Category: Journeying

Living in a House Called “Enough”…

sparrowsongLeave a comment

From the day of my birth until today, there isn’t one I have survived without grace. Despite my doubts and regrets, that grace has always been enough. My needs have been met, and often in ways I could never have envisioned. It’s as if someone saw my future, and stockpiled exactly the provisions I would need along the way. Someone did. As unchanging as I may be, God never wavers. Worry hasn’t changed one bit of His gracious provision. Considering the reality of His providence and provenance, why is it I spend most of life ruminating over thoughts full of worry? Will there be sufficient companionship, happiness, or strength, or time, or wisdom? Though His grace has always proved sufficient, it seems I’m always fretting He won’t be enough.
Often I think God is asking me about that very thing: Just when will all He’s given fill my bottomless well? Just when will I let Him be enough?  He’s never ever failed me. If fear, as someone said, is a result of imagining the future without God in it, then why, oh why, am I so afraid? I want to learn to dwell in a land called enough…to live in it and make my home there. I’m determined to learn to give to others from that place of enough, knowing in the depths of my soul there’s an inexhaustible supply. To find that place, I must choose to make it my destination, to gratefully acknowledge each grace, to constantly hear the voice that beckons over any calm or storm: “I am enough. I will be enough.” As Cheryl Strayed said, I too proclaim: “Fear to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I choose to tell myself a different story.”

“Bread & Roses”…

sparrowsongLeave a comment

The early 1900’s saw many labor strikes in America in the effort to attain better working conditions, particularly in industrial manufacturing. It was perfectly common for men, women and children to spend their lives working ten-twelve hour days, seven days a week. In textile mills of the day, as well as the carpet factories of places such as India today, children are especially prized as laborers for their small hands and ability to work the looms. One of the most famous strikes took place in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. Working conditions were deplorable, and citizens of fifty-two different nations were living within a nine-mile radius of the mill. When the mill randomly cut the weekly pay by thirty-two cents, somewhere around 30,000 workers protested for over nine weeks, using the opportunity for their union to fight for a reduction in the work hours for women and children from twelve to ten hours daily (http://www.history.com/news/the-strike-that-shook-america-100-years-ago). The mill staunchly refused any compromise, and the battle raged on. It came to be known as one that shook America, and most famously, as the “Bread and Roses” strike, for the song the payless workers would sing as they came to protest each day (James Oppenheim).

As we go marching, marching

In the beauty of the day

A million darkened kitchens

A thousand mill lofts grey

Are touched with all the radiance

That a sudden sun discloses

For the people hear us singing

Bread and roses, bread and roses

As we go marching, marching

We battle too for men

For they are women’s children

And we mother them again

Our lives shall not be sweated

From birth until life closes

Hearts starve as well as bodies

Give us bread, but give us roses

It’s words always give me chills. It wasn’t until the U.S. federal government became involved that the union demands were met, but the victory was for many workers yet to come, and it served to awaken America’s social consciousness. This song is so essential historically, but also so meaning to me personally. It touches on the need for beauty in our lives. Work is a blessing in so many ways, and can bring a sense of purpose and connection. We must also cultivate our awareness and attention to the beauty in our lives. There’s always more present than we can conceive, always enough to feed our souls. “Our lives will not be sweated from birth until life closes. Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.”

Stepping Up…(From the Night of the Buffalo)

sparrowsongLeave a comment

For the past several years, since before my twenty-ninth birthday,  I’ve woken up each morning feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. More accurately, as if that buffalo hit me. Yes…a buffalo, though technically, it was a North-American bison. In opening my eyes to face a new day, in the blink of an eye, I can see the night my dog and I collided with him. The car lights shining on a dark night on the Colorado highway failed to warn us of his shadow standing in the road. We certainly woke him up from a nap, but he crawled off the car and stumbled back into the road behind us to stand again. That buffalo took several years to make me feel the impact of its collision, but I definitely feel it now. I’m lucky: we collided, but nothing shattered, no one died. There’s no question we were protected. It’s really a miracle, but indeed, a miracle that changed everything. Leif Enger wrote, “People fear miracles because they fear being changed-though ignoring them will change you also.” Had I known it was coming, I’m sure I would have been afraid. Now, I pray it has changed me, molded me, transformed me. Now, I fear most ignoring the miraculous in it all.

 

In his powerful Superpower poem, Steve Gross wrote, “it takes practice…to get beyond the whole half-full, half-empty question, and just be grateful for the glass.” I  hope I’ll practice, hope I’ll cultivate that gratitude for the glass I’ve been given. Though I’ve yet to meet another who has shared the experience of hitting a buffalo, I’m definitely not the only one to battle illness, or to spend her life fighting the gravity of life and the depravity of man. As I get moving, get stretching, and receive  the warmth of a hot shower each day, I can feel my broken back begin to hold itself upright again. My muscles and joints begin to move more easily, the head clears, and for the rest of the day, I have the ability to move and walk and live well. Many would give anything just to have two legs that can walk.  I may have to work pretty hard at making this body functional, but if I do, it functions. Many would give anything to have a body responsive to their cues and efforts.  Sure, there’s pain, but I’ve been provided with so many tools, so many gifts, so many friends who love and support me. Mostly, it’s easy to get discouraged when encountering the ways pain has changed me, and resisting the limits it has placed on my life. Again, the choice is presented each day. Albert Einstein once prompted us to choose well: “There are two ways in which you can live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle, or as if everything is a miracle.” I can be grateful and work hard, or I can let pain filter my existence and illness the condition that defines me.  Will I choose to awaken to limitation, or to live unlimited? All I must do to maintain a sense of wonder is receive the mercies offered anew every morning.

 

Most days, with the difficulty of just putting one foot in front of another, it does seem simplest to quit: to stop trying so hard and just let it all take its natural course. If I make that choice, things quickly degenerate. My body can’t get enough of the drug of rest.  If I am to live in hope, I must cling to God’s promises. There is no experience wasted and no downward spiral that can separate us from the His love, even those that are self-generated. ALL is being worked for good. The good work that He began, He will complete. Author Roy Lessin affirms this so well, expounding on the reality of God’s Kingdom. It’s  a wonderful point:

“Everything in this world is moving in a downward direction-our bodies are a little older than they were yesterday; the parts in our cars have more wear than they had yesterday; even the earth is aging like a worn garment. In God’s kingdom, things are just the opposite for us. Everything moves in an upward direction-we go from faith to faith, from glory to glory, and from strength to strength. Our characters are being conformed to the image of Jesus, our spiritual lives mature, our love for the Lord deepens, and He becomes more precious with time. Today you can confidently say, ‘It is well with my soul…and it will be even better tomorrow.”

This is the hope of our journey in stepping Heavenward, in stepping up.