?

I really hesitated with those questions, which is why I couldn't remove the ring.

The earrings came as a surprise to me. First of all, I don't own earrings like the one I wore in the image, but I saw that they were a perfect complement to my actual wedding ring, which is a large round diamond encircled by sapphires. The earrings in the image were the inverse of my ring -- they were large sapphires in the center, circled by diamonds -- and they were absolutely, stunningly beautiful.

But they were also a surprise to me because of what I knew they represented. I could tell very clearly that Kirk had given those earrings to me, and somehow they represented all the grand dreams and plans and hopes for the future we have shared. Over the years that we've shared our lives together, Kirk and I have voiced many dreams aloud to each other, and our hearts and our hopes and our desires are so much in line with each other. We often dream of the experiences and lifestyles and ministry opportunities and work we hope to enjoy over the course of our life.

Those earrings represented all those hopes and dreams, but they also represented more. They represented a desire for comfort. By wearing those earrings, I felt as if we'd made it -- we'd become financially secure and free to pursue the hopes and dreams we've always hoped to share. Was I willing to let go of those hopes and dreams? Was I also willing to let go of my hope for a financially secure future?

I wasn't sure I could. Those hopes and dreams were embedded so deep inside. I couldn't remove the earrings quite yet.

And lastly, there was the simple slip dress. It was plain cotton, made of eyelet material, and I liked its purity and simplicity. Just the thought of removing that slip sounded all kinds of warning bells inside of me. Just imagining myself removing it made me feel the need to cover myself.

Once I realized that reaction in me, I knew what the slip symbolized. It was covering my shame . . . I couldn't fathom removing the slip and exposing what felt like all the deep-rooted shame inside and outside of me.

So I was stuck. Stay tuned to read what happened next . . .

In Which I Attempt to Disrobe Before Jesus

2011-07-13T21:40:00.000-04:00

Learning from a master

Most of the days of my silent retreat, I moved between two books by Thomas Merton that speak to the life of silence and contemplation. While the books, as a whole, said many helpful things that made me think, a couple quotes in particular made me put the books down and let them work on my insides to change me.

The first quote to have this effect on me is here:

To be one with One Whom one cannot see is to be hidden, to be nowhere, to be no one: it is to be unknown as He is unknown, forgotten as He is forgotten, lost as He is lost to the world which nevertheless exists in Him. Yet to live in Him is to live by His power, to reach from end to end of the universe in the might of His wisdom, to rule and form all things in and with Him. It is to be the hidden instrument of His Divine action, the minister of His redemption, the channel of His mercy, and the messenger of His infinite Love.

-- The Silent Life, p. 3

Hmmm. Sounds a bit like learning to be hidden, doesn't it? That's how it struck me, and it brought me back to that prayer for hiddenness that I had prayed in 2009 and which had eventually brought me to the journey through the woods with God.

The second quote I read in the Merton books that impacted me was this:

But if I am true to the concept that God utters in me, if I am true to the thought of Him I am meant to embody, I shall be full of His actuality and find Him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere. I shall be lost in Him; that is, I shall find myself.

-- New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 37

This, too, got me thinking on that original prayer for hiddenness, but it also got me thinking about surrender. If we are emptied so that God completely fills us up, that implies a full surrender of ourselves. But what does it mean to be fully surrendered? Do we even know when we've done it? How do we really know when we've surrendered everything to God? Can we ever really know?

View through trees

This brought me back to the woods. And this, my friends, is where the story gets pretty interesting.

I was laying in bed on the second night of my retreat, reading these words of Merton's and dwelling on the nature of surrender, and eventually felt moved to sit up in bed, face the wall, get on my two knees on the bed, and hold my palms up before me.

It was a sign of surrender to God, but it was also a posture of holding my hands open for whatever he might choose to place in them (if anything).

And there I was, in my mind's eye, standing in the woods with Jesus again. I could see that we had stopped on the path and had turned to face each other. In the image, I was holding my hands out before me in that same gesture, offering him my surrender.

But as I stood there facing him, I still wasn't sure how I would know I had really surrendered everything to him. Sure, the intent and gesture might be there, but would that surrender really get down deep inside me and be true?

And so I began to give him everything I had on my person.

That's right. I took off my shoes and gave them to him. I was wearing a watch around my wrist; I took it off and handed it to him. I had some kind of leather band around my waist with a pocketwatch attached to it; I unbuckled the leather band and handed it to him. I gave him the necklace I was wearing, too.

Then I reached up and felt my hair. Suddenly, I knew that I would allow it to be completely shorn off for him, so out came the scissors. I dropped all the sheared tendrils and masses of hair down at his feet and stood before him, shorn.

In the image, I was wearing a purple corduroy skirt, and I pulled that off, too, and handed it to him. I was also wearing a small blue jacket, and I shrugged it off and handed it over. This disrobing of my clothing wasn't sexual at all, of course . . . just an attempt for me to get at the root of my surrender, to see that I had given Jesus everything I had.

There I stood, nearly bare, wearing only a knee-length cotton slip in the shape of a light tank dress. At least, that's all I thought I was wearing. But as I looked closer at the image, I saw that I was also still wearing my beloved wedding ring. And shining in my ears were a pair of sapphire and diamond earrings.

I simply couldn't take them off. These three items -- the slip, the wedding ring, and the earrings -- stayed fast on my person, and I couldn't seem to lift a hand to remove them. Not one single finger. My body seemed immobilized.

So there I stood before Jesus, attempting to disrobe and disown all that was mine in order to make myself fully his . . . and I simply couldn't bring myself to go any further. I couldn't give him these final parts of myself. I just couldn't. I knew I was still wearing those three items, and he knew I was still wearing them, too. I just stood there in silence, staring at him, and he kept staring back at me.

Stay tuned to hear what happened next . . .

On Expectations

2011-07-01T16:30:00.001-04:00

Pink-tinged stones

June 2011

Before leaving on my 5-day silent retreat, I remember telling a number of people that I had no idea what to expect for that time away. I'd never done an extended retreat of silence before, and I'd heard numerous stories of people who had done it and came away fully surprised by what emerged during their time of quiet. I wanted to remain open to whatever God wanted to do.

But still, I had some ideas in mind for what God and I might talk about.

The timing of the retreat coincided well with a transition season in my life. I was coming to the end of two programs that had been equipping me for the work of ministry, and I wanted to talk to God about next steps. I have a small little business in which I do a number of contract and freelance projects for various companies and organizations, but I know all the education and training in ministry I've been getting these last 3-4 years are for a purpose other than just those projects.

But still, other than suspecting God and I would talk about next steps and dream ahead together vocationally, and other than the handful of books I'd brought along with me to do some research for my final graduate project, I had no sense of expectation for the week.

I really didn't know what would happen, and I felt okay with that.

Every path leads somewhere

June 2011

Then, as I shared in my previous post, I drove down to Captiva Island on the first day of my retreat and began listening to Kari Jobe's worship album about 45 minutes before landing at my destination. A greater sense of expectation emerged as I listened to one of my favorite songs on the album, called "Joyfully," that depicts such a relationship of love in the song for Jesus. It expresses well my own love for Jesus, and I listen to it often and sing it aloud, too, as a declaration of my love.

But then I noticed that when "Joyfully" ended and the next song began, it, too, declared that love relationship with Jesus . . . as did the next one . . . and the next.

So there I was, driving along, feeling like my heart was starting to bubble over with greater and greater love for Jesus with each passing song, and I started to feel like I could not get enough of him. I felt myself becoming so abandoned to him in worship as I drove along inside that car.

It felt like a wonderful way to begin my retreat.

And nestled inside that feeling of abandonment to Jesus came a new expectation for the week. I told my retreat spiritual director the next morning that I felt an expectation of greater boldness emerging.

I shared with her there are places in my life where I feel quite at home in my own skin as a person totally in love with Jesus and that people know that truth in me. But there are other places where I feel more shy about that truth. These are places where I expect my love for Jesus won't be welcome, where I might be pre-judged to be a certain way once someone learns I am a Christian, and where people I respect and really feel a sense of kinship with might not return or even discover that sense of kinship because they'll think it is not possible if I'm a Jesus lover.

Does that make sense?

Taking the path

June 2011

Anyway, that feeling of bubbling adoration that emerged on my drive to Captiva reminded me of a conversation I'd had with a friend the previous week in which I'd realized this fractured sense at work in myself: the places where I am truly myself and the places where I guard and hide who I really am because I fear someone's rejection.

In the conversation I'd had with my friend the previous week, I'd come to declare: I'm in love with Jesus. That's simply who I am. Any attempt to stifle that truth or subdue it simply isn't genuine. It makes for less of me.

So as I held all this -- the conversation with my friend, the bubbling adoration that emerged in the car on the way down, and the first conversation I shared with my retreat director -- I began to wonder if the retreat week ahead would carry with it a greater emboldening. Perhaps part of what God wanted to do was set me and my voice free.

Possibly.

But the truth is, I really had no idea what would happen. I was, however, about to find out . . .

So, Here's What Happened . . .

2011-06-28T00:16:00.000-04:00

Inside peek at my new Mini. Isn't that fun?!

Hi there, friends.

So, I'm going to start chronicling for you the story of what happened on my 5-day silent retreat in May. In some ways, it's a simple story with a very clear focal point. But in other ways, it has layers.

Accordingly, I think I'm going to tell the story in short installments, first as a way to mark out the high points and small moments for myself, but also to "take you along on the journey" that I experienced along the way. Sound good?

So, here goes.

Since this was intended to be a silent retreat, that meant there was intention going into it for there to be no talking, no human interaction, and no internet or TV distractions during my time away, save two exceptions. The first exception was a daily, one-hour session scheduled with a spiritual director in order to talk through how the retreat was going for me, where God was being present (or not present) to me, and how I was responding to that. The second exception, since I was traveling alone and staying alone in a location five hours from home, were nightly text messages to Kirk letting him know I was still alive and okay. :-)

As for where I stayed, I have a good friend named Jenni who owns the yellow beach house on Captiva Island where we took Kirsten and James in January when they visited us from Seattle. During vacation season, the very cute and comfortable home functions as a rental for people coming to stay on the island. But Jenni's greatest hope and intent for the house, beyond its vacation rental use, is for it to become a place of ministry, healing, and retreat for others. She and her husband were so gracious to allow me to stay there for the purpose of my retreat. Such a wonderful gift and treat!

So on the first day of my retreat, a Sunday, I loaded up the car with my supplies for the week and began the 5-hour southwest pilgrimage over to Captiva Island.

On the drive there, having decided in advance the silence would not begin until I arrived at my destination, I blared Paramore from my stereo and sang loudly along. :-) I could feel the slow disconnection from any other obligation descending as I drove. It felt a bit scandalous to be releasing myself from any other concern or task or duty than simply sinking into this time away with God and what emerged between the two of us.

And then, about 45 minutes out from the island, I popped a Kari Jobe album into my CD player and began to prepare my heart. Stay tuned to hear what happened next, especially as it concerned my expectations for the week . . .

One of Those Kind of Days . . .

2011-06-26T00:03:00.000-04:00

Getting out my watercolors to try my hand at

art journalling for the first time.

Today was one of those days where I didn't get anything done that I'd planned to do but got lots of things done that weren't on the original agenda.

For instance, Kirk and I got to talking about our financial plans. Yesterday I completed my exit interview for my grad school financial aid and learned the total balance of student loans I'll be paying back for a very long time to come. That's what happens when you've been in school for four years straight, I guess!

Anyway, that got us talking and thinking and planning around our financial picture, which led to the creation of a truly geeky budget spreadsheet, complete with color-coding and formulas and easy ways to track where we're going over budget or turning up "found money" in different areas every month.

If you're familiar with the language of Dave Ramsey, I'm ready to go "gazelle intense" on this, baby. :-)

My first watercolor, inspired by a revelation last night.

Next, I sat at my desk and stared at my to-do list for the day. On the facing page of my to-do list were three words I'd written last night after standing at my kitchen counter and having a lightbulb moment. Several different thought currents I've been mulling for a while collided at once, and I found God conversing with me about the work he's given me to do, the specific part I play in the body of Christ, and the way I'm to approach and do my work.

None of these realizations were anything new. I've known them about myself and my life path for quite some time. But there was something about these several different strands of thought coming together all at once that made me feel like it was a moment of revelation.

Seen and heard.

Those three little words mean so much to me. They speak of the way I want people to feel when they're around me. They remind me of my part in Christ's body as his eyes and ears. They reinforce the path I'm taking to do more and more of my life's work online, seeing what people write in these spaces and hearing the heart and perspective behind the words that are shared.

The next thing I knew, I had turned the page of my journal to a clean sheet and began pulling out my brand-new watercolor set. (I was inspired to purchase a few art supplies recently in order to give art journalling a try when revisiting Karen Walrond's words and images about her lovely journalling process.)

The image above was the first result. Seen and heard. I want to remember that.

It reads: Suffused with grace

When I finished the first watercolor painting, I got to thinking about the Gospel immersion experience I'm creating for the Still Forming community this summer. Earlier this week, I met with my spiritual director and talked with her for almost the whole session about my heart toward this online course. One of the things I prayed during our time together was that God would walk step-in-step with me through the creation process and then the execution of this course.

The second watercolor painting, pictured above, started out with the image of a blue spiral. I was thinking about the course and my prayer for God's help in its creation, and then I began to paint simple blue spirals all over the page in different sizes and shapes. After painting several of them all over the page, I noticed they all spiralled around in the same direction: clockwise. The next thing I knew, I was cleaning off my brush and dipping its tip into the red basin so I could paint red spiral after red spiral all over the page, too, in the opposite (counter-clockwise) direction.

I knew from the start that the blue clockwise spirals represented all those who will end up joining the course. They each have a different journey, story, experience that will bring with them into our time together. The red counter-clockwise spirals, conversely, were the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit interjecting and encountering each person there. (God always disrupts and disarms, doesn't he?)

Then I added some green bursts here and there to represent growth and new life springing forth. And then I washed a bright yellow sheen over the whole of it, suffusing the whole process with the light and grace of God.

All of it, all of it, God reminded me, will be suffused with grace.

What gift.

The watercolors appear . . . yet again.

Later in the evening, after dinner, I sat at my desk once more and began brainstorming and planning for the Gospel immersion course. I turned to a clean sheet in my journal and listed out all the pieces of the process that need to be determined to make it go, such as the pacing of the material, the various media elements to include, the login and registration process, and even the course name.

I didn't concretely work through any of those items at this time, but that did get me thinking about what all this means to me. I'm moving toward greater and greater opportunities for meaningful work right now, for pouring my whole heart, mind, and self into what I do, for giving God the work of my hands as he then works through my hands to reach into the hearts and lives of others.

I'm moving toward my life's work now. I can feel it. And it feels so very vibrant and good and invigorating and challenging and engaging.

Reflecting on that started me on yet a whole new painting kick, which led to the creation of two more pieces in my journal. :-)

I'm not an artist by any means, but I am turning more toward the truth these days that I love and need images and beauty. They light me up, and they make up a great part of the way God and I communicate. Words are my greatest home and always will be, but color and image and shape and line speak into even greater depths of me sometimes. They set me free in new ways.

So that's the story of how my day turned out nothing like I thought it would. I am finding that to be a very good thing.

Saying Hello

2011-06-24T00:32:00.000-04:00

Lily pads at Leu Gardens

February 2011

Hello, friends.

It's been too long that I've kept quiet here, and I'll be honest: that has been hard for me. Writing about my season in the woods has been so incredibly meaningful, and I have loved sharing the story with you as it happened. It has been hard to have left that story -- and you -- hanging.

When I went on silent retreat at the beginning of May, some really mind-blowing things happened, especially concerning my journey through the woods. When I got back from the retreat, I didn't quite know how to write about all of what happened, even though I knew I wanted to. The story is rather in-depth, and some of it intensely personal, and I just couldn't seem to find the right way to enter the story and go about telling it.

And then, right on the heels of that, came a whole lot of Big Things.

* Kirk transitioned into an amazing new responsibility at work, which created a lot of change for the way we attend to our life together and at home.

* I began working in earnest on the final research project for my grad program.

* We traveled to Michigan to celebrate the conclusion of my grad program with its graduation festivities.

* I closed out my responsibilities for some part-time contract work I'd been doing in order to make room for a new meaningful project that had recently emerged on the horizon.

* I finished out my training program in spiritual direction and celebrated that graduation process, too.

Whew! It's been busy over here. Lots of changes and transitions, all of which are good.

So, I'm here to say hello. And that I've missed you and this space.

I consider this a place where I can let my hair down and share anything and everything about life in my little corner of the world. It's where I like to share with you what I'm dreaming about and planning, what's happening in life with Kirk and the kitties and me, how God and I are growing together, while leaving room for any general silliness a random occasion might warrant.

In other words, I love that this is a space I can simply be me, whatever that "me" looks like, and to share that "me" with you.

Interestingly enough, partly in response to a long-held hope and partly in response to the work I did on my final graduate research project, I've started posting daily contemplative reflections this past month on my spiritual formation site, Still Forming. I say it's interesting because while this Lilies blog is a place I feel the freedom to just be "me," the Still Forming site has clearly become a place more centrally focused on you (or, rather, anyone who chooses to frequent it).

I recently made a commitment to write one contemplative post on the Still Forming site every weekday in order to provide a quiet oasis from the noise for whoever might need or value that kind of oasis. We're now almost at the end of four weeks of those daily posts, and I keep noticing and telling people that writing those posts each day feels like having found my joy.

That's pretty amazing, isn't it? I'm paying a lot of attention to the emergence and discovery of that joy these days.

You are, of course, welcome to stop in over there each weekday for your own daily moment of stillness, reflection, contemplation, or prayer, if that is what your heart and soul desire. (There are also options to sign up for the Still Forming RSS feed or an e-mail subscription to the site, if that's your preference, too.)

In addition, today was an exciting day as I announced over there that I'll be offering a Gospel immersion experience in the next couple months for those who are interested. This, too, has been a dream of mine to do (so excited it's finally taking form!), and I look forward to sharing more about what that will look like over in the Still Forming space over the next few weeks or so.

I still plan to write here about the rest of my experience in the woods and what happened on the silent retreat. I will have to ask you to bear with me, though, as I suspect it may take several separate installments to do it well . . . and I may choose to spice things up with smatterings of posts about other things going on in my Christianne-sized world these days. :-)

I hope you are well. Thanks for being here.

xoxo,
Christianne

A Time to Celebrate

2011-05-13T14:05:00.000-04:00

Hello, friends.

I have been looking forward to sharing with you about my 5-day silent retreat, and there is quite a story to share with you about that. But for now, this is a weekend of celebration for me . . . I'm graduating from my graduate program this weekend!

It seems impossible that three years have passed since Kirk and I considered moving to Southern California and chose instead to stay in Florida. As a result of that decision, I enrolled concurrently in a graduate program in spiritual formation and a certificate training program in spiritual direction. I'm graduating from both programs in the span of just a few short weeks, and this weekend is the first of those graduation ceremonies.

Kirk and I are on a layover right now, en route to spend the weekend in Michigan with my cohort group for a special ceremony with our department and a few days of which I am sure will include lots of stories, tears, and a whole lot of laughter. Can't wait! I'm especially excited to have Kirk present with me for this special occasion.

I'll write more when we return. Until then, be well.

xoxo,
Christianne

PS: I was going to post a photo of Solomon and Diva here to offer you a warm hello from all of us, but my iPhone browser isn't letting me post photos for some reason. Just imagine a big black cat totally chilling out on his favorite recliner chair and a petite little calico with beautiful blue eyes perched next to him, both of them holding down the fort and wishing you well from all of us in the Squires household. xoxo

Walking and Talking with Jesus

2011-04-29T13:36:00.002-04:00

An image of the woods

New Hampshire, October 2008

After I stood up from the ground and basked in the brilliance of the sun with Jesus by my side, I knew what Jesus and I were going to start doing together. We were going to walk and talk. I was going to share my heart with him, and he was going to talk with me and share his own heart, too, especially as it relates to the heart of himself that he has placed inside me. I sensed there would be an ease of conversation, an honesty, a care, and a mutual understanding of partnership as he prepared me to offer himself to others through my life.

I didn't expect that the humiliations were over. We weren't yet out of the woods, and I didn't know what else our time in the woods would hold. I only knew that something about this walking and talking was different than it was before. It held a subtly different quality to it than the ways I had walked and talked with Jesus before. This walking and talking was more about learning to bring each area and decision of life before him, making him my primary object in view. It was going to be about real hiddenness in Christ -- that initial prayer I prayed in July 2009 that took me on an almost-two-year journey of twists and turns to arrive here in this exact moment, learning how to truly live in him and make him my life's essence and source in each moment.

On the first day of walking and talking with Jesus in this new place, I noticed that it was like a floodgate of thoughts and concerns had opened up in my mind and I could not get my mouth to stop telling Jesus all about it. I talked to him about the way he made me and how the current pace of my life runs counter to that native way of being in the world. I talked to him about my graduate research project, as I was in the midst of choosing a subject and saw that there were many different directions I could go in the selection of my topic. I talked with him about my upcoming silent retreat and the questions I'd considered holding before him during that time. I talked to him about all the many questions I had about how various aspects of my work life and home life fit together in his mind.

It felt a bit like talking to a best friend who wants to know every single thing you're thinking and feeling and carrying around in life with you. He just listened and listened and listened. And I found it interesting that so many words tumbled out of my mouth in a jumble of energy on that first day of walking and talking after having kneeled in silence before him for so many days on the ground. There was a sweetness to this walking and talking for me, knowing that through it, I was going to be learning more and more how to make him my whole existence.

I had such a strong sense as the walking and talking started that he was the place to bring all my decisions now. And when I was initially presented with some concrete opportunities and decisions to make, I noticed an awareness in me to stop, slow down, and take the decision to him. However, I wasn't faithful to this each time as it began. On two separate occasions, I can remember saying yes to specific projects with a full awareness that I needed to first take the time to talk to Jesus about them but moved forward with saying yes before having done that.

That was hard. I'm still on a learning curve.

I've been encouraged as we continue to walk and talk on this path in the woods together, though. I've noticed how much stillness is a necessary component to living a hidden life in Christ. I've noticed, too, how much living from this place that makes Christ my focal point of direction and decision removes all the difficulties and obstacles I used to face when holding those directions and decisions on my own.

I'll share more about these two discoveries -- the helpful quality of stillness and the relief from the burden of carrying decisions on my own -- in my next posts in this series.

PS: I'm leaving Sunday for a 5-day silent retreat and will not be accessing the internet while I'm away. I look forward to returning here to share more of this story and what emerges in my time away. Until then, take care. xoxo

After the Storm

2011-04-17T11:58:00.000-04:00

Bend an ear, God; answer me.

I'm one miserable wretch!

Keep me safe -- haven't I lived a good life?

Help your servant -- I'm depending on you!

You're my God; have mercy on me.

I count on you from morning to night.

Give your servant a happy life;

I put myself in your hands!

You're well-known as good and forgiving,

bighearted to all who ask for help.

Pay attention, God, to my prayer;

bend down and listen to my cry for help.

Every time I'm in trouble I call on you,

confident that you'll answer.

There's no one quite like you among the gods, O Lord,

and nothing to compare with your works.

All the nations you made are on their way,

ready to give honor to you, O Lord,

ready to put your beauty on display,

parading your greatness,

and the great things you do --

God, you're the one, there's no one but you!

Train me, God, to walk straight;

then I'll follow your true path.

Put me together, one heart and mind;

then, undivided, I'll worship in joyful fear.

From the bottom of my heart I thank you, dear Lord;

I've never kept secret what you're up to.

You've always been great toward me -- what love!

You snatched me from the brink of disaster!

God, these bullies have reared their heads!

A gang of thugs is after me --

and they don't care a thing about you.

But you, O God, are both tender and kind,

not easily angered, immense in love,

and you never, never quit.

So look me in the eye and show kindness,

give your servant the strength to go on,

save your dear, dear child!

Make a show of how much you love me

so the bullies who hate me will stand there slack-jawed,

as you, God, gently and powerfully

put me back on my feet.

(Psalm 86, The Message)

I stayed in the grave five days. Five days of kneeling on the ground in the woods, the dirt digging into my knees, unable to look up at God standing next to me so quietly and patiently. Five days of tears streaming down my face into the dirt. Five days of silence as I went deeper and deeper into my grief and surrender.

I knew the entire time that God would not deny my broken and contrite heart. That was not my fear. I couldn't get up because I wanted to experience the fullness of the contrition and repentance turning and turning inside my heart. I wanted to know, deep within, what was happening in me and to stand when it was really time to stand, when the turn of repentance had been fully realized.

On the fourth day in the grave, I read the above psalm. I read it several times, and it met me in that place of being bowed over on the ground before God. It spoke of being a miserable wretch and needing God's help and rescue, and the end of the psalm gave me hope of his kindness and mercy, of the gentle way he would lift me up from the ground and hold my hand as we kept walking down the path in this woods when I was ready.

Also on that fourth day, shortly after reading the psalm, I listened to the song embedded above by Mumford and Sons, "After the Storm." I'd only recently purchased the album that held this song, and I'd not noticed this particular song much until that fourth day in the grave. But on that day, the song met me right where I was, and both the song and Psalm 86 became the cry of my heart on the ground in the woods.

The next morning, the fifth day in the grave, I sat at my desk and read Psalm 86 again and again. I listened to "After the Storm" on repeat, too, and just let both of them wash over me and penetrate my heart more fully. I sat with the words of the psalm and let them be the cry of my heart to God. I must have listened to the song on repeat at least twenty times that morning!

I was moved by the song's words about one's head being lifted, about being taken by the hand and walking into a new land with grace in one's heart and flowers in one's hair. I could see that eventually, not just after I got up off the ground but also after continuing to walk with God further through the woods, I would eventually see that new land. I would come upon that village, and grace would be full inside my heart. A smile would be wide upon my face, and small yellow and purple wildflowers would be laced through my hair in a simple crown of joy and freedom when I arrived.

But right then, on that fifth day in the grave, my heart was broken. It was broken at seeing my sin, but it was also broken because of how I love Jesus. I wanted to give him everything. I wanted him to make in me a pure heart. The ongoing prayer of my heart were these words from the psalm:

Train me, God, to walk straight;

then I'll follow your true path.

Put me together, one heart and mind;

then, undivided, I'll worship.

Standing up in that place, I knew, was about agreeing to walk with Jesus everywhere, about learning how to make every movement a movement with God in Christ. It was about learning to walk straight on God's true path with one heart and one mind, undivided in worship. It was about making him my everything, my whole existence.

On that fifth morning of reading that psalm and listening to that song over and over, it happened. Somehow, in the midst of it all, I crossed over. I noticed, once I became aware of my love for Jesus, that I began to focus on a different portion of the psalm. A smile crept over my lips, and I began to worship at these words:

All the nations you made are on their way . . .

ready to put your beauty on display,

parading your greatness,

and the great things you do --

God, you're the one, there's no one but you!

I sat there that morning at my desk with my eyes closed and a smile beginning to fill my face as these words became the focus of my worship. I began praising God in my heart.

In this place of worship, I saw myself stand up from the ground in the woods and take the hand of Jesus. We faced the path forward again. We didn't take a step forward yet, but I knew that time would come. For that moment, we just stood together, hand in hand. I reveled in what it was like to stand up, to bask in the goodness and kindness of God, and to simply hold his hand and let his grace wash over my repentant heart.

It was absolutely wonderful to stand up and stand next to him, eyes closed and face upraised, and let the sun shine on my face through the trees above me. Jesus was standing next to me, holding my hand and with a smile on his face, too, as he watched me turn my face to the sun, eyes closed, just basking in the sun's warmth and radiance. There was no hurry in this place, just full acceptance and enjoyment.

There I stood, by the grace and kindness of God.

Five Days in the Grave

2011-04-15T11:55:00.000-04:00

Back when I entered the woods and encountered almost immediately the first humiliation about myself in relation to community, I saw two realities at work within me. There was a secure place inside me that had learned and come to believe with joy that all I have is from God and belongs to God. This place inside me knew at that time -- and still does -- that I am a mere instrument who has been given gifts that God uses in the lives of others.

Listening is one of those gifts. I could see that God had placed listening into my open hands and that he could even decide one day to take it out of my hands and replace it with something else. This place inside of me was secure in that possibility, knowing that the gift of listening is simply given to me by God for his use as long as he deems it useful. He gets to decide that, and I simply receive and respond.

But there was another place in me that I saw at that time. It was the false-self place, the part of me that wanted to be the savior for others and to have everything they needed securely locked inside of me. It was a yucky place, but it was there. And this was a part of me that focused on the gifts themselves and on myself and would get caught up in other people's estimation of me and need of me.

When that first humiliation happened, I could see myself standing in the woods with God. We had just entered the woods, and my cohort group was just back beyond the bend where we had just come from. I turned to God and said, "This is one reason we're here. This is perhaps why you've called me apart from them."

I could see God and I standing on the path, turned toward each other there at the beginning of that path around that first bend in the road, and I had pulled something out of my pocket. It was a small white sphere, like the cue ball used in billiard games. I had pulled it out of my pocket and held it in my open palm between us.

This was my ego.

I knew we were going to look at this cue ball of my ego here in the woods, that we were going to talk about it and that, eventually, God was going to ask me to give it to him, to place it in his hands to do with what he wanted.

This was hiddenness. This was dying to self. This was what I had been praying for God to teach me.

At the time, I didn't feel any pressure from God to hand over that white cue ball of ego right then. I felt only his presence with me as we looked at it together, as I came to realize it had been in my pocket and was now sitting there between us in the palm of my hand. I knew I wasn't ready to give it over to him, and I didn't feel any impatience or disappointment from him for that. He knew I wasn't ready. That was why we were here: to create in me the conditions that would make me ready to give it over to him.

So we kept walking and talking, and I slipped the cue ball back inside my pocket.

And the humiliations continued to happen as we went. It was so hard and difficult to discover this false self of ego almost everywhere I turned in those days.

And then finally, as I mentioned in my last post about the three humiliations, I reached a point of ultimate defeat and surrender. It began in my kitchen on a particularly pressure-filled day, where with hands raised and tears streaming down my face, I called out to God, "I give up. I can't do this anymore."

That led to five days in the grave. Five days of kneeling down on the ground in the woods at God's feet, turned away in remorse at the reality of my superhuman ego self. I couldn't move. I saw God standing next to me on the path, quietly receiving my surrender and waiting for my next move. At one point I tried to listen to what he might say to me as I knelt in this posture at his feet. I heard the words, "Peace. Be still. You are utterly loved."

It was such a grace to receive those words, but still I seemed to need to remain in that posture of contrition and surrender for however long it took. I didn't know exactly what I was waiting for, only that I couldn't yet move. Contrition and repentance were happening in this place.

I slowly realized this was the place of my handing to God the white cue ball of myself. To be continued . . .

The Three Humiliations

2011-04-11T21:59:00.000-04:00

An image of the woods

New Hampshire, October 2008

I've been struggling to write this post, not because I don't want to share what it's about but because I'm not really sure how to put all that it contains into words. So please bear with me as I try.

First I'll say that when I use the word "humiliation" in this post, I mean it in a classical sense. Think of it as "a means God used to humble me." I don't mean that I endured an embarrassing, shame-giving moment from God, but rather that God used a series of three very visceral experiences to turn a mirror upon my soul and let me see what's really there.

He humbled me, and he did it for my good.

That being said, the first of the three humiliations happened almost immediately upon my entering the woods, and it had to do with myself in relation to community. Because of the emotional break with the community of my cohort that came from saying yes to God's invitation into the woods, I felt myself on the periphery of the group as we continued learning in our coursework together. I completed the assignments and interacted in the forums as required, but mostly I watched the conversations happen around me rather than feeling myself a part of them. I think that was as it should be, since I had been invited to a measure of solitude by entering the woods with God.

But I noticed something through this experience of emotional distance. My cohort friends taught each other new things. They helped each other along. They encouraged one another. They challenged each other's thinking. They ministered to one another's hearts.

All without me.

And I realized: they didn't need me in order to grow. I have to say, that humbled me. I realized over the course of watching this happen how tightly I cling to the need to be necessary, how much I want to be the one who is wanted and essential, how much I want to be a part of everything major happening in another person's life. It's not pretty to say this, but I was a bit dismayed to see how fluidly the group kept moving along and learning together without me.

So, that was the first humiliation, the first means God used to humble me when I entered the woods.

The second humiliation happened in my most intimate relationship: that of my marriage. One evening, Kirk and I were having a conversation that started out normal enough, only to discover several minutes into it that there was a big chunk of my heart I'd been withholding from him for quite some time. It was a big, confusing mess for both of us to stumble upon together in that moment, and it led to many big conversations and sifting moments over the course of the next several weeks.

Through that process of sifting, I realized some things about myself. I realized how much of this happened because I'd allowed an image of perfection to become more real than we were. In a big way, this all came down to a matter of allowing Kirk and myself to be human to each other, to make mistakes, to let each other down, and for that to happen and everything still be okay. I have been learning through this process that intimacy lives and grows in truth-telling moments, when two people don't have to be perfect for each other but are willing and invited to simply be who they are.

Then, in the midst of all this, a third humiliation came in the context of my work. Besides my regular part-time gig that I do for a local publisher, I have a freelance writing and editing practice that kicked into high gear recently. It's been exciting to see this business of mine grow, and I've enjoyed working on a number of fun projects, but for a span of about three weeks last month, I took on quite a bit more work than was healthy for one solitary individual to complete.

It was so strange to see it happening, but it was as though I was physically unable to say no to each new project that came along. I wanted to do all of them, and so I kept saying yes. And I kept watching myself say yes, even after I realized I needed to start saying no.

This all culminated at the end of a three-week stint with me standing at my kitchen sink bawling my eyes out, raising my hands to the ceiling in a sign of surrender to God. "I give up," I told him. "I can't do it all. I give up. Please help me."

Through the course of these three humiliations, I've spotted a singular thread: my tendency toward the superhuman. Instead of being one part of the body of Christ in community, I wanted to be the entire body of Christ so that I could be everything to everyone. Instead of giving Kirk and myself the room to be human with each other, I held to an image of perfection that prevented our intimacy from growing in truth. Instead of preserving self-care and creating boundaries around my work life, I strove to do everything that came my way, even if it brought personal harm to my mind, body, and spirit.

When I came into the woods, I knew God would show me things about myself that I needed to see. But I didn't expect it would come in the form of three such visceral humiliations in three very core areas of life: community, intimacy, and work. Nor did I expect that it would happen so swiftly and so soon.

In my next installment, I'll share with you what happened on the heels of this revelation . . .

Kindnesses Nudge Me Forward

2011-03-30T22:46:00.001-04:00

I've mentioned before that God speaks to me in images a lot. It started about 10 years ago and is such a helpful part of my life with God. When the images show up (I don't control whether they come or not), they often bring a greater awareness of the current growing edges of my life with God. They also provide an ease of language for my conversations with God in that place, too.

Perhaps at some point I'll share the story of how these images began and my thinking on how they integrate with a theologically grounded spirituality. But for today, I'll share that sometimes I get self-conscious about it. And in an image-rich time in my life with God like the one I am experiencing right now, I sometimes wonder: how do I share what God is doing without sounding insane?

When the image of the woods emerged, and with it the awareness of departure from my cohort group, I met with my spiritual director. On that day, I was a bit of a mess. I'd only just realized this journey into the woods meant emotional departure from some of those I love, at least for a time, and I couldn't fathom saying goodbye.

There I sat, sharing these images and what they meant with Elaine, tears dripping down my face and cries catching in my throat. And instead of thinking me weird, Elaine invited me deeper. She asked, Do you know where the woods is leading, or what's on the other side?

No, I didn't. I hadn't even considered that question. All I could see was the woods before me, God beside me, and my cohort group behind me.

Then she asked, Do you want to ask God what is on the other side?

Hmmm . . . okay.

In prayer, then, I told God about my fear of saying goodbye. I told him that as much as I was honored by his invitation, I didn't know how to depart. Furthermore, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

I told him that he didn't owe me an explanation, that he didn't have to tell me what was going to happen inside the woods or how long we would stay there. He didn't have to tell me where we were going, either, or what would emerge on the other side.

But if he was willing, would he?

I sat there quietly for a while after speaking these things to him, waiting, not really sure what would happen.

Then yet another image emerged.

I could see a new land on the other side of the woods that I had never seen before. There was sunshine there, and it opened up to the wide expanse of a farming village. There were oxen pulling hay. There was a man shoeing horses. There was a blacksmith. There were children running around in peasant clothes. There were so many people, all living in community with one another in a simple village, and I saw that God was giving this village to me and Kirk. He was inviting us to live in this community with these people, to get to know them and let them get to know us, to give and to receive life with them.

But first, before I could get there, I saw that I must go through the woods. I must first experience this aloneness with God. I couldn't reach the village otherwise.

That night, over dinner, I shared all of this with Kirk and received from him several incredible gifts. First, Kirk just offered me his presence by listening to what I shared about the image of the village that had emerged in my time of prayer during my direction session that afternoon. Second, he reminded me of something I'd not remembered in quite some time: that an image of the woods had cropped up earlier in our life together -- an image of me and God in a church in the woods, which was a place Kirk had always said was my special place to be with God alone.

I hadn't thought about that church in the woods in a really long time. Kirk found the above image for me by doing a Google image search that night, and this image of the church in the woods has since become my desktop and phone wallpaper as I journey through this season.

Finally, Kirk brought his laptop into our bedroom that night and played for me the opening scene of the Fellowship of the Ring (from the Lord of the Rings trilogy). Have you ever seen it? In that opening scene, we get to know life in the Shire -- a farming village full of simple people doing life together. That scene looked exactly like the image of the farming village I'd seen in my prayer time earlier that day, and it was such a gift for Kirk to share it with me. (You can watch a mash-up version of the opening scenes of the film by clicking on the link; unfortunately, I was unable to embed the video here.)

These gifts of kindness -- two people close to me holding the image of the woods with me and inviting me deeper into it -- brought about my discovery of the village on the other side of the woods . . . a new image that gave me the courage to say yes to God.

More on what I've discovered since walking into the woods with God in upcoming posts . . .

The Unexpected Goodbye

2011-03-29T21:39:00.000-04:00

A short clip of my cohort group -- aren't they great?

Bus ride to the Getty Museum, January 2011

At first, I was excited to go into the woods. A private audience with the God of the universe? He wanted my undivided attention? He wanted to give me his? It seemed too amazing to believe. I was ecstatic and humbled.

But then, after a couple days of noticing this invitation -- of carrying this new image of God and myself standing at the edge of the woods, his arm around me, inviting me forward -- I noticed something more about the image.

Just behind me, to my right and out of my line of sight, was my graduate program cohort group.

For the last three years, I have been learning, sharing, and growing alongside a truly remarkable group of twenty individuals in a spiritual formation master's program. This group of people risks vulnerability with each other, challenges each other, confesses things to each other, and celebrates and mourns together the significant moments of life.

They are my community. I cherish them.

And in about two months, we will conclude our three-year journey together and graduate. Almost the whole of our group will gather in Michigan and mark this special occasion with ceremony and time together. We will then move into the next phase of our lives without the structure of class syllabi, discussion boards, and yearly residencies to hold us together.

And there they were, standing behind me as I faced the woods with God.

They stood in a group, clustered together outside a wooden structure, laughing and razzing each other and getting ready to eat what seemed like a great, hearty meal of barbecue pulled pork.

I wasn't with them.

And I wasn't invited to be with them. Instead, God had invited me to come away with him into the woods. He had some things to teach me. Some ways for me to learn and grow . . . separate from my community for the time being.

This wasn't okay with me. I stopped in my tracks once I realized this was one outcome of the invitation into the woods. And as wonderful as that invitation into the woods with God had seemed, I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my cohort group yet. I told God it was too soon. Already I'd anticipated a difficult time saying goodbye in May at graduation . . . but that was several months away. It wasn't time to say goodbye yet.

Was it?

I began to feel even more poignantly the loneliness I had just begun to notice in this place, and I wasn't sure what I would do. Would I accept God's invitation into the woods? You'll find out in the next installment . . .

"Come Away With Me . . . "

2011-03-22T13:01:00.001-04:00

I shared in a previous post that God speaks to me in images a lot and that, for a period of several months, he and I carried the image of a red glass that eventually transformed into a chalice. The glass and chalice represented the way God and I were learning to live together inside my soul. He was -- and still is -- teaching me communion.

I carried the image of the chalice with me for a few weeks, until a new image began to emerge in my prayer life. It was the image of a woods. God and I were standing on a dirt pathway leading into the woods, and he was putting his arm around my shoulder and inviting me to walk into the woods with him.

When I first received that image, I knew that the time in the woods with God was meant to be a time for just him and me. I knew that it was his intention to bring me apart from everything else so that he could have my full and undivided attention. I knew that he had some words for me to hear, some secrets for me to receive, some things for me to learn.

"Come away with me . . . "

This image of going into and through the woods with God has become hugely significant in this season of my life. It has become a major touchpoint in my prayer life and in the way I notice and appropriate my daily life. It frames my understanding of the season I inhabit in my life right now, and it gives way to some understanding of the next season awaiting me up ahead, once I'm ready.

I will share some facets of this walk with God in the woods with you in upcoming posts. But for now, I'm just introducing the image and sharing this song by Norah Jones. It's a song that runs through my mind quite often these days. Every time I think about where I am with God in the woods right now, this is the song that speaks that truth.

Companioning Henri

2011-03-21T17:33:00.000-04:00

Bricks at Leu Gardens

February 2011

I've been studying Henri Nouwen for a course in my graduate program these last eight weeks, and it's been a great way to bring the program to a close. (I have just one course left -- a capstone thesis project -- before graduating in May.) I say it's a great way to bring this program in spiritual formation to a close because Henri, for me, embodies the essence of lived spirituality. He's been a great mentor and soul friend to me throughout the years through his books, and I know I am just one of thousands who feel this exact same way about his writings.

I'm not one to often enjoy reading books about a person. Biographies are much less interesting to me than memoirs or autobiography because biographies often feel so clinical, theoretical, detached, and fact-based. This is why, conversely, I love Henri Nouwen's books so much: though he wrote about the subject of spirituality throughout his life, he almost always wrote from the vulnerable vantage point and context of his own experiences. Most of his books are like reading memoir.

I say that I don't much enjoy reading about a person, but I will concede that one of the books written about Henri that I'm reading for this course has made an impression on me. If you're going to read a book about Henri Nouwen, perhaps to get a sense of his life in a comprehensive snapshot, I recommend you choose Wounded Prophet. It gets underneath his life and persona in a (for me) surprisingly substantive way and is filled with many first-hand anecdotes from people who knew Henri well. It offers an honest but compassionate look at his whole life.

I love Henri Nouwen's journals most of all. They take me on a journey into his life and heart, and it's a marvel to me that he not only journaled so prolifically but offered them up as windows for others so they could get a glimpse into what it looks like to live honestly and introspectively before God. I feel myself companioning with Henri as he goes when I read his journals, and I often find that his journeys in those pages often mimic and speak to my own journey in some way.

For instance, when I first entered my summer of solitude to study nonviolence and peacemaking in June 2009, Henri's Latin-American journal Gracias! was my very first companion that summer. The first many pages of one of my solitude journals from those summer months is filled with reflections on how the Gracias! journal spoke to me, taught me, and broke my heart for the abundant brokenness and violence in this world. At another point in time, Henri's Genessee Diary also became a true companion in my spiritual life.

I've found my affinity for Henri's journals to have remained true throughout this course I'm taking. Interestingly, my closest book companions during this course weren't even on the book list. I've been reading small portions of Henri's most raw and personal journal, the Inner Voice of Love, most mornings while sitting at my desk, and most evenings before going to sleep I take care to read several entries in another one of his journals, The Road to Daybreak.

The Daybreak journal, in particular, is speaking to right now. It chronicles Henri's journey toward being called to live among a mentally handicapped community, a life choice that ended up marking the last 10 years of his life. This journal is speaking to me as I contemplate my own vocation beyond the bounds of two programs that have equipped me for ministry these past three years and are both coming to a close in the next few months. Henri is companioning with me as I hold my own questions of calling and vocation in my heart before God. He is helping me learn how to do that, and that is especially meaningful to me, as I've not ever asked God about a specific next-step call on my life as intently as I am doing right now.

One thing I noticed today while doing some research for the final integration paper for this course that I found quite encouraging was how much God uses us and teaches us no matter what path we choose to take in life. He always is with us, no matter where we are. I've had this impression before, but it became even stronger today as I read some passages in Wounded Prophet that talked about Henri's struggle to integrate into the handicapped community at Daybreak that first year after he'd answered the call to make his home there. He never seemed to question his call there, but others surely did. For instance, one acquaintance said:

[Henri] told me that he was going to live in a community where people didn't know how famous he was, among those who couldn't read his books. I found that absolutely admirable in one way, but I wondered how natural it was for him to do that and whether he was making an enormous statement about something. The way he talked about it struck me as being rather like a pose or a statement; it didn't seem to come from the heart. I felt that if he really meant this, he wouldn't actually have told anybody. He would have just done it.

What I find interesting about this is not the question of whether Henri was actually called to that community or not, or whether he had misjudged the purity of his intentions and was led to go there by some wounded or broken place inside himself that needed to do something grandiose and different, rather than a pure calling by God. Rather, what moves me is how much Henri's commitment to the Daybreak community forms a solid place in our minds when we think about his life. After teaching for many years at several Ivy League colleges (Harvard, Yale, and Notre Dame), he gave up the academic life to live among this handicapped community, and that is a solid feature in his story when we think of the life of Henri Nouwen.

He went and lived among that community, and when he was there, he was truly there. He stumbled his way through much of it, especially at the beginning, and he struggled at times to balance his life there with the demands of life that his fame brought to him. Yet God used Daybreak and Henri's commitment to living there to form Henri more fully, to love others through Henri, and to teach Henri more about what it means to love and be loved by God and others.

In short, it doesn't really matter whether Henri was right or wrong in his intentions to live there. What matters is that God used it for the betterment of Henri and others, period.

This takes some of the pressure off me to find "just the right answer" to my question of specific calling after graduation. It helps me to settle in and trust that God is with me and forming me and using my life, no matter where in the world I am. He may lead me to a specific place once I leave these graduate and equipping programs, or he may simply use me wherever I am, in whatever I'm doing.

There's something simple and pure in that notion . . . one for which I give thanks.

Marking an Important Day

2011-03-17T11:28:00.000-04:00

Our rings

Photo taken March 4, 2011

Today is St. Patrick's Day, and six years ago today, Kirk and I began an e-mail correspondence that eventually led to our sharing our lives together.

On that day in 2005, nothing happened that would have led us to suspect it. He has some business to settle with the organization where I worked, and I was the person tasked with following up with him about it. We had met once before, through my organization again, but other than that, we had no real context for conversation.

Except that conversation began to happen, and we learned that such conversation between us could carry on endlessly. We talked about books, God, ideas, theology, life, and lessons learned. The e-mails grew longer and longer, and soon we needed to ask ourselves and each other and God the question: what is going on here?

Neither of us knew St. Patrick's Day would change our lives, but it did.

Fast forward one year, and Kirk asked me to marry him. Five years ago today, we got engaged.

We both had a pretty good sense at least a couple months before it happened that this was the weekend we would get engaged, although we'd never breathed a word of it to each other. He kept to himself his plans to make it so, and I kept to myself my growing sense that it would happen at that time.

Prior to getting engaged, we had talked about a lot of things. It seems we had covered every possible subject two people in a relationship could cover about their lives and future, except we'd never discussed any concrete details about the future: where we would live (since he lived in Florida and I lived in California throughout the duration of our pre-married life), when we would get married, where we would get married, and what sort of ceremony we'd have. These were conversations I knew would happen once we'd made a formal commitment to share our lives together, but until then, we stayed focused on growing as a couple and establishing our relationship on solid ground.

I flew out to Florida from California for the weekend of St. Patrick's Day in order to celebrate our one-year anniversary as a couple. Although nothing romantic sparked on that first day our e-mail conversations began in the previous year, we had decided March 17 was the mark of the beginning of our relationship.

He put me up in the JW Marriott hotel, which is one of our favorite places to stay to this day (and one of the most luxurious hotels I'd ever witnessed up to that point!), and the anniversary weekend celebration soon became an engagement weekend celebration when he proposed that first night in Manuels on the 28th in downtown Orlando.

That weekend, he took me to the Kiev Symphony Orchestra at the Bob Carr auditorium. We went on the Winter Park Boat Tour, which is still one of our favorite things to do in Winter Park. As it is every St. Patrick's Day weekend, that weekend was the Winter Park Art Festival in downtown Winter Park, and we spent some time mingling with the crowds and looking in on the various booths displaying artwork. We rode over to the Isle of Sicily at one point and discovered an old, abandoned piece of property that looked prepped to be demolished soon, and we got out of the car and went exploring on the property, peeking in windows and open doors and walking underneath the trees that lined the lake and dock.

That first night of my visit, when Kirk proposed, was the first time we began to speak of the concrete details of our future life together, and we started with a conversation about the wedding. What sort of ceremony would we have, and where would we have it? Kirk's family is from Central Florida, and my family is in California. Would we have the wedding in one of those two places?

The bigger question for me, rather than location, was the type of ceremony we would choose to have. I'd been married before, at nineteen, and had the kind of wedding you normally expect of a wedding at that time: the big dress, the bridesmaids, the location, the reception, the photographer, the formal invitations, the extensive guest list. I had done that before, and something in me resisted the idea of doing it again. I didn't like the idea of re-creating a similar experience. I didn't want to walk down the aisle in a big dress and have deja vu of walking down the aisle at my first wedding. For a long time, before ever knowing Kirk, I knew that I would do it differently next time, should I ever marry again.

When I was preparing to fly to Florida for that first anniversary weekend, then, I remember starting to ask myself what sort of wedding ceremony I would want to share with him if he did actually propose that weekend. I became aware again of my desire to do something totally different, and for the first time it crossed my mind to plan an elopement in another country -- perhaps England, since we'd always felt an affinity to that place.

I held the idea of England in my mind for about a week, but as the St. Patrick's Day weekend in Florida drew nearer, the reminders of all the Irish roots in our relationship came forward. Our relationship began on an Irish holiday. We might be getting engaged on that same Irish holiday. And we had originally met in Ireland. I began to think, for the first time, that I might want to marry him in Ireland.

The uncanny part of all this (or perhaps not so uncanny, given that God has always been in the mix of our relationship) was what happened when I told Kirk I'd been thinking of a planned elopement to Ireland. He pulled the car over, opened the trunk, and pulled out an issue of National Geographic magazine that had arrived in his mailbox that week. The cover story was a feature on Celtic history, and inside that cover story was a picture of a couple getting married in the ruins of a 12th-century monastery on the Aran Islands of Ireland.

That weekend, we found the monastery online and contacted the priest who performs weddings there. Soon afterward, we heard back from him. The arrangements for a ceremony in that location were quite simple, the fee was nominal, and he would perform the ceremony and provide the photographer. All we needed to do was get ourselves there.

Thus began our three-month engagement season that included preparations for a wedding and honeymoon in Ireland and a cross-country relocation move for me, as I transplanted my life from California to Florida.

So you see, this day, St. Patrick's Day, has always held significance for us. It changed the course of our lives more than once -- first, by being the day upon which Kirk and I began interacting quite innocently by e-mail, and second, by being the day upon which our engagement turned our lives more fully toward one another and our future.

PS: If you'd like to see photographs and read the story of our wedding day, you can find that story here.

Please Excuse Me While I Take a Rest

2011-03-11T22:32:00.000-05:00

Hi there, friends.

I write this post as part of my Lenten commitment to blog daily as a means of "giving to," and yet it comes to you from a place of great weariness inside. This morning, I woke at 5 a.m. to get a head start on some projects that needed finishing today . . . and now it is 10 p.m. and the work is finally done.

I worked straight through for most of today, only stopping occasionally to eat food and check my e-mail . . . 17 hours in total.

I'm spent.

So, please forgive the brevity of today's post.

But let me at least offer you a little bit of fun. Last weekend, we purchased this:

Our nearly new Vespa, currently unnamed (any suggestions??)

Isn't it cute??

We've been living quite conservatively with one car for the last three and a half years, and that has worked well for us for a season. But Kirk's work life has kicked into high gear, and mine has too, and lately we've found ourselves in need of a convenient and affordable second mode of transport.

This is the fun and quite economical option we chose.

It's a nearly new Vespa that cost much less than a very used car would have cost us. It gets 75 miles to the gallon. It costs only $6 to fill the gas tank.

Plus, it's a ton of fun.

Do I look like I know how to ride? Trust me, I don't.

I leave that to Kirkum!

This is Kirk's new ride to work each day (or, at least, the days where weather permits), but he takes me on the back of it with him in the evenings sometimes. We tool around the brick-lined streets of our hometown and enjoy the wind on our faces, the smell of the orange blossoms and jasmine floating through the air, and the feeling of being so much more alive and in touch with the life and community around us. (A Vespa really puts you in touch with how isolating it is to drive in a car!)

Plus, you get to wear goggles like this:

I like to call this my "Yikes, professor! I don't have the power!" pose.

So fun!

And now, my friends, I'm off to get some rest. Tomorrow is another big day.

xoxo,
Christianne

The Shape of My Emptiness

2011-03-10T20:55:00.001-05:00

God speaks to me in images a lot.

And last October, when I finally realized the new thing God was doing inside of me to answer my prayer for hiddenness, an image began to accompany me through the journey.

It was the image of a curvy-shaped, ruby-red piece of glassware. Have you ever seen those art deco glasses from the 1970s? The ones that are heavy to hold and dark-colored but see-through, often blue or dark red in color?

That's what the image was like. It was ruby-red, and it looked like this:

The shape of my emptiness, part 1

Drawn December 12, 2010

At the time, I recognized that this was the shape of my soul in which God was currently forming me. It felt like the visual representation of my inward reality. In the bulbous center, God and I communed often together, but there was plenty of room and opportunity for me to go into the upper tier of the glass. That upper tier represented my daily, ordinary life -- the aspects of life where I interact in the world and with others.

It seemed as though the outward-facing lip of the glass was the means by which God poured more of himself into me and by which I was poured out for others.

It was so interesting to notice this image accompanying me in my journey toward hiddenness and emptying of self and then, shortly afterward, to begin reading The Reed of God, a book of meditations on the life of Mary. The first chapter, appropriately titled "Emptiness," offered these words for reflection:

That virginal quality which, for want of a better word, I call emptiness is the beginning of this contemplation. It is not a formless emptiness, a void without meaning; on the contrary it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it is intended. . . . At the beginning it will be necessary for each individual to . . . see ourselves as if we had just come from God's hand and had gathered nothing to ourselves yet, to discover just what shape is the virginal emptiness of our own being, and of what material we are made.

-- The Reed of God, pp. 21, 23-24

It was such an encouragement (not to mention amazingly uncanny) to discover someone else talking about the shape of our emptiness after having just walked around for several weeks with a distinct impression that this red glass image I was carrying around was the shape of my inner reality of learning to become hidden and emptied of self.

This image stayed with me about four months.

Then, during a session with my spiritual director in February, I realized the image had changed. (Surprise!) It was no longer an art-deco, dark-red glass with a curvy shape.

It was a golden chalice.

The shape of my emptiness, part 2

Drawn February 13, 2011

I didn't notice it was a chalice at first. I noticed only that it was, first of all, smaller than the red glass. Simpler in shape. And, most amazing of all, stunningly golden.

Then I noticed a small amount of sweet wine in the bottom of the cup . . . and inside that wine, swirling around together, were me and God. We were commingling in ecstatic union, and it was amazing and beautiful and I couldn't stop smiling. And that's when, slowly, I realized:

This is what communion means.

That's the point at which I consciously realized my shaped had changed into that of a chalice.

I'm not sure what caused God to change the shape of my emptiness, why it changed from an art-deco red glass into this golden, brilliant chalice suited only for pure communion . . . but he did.

And that simplicity of communion led, eventually, to the next image God offered me, which I will share about in my next post. Stay tuned.

Giving Up, Giving To

2011-03-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

Fallen leaf discovered at the lovely Leu Gardens

I've known Ash Wednesday was upon us all week. For the last two weeks, in fact, Kirk and I have been discussing our hope to attend services today at one or both of the two churches we attend right now. But even as I went to bed last night, I wasn't sure which way I would choose to observe this season of Lent that's upon us. I wasn't sure what I would "give up" in preparation for the coming of Easter.

Then this morning, Kirk sent me a link to a post that helped me frame this season in a thoughtful new light. It asked me to consider the question, How will I find ways to return to God with all my heart?

It seems appropriate to be entering a season that causes us to remember our own mortality and participate with Christ in his walk to the cross. This season of hiddenness is really about just that for me: asking God to teach me how to die, and, in that dying, beginning to identify more and more with Christ in his passion.

In some ways, I guess I have been living the season of Lent for some time now.

But I've begun to notice something curious in this season, too. I notice that even though I spend dedicated time with my Lord each morning, time that is fiercely precious to me . . . even while carving out several hours each day to commune with God in prayer and in the Scriptures and in noticing what God is doing in my heart and in writing privately about it . . . even as I notice so much growth and fruit and invitation from God to go deeper and deeper still in this place where he is bringing me, my life right now is also marked with some measure of avoidance.

Evenings are where this happens the most. I may work very hard throughout a day to meet a deadline or finish a project or get a lot of things done on my to-do list, and while doing them, I've come to depend much on God's grace to get them done. But I seem to lose steam by the end of the day, especially on days when I meet a significant goal that took most of my energy. At the end of those days, I start to regress. I indulge myself with activities that are mindless and don't ask anything of me, and I do so for several hours upon end.

That leads to nights like last night. Last night, after directing all my energies all day long toward projects that were significant in scope, I stayed awake until 4:30 a.m. The thing keeping me awake was my compulsion to watch episode after episode of Grey's Anatomy on my phone via Netflix streaming.

There's something in me that sees this as a problem and yet won't stop. I feel in myself an avoidance of something big, and it bothers me . . . and yet I keep doing it.

So in terms of finding ways to return to God with all my heart in this season of Lent, I decided this morning that I'm giving up this escapist binging at the end of each night. No more Grey's for the next forty days. No more activities that cause me to put off sleep out of some curious feeling of dread for the next day's coming. Instead, I will choose sleep at a reasonable hour and accompany my sleep with the daily Pray as You Go podcast that has recently become dear to me.

The lenten reflection I mentioned at the beginning of this post posed a second very helpful question. It asks, What will I give to? In other words, how will I make this season not just one of abstention but also one of deliberate movement toward God? The daily podcast is one helpful choice for me in this regard, but I've realized there's something more that will give God even greater opportunity to help me lean into my humanity and thereby depend on his grace.

It has to do with my three online spaces.

At the beginning of this year, I knew that the maintenance of these three online spaces were important to the emergence of the places God is leading me for my life's work and ministry. I told God yes in this. I agreed to make them a priority and matter of faithfulness. And yet life has become so busy lately that I've not maintained them with any degree of regularity.

The truth is, there are many stories to share in each of these spaces. I have whole lists of post ideas and stories inside my head for each one . . . and yet, when life gets busy, writing in these three spaces is the first thing to go.

At the root of this is probably pride. I hold myself to such a high standard -- especially when it comes to the blogs -- of telling stories right and in the correct sequence, and this causes me to anticipate the need for a whole lot of time to write each story and post well.

But in this time of busyness, there isn't a whole lot of time to do that. So I don't. And the days turn into weeks, and nothing gets shared or written.

So, for the next forty days, I will be giving myself to writing in these three spaces. I've decided I will aim to write something every day on at least one of the three sites and simply trust God to do what he wants to do with my stories and words, even if they're nowhere near perfect.

Because the truth is, the work of God through me and my words doesn't depend at all on my perfection. It simply depends on my faithfulness. It depends on my showing up to be used in the first place.

So, you're invited to join me. There are links to subscribe by e-mail or RSS in the sidebar of each of my online spaces (you can get to the other two through the banners at the top of this blog's sidebar). By subscribing, you're welcome to join me on this forty-day journey of writing my way through Lent.

xoxo,
Christianne

The Loneliness of Hiddenness

2011-03-02T12:02:00.002-05:00

Self-portrait of loneliness

January 2011

Malibu, CA

A few weeks ago, in a course I'm taking on Henri Nouwen, the instructor asked us to consider our current experience of loneliness. It was an invitation from the heart of Henri Nouwen, one so deeply acquainted with loneliness in his own life, to turn our loneliness to solitude. This is a movement that requires our identification of the lonely places in order to move torward solitude.

When I received that question, my mind immediately flew to several instances in my life's journey where I have experienced acute and painful loneliness . . . except the question didn't ask about my past. It asked about my present. Where am I experiencing loneliness right now?

The truth is, I didn't realize I was experiencing loneliness until asked that question. But once I saw my current loneliness, I saw it everywhere. It is now overwhelmingly present to me. Loneliness has become my companion.

I'd like to share about this loneliness with you.

I've written here about my prayer to become God's hidden one. This is a prayer that took root in my heart in July 2009 and led into a strenuous, often chaotic, but ultimately beautiful journey to surrender and peace. It's a journey I still walk to this day.

Since the time in late October when I realized God has been answering that prayer, I've experienced an overwhelming stillness at the very center of my being. I feel God and I communing together in that place all the time. It's the place I live from most of my days. It forms the central root of my being. It's where I belong with God.

But I've realized that it's also lonely. No one else is there but God. And no one else, no matter how I have tried to describe the reality and beauty and peace and joy of this experience . . . no one else seems to fully understand what it's like to really live there.

I wish they did.

I've journeyed a lot of places in my life, and I have always had friends who companioned with me in those places. They may not have experienced exactly what I was experiencing during those times, but they were with me. I felt it. I knew it to be true. And it was enough.

But in this place, for some reason, it isn't enough. For the first time, I find myself really longing for companions on this journey who know what that still-center-life is really like. I want to meet people who have asked God to teach them how to die and to become hidden and have experienced God's answer to that prayer.

I want companionship . . . but I have none. I've found a few companions through books written years ago by people no longer alive who experienced this, but that hasn't felt like enough in this place. I've wanted real, live human beings who know.

But God is only giving me himself, and he's asking for that to be enough right now. It's been tough to say yes and let that be enough, but I have, and God is and will continue to teach me much in this new place.

Hard Labor for an iPhone Valentine

2011-02-15T05:21:00.001-05:00

Do you remember when I made a video that introduced you to Bloggie, the newest member of our household, at Christmas? Bloggie replaced the iPhone gift Kirk had originally planned to give me at Christmas, since neither of us could stomach what it would actually cost to switch our service to AT&T back then, plus the additional hardware costs.

Well, when Verizon (our wireless carrier) announced its partnership with Apple last month, we decided it was finally time.

So now I've got someone new for you to meet.

Readers, meet Mr. Phone . . . Mr. iPhone, that is.

Isn't he handsome? Very dapper, I must say. Quite chic. Here, here! He's sure to be a man about town, I'd say. :-)

But as exciting as Mr. Phone's arrival on our doorstep was late yesterday afternoon, we had quite the taxing experience actually bringing him to life. The labor process included nothing short of seven different software installations, four separate reboots of my ailing MacBookPro, and a total of six hours spent downloading, updating, waiting, and more waiting, before Mr. Phone finally synced and came to life.

And yet, I must say . . .

Mr. Phone, welcome to the family. You were certainly worth the wait.

Keeping Promises to Myself

2011-02-11T18:28:00.003-05:00

I love this pic of me and Kirk that I captured in Naples, FL.

It's like my eyes are saying, "Hi there. I see you."

While I was in California last month, I found myself growing more and more excited to come home and re-engage in my day-to-day life with Kirk. I am totally a homebody personality, which means, for example, that I can be home in the house for three days straight and never once step foot outside and be perfectly content with that.

So, as much as I loved being in California for an extended period of time, I also looked forward to being back in the life and surroundings I hold quite dear and enjoy very much.

Another part of my anticipation and excitement of coming home were the goals I had set for myself upon my return. One of those goals had to do with the decision to hold my mornings as intently sacred. Another one of those goals was to take better care of my body, since I, admittedly, don't treat it very well.

When I set those goals for myself in California, I had very specific ideas about what the accomplishment of them would look like in my daily life back home. For instance, holding my mornings sacred meant carving out specific hours of each morning for me and God to share in the company of my desk, my Bible, my typewriter, and my mug of coffee. And when I say "specific hours," I'm serious: from the vantage point of my California eyes, I decided that I wanted four hours each morning for this sacred space, and that meant (given other commitments in my life) waking at six in the morning each day. Since this sacred time was important to me, I decided waking early was worth it.

When it came to body care, I had specific ideas about that, too. Those ideas included occasional morning walks and eating better foods. I also decided that hosting solo impromptu dance parties in my house in the afternoons -- turning on some adrenaline-infused music and cranking the volume high! -- would be a fun alternative to cardio work at our gym.

But when I got home, I did none of these things. Sure, I spent time in quiet at my desk almost every single day, but instead of waking at six, like I had planned, I woke at nine or ten. And since I wanted to begin my days with a time of quiet and was unwilling to compromise on that, this kept pushing the rest of my day back. I felt perpetually behind.

I never did have one of those dance parties.

It didn't take long for great disappointment and shame to creep in around all of this. I felt discouraged, and no matter how many times I set my alarm to wake at six, I never could do it.

Kirk encouraged me, then, to start a bit more gently. Instead of waking at six, why not try for eight instead? Instead of completely changing up my diet or conducting spontaneous afternoon dance parties, perhaps I could start with just cutting soda out of my diet at first.

Start gently. See how it feels to make little promises with yourself and keep them. Build up your self-trust.

I've been taking that to heart.

Instead of setting my alarm for six, I've been setting it for eight. I'm usually up by 8:30 these days, and that is a huge improvement. And I've been drinking water instead of soda. Pepsi has been my nemesis for years, but I'm getting used to going without it. Water is starting to feel more normal to my routine than soda these days, which feels good.

All of this is about building trust between the one part of me that makes plans and the other part of me that keeps (or breaks) them. It's about learning to keep promises to myself. It's about teaching myself that, when it comes to setting goals and keeping them, I'm trustworthy.

PS: I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I re-opened my Journey Toward Nonviolence blog on MLK's birthday. It's been fun to write in that space again about a subject that has captivated my heart these past couple years, and I'm enjoying the superb dialogue that always taking place in the comments section of each post. You're welcome to join us over there and join in the dialogue.

PPS: In related news, I re-opened my Still Forming website this week and have posted a couple entries that I hope will be meaningful and encouraging to you. Still Forming a space devoted to the process of spiritual formation, the practice of prayer, and the contemplative life. It's a sacred space I hold dear and that I hope will provide a place of respite and reflection for you in your spiritual journey.

Things We Learned on This Trip

2011-02-02T00:17:00.000-05:00

The cottage where we stayed for several days on Captiva Island

(Isn't it adorable?!)

We're back from our time at the beach with Kirsten and James, and what a beautiful time it was. As we drove away from the house on our last day, Kirsten affectionately said to the house, "Goodbye, house. You were magical."

I think that about sums it up.

This was the first time the four of us had spent any extended time together, and we has so much fun. We also learned a lot along the way. Here's an abbreviated list for your enjoyment. :-)

1. Kirk and James must have been separated at birth. You would not believe how long these two can sustain continuous conversation about various forms of wildlife, including all the varied species of snakes and sharks, not to mention moles, shrews, bobcats, panthers, alligators, caimans, wild boars, foxes, and flying squirrels . . . just to name a few.

2. A restaurant called the Bubble Room serves simply divine desserts . . . most particularly, a dessert called the Orange Crunch Cake. Serious yum.

3. The beach on Captiva Island is filled with thousands and thousands of seashells, and people visit the beach with the sole intent to mine for unique shells to take home.

4. Baby sandpipers gather in large groups to hunt and peck for food inside the sand. (See short video below.)

5. Grocery shopping on the island can get quite pricey.

6. A GPS system can be incredibly handy . . . but can also take you on a wild-goose chase.

7. The stars in the sky always shine brighter when viewed from the vantage point of a remote island.

8. It's fun to take walks in the dead of night.

9. Beauty heals.

10. Quiet spaces heal.

11. Friendship heals.

12. Two couples can inhabit one home peacefully and with an incredible amount of mutual enjoyment and respect for each other's space.

A Perfect Kind of Morning

2011-01-29T21:57:00.001-05:00

Tiny sandpiper, digging for food

Captiva Island, January 2011

We're staying on Captiva Island for a few days with Kirsten and James -- did I tell you they came for a visit? Well, they did, and they're staying for a week, and because of the incredible generosity of a dear friend of mine, we've kidnapped them to Captiva Island for a few days. So fun and sneaky of us!

Our first morning of waking here could not have been more idyllic or peaceful. We slept in, and then I came down from the upstairs apartment where Kirk and I are sleeping to make a full pot of coffee for the house. There's a sunroom off the main living room with four wicker chairs around a table, and I settled in with my coffee and a copy of Henri Nouwen's Inner Voice of Love and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea.

No one else was up and about yet, and I just sat in the silence of the sunny porch room for several moments and took in the morning. A fluffy cat passed by the window next to me, and I watched him wander into the driveway and sniff the license plate of our car before wandering off.

Then I opened to the first few pages of Inner Voice of Love, a book that shares the pages of Henri Nouwen's "secret journal," and the first few pages I read deeply moved me. I closed the book began to sing aloud a devotional song I learned in my early college days.

Kirsten came out of their bedroom a few minutes later and poured herself a cup of coffee. She said good morning, and then each of us sat in our own quiet spaces -- she in the living room, me in the sunroom -- soaking up the morning silence, together but separate.

It was glorious.

Shortly afterward, I began reading my copy of Gift from the Sea. It's a 50th-anniversary edition of the book, hardcover with a beautiful sea-green dust jacket, with an introduction written by Anne Lindbergh's daughter, Reeve.

Before Kirsten arrived in town, I had purchased a copy of this very same book for her as a birthday gift. Kirk and I knew we were surprising Kirsten and James with these few days at the sea, and I loved the idea of this profound little book companioning with her during our time here on the island.

However, when I began reading my copy this morning, I exclaimed aloud with surprise at discovering the following in Reeve Lindbergh's introduction:

When my mother was writing the book, she stayed in a little cottage near the beach on Captiva Island, on Florida's Gulf Coast. Many people have claimed to know which cottage it was and where it stands today, but the Florida friends who originally found the place for her told me years ago that the cottage had been gone, even then, for a long time.

Isn't that amazing?! What serendipity.

Kirk and I have sensed from the beginning of our planning this trip that this time in Captiva is set aside as sacred and special in some way for Kirsten and James. We don't know what that means, but this fortuitous discovery inside the opening pages of Gift from the Sea seems to affirm the same.

Can't wait to see what happens.

A New Way of Contemplation

2011-01-24T03:07:00.001-05:00

You no longer need to feed your mind by meditating on who you are and who God is. You're past that, although it helped you once. These meditations filled your mind and taught you about God. Through them, you gained spiritual wisdom. But now you need to shift gears. Seek God a different way. Grace will help you focus on holding yourself steady in the deep center of your soul, where you'll offer God the simple fact of your existence.

-- The Cloud of Unknowing, page 183

I've been experiencing a significant shift in my faith life these last few months, ever since those two friends asked me to consider the gift inherent inside my inadequacy. I mentioned that it's helped me reframe that difficult pruning year I endured through the latter part of 2009 and almost the whole of 2010. I also mentioned that a pretty significant quiet began to take up residence inside my soul upon that new reframing.

It's that quietness inside my soul I'd like to talk about today.

Almost immediately after I recognized everything God had been about in my soul for those 14-15 months, I began to experience the quiet. I noticed it as I went about my day. I noticed it when I talked with others. I noticed it in my prayer life. There was a peace, a simplicity, a surrender. There was hardly a need for words, with others or with God. As I mentioned in a previous post, it felt like being present and absent at the same time, being present to a person or activity but also having stepped aside inside myself so that God could be present and at work through me, a mere vessel for God's work.

I marveled at this, and I loved it. It felt like such a comfort as it happened. I didn't have need of anything, for God supplied it all. I felt such peace, and even, at times, a new boldness. I wanted this to continue as long as possible, perhaps for the rest of my life. I began to believe this is what is truly meant when the Scriptures say "it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20).

A few days after all of this began, I went on a special voyage to visit my dear friend Kirsten. On the way there and on the way back, I began to read a book by Thomas Merton for my upcoming graduate residency called The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation.

It spoke exactly about what was happening inside my soul.

I can't recount all the words that Merton used in that book. There are far too many underlines, check marks, and stars littered throughout the pages of my copy for me to zero in on any specific passage that meant a lot to me as I read it. Really, the whole book meant a lot to me. It's become one of those prized books I will always cherish because of how it met and spoke to me along the path of my spiritual journey just when I needed it. (Have you ever encountered any books like that?)

Several times in these intervening months, I have described this experience as being one of discovering a point of utter stillness at the center of my soul. At any given moment, I can choose to go inside that still center or operate outside of it. When I am inside that still center, I truly feel as though I am breathing God, feeding on God, resting in God, and fully existing by and through the grace of God. When I'm not inside that still center, I grab onto the other part of me that tries to cope and manage life on my own, without regard for God or dependence on God at all. When I'm in that place, I usually land pretty quickly at the doorstep of despair, unhappiness, and overwhelm.

More recently, I've been reading the The Cloud of Unknowing, a book written in the fourteenth century by an anonymous writer who guides readers through the work of contemplative prayer. I've been reading it in small doses before bed each night, and I'm finding it to be such a comfort.

The other night, I landed on the words I included at the top of this post, which speak exactly to the shift I'm describing that is at work in my interior life with God right now. It speaks of a former way of prayer, a way that includes meditations about who I am and who God is, a way that has taught me about God and has grown me up in spiritual maturity. It's so true that my journey deeper into my life with Christ began -- and was so long sustained -- with such meditations. I learned who I am and who God is over a long and beautiful journey of many years. Through that time, I became rooted and established in my faith.

But now, as the quote says, it is time for a new way. It is the way of contemplation.

I am learning that new way now, and I find my soul refreshed and ready for it. God has prepared me for this new way, and I am deeply thankful for it.

Happy Birthday to Me

2011-01-18T23:05:00.000-05:00

Hi, friends!

Today was my 32nd birthday, and it began with a very sweet breakfast prepared and delivered to me in bed by Kirkum. :-)

In the video above, I share some of this special day's highlights with you and just generally reacquaint myself with you since I've been away the last couple weeks.

It was fun for me to share the joy of this special day with you! I look forward to hearing how you're doing in the comments below.

Love,
Christianne

PS: I reopened my Journey Toward Nonviolence blog yesterday with a special tribute to Dr. King. Feels so good to be writing in that space again.

Trusting in an Unexpected God

2010-12-30T16:55:00.000-05:00

A panoramic view from the top of

Mt. Rubidoux today

(with a sneak peek of Kirkum)

Kirk and I hiked Mt. Rubidoux today. It's a small mountain in Riverside that I used to hike pretty frequently when I lived here a few years back, and I love it for its panoramic view of the region where I grew up and where my family still lives. I also love how many people hike it each day, bringing their families and dogs with them. There's a feeling of community here.

Our time in California has been filled with some unexpected events, and some of this has been quite difficult for us and the people we love here. I find myself asking God a lot, "Where are you in all of this?" I've been longing for a glimpse of his presence and power and compassion.

Sometimes I see it, and sometimes I don't.

I'm reminded of the recent growing edge I had of God's presence and agency at work even when I couldn't see it or when it didn't make sense. I said in my last post that this growing edge invites me to trust God even more.

I see once again, through the events of recent days, how lost I become when I try to understand things on my own.

And so the invitation is presented once again: will I trust God here?

I am making this, therefore, my prayer: God, I trust you with this. I trust that you are here. I trust that you're at work. I trust in your compassion and your power and your presence and your love. I trust in the descent of your surpassing and pervasive peace. I trust that you love us, and I thank you for that love. Thank you for what you are doing and will continue to do in this place. I love you. Amen.

Thoughts on Mary, Our Christ's Mother

2010-12-25T04:27:00.004-05:00

A few quiet moments in front of the fireplace

and Christmas tree at my mom's house.

Happy Christmas, dear friends.

As I sit here on this Christmas Eve night and compose this note to you, I wonder where you are as you read it. What have these days been like for you? Is this Christmas holiday a joyful or painful one for you, or perhaps a mixture of both?

I wonder, too, in what ways you may have anticipated and encountered the Christ child for whom this holiday is named. I hope you have discovered him in these recent days. I hope your heart is one in which expectation has been set and preparations made for at least one transforming encounter with the love of Christ.

Love came down to meet us. That's what this holy day signifies.

These days, I am thinking much on Mary, the mother of Christ. I've been reading my way ever so slowly through a little book called The Reed of God, which is a meditation on her life. The book suggests that she, more than any other human being who ever lived, is our best teacher on what it means to be emptied so as to be filled with Christ.

Through the reading of this book, I find myself asking all sorts of questions, such as: What sort of person was Mary to say yes, without hesitation or question, to a kiss from the Holy Spirit that would lead to all sorts of scandal and misunderstanding and inconvenience in her life? What would it have been like for Mary to create a truly hospitable environment in her body, spirit, and soul for this Christ child to grow in health inside of her before being born into the world? What would it have been like for Mary to raise Jesus in the world as his mother, teaching and exhorting and correcting him as he grew, yet serving him and bowing to him as her Lord?

This book has given me much to ponder.

I've been struck, too, by this statement: "God knew Our Lady's trust in Him was absolutely without limit. Everything that He did to her in the future emphasised the same thing. His trust in her trust in Him" (page 34).

God knew that Mary trusted Him unconditionally and that whatever he did or asked of her would be met with unquestioning acceptance. That's why he could choose her to bear Jesus inside her body. That's why he could choose her to be his mother, even though he knew this beloved son of hers would die at a too-young age and under quite horrific and unjust circumstances.

She trusted God, and so God knew that he could trust her.

When I read these words, I realize one thing: I didn't have that kind of trust in God throughout this pruning year. I questioned and struggled and cried. I pounded my fists and demanded answers. I expected to receive those answers, and yet I couldn't find them, no matter how hard I looked.

I didn't trust him. I see that now.

I shared recently that God has graced me with glimpses into the work he has been about in me. He didn't have to do that, but he did, and these sightings have greatly increased my trust in him. They've taught me in quite a big way that God has always known exactly what he was doing, even if I did not. Even if it made absolutely no sense to me. Even if I couldn't find answers or relief.

It is my hope that I will now move into the future with a greater trust in God at every moment. It is my hope that I will trust that God is always about the work of completing what he started in me and that he will not give up until it's done. It is my hope that I will always remember not a hair on my head goes unnoticed by God and that every movement in my life, therefore, is intentional and purposeful.

This is my hope. It is a hope birthed from contrition that led to repentance. I pray that God would find in me a willing vessel to receive him and serve him without question. Even now, I know that he will find in me that vessel, for this is the work he has been about all along: preparing me to receive him, emptying me so I could be filled with him, all because he has had in mind my vesselship for his use.

I love you, Jesus. Welcome into the world this day. Welcome into the world through me.

Readers, Meet Bloggie

2010-12-19T14:12:00.002-05:00

Hi there!

In the above video, I introduce you to a new member of our household: Bloggie! And I detail in the video why this new little handheld friend is such a special treat to receive this year.

As for purchasing a handheld + handmade case for Bloggie (also mentioned in the video), I'm thinking this, this, or this, but am still searching for the just-right one.

What special gifts are you excited to give and/or receive this Christmas season?

xoxo,
Christianne

Updated to add: I decided on this handmade case from Etsy. So excited!

This Loud, Profound, Pervasive Peace

2010-12-18T02:21:00.000-05:00

Mount Calvary Monastery

Santa Barbara, CA

August 2005

With this joyful offering of my whole self last summer so that Jesus could become all that is seen in me, I came to closely identify with these words from Thomas Merton:

"For now, oh my God, it is to you alone that I can talk, because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring any other man on this earth into the cloud where I dwell in your light, that is, your darkness, where I am lost and abashed. I cannot explain to any other man the anguish which is your joy, nor the loss which is the possession of you, nor the distance from all things which is the arrival in you, nor the death which is the birth in you because I do not know anything about it myself, and all I know is that I wish it were over -- I wish it were begun. You have contradicted everything. You have left me in no-man's land."

-- The Seven Storey Mountain, page 459

I so loved (and still do love) these words from Brother Merton, who has become like a spiritual father to me in so many ways. These words resonate with the experience of light and dark, apprehending and distancing, leaving and arriving that this giving over of self has been like for me. There are so many contradictions here, and yet all the contradictions are true. It is strange to talk about, and there really are no sufficient words. Merton does as good a job as I could ever hope for, so I'll let his words do the talking.

It's been interesting to notice the peace that has descended upon me since those two spiritual friends asked me that momentous question about gift in the midst of my inadequacy. Once I realized God was answering the prayer I had enjoined with him over one full year ago, all the fiery anger and indignation and frustration and self-striving that had been my experience over this past year went completely out of me. I accepted the inadequacy. I began to welcome it. I even began giving thanks for it.

It was like my huge, indignant balloon deflated in that one moment. I became willing to learn to be emptied. After more than a year of fighting against myself and against God and against circumstance, I finally gave up the ghost.

Since then, I've noticed an increasing quiet taking up greater habitation inside my soul. This, too, is hard to describe, but it is as though I am present while absent at the same time, especially when engaged in my listening practice. I feel myself fully attuned and alert and present to the other person, but I also feel myself not present, in the sense that it's like I've stepped aside so that God can stand in my place.

It's a strange experience, at least when trying to describe it in words to another, but it actually feels like home. It feels like how my soul was meant to live in the dance of life with God. It's a loud, silent, profound peace that pervades the whole of my insides, and in this place I don't need to say anything. I don't even notice time. I don't need to know where things are going or have any answers. I don't need to feel awkward or worry whether I'm saying and doing the right things.

I simply hold the space. I stay present. And I let God and the other person talk and move toward one another . . . because, after all, that is what a true listening practice is all about.

A Prayer Remembered

2010-12-15T04:20:00.002-05:00

Greenville, SC

January 2006

Hi there, friends.

As I shared in my last post, I've been learning more and more about this pruning year and what it has held for me. Whereas I have previously looked at this last year as a terrific blight upon my soul, I'm beginning to see that from God's point of view, it has all been utterly intentional and even good.

The beginning of this realization came when, as I shared in my last post, two people totally unrelated from the other asked if the inadequacies I've been feeling in my listening practice might somehow be gift. That notion struck me as laughable at first, but I eventually came to see that it has held the gift of my utter dependence on God. Through my inadequacies, others have received more of God and less of me.

And that's when I remembered the prayer.

Last summer, a new prayer emerged in my times of quiet with God. This was in the midst of my summer of solitude and study.

It was a prayer to learn how to die.

Now, this wasn't a prayer for physical death, but rather for Jesus to become all that other people see and receive when they encounter me and for me to become completely hidden from sight. This might sound like a strange prayer, but it emerged out of a growing adoration and love for God. I found myself, as his beloved one, wanting to give him everything. I thirsted to be undone and lost for him. I wanted him, my beautiful beloved, to be the only one seen.

Through this process, I began to sense God's re-naming of me as his Hidden One. It was a tender name for me to receive from him, and we shared such sweet times of conversation and contemplation during the weeks this prayer was at the forefront of my intention. It became the great joy of my heart to give God more and more of myself. I sincerely wanted to become nothing so that he could become everything in and through me.

It's so obvious to me, looking back on things now, to see that these past 15 months have been an answer to that prayer (and is still in progress). And yet somehow, once the fall months began and chaos ensued, I totally forgot about that prayer.

I think it fell off my radar because I couldn't in any way connect the consolation and joy I held in those sweet prayer times with the stumbling, fumbling confusion I began to experience in greater and greater measure everywhere I turned. There just seemed to be no connection at all between them. It felt like I'd entered a totally foreign land. (And in a way, I guess I had.) But I think that's why I fought as hard as I did against what happened once the summer ended. I thought God and I were headed in one direction, but he took me in another.

Now, 15 months later, I see what needed to happen.

First, I can see that he took me through a solid year of chaos in order to unglue me. And it worked. I could not depend on myself if I tried. No matter where I turned, all I met was overwhelm. I was utterly, utterly unglued. I felt like a fish flopping about on the shore with no water to keep it alive.

And then, a few months ago, when I stepped away from some commitments in order to create greater spaciousness and quiet in my heart, I did recover a deep and solid sense of myself again (for which I'm so completely grateful!), but I then also found myself back in familiar territories that now, for the first time ever, felt totally and completely foreign. As you know from my previous post, that resulted in a whole lot of desperate, pleading prayers for God to fill up what I lacked.

So I became unglued, and then I became dependent.

I'm still learning as I go in this process, but God has been gracious to pull back the covers and give me a peek at his intention through all this. That peek is such a gift because we're not always granted those gifts, are we?

But now I can say in all honesty that this past year has been a gift. I can give thanks for it, which is a total marvel to me. I see that God, in his own mysterious ways, has been answering my prayer to learn to die. Less of me, more of him . . . even though I had no idea he was diligently about that work all along.

This Inadequacy, This Gift

2010-11-24T00:26:00.000-05:00

Laguna Beach, CA

November 2005

So, the story of this pruning year has developed quite a bit in the last several weeks. I'm gaining new insights into what God has been about these last 14 months or so. And I have to tell you, it's quite a marvel to me. It reminds me once again that God always knows what he is doing, even if I don't.

This is going to take a couple installments to fully articulate, so I hope you'll bear with me as I go.

As I've shared with you a bit before, I spent a lot of time in the last 14 months kicking and fighting against what was happening. I went from a pretty strong and beautifully fruitful place inside my soul to a place of utter chaos. I blamed myself for this chaos. I blamed my circumstances, too. Other times, I blamed God. I just couldn't seem to figure out what was happening, and I couldn't seem to get away from it or make it better. I hated it so, so much. I felt so weak and poorly. I couldn't show up for others in the ways I wanted to, and I couldn't seem to get a grip on everything vying for attention in my own life.

It was a hard year.

Then, as I've also shared with you, I reached a point where it was time for a change. I needed greater spaciousness and quietness for the restoration of my soul, but it had also become quite clear that the time had come for me to reclaim a direction for my life that God has clearly marked out for me. So Kirk and I agreed on some changes, and I set out into this new chapter inside my story.

However, I didn't expect what came next: I discovered completely new places of inadequacy, this time in places that had always been known and natural and familiar to me.

Primarily, this happened when I was listening. Listening is something that has always been like second nature to me, ever since I was a child. It is something I love doing for others, and it is something that somehow God always seems to use. For the last several years, I have come to embrace that truth more and more and have been walking deeper into the ways God can use this gifting in the lives of others more intentionally.

But here, in this new chapter of my story, a chapter that was to see me embracing that listening role even more, I felt inordinately clumsy at it. I felt like an old car lurching down the road because its fuel injection mechanism isn't working quite right. There I would go, lumbering in fits and starts down the street, lurching and then stopping, lurching and then stopping, with an occasional squeal of the tires and sometimes a blast of the horn.

It was so puzzling to me. And a bit alarming. Instead of being fully present to another's sharing, an interior monologue kept going off in my mind every time I was listening to someone, and that interior monologue kept chattering about all the things I ought to be doing or saying or not saying, and then doubting every last word and gesture and action and inaction I took.

In other words, I found myself far too focused on me in moments that were meant to be fully focused on the person before me.

This was not what I was used to experiencing in my listening practice with others. And so I would cry out to God in desperation, asking him to overcome my failings and my weaknesses, asking him to be all that was needed for them, since for some reason I couldn't do this listening thing well right now.

I kept bumping up against this fact over and over again: I was needing to relearn how to listen.

This bothered me because, again, listening has always been something I've intuitively known how to do. It's not ever been hard for me to focus on the other person, and prior to this last chaos year, I had begun to inhabit the sharing of other people's stories so much that I totally forgot myself while I was listening. I somehow came to feel and know their own experience as they shared it with me.

All of this distracted inner chatter and outer clumsiness, then, confused and frustrated me. I wasn't being the kind of listener I'd always known how to be.

A few weeks into this new (un)experience of listening, I shared all this with my spiritual director, Elaine. A few days after that, I shared it with another good friend who is training to be a spiritual director as well.

And both of them, quite separate from the other, asked me the very same question: Could there be gift here?

Gift . . . in this inadequacy? At first pass, I scoffed at their question. But then my mind turned directly to this: one thing every person kept receiving from me in this new place were those desperate, pleading prayers on their behalf for God to be everything that was needed because I couldn't know or do what was needed.

Yes, this was gift.

Those prayers were gifts that those individuals wouldn't have received otherwise, if I'd been in my stronger, more healthy place. When I listened to people before, I felt a distinct partnership with God in those sessions, and I certainly felt aware of his presence throughout and often asked for his help. God usually showed up in those listening sessions in ways that were unexpected and needed.

But this? This was new. Never has there been such a desperate cry for God to be everything because I felt myself nothing. All of this was utterly new. And I couldn't help but think those prayers on behalf of others, those prayers as a result of my inadequacy, were indeed gift.

Stay tuned . . .

Reclaiming the "J" in Me

2010-11-18T00:22:00.000-05:00

Have you ever taken the Meyers-Briggs personality test? (I once wrote a humorous post on the Meyers-Briggs, in case you need an orientation to what it is and which type you might be.)

I took the test about 10 years ago and learned I was an INTJ. This means that my quiet, reserved self had a very strong analytical side and rules-oriented bent. And this was the perfect temperament for the editor I had set out to be early in my professional life. I loved to read, think about ideas, and figure out how things worked, which made me the perfect partner for the creative types whose work I edited and critiqued each day. Also, I loved to do my work in quiet spaces, which is a great fit for an editor who needs lots of quiet time to go about reading manuscripts and composing her editor's notes.

But then I went on a very long interior journey that landed me at grace and love, and at the end of that long journey, I found that my core values had shifted around quite a bit. Rather than rules, I cared about people. Rather than ideas, I wanted to hear and think about stories. Rather than staying up in my analytical head, I wanted to sink deeper and deeper into the feelings and pathways of the heart.

It was such newness for me, all these things. I felt tender and vulnerable and soft, and sometimes I watched in amazement at this new person I'd become over many long years who now willingly chose to embrace such tender vulnerability and soft edges inside herself. This new person I was didn't have to be in control all the time. I didn't have to know all the answers or figure everything out. I even found, sometimes, that I didn't care about the answers or figuring anything out anymore.

There was so much freedom here. It was a transformative work that had been done in me, truly.

Then I met Kirk, and we were, in so many ways, like two peas in a pod. Our courtship year didn't conform to the normal mode most people knew for themselves, and our wedding and honeymoon didn't, either. Then we embarked upon a married life that we affectionately termed "bohemian" because, once again, our daily reality didn't conform to the normal mode of doing things that most people did.

In some way, Kirk is the consummate "P" on the Meyers-Briggs personality test. This means he's not one for minding all the little details. He likes to push up against the bounds of possibility, and he thrives on vision and the big picture. He doesn't need every single question answered, and he actually prefers to ask more questions than spend time answering any single one of them.

The person in me who had loosened her hold on the rules after all those years loved this. His fearlessness inside mystery and ambiguity created even more spacious room for me to breathe. As much as I'd learned to relax quite a bit on my own before I met him, it was such a relief in my life with Kirk not to have to work so hard to hold every little piece of life's puzzle in place. I didn't have to worry if things came tumbling down around me because Kirk helped me remember God was big enough to handle it. I didn't have to try to be God. I could just be Christianne.

It's funny to me, after so many years spent inside this grace and love journey that helped me relax and learn to trust and rest, to watch myself moving more and more back toward the life of a "J" these days. As I shared in the Meyers-Briggs post, a "J" likes to bring order, discipline, and resolution to the world around her. She likes structure and routine. She likes to have a way of doing things.

I was very much this way before the long interior revolution into grace and love years ago. I liked having ways of doing things, and I thrived on discipline and order. But you know what? I cared deeply about those things back then because I feared their opposite. I feared a loss of control. I feared doing something wrong. I feared losing the love and favor of God. I feared everything crashing down around me.

But now, on the other side of God's love and grace, when I know it is unswerving and indissoluble, I'm finding myself drifting back toward a care for order and routine and structure simply because I like it. I think about my planner video that I recorded for you a few weeks ago, and it makes me laugh. Two years ago, when I was steeped in our bohemian mode of life, I would have scoffed at such a diligent search for the perfect planner. But today, I love my planning life. I even need it. My brain needs a place to put its content (or else it will slip right out my ears!). My heart and mind need a measure of routine and expected rhythm to daily life in order not to become overwhelmed or feel swallowed up by all of the chaos out there in the world.

So I wake each morning and pad over to my desk in my slippers. I pull back the curtains and look outside at the quiet neighborhood and brick-lined street. I head into the kitchen and start the water boiling in the electric kettle before cleaning the dishes in the sink. I measure out and grind the coffee beans and steep them for four minutes in the french press. Then I pour the coffee into my green tumbler mug, mixed with a bit of cream and sugar, and walk back over to my desk. I open my Bible and flip its thin, papery pages to a chosen passage. I read it once, then read it again. I sit in the stillness and breathe deeply. I talk to God. I stare out the window. Eventually, I pull out my typewriter and compose several pages of thoughts. I put the typewriter and typed pages away and pull out my planner for planning the day ahead. And then, only then, will I open my computer and allow the chatter of the world enter my day.

This order . . . this routine? I find that it brings a new form of spaciousness and freedom to me, a spaciousness and freedom I crave and love and cherish.

Song for a Grieving Friend

2010-11-07T13:28:00.000-05:00

Photo credit: kirsten.michelle

Sing a song, oh my soul.
Sing of the girl, the woman,
the wife, the mother, the friend:
the one with a broken heart.

Sing of the love she has for her son,
love piercing deep with nowhere to go,
plunging deep, yet deeper still,
until it ascends to God.

Sing of the woman
whose heart has been broken,
of her tenderness, softness, and stillness:
these places in her that are new,
these places in her that are fresh,
these places in her that she knows
God needed to break.

This stillness, so hard-won:
common moments stopping time,
tears afresh and questions looming,
contemplation her steady friend.

This softness, so hard-won:
tearing all she thought she wanted (but didn't)
and all she truly did (but lost)
from her small yet delicate hands.

This tenderness, so hard-won:
its beauty glows amidst ashes.
In this place, a plea for mercy:
even this, dear God, redeem.

Off to Love and Care

2010-11-02T07:11:00.000-04:00

Kirsten in Bellingham.

August 2008

Hello there, friends.

The time has come for me to leave on a jet plane to visit the sweet and beautiful Kirsten-girl. I've been up early this morning praying over our trip, and my primary prayer is this: that God would be everything that is needed.

Look forward to connecting with you soon upon my return. Much love!

xoxo,
Christianne

I'm Such a Halloween Grinch

2010-10-31T20:26:00.001-04:00

So, I confessed publicly yesterday on Facebook that I am quite the Halloween grinch. I don't really like this holiday at all, and my dislike for it keeps growing with every year. For the last couple years, Kirk and I have turned off the front-porch light and holed up in our bedroom to watch our two favorite Halloween-themed movies: It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and To Kill a Mockingbird. (Don't you just love those movies??)

I'm not one of those people who grew up hearing about the evils of Halloween. That's not where this is coming from.

Rather, I grew up trick or treating like everyone else, usually dressed as a cheerleader, a 50s girl with a poodle skirt and saddle shoes, a Southern belle, or even an angel. I loved the chance to get a pillowcase full of free candy, especially since I've always had quite the sweet tooth. My sister and I would venture out into the night and go door to door around several blocks in the neighborhood, then return home at the end of the night for the very best part: dumping our booty on the living room carpet to begin the sorting and exchanging of treats, alongside our older brother Bobby.

In high school, I visited a few of the local haunted houses like everyone else. These were the ones that turned out to be evangelistic efforts by local churches intent on scaring people into salvation from hell. Rather than inclining me toward God, those experiences did nothing more than make me feel frustrated and betrayed. I knew that life with God was about so much more than escaping the fires of hell, and I resented the scare tactics used by people who, I felt, presented a distorted view of my God.

Sometime in college, I remember hearing stories from a friend about the places she knew near her home where sacrifices and other acts of real evil took place on Halloween night. That was my first exposure to the dark side that really exists for some people on Halloween. But even though hearing those stories impacted me and still come to mind from time to time when I think about this holiday, it's not been a particular preoccupation for me when October rolls around every year.

To be honest, I'm not really sure what causes the discomfort for me on this night. I only know that when the conversations about Halloween begin each October, I find myself trying to skirt those conversations as deftly as I can. I don't want to be invited to costume parties. I don't want to pass out candy to little kids. And I really don't want to attend a Halloween Horror Night or haunted mansion.

I told Kirk last night that I'm not really sure what this is all about for me. He said something quite perceptive: "I think it's because you have a really sensitive spirit. As you keep growing more and more sensitive in your spiritual journey, the spiritual nature of the world around you also increases." Wow. Smart man, he is.

So there you have it: my anti-Halloween post for today. What is Halloween like for you?

Tender Heart

2010-10-30T20:03:00.001-04:00

Me, in a tender moment.

(This is also what I look like on the

rare occasion I straighten my hair.)

Hello, friends.

I've been gaining more insights into this pruning year, which I look forward to sharing with you soon, but for now, because I've been feeling quite a bit of tenderness this week, I thought I'd simply use this space to share a bit about that tenderness with you.

Sometime in the mid-afternoon on Wednesday, I left the work office to drive home and found myself engulfed by a wave of sadness that would not let me go. It felt pretty inexplicable, this sudden sadness that landed on me as I drove toward home in my car, and it stuck with me for several hours that day.

That night, sleep did not come easy. I stayed awake for a solid two hours after Kirk fell asleep, unable to get tired enough to fall asleep myself. So I spent some time reading and some time puttering around online, and when I finally turned off the light to try and sleep, I felt an acute restlessness. I got up and stretched my legs for a little while, trying to push the restlessness out of my limbs, but it persisted.

Then, after a little while, I started to notice something.

Deep down, so deep inside that I only noticed it once I'd gotten really, really quiet, my spirit was praying. It was praying hard, and in a language I do not know.

This intense prayer that sometimes happens in a language I do not know is not new to me, but only on rare occasions does it begin to happen without my knowledge of its happening or my prompting for it to happen or my participation in its happening from the beginning. But that's what was happening that night.

Once I realized that was happening, my mind began to roam over the various people and concerns in my life right now. I thought about Kirsten, of course. I thought about my family members. I thought about some of my friends on Facebook. I even thought about our president and this increasingly crazy election season.

But nothing I thought of seemed to touch that deep-down place that was praying and praying and praying. So I let go of the attempt to figure out the reason and just began attending to the prayers, participating in them with my full attention and intention.

I stayed awake for a while that night praying for this reason I did not know.

The next day, the sadness was right there again, waiting to accompany me throughout my day. It kept following me around. I kept feeling the need to break down and cry at odd moments. At one point that afternoon, I sat on the couch petting Diva and said out loud (to myself, to Diva, to God), "I keep feeling sad . . . and I have no idea why."

One contributor to some of this sadness, I know, is the reading I've started this week for a new class in my graduate program. It's a course on spiritual formation and social justice, which I am very glad to be taking.

As part of the course, I've begun reading a pretty intense book by Thomas Merton called Faith and Violence, which is very good and has been on my "to read" list for quite some time. But it's also a difficult read, covering topics such as the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement with incredible perception and honesty.

Although I'm glad to be reading this book and have been learning so much from it so far, it has also stirred up so many ongoing questions I have about nonviolence, and it also can't help increasing my sadness about the ongoing state of our world. Some of the heaviness this week, I'm sure, has to do with all this reading and pondering. (And by the way, because of these persisting and preoccupying questions I keep having, I'm feeling pretty close to reopening the Journey Toward Nonviolence blog very soon.)

Then yesterday, I received a call from a dear friend who shared with me some pretty significant news. It is news that affects a number of people I know, and it concerns something we collectively cared about very much.

Even though this news doesn't affect me directly, it still affects me. It feels like it happened to me right alongside everyone else. So I shed a few tears yesterday at this news, and I sighed quite a lot through the rest of the day, and I kept asking God lots of questions about it.

Finally, in need of some relief (do you ever just need to give yourself a really good cry?), I snuggled under the covers and turned off all the lights and just watched straight through my favorite cathartic movie of all time, Sense and Sensibility.

There's more to be shared about all this, I'm sure, but for now it's enough to stop right here and say of this week:

Yes, indeed. There's been quite a bit of tenderness here.

I just keep trying to move slowly and gingerly right now, then, handling my heart with care and with an incredible amount of grace and love. That seems to be what it needs most.

This Pruning Year

2010-10-25T20:52:00.001-04:00

" . . . every branch that bears fruit He prunes,

that it may bear more fruit."

John 15:2

Hello, dear friends.

I've had quite a revelation stirring up my mind and soul these past two days. It is causing a complete reframing of this past hard year, and I can hardly believe it is happening.

On Sunday morning, I settled in at my desk for some time of devotion with God. Are you familiar with the lectio divina method of reading Scripture? It's a way of reading that allows for deep introspection and personal response, usually in such a way that evokes a conversation between one's soul and God.

This is the way I most often read the Scriptures in the morning. I'll take a psalm or other small passage in the Bible and, before I begin, will sit with the page open before me on the desk and consciously open my heart to God. I'll ask him to meet with me through the words we're about to read together.

Then I'll read through the psalm or passage once, often aloud, and then sit for a few moments and reflect on what I just read. If I have questions about what I read, I voice those questions to God. If something doesn't make sense or is hard for me to fathom, I tell God about it. If I find myself adoring God just a little bit more by what I learned of him in that section of Scripture, I tell him that too.

And then I go back to the beginning of the passage and begin to read it again, this time a bit more slowly. (This is the real heart of the lectio divina practice.) During this second time through, I pay more careful attention to the words, asking God to alight my eyes upon a small portion that is to be my focus of devotion for the morning.

Here's where this practice created a complete reframing of this past year for me on Sunday.

I was sitting with a somewhat lengthy passage in John 15, and on my second time through it, a verse near the beginning of the chapter completely arrested me: ". . . every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit." When I came to these words, it was like they jumped off the page in brilliant and holographic light. I couldn't stop reading and re-reading them. I kept turning the verse around in my mind, hearing it again and again, tasting it on my tongue.

Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

It was so clear to me in that moment that this verse applied to me and this last year of chaos I've sustained. There's no doubt that my "branch," at the end of last summer, was bearing much fruit. As I told one friend yesterday, it was like huge mounds of fruit were bursting off my branch at that time . . . fruitfulness upon fruitfulness everywhere! And like I said a couple posts ago, I emerged from that summer feeling more healthy, spiritually and emotionally speaking, than I'd felt in my entire life.

But then I was swept into chaos. Waves upon waves came crashing down on me, and no matter which way I turned, I couldn't seem to catch my breath or find any semblance of peaceful waters.

I kept looking to my circumstances, seeing how they might need to change change. And in late November, I landed on the word "congruence" and went about pruning back some of my commitments. (I can hardly believe this now, but I even used a tree and branch metaphor and image for this process of discernment at the time!)

There was a little bit of calm after that initial pruning in November, but still the waters felt prone to choppiness, and when I started my full-time job in January, the tumult started up all over again. I couldn't seem to catch my breath. I just couldn't get any kind of grip on life.

Again, it was so, so strange.

It's been such a sadness to me, the pain and tumult of this past year. I've written before that it contained an incredible amount of loss, primarily through relationships I couldn't maintain because of all the many which ways I was being swept from one end of the ocean to the other in what seemed to be every single waking second of each day.

But more recently, I've been noticing an incredible sense of loss that is more spiritual in nature . . . a loss of who I had been in the world, to God and to others, when I was standing in that whole and healthy place before the chaos began. Where had that girl gone? How long will it take her to recover from this year? The word regression keeps coming to mind.

Up to this point, having made the decision to leave full-time work, I have had such mixed feelings about what transpired through the course of this year. Because of the way my decision to leave my job came about, it's so clear that God has used this last year's experience to fully clarify in my mind how he made me to exist in this world, not only for his own glory and my health, but also for the benefit of others. My decision to leave my job was wholeheartedly, then, about claiming these truths and doing what was necessary to continue striding forward toward the work he has given me to do in this world. (I'm sure at some point I will share more of this story and its implications with you.)

But even though I can see how God used the year to clarify his intents and purposes for me, which has been such a great gift on the back end of what felt like nothing but pain and confusion, I've still felt that acute sense of loss. I've felt anger about this. And I've even felt a lot of shame, as though the tossing and jostling in those waves was my own dense inability to know how to ride waves instead.

But no more.

Now, because of John 15:2, I see that this has been a pruning year. Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. My God has been pruning me this year. There's something in me that needed to be pruned. And he did it so that I could bear more fruit.

It's no wonder I felt such pain and confusion: I was having whole pieces of myself lopped off with each incisive and precise clip of my smart gardener's shears! But even more than that, he's helping me see through this revelation that the tumult and confusion is not my fault at all. It is his doing. His intentional purpose for me. He has work that he's about in me, and he's been going about it, even if I've been unable to understand what was happening.

You can bet I'm going to be sitting with this one for quite a while. There's so much here for me to learn and better see.

I Can Hardly Believe This Gift

2010-10-23T22:13:00.001-04:00

A couple nights ago, I received a text from my mom. It was late, perhaps almost 11PM, and her text asked, "Are you available to talk about something important?" When I called a few moments later, worried that something was wrong, she said she needed me to get on my computer because she'd just sent me a link to something she wanted me to watch.

But first she told me the story.

On her way to work that morning, she'd pulled out a few old CDs for listening company. Once the above song came on, she said she started to cry, so she immediately turned it off (not wanting to be a puddle of tears by the time she arrived at work!). But on her drive home at the end of the day, she gave the song another try.

"I've heard this song so many times," she said, "but I've never really noticed the second verse. I want you to listen to this song."

So I clicked on the link she had sent, and it took me to the YouTube video posted above. I immediately recognized the band and said, "I own that album!" But I couldn't, just by seeing the song title, recall the song itself until it began to play.

I began listening through the first verse and came to the chorus:

You're holding her hand
You're straining for words
You're trying to make sense of it all
She's desperate for hope
Darkness clouding her view
She's looking to you

Just love her like Jesus
Carry her to him
His yoke is easy
His burden is light
You don't need the answers
To all of life's questions
Just know that he loves her
And stays by her side
Just love her like Jesus

When I heard these words, I began to lose it. I just started weeping right there on the phone. I knew one big reason she had sent me this song . . . it's everything I have shared about wanting to hold Kirsten's hand and just sit with her in her grief . . . and it's everything I have shared about not having words and not knowing at all what to say. Here was the reminder: just love her like Jesus.

Except the story continues.

There was the second verse she had mentioned never noticing before and that she especially wanted me to hear. You'll understand immediately the impact of these words:

The gifts lie in wait
In a room painted blue
The little blessing from heaven
Would be there soon
Hope fades in the night
Blue skies turn to gray
As the little one slips away

As soon as this second verse began, I immediately knew where the story would lead and the tears came harder and faster. I could hardly believe how perfectly this song captured everything inside my heart for my friend and everything just like their experience had been: the bedroom prepared, the gifts waiting there, the little one slipping away in the night before he'd ever been able to come home with them.

My mom said that when the song played in her car, she cried hard tears the whole way home and couldn't stop praying. She said she kept seeing me holding Kirsten's hand and just knowing I needed to be there.

"I'd like to fly you up to see her," she said. "I really think you need to go."

What?!

I could hardly believe it, and my immediate response was no. I could not accept such a lavish gift. I could not accept such kindness.

And yet even as I protested, even as I recognized my inability to receive this kindness, I knew I needed to receive it. You see, just a couple days previous, Kirk and I had spent our Sunday morning sitting on our bed listening to a sermon by Dan Allender about suffering the kindness of God. (It's an incredible sermon and totally worth the 45-minute listen!) The sermon talked about the difficulty of receiving lavish gifts . . . of the pride in us that causes us to refuse them, thinking we need to earn our worthiness of them, when all we really need to do is receive.

I could feel that exact same pride rising up in me when my mom offered me this gift. It was a pride that felt unable to receive this utterly free gift of love. I didn't feel worthy. I hadn't done anything to earn it. I just couldn't say yes.

But again, I had a feeling that was exactly why I should. I couldn't stop thinking of that phrase: suffer the kindness.

Plus, my mom also helped me realize this gift wasn't completely about me anyway. "It's not just for you that I want to do this," she said. "It's also for Kirsten, and for James. And also, it's a little bit for me, for wanting to help extend care to them, too, during this very difficult time. This is one way I can help. It's how I most want to help."

It's been such an amazing few days, holding this story in my heart. It still hardly feels real! And even though Kirsten and I have talked and the e-ticket confirmation has shown up in my inbox, it's still so hard to believe.

In just over a week, I'll be seeing my dear, sweet friend. She will meet me at the airport, and I will put my arms around her and not want to ever let go. I will touch her curls, rub her back, hold her hand, and be a physical presence and witness with her in her grief. I will look in her eyes and say, "I'm here. I love you. Whatever you need in these next few days is completely and fully yours."

So, so utterly thankful.

Thank you, Mom. You bless me more than you know. Kirsten and I are so deeply thankful for this gift of time and presence.

A Place for My Heart to Rest

2010-10-21T01:18:00.002-04:00

Hello, friends.

I have been trying to figure out how to share with you some of the pieces of my heart's journey over this past year. I want you to know where I am, given where I've been and where I'm going. Plus, writing is always the best way for me to process my deepest truths, so writing it out for you will also be like writing it out for me.

It's tricky, though, because some of the strands of this story overlap and circle back and sometimes even seem to contradict. (This is one reason why writing is so helpful to me . . . it helps me work out the kinks and apparent contradictions in my story.) Other strands of the story still feel too close and raw to share beyond the bounds of my closest inner circle.

So I guess one thing I'll say right now is this: I'm in the process of having my heart restored.

It's been such a painful thing, this getting to a place where my heart even needs restoring. Last summer, I emerged from a summer of solitude with my heart beating very, very strong. I felt more healthy, spiritually and emotionally speaking, than I had ever felt in my entire life. I had spent a lot of that time over the summer in worship, in quiet, and in deep introspection. I had made peace with some of my fiercest demons, one huge piece of which was walking through an intentional process of forgiveness in some of the deepest crevices of my heart. And I had reached a place that was utterly, utterly new and which I can only describe as beginning to care more for Jesus and for others than I needed to care for myself.

These were all very new places for me, and this growth was such a marvel to me. God was so good in bringing me to that place.

But this past year, I seemed to lose all of that growth. I couldn't find that still center anymore. I couldn't find my footing. I tossed and tumbled the whole way through. And in the process, I lost my connection to God, to myself, and to others. I also seemed to lose my ability to give of myself, which felt like a complete annihilation of the person I had slowly but gladly become over the long journey of many years of growth.

But God has still been so good to me. He somehow, through his grace, sustained me through a year of being unable to sustain myself. And he also used this difficult year to ultimately bring me back to myself. One day I woke up and just knew: it was time to return. And that moment felt just like the moment Mary Oliver writes about in her most famous and wonderful poem:

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began . . .

[from "The Journey"]

And so, here I am.

Through this process of returning to my heart, I have found myself on a path that provides much intentional space for the revitalization of my heart and spirit. This is a work God must do, and so I am seeking him and asking him to do it. I just lean into the space, and I show up, knowing that all of this restoration of spirit is ultimately meant for others: as God strengthens me, I can love others more.

One place providing a space of rest and nurture for me right now is this Lilies blog. This, right now, is a place I am bringing my heart, no matter its state, to simply share what is. Bruised, battered, hopeful, enlivened . . . Jesus is taking all of it, and here I will share how I'm giving it to him and what I'm discovering about myself and him in the process. (And some days, this is just a place where I can be plain silly or talk about normal life.)

Basically, this is a place for my heart to rest right now, no matter what that happens to look like on any given day. So you will get my heart in this place while Jesus tends to it. I'll share with you (and with me) this heart that Jesus is mending . . . all for the joy of becoming strong in love once more.

Mostly, I've Been Nothing but Tears

2010-10-19T01:22:00.000-04:00

Hi there, friends.

It seems I've been nothing but tears these last few days. Over the last few days, I've cried deep wrenching tears at least three times, maybe four. The kind of tears that wrench deep in your gut and bowl you over in half because it feels like your insides are splitting in two with the pain you feel.

Have you ever known those kind of tears?

Most of these tears stem from sorrows in the lives of those I know. Many close friends are walking right now through unimaginable and unbearable darknesses, and God is letting my own heart connect in some small measure with the pain they carry so that my entire being spills open in tears upon tears.

Even if my experience of that pain barely approximates the fullness of their own, it is enough to tell me that the pain they carry is magnificently terrible.

So I sit here in these tears and wonder what to do. Sometimes I feel like a friend of Job, sitting in the silence, passing the shards of pottery his way so that he can scrape at his sores in his grief because there's nothing else he can do to change his circumstances or take away the profound reality of his loss.

But I don't want to be like those friends of Job, those friends who eventually tried to tell him what to do or how to feel or how he could have made his situation different than it was. If there's one thing I'm learning in this shared sorrow God is giving me to experience, it's that there's nothing I can do. I feel utterly helpless, mute, and incompetent pretty much all of the time.

Each time, then, I am left begging God to do what only he can do. Each time, I plead with him to overcome my own humanity and failings so they receive only what is pure and not what is lacking in me. Each time, I beg him to come closer to them.

Tonight, as I was crying one of these soul-deep cries after a phone call with one of the dearest souls of my heart, Kirk gave me the gift of his presence in my incredibly burdened tears. He smoothed my hair and rubbed my back as I cried and cried and cried. Sometimes he said a few words, and sometimes he asked a question . . . but just his simple presence was all I needed most. The smoothing of my hair. The rubbing of my shoulder. The gentle feel of his hand on my back.

I didn't need words. I needed his presence and those quiet, small, but comforting gestures. They were so much more than enough. He, too, in this moment, was re-teaching me how to listen.

Tonight a friend shared the above video with me on Facebook. It's a song by David Crowder called "Shine," and it speaks the words of a prayer that asks God to come close and whisper and to shine inside a heart that is listening and yearning for what only that light of love can do: overcome.

The video itself tells a love story, and I love the Lite Brite creativity of it, but really it's the words and the melody of this song that rend my heart and meet me where I am. In this song, I find the words of my own prayer right now: that the light of the love of the only one who overcomes would shine from the depths of my heart, offering comfort and presence to those who mourn, especially to those I love.

Finding the Perfect Planner

2010-10-16T00:24:00.000-04:00

Hi there!

So, if you follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook, you're aware that Franklin Covey and I are dear friends and that I've eagerly awaited the arrival of planner bliss-dom on my doorstep over this past week.

The package showed up on my doorstep yesterday, and I am in planner heaven! I decided to share the joy of its arrival with you and unbox the new prize on camera. :-)

And, as with everything worth remarking upon in my life, there's a story to go along with discovering this planner. In this video, I take you along for the journey.

By the way, I showed this video to Kirk tonight, and he thinks it's absolutely hilarious. I'm not sure if it's actually hilarious or simply funny to him because he knows me so well and is totally a planner geek of the superior kind himself. (Seriously, the man takes three planners with him to work every day!) You be the judge. In any case, Kirk is of the opinion that I should do product reviews professionally. :-)

Also, it seems worth mentioning that despite my love for planners, if you and I were to ever take a trip together somewhere, I would not be the sort to plan every sight and sound worth seeing along the way. When I travel, I prefer slow, unplanned spontaneity. This planner mania is reserved for my everyday life only!

Enjoy!

xoxo,
Christianne

PS: I mentioned in the video that I would link to Kelly Rae Roberts, so here's the link to her website and blog.

Today : Begin

2010-10-13T22:10:00.001-04:00

A screenshot of my MacbookPro desktop.

I'm taking a special class this week that I'd like to tell you about.

But first, I want to give you some context for how the class came into my life so that you'll understand why I'm doubly excited to be taking the class: because the class itself is amazing, but also because it seems evident I'm meant to focus on it right now.

So here's the backstory.

I've been following a great gal's blog for some time now. Her name is Marianne Elliot, and she calls herself a Zen Peacekeeper. (Isn't that a great name? That's also her name on Twitter.) I started reading Marianne's blog about a year or so ago, when I was relatively early in my exploration of peacemaking and nonviolence. At the time, she had a blog called Zen and the Art of Peacekeeping, and I voraciously devoured every single post in her archives when I discovered it. I loved learning about this remarkable woman who had worked in the Gaza Strip, in Afghanistan, and for the United Nations for human rights and who carried a fierce yet tender compassion inside of her.

I knew she had a lot to teach me.

Since that time, I've watched Marianne embrace yet another beautiful role for herself: that of teacher, and specifically a teacher of yoga. Sometime earlier this year she launched something called "30 Days of Yoga" that utterly intrigued me, as it was a class that customized your personal needs with a daily yoga practice Marianne created for you to do over the course of 30 days. It combined mindfulness, exercise, and community with a very personal touch, and I love the creative way Marianne found to use her expertise and experience as a yoga teacher to reach people all over the world in this personal and helpful way.

I've been wanting to take Marianne's "30 Days of Yoga" class for a while now, but the timing just never seems to work out right for me. And then last month she announced a very special edition` of the class she was calling the "Karma Edition." Not only was it special in its pricing -- you could pay what you wanted based on what you were able to do or personally thought the class was worth to you -- but 100 percent of the revenue generated by this version of the class in October would also be donated entirely to the Global Seva Challenge supporting people with HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

Perfect.

Except, no. Somehow with the trip to Portland and the flurry of activity due to my transition season, I totally missed the open window of registration.

Darn!

But it's all worked out okay because the next thing I knew, a new and increasingly dear friend of mine, Christine Mason Miller, was blogging about a class she was going to teach the week of October 13th and would be donating the proceeds from the class to Marianne's Seva Challenge, too.

Now, here is something special about what greeted me when I clicked on the link for Christine's course. Not only was I greeted with the course title, but I was greeted with the same image you see at the top of this post. Here it is again:

You see, many months ago, Christine made available for free download a desktop wallpaper. Its beauty and simplicity really spoke to me, and it's been sitting on my desktop for almost the entirety of the intervening months. Every once in a while, I completely clear out the windows from my desktop on my screen just so I can stare at the print. It creates a still point for me inside myself. I love that.

And that desktop wallpaper? It was the same image and title used for this course. Here was an opportunity to take a class with the creator of the print, someone who has also become a friend in recent months . . . plus, I totally got inspired by the course description:

Online ~ 2 Hour Workshop ~ $25
Participants will give a dream, a project, or a creative idea some time and attention, with exercises to create a working to-do list, make a commitment to taking the first step, and then create an inspiring piece of encouragement. The purpose is to explore all the things that are holding you back from taking the first step and to encourage you to create your own "perfect time" to begin, rather than continuing to wait for some other magic moment.

First of all, does that not just sound wonderful??

Yes, I agree that it does. :-)

But even more than that, it meets me in a perfect place in my journey. I do have a creative idea that's been staying with me in recent months, and it is requiring a little faith, some intuition, some creativity, and a bit of space to outline what needs to be done to bring it to life.

It needs some space to just begin.

So, voila! I'm taking the course this week. It will require about two hours of dedicated time, and I look forward to carving out that time in the next couple days to give this new and creative and special idea some wings.

A Peek Into This New Life

2010-10-11T23:51:00.003-04:00

This is pretty much how Diva and I get along on a regular basis.

Today was the first day of the first full week of my new full-time life at home. Last week this new journey began, but it was definitely a transition week. This week, it feels a lot more official.

I love the way I spent this first official morning.

As Kirk got ready and left for work, I made some coffee in the french press and settled in at my desk. It has been so long since I spent time on morning devotions, and that was my first priority today. I have a long list of Gospel passages on assignment for a leadership course I'm taking, so I started reading through the list.

There's something about the Bible that makes me want to read it aloud. Do you ever find that to be the case for you? Some of the passages on my list for today were quite lengthy, so I sat and read aloud at my desk for about 45 minutes. And typical to form, Diva showed up about five minutes into the reading practice . . . she proceeded to jump on my lap and listen to the words and stories of Jesus for pretty much the entirety of my devotional time. (I swear, this little girl kitty knows God.)

I remember last spring, in 2009, when I emerged out of a season of learning to rest, I came to a place of great contentedness in small, everyday chores for our household. Making the bed, folding the laundry, paying the bills, and doing the dishes became activities of great joy and peace for me, and honestly, I have been looking forward to resuming responsibility for these tasks in our household with my return home on a more permanent basis.

This morning, after the devotional exercise of reading Scripture and spending time in prayer, then, I did a few household chores . . . and just the exercise of doing them filled me up again inside. I like the way these little tasks make me feel like I am caring for our life at home together.

Then I settled in for several hours of work at my desk. I organized and filtered through more of my work orientation e-mails, and I began to put some plans in place for the upcoming weeks. I also started diving into my first big project, which I look forward to continuing to do tomorrow. Once all of this was done, I stopped for a lunchtime snack, checked personal e-mails and Facebook, and read some of my favorite blogs.

In all, it was a very peaceful day, and I am enjoying the opportunity to plan and execute my day in the ways that seem most fitting and best, given the things that most need doing.

As a note: I don't plan to chronicle each and every day's activity on this blog in the way I've just done here and have been doing in small snippets over the past week or so. In fact, over the course of the coming days, I expect to start sharing more of my heart's journey with you from this last year and how that led to my making this decision I did to embark on such a big life change away from full-time work in an office. I'll also be sharing some of my thoughts on this particular blog space with you in the coming days, in terms of why this space is important for me and how it is an important element inside my heart's journey right now.

I hope you'll continue to join me for the journey!

xoxo,
Christianne

A Snippet to Make You (and Me) Laugh

2010-10-08T21:47:00.001-04:00

Hi there, friends.

Today's been a hard day for me. I wrote yesterday that the events of the week seem to be catching up with me, and I woke today with the exact same feeling. I had tasks I had hoped to accomplish today, but somehow the energy for all of them was nowhere to be found.

So I did what I mentioned I might, and I took myself to see a movie! Just a short date with myself in the middle of the afternoon. (I love taking myself on a date to the movies, don't you?)

I went to see The Social Network (the link takes you a page where you can watch the trailer), which is a dramatization of the story behind the creation of Facebook. I loved it! It's brilliantly cast and superbly written, and the tension in the story (which the trailer depicts perfectly) builds higher and higher until everything almost explodes. I definitely want to see it again.

To be truthful, though, I think the movie is now contributing a bit more to my melancholia. Jesse Eisenberg, the actor depicting Mark Zuckerberg in the film, does such a good job representing Zuckerberg that I told Kirk later, "However much of the movie is inaccurate to the truth of what really transpired in real life, it doesn't matter. For every viewer of this movie, Jesse Eisenberg is Mark Zuckerberg, and what happened in the movie is what we will all now believe happened in real life."

That's pretty powerful storytelling.

But what happened in the movie was sad, in my opinion. Zuckerberg struck me as very lonely (though it was hard to tell if he cared he was lonely), and also quite vengeful. The spiritual director in me couldn't help wanting to know more of his story. I wanted to know what goes on in his head, since he holds so much of himself locked up inside. And then, as I drove home from the movie, I found myself wondering about his parents. They were nowhere to be seen in the film, and I couldn't help but wonder what they make of the brilliance and fame of their son, who is the youngest billionaire in the history of the world.

I don't know. I guess it was the perfect (or not-so-perfect?) film for my day because I've been carrying quite a bit of sadness around with me. I'm feeling so sad about Ewan, especially as I know Kirsten is preparing for what no mother -- and especially no brand-new mother -- should ever have to prepare for: a memorial service for her little son. How is that even possible? I hate this so much for her. Just hate it.

And I'm feeling sadness about my transition away from my previous job, as I worked each day with people I care a lot about, and we were working in our own small way to change the world together. Much of my heart was invested in that place, and I'm feeling the sadness of losing that part of my heart right now.

So tonight, as I noticed these sad feelings, I found myself wanting a bit of Marcel the Shell in my life, so I thought I would share him with you. This little shell is just adorable, and I hope you enjoy him as much as I do. I discovered him just a few days ago via Twitter, and already I have watched this clip at least 10 times. It makes me giggle every time. Totally a tonic when you need a bit of a mood lift.

PS: I love the part where Marcel talks on the phone, and I also love the part where he drags around his little lint pet. :-)

PPS: What's your favorite part?

It's All Catching Up to Me Now

2010-10-07T20:10:00.005-04:00

Hi there, friends.

I shared in yesterday's post that the transition to a new season of part-time work and attending to the needs of my heart and household was leaving me feeling refreshed and full. But it's amazing to me how different one day can be from the next because today I have such little energy. I think the events of this week have finally caught up with me.

In all truth, it's been a week of significant moments.

There is the tremor that shook the community of which I am a part when my dear friend Kirsten and her husband James lost their little boy after he fought valiantly in his two short weeks of life. It is still quite unreal to me that this is the reality my dear, sweet, beautiful friend is holding right now. It is still almost too tragic to be true. But it is true, and that has been weighing on my heart heavily this week.

And then there was the decision to step away from my full-time job, which has held so much of my heart this year. It was such a difficult decision to make, and it comes with its own share of heartache.

Not only was that decision momentous, but it was followed by an intense two-day transition out of my role there after the decision was made. I wanted to leave well and with all of my cares in order there, so those two days were filled with ensuring I finished well.

Then yesterday brought its own share of transitions. It was the first day of my new chapter, and it was also the first day at my new part-time job. Both of these are exciting realities in my world, and yesterday was indeed a very fun and joy-filled day, but these new realities also carry importance to me. I feel their significance in great measure.

This has indeed been a week, then, of great change, transition, and care.

And like I said above, it has finally begun catching up with me. I've been a bit more sluggish today, able to handle less activity, and altogether just in need of a good, long nap. I think tomorrow I will take myself to a movie. :-)

Refreshed and Full

2010-10-06T22:10:00.051-04:00

Please note: This post was written yesterday but not uploaded until today. I've retained yesterday's date at the top of this post accordingly.

Cypress knees and light-tipped leaves at the

Kraft Azalea Gardens in Winter Park, FL.

Hello there, friends.

Today was such a refreshing day, and as I sit here writing this, my heart feels very, very full.

It was the first day in a new chapter of my story that finds me paring back pretty significantly to the most essential values in my life. I said goodbye yesterday to a group of people I dearly love at a company I very much care about in order to focus more intently on the rebirth of life in my heart. Today marked a significant step forward, then, into this new chapter of mine. It marked a commitment to the reclamation of my heart.

That commitment will take several forms, the first of which is a transition to part-time work. I've been loosely connected to a local publisher here in town for a little while now, but we've never had an opportunity to work together until now. This time, the timing worked out just right for me and for them, so I spent several hours today getting oriented to the work they do and the specific role they have asked me to play in that work. I'm looking forward to what the days ahead hold in working with them!

It's such a gift that I have the opportunity to work part-time right now, as that's really what I need in order to attend to some other areas of my life and heart that need a bit of nurture. And what's more, the bulk of my hours are able to be completed from my very favorite working space: my little corner of our cute home!

I'm so thankful for this new space in life I'm being granted right now that will allow for the intentional cultivation and care of my heart. It needs so much love and space and time and quiet right now, and I can hardly believe the gift of that space and time and quiet is upon me. I am so, so grateful.

I said at the beginning of this post that I feel refreshed and full. It's true. The weather in Central Florida has been positively gorgeous this week: the skies are clear, the breeze is cool, the air is crisp, and there is virtually zero humidity. When I stepped outside at one point today, I couldn't help looking up at the clear blue sky and exclaiming aloud, "What a beautiful day!"

Already the gift of this new and more slow-paced season is producing incredible amounts of joy and energy inside me. When I got home from my new job today, I pushed through a number of household tasks with industriousness and enjoyment and have ended the day feeling full, refreshed, and like my presence in this world is perhaps, once again, a very good thing.

She's Re-Teaching Me How to Listen

2010-10-05T22:37:00.001-04:00

Hello, my friends.

As some of you know, I've been on a bit of a difficult journey this past year. God has been teaching me much through this year about who I am and how he made me to exist and bring life into this world. I'm so thankful for what he's been teaching me, as I feel such joy when I'm embracing the life he gave me to live . . . but the road to getting there on this particular leg of the journey has been painful indeed.

So much of this past year's journey concerns loss: loss of relationships, loss of opportunities, loss of experiences, and simply the loss of being present to the people I dearly love. Now, as I turn round the corner of these losses to the other side, I'm beginning, slowly but surely, to re-embrace those relationships, those experiences, that presence.

I have a ways to go to re-learn these things. I am so terribly out of practice.

One part of who I am that I've come to cherish much in recent years is my ability to listen. It is so very important to me that people be heard and be seen, and particularly in ways that are only their own to hold, without any competition from those hearing them or seeing them in needing to be heard or be seen themselves in those moments. Just holding people as they are and where they are and with what they have to speak, being fully attentive to them alone in the moment . . . that is one of the most important values I hold in life. I love offering that level of presence to others.

This is one of those gifts that went virtually unused through this past difficult year. So I am now on the road to re-learning how to listen. I am re-learning how to offer presence. I am re-learning how to be with someone without my own agenda or need to speak.

Kirsten is re-teaching me how to do this through her journey. She doesn't even know she is my teacher right now, but she is. And I'm thankful, even as my clumsiness in this place so incredibly humbles me.

On the night they said goodbye to Ewan, I received a special call from Kirsten. When I saw her name displayed on my phone as it rang, my body immediately tensed and my mind began racing. Earlier that day, we had learned that he had an infection and that his body was rejecting antibiotics. We knew it would be a day of difficult decisions for Kirsten and James. And there was her name, displayed on my phone.

She told me they were indeed preparing to say goodbye to their beautiful boy, and all I could do in that moment was cry out and weep with her. Tears flowed between us. "It's not fair," she said. And out of my mouth flew the words, over and over: "I'm so sorry . . . I'm so sorry . . . I'm so sorry."

I didn't know what to say. How can we ever know, really, in circumstances like this?

But it wasn't until after that initial moment of pain and shock subsided that I became self-conscious and realized I didn't know or have the right words to say. I fumbled a few times. I am pretty sure I said several dumb and unhelpful things.

I was so out of the practice of offering presence.

Yesterday, Kirsten reminded me how to begin again. She wrote on Ewan's blog:

Many have been struggling with the desire to say something that will help. Let me take that pressure away: there is nothing to be said that will take away or diminish our grief, even though we know that we do not grieve as those without hope. We understand that, and we certainly don't expect it. One of the hardest (but best) things to do is to sit in silence with someone who is grieving -- simply to sit and to be present without the need to offer words.

I am holding this reminder so close, and will continue to do so. She's re-teaching me right now how to listen, as it is what she most needs from me.

In Sadness and Silence

2010-10-04T23:55:00.000-04:00

Two souls that know one another

The last 24 hours have held such incredible heartache. My dear friend Kirsten and her loving husband James said goodbye to their beautiful baby boy. They held him in their arms in his final moments of life as he moved quietly from this life to the next. He went to be with Jesus.

What words can be said? Only love and tears.

So many times today, I have found myself stopping at odd moments and sitting for long minutes in silence. Tears well in my eyes. My stomach clenches in sadness. My heart aches, and I push all the love I hold for this dear friend out from my body on a 3,000-mile journey northwest to where she lives, from my one far corner of the country to her at the other, just sending her all my love, just sharing with her and James in their sadness.

I have closed my eyes in prayer so many times. Asking God for mercy. Asking Jesus to bring his peace. Asking God to be kind, and present, and gentle, and to surround them and all those near to them with all the love God has to give.

Tonight I also have spent time with the photograph above. From the first moment I saw it, just a few days after Ewan's birth, this photograph moved me so. It speaks so much of how well this mama and her little one knew one another, don't you think?

And from this day forward, whenever I think of Kirsten and her precious little Ewan, this is the image that will always remain: the intent way they had of studying one another. This tiny soul that knew his mama, knew he belonged to her, and she to him. She knew him, and he knew her: they belonged to each other, and they still do.

It's one of the most precious sights I've ever beheld, this photograph. I will carry it in my mind and heart each day as I love and pray for this friend, for her beloved husband James, and for all (even me) who grieve the loss of this little one's beautiful life.

To read the beautiful story of the last hours Kirsten and James spent with Ewan, click here.

Weeping and Rejoicing

2010-10-01T21:57:00.005-04:00

Giant wooden Psalm 139 plaque that hangs in our house.

Tonight I am spending a lot of time thinking about how varied life can be, and how it can range from high to low at the exact same time.

Right now, some people in this big, wide world are celebrating the highest moments they've ever known in their lives while others are dropping to the deepest lows they've ever touched. At one and the same moment, there is weeping and rejoicing in this world.

Similarly, today found me rejoicing in a way I haven't rejoiced in a very long time, but it also found my heart marked with extraordinary sadness: my dear friend continues to navigate a terrain so completely unpredictable and terrifically heart-wrenching, I hardly know how her heart bears it. At one and the same moment, I wept and rejoiced tonight on my bed.

Inside my beloved friend's story, even, yesterday was cause for celebration and today brought heartache and pain. Weeping and rejoicing, in almost the very same breath.

And somehow God is present to it all.

How can that be?

I remember when little Ava Hunter struggled through her cancer diagnosis over a ten-week period this summer. I watched in amazement as her family continued to worship God, even as their beloved little girl slipped further and further away. At her memorial service, we all stood together and sang, "You give and take away, You give and take away, You give and take away, blessed be Your name."

I've been sitting on my bed tonight, staring up at the ceiling with joy and grief both swirling like mad in my heart, and I can't stop thinking about this: You give and take away. Blessed be Your name.

I can't say that I've been particularly good at blessing God's name in the difficult places of late. The Hunter family and my friend Kirsten have been great teachers to me in this regard. Even in the darkness, they have blessed God's name.

Oh, that I would do the same when darkness visits me.

But for now, I hold the weeping and rejoicing in my heart and marvel at the mystery of knowing both at once . . . perhaps, in some small way, similar to how God knows them too.

Eye Candy Treats for You

2010-10-01T00:56:00.000-04:00

Hello there, friends!

It's a late night for me, as I've been working hard to finish a freelance project and get it off to the super-awesome publisher before bed. And now that the work is done, I have time for a quick play session with you before heading off to dream sweet dreams.

I've decided to keep this one simple and simply share some lovely eye candy treats with you. In fact, I may make this an occasional "eye candy" series and share random images with you from our daily life and shared experiences from time to time. Nothing fancy . . . just some photos that capture moments we've shared and recall to mind fond memories in our life together so far.

That being said, this particular handful of photos were all taken by Kirk, and all of them were captured in chance moments we shared during our first few months as a couple.

Enjoy!

Glance of elbow and clothes, taken on the
Winter Park Boat Tour.
June 2005

Such friendly sunflowers!
Taken in Kirk's kitchen during our first visit.
June 2005

Beautiful sunrise in Cambridge, England.
August 2005

Quiet morning streets of Cambridge, England.

August 2005

Really cool tree found on Addison's Walk in Oxford, England.

August 2005

The Beautiful Sounds & Soul of Amy Seeley

2010-09-29T21:03:00.000-04:00

I want to introduce you to Amy Seeley.

I first learned of Amy through a woman I deeply adore, affectionately known in blogland as Boho Girl. Several times over the last couple years, Boho Girl (aka Denise) has blogged about Amy, her music, and their friendship. I believe at one point Denise even shared the video above on her blog.

One day, after reading one of these posts Denise had written, I finally decided it was time to jump in and experience Amy's music for myself. I went to iTunes and began sampling several of the albums. But as can happen sometimes when discovering a talented artist with several albums already published, I just couldn't decide which album should be my first official introduction to the music of Amy Seeley.

So I decided to wait.

Sometime later, I came across a photographer by the name of David Jay. He, too, was blogging about this remarkable pianist, lyricist, and vocalist named Amy Seeley, and he shared about a day they had spent together on the Westmont College campus in Santa Barbara. He was just beginning to pair some of her beautiful music with his beautiful wedding photography, and I found the music and images such an appropriate complement to one another.

I fell in love with Amy Seeley again that day. But still I waited.

Even though it took me long to climb into the songs and sounds of Amy Seeley, I'm so glad I waited as long as I did. Do you know why? Because when the time finally emerged for me to "meet" Amy Seeley in her music, the course of events also brought with it a chance to meet Amy in real life -- in Portland, in fact, which happens to be where she lives.

I could hardly believe the way our paths began to collide as Kirk and I prepared to head to Portland and I connected to Amy via e-mail about the full-collection purchase I wanted to make through her website. When we discovered our paths would overlap in Portland, she was kind enough to head downtown on Monday afternoon to meet me at Powell's Books at the end of our Monday session.

There she stood, on the corner outside the store, waiting for me with three CDs in her hand, all wrapped up in a silky brown bow. She was adorable. And sweet. And so very present in her giving of hugs and in asking about our experience of the conference. We didn't have many long moments to share on that day, but I was left with the impression of having met a very special, kind, and spiritual soul.

In preparation for our flight home the next day, I loaded all three of Amy's albums on my iPod for company on the plane. And oh, did I swoon! Amy's lyrics and voice are so tender and attentive. Her fingers on the piano embed music on the soul with rhythmic grace, strength, and vulnerability. I told her today that her music is a new companion for my soul.

I love discovering a new artist whose music becomes a companion for my soul, don't you? Amy's music is certainly that for me.

(And if you're interested in giving Amy's music a try and want suggestions on the best place to start, I would humbly recommend her Call It Life EP. I've been listening to that particular album on repeat for two days straight!)

xoxo,
Christianne

Video Challenge Day 10: Reflections on the Challenge

2010-09-29T00:11:00.000-04:00

Hello, friends.

We are back from Portland, and of course the kitties are thrilled. We think they must have some kind of sixth sense that tells them we're finally on our way back home. Both of them were waiting at the door when we walked in, ready to follow us around the house until we gave them the affection they craved.

This 10-day video challenge has been quite an accomplishment for me, and in the video I share some of the reasons why. I'm so glad I did it!

I also share a bit about my intention for this space going forward. I hope you'll continue to join me here and find refreshment for your own spirit, just as I'll be finding refreshment for mine.

Thanks for being here for the relaunch of this blog and the 10-day challenge!

xoxo,
Christianne

Video Challenge Day 9: On Saving Many Lives

2010-09-28T01:37:00.001-04:00

Hello there, friends.

There is much to process about the story conference we just finished with Donald Miller, and Kirk and I expect it will take us quite a bit of time to unpack all the rich treasures it held for us.

Rather than try to process through the conference in one short video post, I decided to share one huge takeaway from the conference that I'm pondering and holding close to my heart right now.

And then tomorrow, we head home.

It will be a long day of travel, but I look forward to wrapping up the 10-day video challenge with a reflective closing post about this series tomorrow night when we get home. (And can I just say . . . I am really looking forward to snuggling with this little one and this little one as soon as we walk in the door!)

xoxo,
Christianne

Video Challenge Day 8: The Storyline Conference

2010-09-27T03:46:00.001-04:00

Hello there!

It's late here, and tomorrow is shaping up to be an early morning and very full day, so I'll keep this post short and sweet.

Simply put, I am loving this conference. In the video, I share my first four reasons why.

If you want to know more about Lucy, whom I mention in the video, click here for several posts on Don Miller's blog that he wrote from Lucy's perspective. (Isn't that fun?)

Also, if you're curious to know more about Storychange, which I mention toward the end of the video, you can get some of the backstory here, here, and here.

PS: I removed my glasses for this one because the lamp behind my laptop kept casting a glare on my glasses, and I thought that would be kind of distracting.

PPS: You'll notice I have quite a habit of reaching up to adjust my glasses, even when they're not physically on my head. :-)

Video Challenge Day 7: Welcome to Portland!

2010-09-26T14:06:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!

I'm writing this post from Peet's Coffee and Tea Shop in downtown Portland, right up the block from our very cool and swanky hotel. (Seriously . . . how many hotels give you an option for seven different varieties of pillow to enjoy, along with an option of ten different holy books you can order to your room, depending on your personal faith tradition? I'm impressed.)

In this video, I share several of the reasons I love traveling with Kirk, and you get a peek into some of the special trips we've enjoyed together in our life so far. (I actually wrote a post after our honeymoon about the favorite place in Paris I mention in the video, which you can read here.)

By the way, I usually record these videos with the screen blacked out so that I can focus on talking directly to you, instead of being distracted by my own image as I talk to the screen. So I didn't realize, toward the end of the video, that Kirk exits the bathroom behind me and sits on the bed, just barely visible to you as I am completing the video.

He asked me to tell you he sends his regards. :-)

Video Challenge Day 6: Heading Out of Town!

2010-09-24T18:16:00.000-04:00

Hi there, everyone!

This sixth installment in the 10-day video challenge is just a quick update for you, as Kirk and I are prepping the house and our bags for a trip out of town!

First, though, thank you ever so much for your prayers for baby Ewan last night. Kirsten is continuing to keep the community updated through regular postings to the Team Ewan blog. I'd encourage you to head over there and read how God is answering the prayers of the saints as we hold up this little one before his face.

And second, we'll be in the Pacific Northwest for the next four days, and I'll post these daily updates from there so you can spy on what we're doing with our time each day. It's going to be a blast, I know!

PS: Here is info on the conference we're attending.

PPS: Here is Donald Miller's uber-thoughtful blog.

PPPS: I highly recommend the two books I mentioned in the video, Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

Dear Jesus, Have Mercy

2010-09-24T01:30:00.000-04:00

I haven't had a chance to write actual blog posts here yet . . . so here we go. I need to write this out.

Jesus, we need your mercy for baby Ewan.

If you read back through the archives on this blog, you will quickly learn I have a very dear friend of my heart named Kirsten. We met in college nearly 15 years ago but didn't become close until six years after graduation, when both of us took up blogging. Then we became fast friends. (You can listen to a fun StoryCorps interview we recorded together here.)

Here is what I know about Kirsten. She is beautiful and lively and lovely and amazing. She is a truly gifted writer, a talented photographer, and a faithful friend. She is goofy, silly, and hilarious. She is thoughtful, deep, and wise. She's a fighter, and she's a lover . . . and so much more.

I adore her.

It was my privilege to stand up with her at her wedding. And it was a joy to learn she was carrying her first baby soon after. And then it was pure heartache to learn that the baby was not completely well inside her womb.

Over this past year, I've shared here and there about the difficulty of walking in darkness. The truth is, I have spent the whole of this past year in a fog. I haven't been myself, and what is worse, I haven't been present much at all for those I most dearly love, including Kirsten.

It saddened me to know that Kirsten was walking through one of the most life-changing experiences of her life without my full and unequivocal presence in our friendship. It tore me up even more to know that she was walking through an exceedingly difficult pregnancy with more than her own fair share of darkness along the way.

And I wasn't there.

One of the great gifts of the light that finally emerged on my horizon in the past couple weeks was an increasing ability to be present to this dear friend of my heart in this pivotal time. Finally, my heart was back . . . and I could love her a little better than I had been able to for a while.

I'm so thankful for the timing of this because of the life-altering experiences she's experienced this past week. Kirsten went into labor on Friday night and had little baby Ewan on Saturday morning, two-and-a-half weeks early.

These first five days of Ewan's little life have been full of so many emotions for my friend, as I'm sure you can imagine. I have watched her, through the camera lens, discover a deeper love than she has ever known existed before, and I have watched her grapple with fears and sadness because he has a broken heart.

Tonight, after a long-awaited test, Kirsten and James learned that Ewan's heart prognosis is grim. He was ordered into an emergency surgery, and right now they're enduring the countdown of several hours of waiting, waiting, waiting . . . and praying, praying, praying. Even though they knew surgeries were ahead, they never expected them to come so urgently and immediately. It is a scary night for them.

Will you please join me in praying for baby Ewan, as well as Kirsten and James? They need our prayers and love so much this night.

Lord Jesus, please have mercy.

Video Challenge Day 5: Worship

2010-09-23T20:15:00.000-04:00

Hello there, friends.

So, today's video post for the video challenge is as much of a surprise to me as it may be to you: I sing a few songs!

I found myself thinking, "Eeeeks! I am about to get really vulnerable in public right now!" as I saved and uploaded this post.

But this isn't about me. It's about God. And how worthy of worship our God really is.

I hope these songs somehow usher you into a deeper communion with God, no matter where you find yourself in your faith journey.

Amen.

Video Challenge Day 4: Of Moons and Names

2010-09-22T21:04:00.001-04:00

Hello there!

Kirk and I discovered there is a harvest moon on the rise tonight, so this video shares a bit about a spontaneous adventure we took to enjoy a bit of that sight.

Also, isn't "Lilies Have Dreams" an unusual name? In this video, I share the story behind that name with you.

PS: I mention that I started this blog in May 2006, but when digging through the archives to find the post I mentioned in the video, I discovered it was actually April 2006. Details, details.

PPS: My apologies for the grainy texture of the video quality. I waited until after dark to record it, and at that point had only my lonely desk lamp for lighting!

PPPS: Diva makes yet another surprise cameo on tonight's video, although you never quite see her face emerge for the camera. Oops! When she and I say goodnight at the end of the clip, just imagine her cute face and big blue eyes peering back at you. :-)

Video Challenge Day 3: Favorite Things

2010-09-21T20:09:00.000-04:00

Hello there!

On this third day of the video challenge, I've decided to share with you some of my favorite things. I had a lot of fun thinking up a few things in my world that make me smile . . . and I noticed most of them are simple, everyday pleasures.

What about you? What are some of your favorite things today?

PS: Please join me in welcoming Solomon and Diva as unexpected guests on today's video. :-)

PPS: You can see a photo of the kind of whimsical beauty I describe is common to Florida on another post I wrote here.

Video Challenge Day 2: The Yellow Butterfly

2010-09-20T18:58:00.000-04:00

Hi there!

I haven't been feeling too up to snuff today, so I didn't plan anything extraordinary for today's video installment (and you'll see that my hair is quite a bit scruffy from my long afternoon nap!). But I did want to share a story with you today that has been inspiring me on a daily basis, and I'd love to hear your perspective on it.

In the video, I mention my pastor and his family and the blog that Ava Hunter's dad, Josh, was keeping on a daily basis in the aftermath of her diagnosis. Josh is still maintaining that blog, and you can access it here.

Also, I mention a post he wrote that invited people to share stories of how Ava's life had changed their lives, and you can read those inspiring stories (over 300 of them!) here. The story of the yellow butterfly that I talk about in the video is also found inside those comments.

It totally amazes me how one little girl with incredible spunk and determination and sweetness and love had the ability to affect thousands of people in the course of her short life. Do you want to see a picture of this beautiful little one? You can see a photo that will melt your heart here.

I'm Back! (And With a 10-Day Video Challenge)

2010-09-19T20:59:00.001-04:00

Hello, beautiful lovelies.

After a year's hiatus from this space, I've decided that the time is ripe for a return and relaunch. Oh, I am so excited!

I plan to share more of the story behind the relaunch with you over the coming weeks, but for now I'm popping in to say hello and to share the good news of this return. It's going to be full of yummy goodness . . . I can just taste it!

In the video above, I share the news of the relaunch with you, but I also mention a 10-day video challenge that I've decided to take. I first learned about the challenge from Charlie Gilkey at Productive Flourishing (see his post about it here) and from Rachel Acklin at the Caffeinated Elf (with her adorable first video found here). Since I was already anticipating a return to this beloved blog, they inspired me to use the challenge for the official relaunch. Isn't that a fun idea?

I hope you'll join me in the video challenge (and let me know in the comments if you want to!).

And until I have a chance to share the full story of this blog's return, here's a peek into at least one part of the reason why.

Much love,
Christianne

Unveiling . . .

2009-10-28T13:09:00.012-04:00

Hi there, friends.

I wanted to let you know that I've finally taken the plunge and published the website I was working on last year. (You know, the one I agonized over for months and talked about here, here, and here?)

It's called Still Forming, and it will be my new online home.

Since I've been away from blogland, I've been doing a lot of writing in various journals and doing a lot of typing on my new vintage typewriter (which I love dearly and have christened Brother Merton) . . . but there's something about the act of composing words for others that I miss so much. I think it's that writerly process of mentally organizing and framing a story in the just-right way and then using the just-right words and paragraphs to tell it well and make the experience real for others. While working on some projects I needed to get done last week, I suddenly realized how much I miss that process.

I also realized, when I became actively engaged in a conversation on Brett McCracken's blog last week (you can find the specific conversation here and here), that there are some subjects deep in my soul that I have to write and talk about. These subjects will not surprise you. They have to do with how we relate to each other and how we relate to God, how healing happens in the human heart and spirit, and what we are meant to be about in this world. And even though it was somewhat unnerving to sound a counter-voice to Brett's initial post, what happened as a result seemed fruitful for all involved. These are the kind of things I want to think and talk about more, and in a more intentional way.

So, yes. Please join me over at Still Forming.

It might also interest you to know that I'll be writing in the days and months ahead, too, more about my summer of solitude and what I've been continuing to learn and think about on the subjects of nonviolence, peacemaking, and social justice.

Cheers, friends, and much love. Thank you for being a presence and community in this much-beloved Lilies blog of mine over the past three years.

Summer of Solitude

2009-06-12T16:00:00.000-04:00

I guess the last thing I have to say after writing my epilogue post is that I'm answering a call this summer into a season of intentional solitude. I'll be spending the next two and a half months with a lot of solitude and silence during the long hours Kirk spends at work. The time will be spent in prayer, worship, study, and reflection. There will be a lot of words written privately between me and God. I will not be posting anything here.

This pull toward a summer of solitude started to emerge right about the time I fell silent here in mid-March, too. Shortly after Kirk got his new job, I started putting together a new writing notebook full of notes, articles, quotes, poems, journal entries, and other scribblings I'd been amassing for about six months on the subject of peacemaking and nonviolence. This was a subject I'd begun to care deeply about exploring during the fall semester at Spring Arbor, when I'd read a book called The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser.

In this book, I encountered an idea that simply would not let me go. It was the idea that love is the only force powerful enough to overcome violence. Now, I've not spent much time in my life thinking about violence or the works of peace. It surprised me just as much as anybody else that I was feeling a pull to explore this subject deeper . . . much deeper, in fact. But there it was. It would not let me go.

In January, when I studied for my residency in Philadelphia, I encountered more ideas that kept stirring something within me. The books I was reading for the residency kept quoting the same people over and over again: Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa. Everything they had to say resonated with a place rooted very deep inside of me. So before I left for Philadelphia, I made a commitment to spend this year studying the works of the great peacemakers of history. I knew I had to learn more about this subject that had its grip on me, and I thought the best place to begin would be to apprentice myself to the masters who had lived it out.

On the plane ride to Philadelphia, I happened to be reading the Jan/Feb issue of Relevant magazine and stumbled upon an article about the femocide taking place right this very moment in the Congo. This article was not for the faint of heart, and I cried deep wracking sobs while reading it on the plane. There was so much deeply disturbing news embedded in that article, and I found myself wondering if Rolheiser was really serious. What could it possibly look like to overcome violence with love in the Congo femocide? Was it really possible to overcome that level of hatred? Where would one even begin?

Then I spent my time at the residency thinking more and more about this subject. Over and over in my journal for that week, I wrote in big block letters these sorts of notes to myself: Cooperation accords human dignity. The primary principle of social justice is the dignity of all human persons. How is the heart changed? How do we help people grow in love? If Jesus is real, then God is for all people.

You might remember that I came home from the residency asking the question, "What is my Calcutta?" I was thinking about something I was beginning to call emotional justice, since my focus for many years has been the journey to emotional and spiritual healing in my own heart and in the hearts of others. But as I continued to think about emotional justice on a personal level, I also began to wonder if the kind of love that I have learned is the key to healing individual hearts is perhaps the same kind of love that has the power to heal the greater magnitude of ills in our big world. It might sound pie in the sky to say so, but it was the best connection I could make between the journey I've taken so far and this new subject that had gripped my heart, showing up quite unpresumingly one day upon the doorstep of my heart and asking me to follow where it leads.

I've been following the path in small increments this first six months of the year. But then, as I assembled all my notes and clippings and other scribblings into my dedicated notebook for this project toward the end of March, I started to notice something new. I noticed a pull toward dedicated time. I looked ahead to the summer and saw that time might indeed present itself in large doses while Kirk is away at work. Most of my usual commitments would not be in place in the summer, and my heart was growing in its need to pray intently and learn intently and think intently and journal intently about all of this. I began to wonder if this summer was indeed the time.

Over the last couple months, as I've been away from here, it has become clear to me that this summer really is meant for this. So today I am beginning. I don't know where this path will ultimately lead . . . and I'm completely okay with that. It has been such a joy-filled delight to watch myself embrace the mystery, trusting God with the outcome, contenting myself with mere obedience inside the process, not having to know what this is all for right now, just knowing I'm supposed to follow.

I won't be writing here this summer. I'm even going into this journey believing this could be my last post ever written on this blog. I just want to be open to wherever God will take me, no strings attached. For now, I'll leave this content open and accessible, until it becomes clear that the time to close it down completely has arrived.

In the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy the Irish blessing I've included at the beginning of this post. I found it many months ago and knew that it would be my wish for all of you if and when I ever did leave this space. Be blessed, my friends, and take care.

Much love,
Christianne

An Epilogue, of Sorts

2009-06-10T17:36:00.026-04:00

Hello, friends.

It has been such a long while since I've written anything here. I never thought I would encounter the day when three weeks . . . then a month and a half . . . then two months . . . and now almost three months would pass without new words from me in this space. The journey to here has been twisty-turvy and surprising.

I guess I should begin by saying that I had every intention of finishing my series on learning to rest. Even from the time I began the series, I knew there were at least seven or eight installments that could be written at that point about this process for me, not to mention however many more pieces that would fall into place as I continued to walk this path.

The first few months of this year were filled with so many opportunities to lean deeper into the rest I was asking God to teach me to receive. Writing those first four installments that got me up to the point of my January residency in Philadelphia was only the beginning. I was really enjoying the process of chronicling the fullness of all this journey for you here.

But then things happened. Really surprising things.

The first thing that happened is that Kirk got a job. That happened right after I wrote my last post in mid-March. It happened very quickly and quite unexpectedly. One moment we were driving to the beach on a sunny Friday afternoon, enjoying the beauty of the day together, and the next moment he was on a phone call with a friend who wanted to meet for lunch on Monday to talk about working together in a relatively new department at Full Sail. Less than a week later, he was in salary negotiations for the new position. A little over a week after that, he showed up for his first day on the job.

This completely shell-shocked me, but in the best of ways. Really, it shell-shocked both of us. It was kind of like waking up in the middle of a very busy street, all kinds of new and bustling activity happening around you, then scratching your head in a wholly stupefied daze and saying to the person beside you, "How exactly did we end up here?" It happened just that fast and just that unexpectedly.

But it was a complete blessing. For one thing, Kirk was (and continues to be) in love with the opportunity. It gives him the chance to listen to people's stories and hear their dreams and ask them compelling questions while continuing to build the educational institution that has been a part of his personal and professional life for so long. The work is good, the people are like family, and the place feels so much like home.

For another thing, the whole situation humbled me like you wouldn't believe. You may remember that my first and second posts in the series on learning to rest described how utterly self-dependent I had realized myself to be about the future. I had for some reason imposed a heck of a lot of internal pressure on myself to unlock the mysterious puzzle about where God was ultimately taking us in this very unconventional life we lead together. I was crunching my mind on overtime to crack that particular code, and a lot of this season of learning to rest was about releasing the need to do that anymore. It was about coming to believe that God indeed is our heavenly Father, which means that he sees us, knows our needs, and will provide for each and every one of them.

Well.

That's pretty much what Kirk's new job had to teach me, and it totally rocked my world. You see, I had absolutely nothing to do with that opportunity coming along or dropping into his lap. I didn't touch it. All I did, if I did anything, was listen to Kirk process through the decision and ask him good questions about it along the way.

Yet here it was. Something he was thrilled to be given the chance to do. What's more, it was providing for exactly all of our needs at that exact moment in time.

And I had absolutely nothing to do with it. That's the part I couldn't quite shake. God wasn't dependent on my doing all the right things or figuring out all the right answers in order to bring the next good thing into our lives. He did what he wanted to do, and he brought Kirk into that mix, and he let me just sit back and watch. With my jaw hanging down to the ground.

I'm pretty sure it stoked God to do this for us: to bring us around the next bend in our journey, finally, after wondering for so long together what it would be and when it would happen. I'm also pretty sure it gave God no shortage of endless delight to watch my wholly dumbfounded reaction as I made the very obvious connections that were there to be made to my very personal journey into greater and greater rest.

So that's the first thing that happened after I wrote my last post. It kind of distracted me for a while from writing anything here. I was pretty full on the inside just holding the weight of all God was communicating to me through that experience.

That he sees us. That he knows our needs. That he will provide for each and every one of them. That he's a whole heck of a lot more creative than I ever could be. That when he wants something to happen, he sets it in motion and it just flows.

Message received. Thank you, Jesus. I believe you now.

The next thing that happened was yet another marvel, and it was this: I started living completely in the present. For several weeks in a row, I found myself content to be concerned only with what was right in front of me to do. When I reached the end of a task, I was happy to simply ask myself, "What is the next right thing for me to do now?"

These were simple tasks. Things like washing the dishes in the sink. Pulling a load of laundry out of the dryer and folding the clothes in the bedroom. Paying the bills. Running to the post office. Calling the credit card company. Shopping for groceries at Costco and Publix. Working on an assignment for school.

Many of these tasks (especially grocery shopping!) were things I used to hate doing and would put off doing as long as possible. They were things Kirk would often do for the both of us, if I'm to be completely honest. Except now he was working 50 to 60 hours a week to get up to speed on his new job. Clearly, he wouldn't be paying the bills or shopping for us when he got home from those long days. It was up to me to do it now.

And I found myself really enjoying it. I loved the simplicity of all these specific tasks. I loved the feeling of contributing to our household and making Kirk's life that much easier. I loved moving from one thing to another in the quietness of our little home.

What's interesting to me about this is how little I thought of blogging. Every rare once in a while, I would remember I have a blog. I would remember it like I was peering, or straining, through a foggy mist to see that blog in the back reaches of my memory. And I would remember that I'd been in the middle of writing a series that seemed to culminate in the life I now found myself living: a life of peace, of simple joy, of resting contentedly and wholeheartedly in the present, without worry and without fear.

The thought of completing the series felt like forcing myself to go backward, to stuff myself back into shoes that were too small after a giant growth spurt. I had left off the series with events that had happened in January. And here it was: April. So much had occurred in the space of that time, even before Kirk got wind of the new job, to teach me lessons about learning to rest. Connecting the dots with all the stories that had happened between January and April to prepare me to receive the rest I had finally found felt overwhelming and somewhat stifling. It would force me to focus on the past instead of living completely in the present, which is what I most wanted to enjoy doing after the long road it took to get me here.

So that's what kept me from this space for quite so long. There's more to this story and more to where I'm heading from here, but I'm going to share those thoughts in a separate post. For now, know that I have indeed found the rest I was so longing and praying to find. Though it makes me sad to think of all the stories making up that journey that will never get told in this space after all, I'm contenting myself to hold all those untold stories close to my heart, known by me and Jesus, believing that the not-telling of them does not make them any less real or a part of who I am today.

Learning to Rest: Part 4

2009-03-18T23:51:00.008-04:00

That night, after the prayer service, a group of my cohort friends and I decided to take a trip to the mini-mart. I, for one, was utterly famished and found myself practically salivating at the mere mention of chocolate chip cookies. So we crowded into one friend's car, cranked the U2 music as high as we could handle it, and headed down to the only establishment open close to midnight in that quiet little town where our retreat center was located.

We decided to each purchase something worth sharing with the rest of the group, and once we made it back to the retreat center, we laid claim to one of the main living areas, scooted several tables together, and then spread our booty of candy and chips along the tables to share.

I don't know that I have ever laughed or giggled that hard or that long in my life. We must have been sitting together for at least a good hour and a half, sharing and joking and telling stories. One friend had worked in a funeral home during one season of his life, and he regaled us -- completely straight-faced -- with stories about some of his most bizarre experiences. Soon people were quoting scenes from The Office. Then someone would pass around the bag of Sour Patch Kids or Doritos. Everything happening around that table of fellowship struck me as insanely silly and insanely good.

Periodically, I would catch myself giggling like a little girl, and I would be thrust back into the memory of that time of play Jesus and I had just shared during the prayer service earlier that night. That experience felt so connected to the purity of fun and laughter I was now sharing with my friends around that table. I felt so safe and so free. It felt like an invitation to more childlike play.

The next morning, I woke in my room about an hour before my alarm went off. I debated getting up or turning on the light to read in bed, but ultimately I decided to go back to sleep. As I cozied back under the covers, my mind returned to the healing experience I'd shared with Jesus the night before. I remembered how I had rested in his arms like an infant after we'd run and danced and played together. So in my bed right then, as I nestled deeper into my pillow and pulled the blankets closer, I pictured myself in Jesus's arms once again, allowing him to hold me as I fell back to sleep.

That last hour of sleep was the deepest I'd had the whole night. I woke feeling incredibly rested and warm and safe and loved. I am not sure I have ever experienced sleep that deep and restful in my entire life. All because I'd let Jesus hold me for that last hour of sleep.

This whole experience fell smack-dab in the middle of the week. Up to that point in the week, my hidden extrovert had come out of hiding and was living on full alert. Whereas I would normally have been heading to bed at a decent hour at a planned retreat, I was finding myself choosing to stay up until one-o-clock in the morning to talk and share and laugh with my friends. Whereas I would normally have used any scheduled free time for a nap, a solitary walk, or a chance to read and journal by myself, I found myself choosing instead to be with others, to go exploring with a group, to linger over the lunchtime meal because we were enthralled in a good conversation.

In other words, I hadn't connected much to my highly introverted nature up to that point in the week.

But that all changed after that healing prayer service, after that night of giggling hard with friends, after that last hour of deep, restful sleep the next morning. As I walked into the first morning session that next day, I found my body moving more slowly and engaging with others less quickly. There was a serenity and lightness to my heart -- a heart that was now captivated by play and laughter and freedom with Jesus -- but there was also an incredible feeling of exhaustion creeping over the rest of my being. I found my brain shutting down about halfway through the sessions. I took more time for myself during the free hours and went to bed much earlier. I felt stripped and in need of naps. I didn't have much to give anymore.

Slowly, I came to realize that I was experiencing something that felt like a deep soul slumber. Who knows how long that hardened piece of my heart that Jesus took from me that night had been in effect in my life, operating as though everything depended on its efforts and alertness, operating as though it was the only living savior around. But however long it was, I know it was a really, really long time. So much so that I don't think it had any concept of rest or play in its experience of my life at all.

These gifts of rest and play, then -- these gifts that then led to its continually deep soul slumber -- were completely new and completely, utterly needed.

Learning to Rest: Part 3

2009-03-05T13:09:00.024-05:00

About a week and a half into the new year, I traveled to Philadelphia for a week-long residency with my classmates from Spring Arbor and six other cohort groups enrolled in our spiritual formation program. We were there to learn about social justice from Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne, and we were provided intentional time to connect in our cohort groups about the work God has been doing in each of our lives.

During the cohort sharing time, we were asked to individually share our responses to two questions: "What has God been doing in my life since last we met?" and "What hasn't God been doing?"

Wow. Those two questions pack a lot of punch, and it was beautiful to hear each person in our cohort community share their diverse, heartfelt responses to how these questions meet them in their lives right now. And then it was precious to gather around each person after they shared so we could spend time praying for the concerns and questions and praises they had voiced. In all, it was a time of vulnerability, tears, intense listening, intense caring, and holy lifting up.

Since our cohort group has 21 members, it took several installments of several hours each for us to provide this sharing and prayer time for each person. I was next-to-last in line, which means that my sharing time landed in the middle of the week, just before we were scheduled for an evening lecture in the main meeting room.

I told my group about the invitation to practice active rest with God this year, allowing him to teach me what it means for him to be my heavenly Father who sees me, knows my needs, and will provide for them as I release my grip on the future and simply watch, wait, and learn to receive. I shared that this felt scary and that I didn't really know yet how to trust that God would show up. And when it came to sharing what God isn't doing right now, I wryly joked that God is not providing me with a job. It's hard to wait and trust that all will be revealed in the fullness of time.

After the group gathered around and prayed for me, we headed downstairs for the main session. Along the way, my friend Seth came up to me and asked if he could talk with me later. "When you were sharing," he said, "I felt like God gave me something specific to share with you, but I didn't want to share it in the larger group." Intrigued, I agreed to talk with him a little later about it.

That night during the main session, the director of our program talked about the role social justice has played within the charismatic tradition of our faith. He talked about prophecy and about healing, about spirit baptism and about spiritual warfare, linking each of these to the work of the Holy Spirit on behalf of social justice in the world. And then, after learning about the history and tenets of the charismatic tradition, we were invited to participate in a charismatic-style worship service.

We pushed all the tables and chairs off to the side of the room, creating an open space that would allow people to stand, sit, kneel, lay down, or even dance. We were told that we would be provided an opportunity for prayer later in the evening so that people could receive healing and the reception of their gifts and ministry if they wanted to be prayed over.

Since I have been so focused these days on receiving the work God has for me to do, I had every intention of going up to receive prayer for the reception of my ministry. But all of that changed once Seth came over to talk with me.

It was about halfway through the worship service, and I had moved from kneeling on the floor to sitting in a chair on the side of the room. Since I was now somewhat detached and no longer singing, Seth came over and asked if he could share with me what he felt God impressing upon him earlier that night. I nodded.

He sat down beside me and said, "I feel like God wants you to know that he's inviting you to play."

I looked at Seth and arched my eyebrows, not sure what to make of this.

He continued. "I'm serious. It's like God wants you to come up and sit on his lap, and he wants to cuddle with you, and tickle you, and laugh with you, and run around with you, and chase you. He's inviting you to play with him."

And then, without him having any knowledge of the image I've been carrying around about clutching the hardened pinecone at the core of my heart, he said, "I just feel like you're clutching something in your fist. Like you're holding on to it really hard and can't let it go."

My eyes widened, and I sat there, dumbfounded. How could he possibly have known?

"You're right," I said slowly. "Just before I came up here, God was showing me that there's this last little sliver of my heart -- almost like the last remaining 25 percent of it -- that has never been given over to him. And it's so frustrating because the other 75 percent has learned to trust him and receive healing. But this last 25 percent has never done any of that. It feels exactly like I'm clutching it in my fist, and it feels like this hardened, dark pinecone digging into the palms of my hands."

Seth nodded and listened, and then, with his eyes fixed on me, he said, "Christianne, you can receive healing for that."

"I know," I said. "I believe God is trying to heal me of it. That's what this season of active rest and learning to let him be my heavenly Father is all about."

"Right," he said. "But I mean tonight. You can receive healing from that tonight."

I looked at him skeptically. "I don't know, Seth. God has healed me in many different ways over the years, but my experience is that it always takes a really long time and a lot of intentionality on my part. I'm not sure I believe it can happen immediately, in a moment."

"Well, sometimes it doesn't," he agreed. "And God may choose not to heal you tonight. But he also could do it, if he wanted to. And maybe you could just start by asking him. I would really encourage you to go up for the healing prayer when the prayer time starts."

Seth has been involved in healing ministries for a while, so I trusted that he spoke from experience about God's ability to heal in an instant. But still . . . I didn't know what to make of all this. Like I said, the work of healing is something I've experienced, but it has always taken whole seasons of life and intentionality to enter into and receive it. It has always been something God and I work through together, sometimes with the help of friends or the help of a therapist. I didn't know if I believed God could really heal me in an instant.

I sat in my chair and took all this in, and all these thoughts and questions kept racing through my mind. I kept trying to reconcile, too, what he had shared about God inviting me to play. What did that mean? Why was it important? Why did it even matter?

And then suddenly, I was weeping. Deep, wracking sobs seemed to well up from the depths of my body. Tears began streaming down my face. My shoulders shook from all those heavy tears. And I felt so embarrassed to be crying like this, out in the open surrounded by classmates I'd just met in person for the first time a few days ago, plus a whole bunch of other people I didn't know at all.

For a long time, the tears just kept flowing and I didn't really know why. It felt like a grief that had been a long time coming, so I just let it come. And then, slowly, I began to see an image of myself in my mind. I was about four years old, and I was sitting on a chair in the middle of my living room. Activity swirled around me in the house, but I sat alone in the room.

Except that I wasn't alone. I saw Jesus with me in that room, right next to me as I sat in the chair. And I realized that this was somehow connected to the presence of Jesus I've always known.

My conversion story has always been a little awkward for me to tell because it has always been the case that I have had an awareness of Jesus with me in my life. From my earliest memories, Jesus has been there. I had never asked him to be there; he was just there. And I've never known what to make of that.

And yet here, in the midst of my tears, God was showing me that the presence of Jesus being with me from my earliest memories has been intentional. In all the ways I have ever felt alone in my life, I really wasn't ever alone. Jesus was always with me, because he knew I would need him to be.

This revelation that helped me understand something I'd never understood made me cry even more out of gratitude and wonder. And somewhere in the midst of these tears, I felt someone place their hand on my head, as though they were praying for me. They left a few moments later. As I continued to cry, my eyes closed and myself completely oblivious to the worship service going on around me, another person came up behind me and began to squeeze my shoulders, massaging the tension that must have been evident as I was hunched over in my chair. Slowly, I felt my neck and shoulders relax. This stranger, too, then moved away.

The tears began to subside, and I opened my eyes and sat quietly. They were beginning the prayer time at the front of the room, calling up those who wanted to receive prayer for their gifts and ministry. It was now clear to me that healing prayer -- not this prayer for ministry -- was what I needed to receive, and I felt willing to ask for it.

But how does healing happen, I wondered. How do I let God do it? How do I let myself receive it? My brain kept crunching these questions over and over, trying to open myself to receive healing but not knowing how to make sense of how it happened at all. Having some mental understanding of what I needed to invite and assent to seemed important. I mean, how could I receive healing if I didn't know how to let it happen?

With these mental gymnastics playing over and over in my head, I moved to the front of the room once the invitation came. Our director, Ken, approached me with a small bottle of anointing oil in his hand and asked how he could pray for me. But I didn't know how to tell him what I needed. "I'm holding on to something, and I don't know how to let it go," was all I could say. I shrugged my shoulders and looked at him, probably with no small amount of tears and desperation shining in my eyes.

Ken made the sign of the cross with oil on my forehead and prayed for me. Then he moved away to pray over another person and I found myself standing in that spot at the front of the room by myself. I felt self-conscious, and again I found my brain working its mental gymnastics on how to let this healing thing happen. I could feel myself getting nowhere, and I felt completely helpless and frustrated with the whole thing. I couldn't help wondering if all of this was just a little ridiculous.

After a few minutes, one of the prayer volunteers came up to me. He introduced himself as Austin and asked how he could pray for me. "I don't know," I told him. "There's this part of my heart that I'm holding on to, and I need to let it go. I need to give it to God, but I don't know how. I don't know how to let healing happen. I don't understand how it works."

Austin nodded and looked at me quietly. "Do you think you could name it? If you could give a word or two to what you're holding on to, what do you think it would it be?"

I just stood there, not saying anything. I didn't know. I shook my head in utter helplessness and looked back at him without saying anything.

He looked at me intently for a few moments, as though listening to the words I wasn't saying and listening to the spirit of God at the same time. "It feels to me like it might be a great loneliness," he said. "But I don't want to name it for you. Do you think you could give it a name?"

To the best of my ability and knowledge, all I could say was, "Trying to make life happen. I would name it, 'Trying to make my life happen.'"

Austin asked if he could pray for me, and his prayer took on a similar theme to what Seth had said to me earlier: that God wanted to play with me, that he wanted me to know how much he delights in me, that he wants me to be like a child with him, running around and being chased. I found myself wondering how he could possibly know what he was praying, how it was possible for his words to mirror Seth's so closely when he hadn't been there for our conversation.

After Austin prayed, we both stood there together. Neither of us said anything for a moment. Finally, I said, "I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to give this over to God so he can heal me. It just doesn't make sense to my mind. I feel like I need to understand how it happens in order to let it happen."

As I was talking, Seth came up and stood on the other side of me, placing his hand on my shoulder and praying for me quietly. Austin nodded at what I had said and then continued to stand there with me, as though listening. After a moment, he said, "I'll tell you what. Why don't we both stand here together quietly and see if God speaks to either one of us about this. And then, if either one of us hears him speak, we can tell the other person what he said. Does that sound okay?"

I nodded. We closed our eyes.

And then I saw him.

In my mind, I saw Jesus standing before me. He was smiling and laughing and beckoning me forward to run and frolic and play. His eyes twinkled. And he just kept laughing and inviting me forward, as though playing with me was the best thing he could imagine doing right in that moment.

So I did it. I imagined that four-year-old me that had been sitting in the living room chair entering into the scene with him and letting him chase me. I laughed and shrieked with joy. I let him catch and tickle me. I was having so much fun! And I could feel, as Seth and Austin prayed beside me, that a huge smile was beginning to spread across my face. It felt like it would be totally stuck there forever.

I stood there for a long time, allowing myself to bask in the moment, just watching myself play with Jesus in that image in my mind. And then, as I continued watching, I saw myself crawl up into his arms and rest. Jesus held me in his arms, my four-year-old self laying in his arms like an infant, fastly falling asleep.

A deep sense of rest came over my body, and I felt like I had no muscles at all. It felt like Seth was holding me up, keeping me from falling backward with his hand lightly touching my shoulder as he prayed. I could tell it was happening. The healing was happening. This is what healing felt like.

Soon Seth and Austin walked away, as though they knew I was with Jesus, just resting, just being with him, no longer needing them beside me in prayer, totally content to be with Jesus for a while.

I had the sense of a group of people standing behind me, a band of four or five of them, praying for me. My friend Annie came up and sang a beautiful worship chorus with her hand resting lightly on my shoulder. Her voice sounded like angel's wings in my ears. And then, with Seth's words to me from the beginning, and Ken's anointing oil and prayer, and Austin's inviting me deeper into all of it, and nameless strangers coming to touch my head and massage my shoulders while I cried, and a group of them standing in a circle of prayer behind me, and Annie's beautiful singing, I was struck with the greatest sense of being held up and supported by the literal body of Christ that I have ever known.

And in the midst of it, Jesus. Jesus holding me in his arms.

I'm not sure at what point it happened, but I slowly came to realize that it was gone. The hardened pinecone that was the core of my heart, the dark pit I had been clutching in my fist and didn't know how to let go of, was gone. Somewhere in the midst of all that playing, he had taken it from my hand, like a parent distracts a child to some other kind of activity so they forget what they'd been holding and the parent can pick it up after they've abandoned it.

I hadn't had to do anything to consciously offer it over. I hadn't had to understand how it would happen, or even when it would happen. He had done it all. He had taken it from me completely, and all that I did was play.

Learning to Rest: Part 2

2009-02-28T21:50:00.017-05:00

On Christmas morning, Kirk gave me a small, two-sided card on which he’d written several questions. These questions were to be held in prayer by both of us for the duration of the week in preparation for the upcoming year. The idea was to pray separately over these questions for a week and then, when we went to dinner on New Year’s Eve, to break the silence of prayer and share what we discerned God was speaking.

The first question on the card asked of God, "What are you trying to free me from?" It didn't take long for me to sit with this question and discover its conclusion. Given the events of late, it seemed quite clear that God was wanting to free me from the iron grip with which I held the final remnants of my heart. This is the part of my heart that had been pushing itself along as though God did not exist. It was the vigilant sentry, a merciless machine, an isolated, sad, and lonely island.

And yet I'd seen Jesus inviting me closer. He had held out his hand toward my self-sufficiency, as though he wanted me to give it over to him. He seemed to want me to trust that this interior, desolate machine that is my greatest and last attempt at my own salvation could be entrusted entirely into his hands.

But could it be? This part of me didn't know the first thing about trusting anything or anyone other than the efforts of its own highly capable self. It was, quite honestly, a functional atheist.

I turned to the second question on the card: "How do you want me to live?"

At this point I began to see that it was perhaps providential that I'd just spent the past eight weeks learning about the spiritual disciplines for a class at Spring Arbor. In that class, I had learned firsthand about the principle of indirection. This principle states that we cannot, in our own power, make ourselves into the kind of people God wants us to be. In the face of that truth, we commit to little practices that are within our capacity so that God, along the way, can cultivate in us the character and fruits we cannot produce ourselves. We commit to what we can do so that God can grow in us what we cannot do. We do it together: his part, and our part.

I began to wonder how the principle of indirection could apply to this situation. If God wants to grow my trust in him in this deepest of interior places, how could I participate in its coming about? What kind of practices could make room for that trust to grow?

I looked out over the coming year of 2009 and, even in that moment, felt how immediately this part of my heart springs into action upon considering it. It channels all sorts of energy and worry toward answering the question of provision. It conjures up ideas for how that provision could happen. It wonders how people answering a vocational call to ministry go about finding jobs. It considers building a new resume. It speeds along channels concerned with connections, contacts, and networks. And it gets exhausted very quickly, even though it helplessly believes this is the only way it can survive.

But maybe there was another way. Just maybe.

That week I had been reading and re-reading the section in Matthew 6 that talks about worry. During one of those readings, I noticed a little sentence embedded in Jesus's sermon that I'd never paid much attention to before:

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? . . . Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' . . . For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." (Matthew 6:25-33)

All throughout Matthew 6, Jesus keeps emphasizing our relationship with our heavenly Father. He talks about "your Father in heaven who sees you" (vv. 4, 6, 18) and says that "your Father knows the things you have need of" (vv. 8). He talks about how our Father in heaven feeds the birds of the air who don't put an ounce of energy into planting and harvesting the food they eat, and how God clothes the lilies of the field in majestic splendor, even though they are but mere flowers. And here, in the section of Matthew 6 that so carefully speaks to the very same worries of provision for physical needs that are the voice of my own heart in apprehending the future, Jesus says that my heavenly Father knows that I have need of all these things.

What does it mean for me to believe I have a heavenly Father who sees me, knows my needs, and will provide for them? What does it mean for me to allow him to be a heavenly Father who actually provides for those needs, in the same way he provides for the sparrows and the lilies without their lifting a toiling finger or worrying one single day? What does it look like for me to be a child, carefree about how the needs are met but content to simply receive with delight the gifts provided each day, trusting each day that those gifts and provisions will be there? What does it mean not to worry?

In considering the question "How do you want me to live?" and the principle of indirection, I began to ask God if 2009 is meant to be a year of practicing active rest, a year of willfully choosing not to spend time or energy figuring out the possibilities and details of my future life, spending that time and energy instead on attending to Jesus and loving others. I wondered if this is perhaps a year of attending to God's activity in my life, watching and waiting for him to bring his good gifts to me and learning to receive and respond to them when they come. Perhaps by actively watching for what God brings each day, my trust in the reality of him as my heavenly Father will grow.

This seemed like a big step to take: turning aside from a way of existing that was like second nature to me in order to trust an invisible God to provide for an invisible future. Was I crazy? I asked God for his Holy Spirit to confirm this path of active rest.

That's when all sorts of crazy things happened within one 24-hour period.

Later that same day, someone shared with me an image they had of me sitting in a meadow surrounded by butterflies. When I asked what those butterflies were doing, she related the idea of a butterfly coming to rest on somebody's shoulder. The person was sitting in stillness, and the butterfly came to them. Interesting.

Then my self-sufficient boy cat who is never interested in cuddling or receiving my affection took an unusual interest. He sat and stared as I worked on my computer and then jumped into my lap and wouldn't budge. He nestled his head into my arm and fell asleep. For seemingly no reason at all, this masculine cat that never cuddles decided to rest, unbidden, on my lap. Weird.

I happened that same night on a poem about butterflies. It spoke of butterflies eluding us when pursued but coming to alight quietly on our shoulders once we are still. Curiouser and curiouser.

And then, as a final bang, I had a dream that an invitation for guest-blogging showed up, completely out of the blue, in my e-mail inbox. I woke up and knew that all these things were God's ways of speaking to me. He was asking me to sit still, to choose not to make my own life happen this year, and to see what shows up, completely apart from my own making, as gifts he brings to me. He wants me to rest in such a way that allows him to demonstrate the faithfulness of his fathering of me.

I felt scared to make this commitment. The part of me that depends entirely on its own ability was completely and totally freaked out by it. But that is because it has known no other way. And this is where another passage I had been reading that week became incredibly comforting and incredibly instructive:

"I will lead the blind by a road they do not know, by paths they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do, and I will not forsake them." (Isaiah 42:16)

The first few times I read this passage, I connected so much with the parts that spoke of blindness, of darkness, of a path unknown and places that are rough. The part of my heart to which this year is dedicated needs to unlearn self-sufficiency and, at the prospect of such unlearning, feels all these things acutely: blind, in the dark, on a road it does not know, and completely rough and unformed.

And yet as I continued to meditate on the passage through the week, I began to notice something else that completely blew my mind. I began to notice how many times God asserts himself as the agent of this journey along the new road, through the darkness into light, from rough ground into smoother levels. Over and over again, he says in this passage, "I will . . . I will . . . I will."

I could not avoid the truth that God would be the one leading me where I needed to go and bringing me out of the darkness I'd always known. It was just this kind of trust that I needed to cling to and learn to believe in, right that very moment.

Learning to Rest: Part 1

2009-02-25T21:55:00.006-05:00

Do you remember when I wrote this post? It was late December, and I was coming to see how little I trust God with the future. Kirk and I had taken a "drive of psalms" that included spontaneous prayer of confession, and I had spilled immediately into a tear-drenched, prayer-filled confession of this distrust in God's real activity, this deeply held belief that my life and what gets made of it is all up to me and what opportunities I find or create. I didn't realize this truth was deep inside of me, but there it was: my belief in myself, my unbelief in God.

It made me sad. I could feel how exhausting it was, all the mental energy expended daily on the potential future, all of the thoughts turned constantly toward planning and hoping and imagining outcomes. It felt almost as though these thought patterns had become part of all the other involuntary, automatic processes of my internal world, something that just happened as my mind flew down its very well-greased tracks, just like my heartbeat happens or my nerve endings work without my having to ask them to. That's how much my mind-schemes about the future and utter dependence on myself had become a part of my waking reality.

A few days after that night of prayer and confession on the drive of psalms, the despondency over the truth of my heart and my inability to yield my trust to God had set in pretty deep. I was carrying the sadness around with me and didn't know what to do with it. That night, Kirk asked what it would look like to bring all of these things into the presence of Jesus.

So I sat and imagined myself doing that. In my mind, I pictured myself approaching the entrance of a garden I've come to know very well, situated on the grounds where we do our monthly Audire training. And as I imagined myself approaching this garden, I saw Jesus standing there at the entryway, waiting for me.

When I reached where he was standing, we stood at the entrance, facing each other. As I looked at him, I could feel all the growth of my long journey that has developed a deep bond of trust between us. It is a trust that allows me to look into his eyes and see deep love and compassion and delight, believing he feels each of those things deeply for me.

But in that moment, standing at the garden gate, I could sense that it wasn't the whole of myself receiving that love and delight and care. I could feel a part of myself being held back, almost off to the side, away from his line of sight. In fact, the deeper I looked into the image of the two of us standing there in my mind, the more I could see that my left hand was indeed clutching something, balled up in a fist over my heart as the entire left side of my body turned away from Jesus in shame.

I could tell that I was clutching in my fist the deepest, most inner core of my heart. I could tell, too, that even though a large part of my heart has experienced the love and life of Christ that I mentioned above, this part of my heart had never experienced it at all. Whereas a large part of me has become comfortable with mystery and ambiguity, alive to the adventure of living in the journey and not having to know all the answers, this part of my heart has been tucked away from all that growth, suffocated from the air and unable to receive the grace of that kind of trust.

I couldn't imagine giving Jesus this last part of my heart. It is the deepest core, functioning like the reserve tank of a car that the car pulls from when it has nothing left to burn. It seemed clear in that moment that my heart, without my knowing it, has been holing away vestiges of its familiar, former life as more and more of me has continued to be transformed by God's grace for these past many years. It has been preserving itself in its inmost reaches.

This inner sanctum has never been given over to Christ and has never experienced his gentle, tender, piercing presence. It cannot imagine the possibility of life outside the power of itself. And I could hardly believe it had been here all this time, functioning as though no transformation and growth had ever occurred in my life at all. Truth be told, that made me kind of mad.

As I stood there clutching this core of my heart, a hardened core that resembled an unopened pinecone dropped from a tree or the dark, hardened pit of a peach fruit, I saw myself attempting to hide this part of my heart from Jesus. And yet, as I watched myself attempting to hide, I experienced his patience. He wasn't trying to wrest this part of my heart away from my grasp, and he wasn't asking me to hurry up and be ready to give it to him already. It was as though he knew this part of my heart could only be given once it had grown to trust him, and that this kind of trust could only grow through an experience of his love and openness and gentle invitation. So he stood there, hand outstretched toward the left side of my body, just waiting with incredible patience.

Quietly, Kirk asked what I thought Jesus might say to me in that moment. I felt the stronger part of me that is more accustomed to receiving Christ's love and living in it everyday look into his eyes and hold his gaze. Slowly, I voiced the question: What would you say to me right now?

As we stood there together, his hand outstretched and my left side turned from him in shame, I heard Jesus say: I understand.

He understands why I am holding back. He understands why I am scared to part with my deepest reserves of self-reliance and all those protective shields. He understands why those shields and responses exist in me in the first place, much better than I do or ever will. He understands all these things, and he is patient. He is committed to waiting with me as my trust in him grows, is nurtured, and blooms. He is committed to me until the day I can hand him my whole heart.