(xaris and shalom)

Last night during church I was thinking about how much I loved camp. We were singing and I thought, In a few days I will be doing this every day! Singing several times every day... all summer! Honestly, I get to live in a community with intentional worship several times every day... you really just don't get much better. I think it's like being in a monastic order for the summer. And it sounds pretty good to me.

When I found books on our shelves by the Schaeffers, I was delighted and read them. And then I was envious of those who had grown up in L'Abri. What a cool atmosphere. It's taken a while to realize how incredibly L'Abri-ish of an environment I did grow up in. The people in our home were not the sort of people that I would have chosen, but wasn't that always part of the idea? As a friend of mine put it, All who come, come for a reason. Our home was a constant stream first of children, as we adopted four in about five years, then of mental health workers (as I said, not the company I would have picked. I'm snobby like that.) And very often, guest pastors, who would do pulpit exchanges or some such with our pastor. It was an interesting combination. To say the least. The more I think about it, too, the more interesting it is... an odd blend of rich theological and mental food for a child, and outrageous opportunities for ministry to people who have to be in yo

My mind is laced tonight with words of CS Lewis; I've been reading enough of his letters that I feel as though I'd been talking to him. And I do not always agree with him, but I am always challenged, always moved to more wondering... moved more to run to God. The gift itself (a hefty, beautiful book, closer to 400 pages than 300) came in the mail for me, a huge surprise, a concrete outpouring of love from friends who I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting in real life. So it makes me smile that the way I have come to know Lewis is the same as the way I've come to know them -- words, words, more words! We read each others' blogs for a while, a long time in our short lives. Found, finally, screennames and could have conversations in real time -- awkward at first and filled with gaps of silence, and then, soon, filled with laughter and words exchanged as quickly as our fingers could move. Nevermind the ocean in between, the years in our age difference... it did n

Tension. Decisions. Mistakes. Tears. Stubbornness. Memories. Forgiveness. I live in the midst of it all, as a redeemed one, as a still-sinner. Snatches of song drift through my head, more CCM than hymns, although maybe someday they will be hymns too. Sorrow is a lonely feeling Unsettled is a painful place [Between You and Me -- dc Talk] and I dunno what I was thinking when I just pressed SEND [Your Love is Better Than Life -- Newsboys] And I am eager to justify myself, to blame something else -- if only I wasn't such a quick typist (ha, as if it were my fingers' fault!), they'll understand, it wasn't that bad. Some of those reasons have some merit. I was rude, but not inexcusably so. And there certainly are different guidelines of courtesy in different relationships and different circumstances, and perhaps what I said this time do not fall entirely outside of those. Cold is the night But colder still is the heart made of stone turned from clay And if you follow me,

I was organizing the pictures on my computer yesterday, and ran across one that I had forgotten was even taken. Surely he loves me. The picture captures a girl who stands awkwardly, aware that her picture is being taken, and unable to quit grinning. I know what she is thinking. He loves me! He loves me! Her arms are shiny with water, her clothes (although too dark to show much in the picture) are waterlogged, entirely saturated from the downpouring rain. I know what she wrote that night, how it spilled out in fragmented thoughts in ink onto paper, unable to capture the painful pleasure that had caught her and carried her that night. The next picture in the album makes it even more evident. Blue eyes shout shining joy through star-clumped lashes and her smile leaves no doubt. A rainbow of glass beads and a fine silver chain stand out against her black shirt and everything takes up the reverberating cry of JOY. I know how the lightning arced across the sky, how the thunder split ea

Nowadays, the accusation you have sinned is often said with a grin, and with a tone that signals an inside joke. [ Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Not the Way It's Supposed to Be. He's not the only one to think that a major tactic of Satan is making serious things look silly. The fact that 'devils' are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing them) he therefore cannot believe in you. [ CS Lewis, Screwtape Letters ] The door opened into the lit hallway and she looked at me, eyes with so much depth that I always think first of them as golden and only remember afterwards that they're brown. What do you want? And I almost didn't answer that, because my answer sounded... silly. Although I knew it was not, and I knew that she

Fingers let go of a tray long enough to brush a shoulder. Pray for me? She turns startled from her dinner conversation, the laughing joking noise, at this touch that is groping for a lifeline to hang onto. What did you say? Pray for me. There is no time to explain; paths cross for only an instant here, then diverge. But it is okay that way, okay when you have fought many battles before together. What's up? You'll see. The two are swept apart in the wave of action, anchored by the thin invisible unbreakable cord of prayer in an ocean of memories and uncertain future. The request for prayer is a quiet admission of humility. Of trust. I'm going in/So cover me... I've always been strong/Can't make this happen [Breathe You In, TFK] And the prayers offered up in a loud, crazy dining hall reached the King of the Universe and He cupped His hand around His broken children and healed . And it was good.