Wind Chimes, O Wind Chimes

There's something grand and glorious about wind chimes turning the wind into music.  I want to shake the hand of the man (or woman) who invented them. I bought some chimes last spring and wondered if I'd get sick of them after awhile.  At times they sound like an Adele song (Turning Tables), at other times Owl City.  In the winter when I hear them, the sound warms me up, hence the poem I wrote last January:

Wind chimes, O wind chimes

How cheerfully you do play

And all the coldness in my bones

Now seems to melt away

(I didn't say it was great poetry.)  When a storm approacheth, they play a warning.  On a hot summer night, the chimes bring a promise of cool breezes.  When it's too windy for the water fountain, the chimes remind me to turn it off.  How can you get sick of something so delightfully versatile?  I wonder now how I ever did without them.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  Maybe there are heavenly wind chimes in the spiritual realm which make a musical proclamation every time someone is born of the Spirit.  Happy thought, that.  At least for me.  

Music, the greatest good that mortals know,

And all of heaven we have below

Joseph Addison

Music alone with sudden charms

Can bind the wand'ring sense,

And calm the troubled mind.

William Congreve

Sudden charms, calm for the troubled mind, all of heaven we have below...and to think you can grab hold of all of that by turning the wind into music.  Carpe Diem, people!

Praise him with the timbrel and dance: 

praise him with stringed instruments and the pipe.

Psalm 150:4

Tangled

"Oh, what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive."   

When my husband and I were newlyweds, we joined a progressive dinner group at our church to get to know more people.  We were assigned to bring dessert to the first gathering.  Since we both worked full-time and I wasn't much of a cook (you can see me building up to justifying something, can't you?), I bought a couple of Mrs. Smith's frozen pies and baked them.  

Upon arriving at the house where the meal was to be eaten, I handed off the pies to the hostess.  "Oh, these look delicious!" she enthused, to which I replied, "Thank you," not realizing that my "thank you" was tantamount in her mind to saying "Yes, I slaved over these for hours."  To me, they clearly looked store-bought, so I didn't give it another thought until after the meal when she brought the pies in and announced, "Lynn made these - don't they look just fantastic?!"  

I know what you're thinking, and you'd be right.  That was my golden opportunity to 'fess up and tell everyone that Mrs. Smith made the pies and I just baked them.  Yes, that was the moment...and I let it go by.  The truth is that I was horribly embarrassed that she'd jumped to that conclusion, and I realized that I should have clarified things at that first compliment.  I'd let a small moment go by and it became a bigger moment, much to my chagrin.  I smiled weakly and figured that was the end of it.  

But no.  The compliments started rolling in one after another, as if I had reached divine perfection with those pies (strawberry rhubarb - who actually makes strawberry rhubarb pies, anyway?  I thought those were solely made in Mrs. Smith's factories).   Have you ever seen the movie "Bob" with Bill Murray? Picture in your mind the scene at the dinner table, in which Bob constantly makes appreciative noises while eating Mrs. Psychiatrist's home cooking.  It was something like that multiplied by about 8 people, the compliments and noises finally coming to a crescendo with one guy's comment, "You could sure give Baker's Square a run for their money!"

By this time, I had stopped eating altogether. The pie tasted of sand and gravel, flavored by my deepening sense of guilt and dismay. Meanwhile, I looked sideways at my husband and saw his look of bemused astonishment. He, at any rate, knew that my hands were not the hands that assembled those pies. It says something very unflattering about my character that I just couldn't make myself own up to the truth in front of everyone, now that I'd let all those small moments go by.  Tangled web, indeed.

By the time we left, I was way past dismay and well into self-incrimination.  I began making inward plans to stand up in the middle of the church service the next day, loudly proclaiming my sin and begging forgiveness of the entire congregation.  Even that didn't seem like enough.  One of the women at the dinner party gave us a ride home and in the car, I finally came clean.  "I didn't make those pies, Muriel!  I bought them!"  I think I expected some form of shock to follow this announcement, but as usual, it turns out that I had a falsely heightened sense of self-importance in the grand scheme of things.  "Oh," she said brightly,"I didn't really make the baked beans, either - I just bought a can and added a few things to it." Case closed.  I could have kissed that woman.

So I didn't make a church-wide confession the next day.  Make no mistake: I did the wrong thing in accepting credit for those pies.  The real end of the story is that I confessed my sin before God and He forgave me.  Some wisdom got added to my account (I'm much more careful not to let those small moments go by) and there have been no more tangled webs for me. I'm cured!

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 103:12

Do Not Be Afraid

The full quote on the sidewalk was "Do not be afraid to let your mind wander," but it was the first part that captivated me: Do not be afraid.  I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which someone telling me not to be afraid would actually result in loss of fear.  Part of the problem is that fear has been a companion of mine since I was a wee lassie.  You can hardly picture a more timid child than I was.  Fears and anxieties seemed to blossom in my little garden effortlessly; I fed them and made them grow.  Hand in hand, Fear and I went everywhere together and as my knowledge of the world expanded, so did my fears.  Now before you have me pegged as a Mr. Monk kind of gal, I must tell you that these were, for the most part, perfectly normal fears. I'm no germaphobe, as those who know me can attest, but these phantoms of doom stuck to my psyche like burrs.   So when Christ came alongside me and took me in (oh, what grace!), I figured my fear-laden days were over.

Right.

The process of growing in grace is a slow one indeed, and I have been loathe to let go, really let go of my fears. Yes, I know God is sovereign over all things. Yes, I know He is in control. Yes, I know He loves me and will never fail nor forsake me.  I tell you,  I know those things!  But early on in this journey I looked at the world around me and with keen, penetrating insight observed that Christians are not spared the woes of the world.  Every fear on my list (and more) has happened to God's beloved ones. Of course we're exhorted in Scripture not to be fearful or timid: Be anxious for nothing. God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.  Buck up, you trembling fool!  So added to my fears is the knowledge that I have failed to trust the Lord and grab hold of what is mine - let me wallow in that for awhile and add self-pity to the mix.  As the Apostle Paul said,

 O wretched man that I am! 

Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Ultimately,all fear is a fear of death.  And death is a tyrant that we were never meant to bow down to. Jesus clothed Himself in frail flesh and blood, that He might through death,

render powerless him who had the power of death, 

that is, the devil, 

and might free those who through fear of death 

were subject to slavery all their lives. 

Now, if Jesus says I am free, I am free indeed.  It's still true for me that the words "do not be afraid," do not usually cast out fear.  But when the shackles of fear tighten around my heart, I say, "Lord, I trust you in the midst of my fears.  I believe; help my unbelief."  And the shackles loosen.  And I let go of Fear's hand and take the hand of Jesus instead. He knows my fearful heart and loves me anyway.

When I am afraid, I will put my trust in Thee 

Psalm 56:3

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

No Shadows

I have started collecting epitaphs on gravestones. I suppose it really started when I was a child wandering through the local cemetery with my older sister. We found quite a bit of Scope for the Imagination as we gazed upon statues and read the carefully chosen words on the stones. One said mysteriously "An enemy hath done this," which set our minds reeling with possibilities. Was he murdered? Was it during the war? Was betrayal involved? It wasn't until I was an adult and starting to read the Bible that I came across that very phrase in Matthew 13, referring to the parable in which an enemy had sown tares among the wheat.  This sheds no light on the matter for me; does it for you?  

Moving on, I call your attention to a gravestone I came across recently in a small cemetery in Idaho. "Mother - there will be no shadows on the other shore." C.S. Lewis famously referred to life on this side of heaven as the "Shadowlands," a place where we see only shadows of the things to come. Life isn't completely crystallized and solid here; we are only shadows. On the other shore we will be complete and real and solid in Christ. 

In literature when a shadow seems to fall across someone's face, it is a symbol of grief or sadness.  Evil lurks in shadows and waits for nightfall to do its dirty work. On the other shore we will be free from all sadness and evil.  

Mother - There will be no shadows on the other shore

I cannot read these words without thinking of the song "Into the West" from the movie "Return of the King."

Lay down your sweet and weary head

Night is falling, you've come to journey's end

Sleep now and dream of the ones who came before

They are calling from across the distant shore...

...White shores are calling...you and I will meet again.

For all who are in Christ, we will meet again on the other shore. Death is the final shadow and after that comes light and substance and unending joy.  

 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; 

there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. 

There shall be no more pain, 

for the former things have passed away.  

Revelation 21:4

Story

We are all walking stories, this world a diverse library stuffed with living books of all kinds. Some of our stories exalt the Author; others despise Him.  Human history is full of stories rich and complex or insipid and superficial.  An air of mystery may permeate the plot line of one person's novel, while the trajectory of another's may be plain for all to see.

I often think about this when my path briefly crosses that of another, two stories that pass each other by.  And I marvel at marriage, the intertwining of two stories such that they become one, even while retaining the uniqueness of each individual's chapters.

Recently someone posted on Facebook a short video taken of an older woman stealing rhubarb in a garden and cursing continually at the bystander who confronted her.   Her voice was guttural and harsh, her mien violent, her manner rude.  I felt inexpressibly sad as I contemplated her story.   What events and people had brought her to this pass in life?  Did she learn such language because that was the way she was spoken to?  When and how did stealing become the order of the day for her?  Was she ever someone's sweet little daughter or had she been from the beginning unwanted and neglected, cursed at and cast away?   I was curious and yet I would have been afraid to read her story.  Who can stand to know all the misery, heartache and sin that abides in our skins between the covers of our books?

There is only One who is not afraid to enter such darkness because He cannot be enveloped by it.  He casts light wherever He goes.  When He enters a story, its trajectory is permanently changed.   He entered into the ugliness of my story and made it beautiful.  He can do the same for that woman.  He can do the same for you. 

The light shines in the darkness, 

and the darkness has not overcome it

John 1:5

Old Man

I've been walking past this place nearly every morning for months now.  The first time I saw this dual-nature shrub, I did a double take.  What happened here? As I passed it again and again, I found that I was frequently musing on the Biblical teaching of the old man versus the new man.  'Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.  The old things passed away, behold new things have come.  Here grows a beautiful illustration of that spiritual truth.  The old things have passed away; dead, but still connected somehow until we go on to glory.   The new stuff is green and full of life.





When you approach these shrubs from a certain angle, it looks for all the world as if the middle one is completely dead and yet as you continue on, you are surprised by joy.  When I look at myself, at my inner self, I'm afraid that too often I see only the old man, the old dead growth instead of seeing what is growing up alongside it in beauty.

Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, 

but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:11

Silhouette

According to Scott Kelby, my photography guru, a basic rule of silhouettes is to "make sure the subject you're silhouetting is easily recognizable.  I see lots of silhouette snapshots where my first thought is, 'what is that thing?'"  I'm not sure Scott would be proud of this silhouette.  To my eyes, this clearly a silhouette of two people jumping around, but then I took the photograph.  By the way, we almost missed the beauty of this particular sunset.  We were downstairs in the basement and my daughter came up to get something.  There was a certain excited awe in her voice when she said, "You guys, you've got to come upstairs and see this!"  The light in the sky was so unusual that we were transfixed.  "Glory to God!" was the phrase that came to my mind.


What is a silhouette?  Here's the dictionary definition: something lit in such a way as to appear dark, but surrounded by light, or the effect produced by such lighting.   The phrase "surrounded by light" is an evocative one, isn't it?  It reminds me of the time John the Baptist said to his disciples, "I must decrease, but He must increase."  Better for someone to see the light of Jesus surrounding us, than to get caught up in the details of how we look.  Then His light is what defines us.  

Twelve Traditions of Christmas - Part 12

CHRISTMAS CARAMEL ROLLS.  We can't have Christmas without these rolls for breakfast.  That pretty much sums it up. This is actually a fairly easy recipe to make, but it's hard to have it ready right away in the morning, so one year I made monkey bread, which I thought would be faster to make and just as tasty. Well, I followed the instructions to the letter and instead of presenting a beautiful mound of perfectly baked rolls, I turned the rolls out and they were a gloopy, gloppy mess (and yes, I need BOTH of those adjectives!).  Groans of dismay echoed around the room and I scooped it all back in the bundt pan and put them back in the oven.  I'm afraid more time in the oven did not improve things much, and we resigned ourselves to eating the doughnuts that one of the boys had brought back from HyVee the night before.

I can't remember the first time I made these caramel rolls on Christmas morning and probably had no idea at the time that I was creating an enduring, beloved tradition.  But that's how it is: all traditions have to start somewhere, sometime. It's funny how we cling to our traditions and how important they are to our memories.  Although I chose to write about the twelve traditions of Christmas, I could easily have come up with more. Sometimes it seems our whole holiday season is a finely scripted event, and yet each year new memories are made and things are just a little bit different because the people enacting the traditions are growing older and changing.

Is it wrong to hold so tightly to our traditions?  Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish their traditions.  But Paul commended the Corinthians for maintaining the traditions that he had delivered to them.  He told the Thessalonians to stand firm and hold to the traditions that they were taught, either by spoken word or by letters written to them.  It's clear that our traditions must not supersede or reject the clear commands of God.  And there comes a time when old traditions must be let go and new ones started.  But from where I sit, all of these repetitions are part of our family dance and it's a dance I'm not in a hurry to change or quit.

Twelve Traditions of Christmas - Part 11

STOCKINGS.  I'd really like to know how and when the tradition of hanging Christmas stockings started. For most people, this is a Santa-intensive rite, i.e. we expect Mr. Santa Claus to come and fill our stockings. This is certainly what I thought was going on in my tender years.  I remember trying to stay awake at night so I could hear the sounds of Santa's sleigh on our rooftop, but I always seemed to drop off to sleep before he arrived.  We didn't leave cookies and milk for Santa.  Hey, I grew up in a large family - Santa was on his own for cookies, and frankly, he didn't look like he needed more sweets in his diet.  Nevertheless, he generously overlooked this omission on our part and produced the goods every year.  I wonder when the truth finally filtered into my wee little brain: that the parental units were responsible for all this mysterious stocking stuffing.  I hope that's not a major Spoiler for anyone reading this blog.

At any rate, I could hardly wait to begin this tradition with our children, but my husband and I felt a little reluctant to ascribe any sort of omnipresence or omniscience to old Saint Nick, so we just left it a complete mystery.  The stockings were hung and in the morning they were filled.  Nothing was said about who actually did the filling and we didn't take credit for it, nor did we point any specific fingers at Santa.  In due time, our children figured it all out and presumably this was not the kind of traumatic experience that will call for years of psychoanalysis in the future.  So why do we do it?  Just for fun! There's nothing terribly spiritual about it, although I imagine that we could put a spiritual face on it if we chose to.  Children (and adults) love mystery and surprises and we combine both those things with the tradition of the Christmas stockings.

Several years ago, our youngest two decided that it really wasn't fair that the parents got left out of this lovely  rite every year, so my daughter made a stocking for my husband and we dredged my childhood stocking out of the storeroom.  We hang our stockings up along with everyone else's and then "mysteriously" they get filled.  I love it!

Twelve Traditions of Christmas - Part 10

CHRISTMAS COOKIES.   I'd like to say that I started making loads of Christmas cookies way back in the beginning of our marriage, but I think it's more accurate to say that the tradition started when we started growing a bunch of cookie-eating children.  I've kept a list for over over 15 years now of the Sacred Cookie Selection for each year.  Certain cookies have reappeared every year; others have been tried and then were silently dropped from the list when they failed to perform as expected.



After all the gifts are under the tree, we adjourn to the dining room where we have cookies and tea (Constant Comment, to be exact).  I used to make a full meal on Christmas Eve, but at some point it dawned on me that we were ruining our cookie appetites with all that food, so now we always have a salad bar meal, just enough to take the edge off our hunger and leave plenty of room for the Main Event.

About five years ago, I wearied of always making the same cookies, year after year after year.  I wiped the whole slate clean and made all new cookies. This year is still referred to as "The Year of Heresy" by my children.   In spite of the fact that I've known these people all their lives, I somehow failed to foresee this reaction.  And I'll admit that I missed the old favorites as well.   In the end, I returned to the Sacred Cookie Selection, but always allow myself at least two new recipes to try each year.  Happy ending!

Twelve Traditions of Christmas - Part 9

THE HANGING OF THE GLOCKENSPIEL.   I'm pretty sure this tradition will not transcend the years through the next generation, but you never know.  When we moved out of New Ulm, dear friends gave us a beautiful hand-painted glass ornament that came in its own box.  Pretty schnazzy, if you ask me.  The paintings on the ornament depict the famous New Ulm glockenspiel and some random Christmassy people. It seemed so delicate and precious that we (some of the more controlling members of our little family group) decided that it would be DANGEROUS to put it on the tree too soon - after all, it wouldn't take much to knock it off the tree and break it.   The consensus was that we would keep it in its cushioned box until Christmas Eve, at which time, the Keeper of the Ornament, would ceremoniously put it on the tree.

Keeper of the Ornament

This all went rather well until a couple years ago when I decided that it was a shame to keep it under wraps until December 24th, so I bought an ornament hanging doo-hickey and put it on that as a place to display it until the proper time for its promotion to the tree.  Alas, someone else came along and wanting to look at it more closely, removed it from the hanger and promptly dropped it, breaking the bottom of the ornament into several pieces of various sizes.  All seemed lost at the moment and we started to go through the five stages of grieving.  However, we never got past denial.  Wait a minute - isn't this just the kind of thing that super glue was invented for?  We meticulously picked up every fragment and began the arduous task of putting Humpty Dumpty together again.  I am proud to tell you that today, we are still able to hang that fine and beautiful ornament on the tree where it brings glory to the branch on which it hangs. If you're looking at it head-on and the lights are low, it looks just as it should. If you get curious and pick the thing up, you'll see all the cracks and you may notice that it has a hole at the bottom where we were unable to make all the pieces fit.  Don't do that - it's better to have the illusion.