No Formula for That

"Love has taken away my practices
and filled me with poetry.

I tried to keep quietly repeating,
No strength but yours,
but I couldn't.

I had to clap and sing.
I used to be respectable and chaste and stable,
but who can stand in this strong wind
and remember those things?"

-Rumi, from "Buoyancy"

That's how it is. It seems like it should be grand enough to have the promise of God's strength, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength," but there's something so much bigger than just getting by. It's called Love.

After all, what's the greatest commandment?

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'"

Mark 12:29-30

So I'm running around, half mad, thumbing open Rumi and Hafiz every little while to be baffled and delighted once again. And I have lots of questions. Like, did these guys believe Jesus was the Son of God, or did they think he was just a nice prophet? How could anybody possibly write about God's love like that and not believe? What exactly were the Sufis like? What can I learn from them? Can I trust what these heretic Muslims are saying? They weren't good Muslims. They weren't good Christians. But neither am I.

The morning after I read Rumi till 3 a.m. I woke and jumped out of bed, scandalized, and quickly started singing safe, contemporary Christian choruses, just to reel myself back in. I felt that I had sneaked into heresy's bedroom, not intending to be bad, but just to see if it really was heresy in there or not. What scared me is that I hadn't found a satisfactory answer to that question, and I fully intended to return every night until I did.

It's so scary to step out on a limb and even read a book that might be part truth but not all-the-way-truth. Careful worldview training has taught me to reject any vestiges of "tolerance," which I have always wholeheartedly done. I'm the queen of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Maybe I share my throne with Lauren :P

But the time has come to step out and risk it. The box I've let my "religion" become has nearly succeeded in suffocating me while my back was turned! It's so nice to know that God won't let me be snatched out of His hand. His love is the biggest thing in the world (think about sending your only Beloved to die on a cross and see if it's not), so I'm not fall off somewhere.

Rooted and grounded in the absolute of Jesus Christ and His loving boundaries, I am free to run, to explore, to love, to dream, to read crazy poetry and smile and say "that's how it is," and "that's how it isn't" if need be.

Here in America, we're so young, so green at being human, really. We have no ancient ruins. Not much history. We have a beautiful, godly heritage and an amazing story of freedom and Gods' hand. But we are young. There is not much mystery here, not much hidden under our sod. Generally speaking, we're more concerned with practical things rather than spiritual things. We have a lot to share with struggling nations in the East. But the East has a lot to give to us.

In India, for example, people are completely wrapped up in their spiritual nature. This usually looks bad and creepy, (worshipping cobras, setting up altars to stones, becoming one with the rainbow), but the truth is, God made them like that. They are seeking Him, ultimately, whether they discover Him or not in all their mess. So, while we are busy trying to fit life into a box, they are constantly peering into the box and taking life out, piece by piece exploring it. We want to make sense; they want something bigger than sense.

This is such a relief to me. I don't have to try to fit life into a box for the rest of my days, 9 to 5, fall semester, spring semester, summer. I just wasn't made to do that! I can live with the curious mind of a child, always discovering more of God at every turn and reveling in it! Every day there will be something new. What you see is not what you get. His love is higher than the mountains and deeper than the ocean. So, no formula for figuring that!!!

I will never know who the Lord is while I am on this earth. I know Him and love Him now in part, but it won't be till "The Divine Wedding Day" that I cease staring into that dingy mirror of Paul's and finally get to see the real thing. Yahoo!

What is Means to Have a Nearsighted Soul

Wow. The "Honest Words" at the end of the last post set me to thinking. I said I wanted to be myself more on my blog instead of trying to avoid writing complaints or grumbles that I often have...

I realized that I may never have explained the name of my blog, "Notes from a Nearsighted Soul." I called it that because my aim in it is to write honestly about the close-up things in life. There are so many small things in our lives that beg to be taken under a microscope and written about- like kittens and berry picking and five-year-old boys. So when I sit down to write, I tend to peer around and pluck a few tender, ripe ideas that would go unnoticed from a larger, grander view. Hence my soul being "nearsighted."

Often, the "little things" in life are simple, happy, or funny. But sometimes the "little things" are not so idyillic, and I've felt uncertain about exposing those, too. When I do write about anything like tiredness, sickness, boredom, frustration, or chores, I feel apprehensive, fearing that it will bother or bore people.

If my aim is to write about the thoughts or things that are "close at hand," then I should write about the frustrating as well as the felicitous :) If you think about the blog as being nearsighted, there is room to remember that the little things in life, no matter how delightful or annoying, are just what is "seen in a glass dimly." My far sight, though a little weak and wavering at times, is set on God, whose unsearchable mystery engulfs my little world like a tidal wave.

"Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"

(Not) A Red Letter Day

Hmm...I got on here not knowing what I will write about, so there's no telling what will come out...

It would be embarressing to report what time I had breakfast today, so I guess I won't. hmm. The Jackson girls were over spending the night with Mattie, and they asked me to swim with them at our cousins above ground pool next door. That was before I had had breakfast.

After I ate breakfast, I donned my swimsuit and went up there. The girls were horsing around with Jane an Mary and having a lot of fun. As soon as I came within view, a great cheer arose on my behalf. You would have thought I was a celebrity! I was a little startled at all the to-do. All the girls are so sweet.

Ethan was in his normal stance perched on top of the ladder in a life jacket, just like last year. Just like last year, it took some sweet talking to get him to actually enter the pool, and that was still in the life jacket, clinging to me like a baby monkey.

But he did warm up to the water some, and by the end of the swim time he had let me peel off the jacket and done some kicking and ladder climbing. And also laid on top of me while I laid in the inflatable boat, trying to keep warm. (It was very stifling and muggy today, but the water was cold, and it was overcast some of the time.)

After a lot of laying around and a few games (it's not actually very easy to swim in a three and a half foot pool) I decided to take E home, because he was turning blue, and I was definitely ready to go myself. I got home and saw that we'd been out there for nearly two hours! I had thought I'd only stay about 30 or 45 minutes...

Ethan and I were ravenous, so I got us some cheese and crackers and an apple. Well, I got cheese for his crackers. Fishing around in the fridge for whatever looked tasty, I settled on dill pickle for some of mine, and seedless blackberry jam for others. Then I made a list of All the Little Things That Were Nagging Me and set about doing them in between crackers.

I washed my hair, started laundry, sent an email, made a phone call, clipped my nails, dusted the living room (a leftover chore from Friday), and finally got to the hemming jobs Grammie gave me this past week. It was a little scary figuring out the new sewing machine, but it's a good machine, and we're getting to know each other. As I get used to it, I think my seams will get neater and smoother. It was supper time when I finished the sewing, but I got it done.

If life doesn't sound very exciting today, well, it's not. No thunder or lightning or flying aardvarks. I think we're having Blue Bell ice cream later on...but that doesn't quite make the charts I guess. The word "serenity" comes to mind as I sit here...when I look at my life (aside from internal emotional difficulties that wax and wane) it does look serene and peaceful. And kind of boring. No adventures.

I think when it comes down to it, I need the serenity to accept the serene-ness of my life. Maybe it wasn't a red letter day, but Jesus himself is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He's also the one who "makes all things new" and can (and will) change everything in the "blink of an eye." He can surprise me with joy at any time, night or day. Someday He will come back and surprise us all face to face.

I guess the virgins in the parable weren't getting a lot of thrills out of sitting around watching their oil lamps, but they derived joy from anticipating the arrival of the Bridegroom. So I guess I just want to keep being faithful...

Happy Belated Birthday, Gracie!

It's a little late, since her b-day was on the 8th, but we're celebrating it today.

My beautiful friend is a young woman of amazing fortitude and quiet strength, which all comes straight from the God she loves so much. She inspires me and helps me persevere. She is one of those Cloud of Witnesses people that the Lord calls His own, and I can't wait to be in the throne room with her someday!

Love you, Gracie! Thanks for good years...

Vanya, and Faithfulness

All my housecleaning muscles are tired. Connor and I had tea after lunch and now I want to go back to bed. But I think that is partly because I stayed up till one reading Vanya in my closet. and then Mom, who didn't know of my midnight vigil, woke me up at 6:30 to have coffee time with her. Well, I didn't want to miss that, so I got up, but wasn't a very coherent companion, and when everyone else got up I promptly went back to bed till 10:00. It was very odd.

But, aside from that...Vanya, by Myrna Grant was a very good book, and just what I needed. It's the story of a Russian Christian guy in his late teens who went into the Red Army under Communism and was martyred within a few years. As soon as he went in, they started persecuting, interrogating, and hounding him to renounce Jesus. He was so constant, and every time he underwent another impossible trial, he cried out to God, and God rescued him. So many miracles happened because of him that many of the atheists around him became believers.

My favorite part was his testimony during one of these trials. His authorities sent him to stand outside in sub-zero temperatures in a summer uniform at night until he was willing to deny what they thought of as his religious nonsense. He stood there for hours. When the officers eventually came to check on him, expecting to find him frozen to death, they were shocked to discover him stamping his feet and rubbing his hands, no colder than they were after their five minutes out-of-doors.

Although Vanya was thrilled at the miracle God was doing in keeping him from freezing to death, as soon as the officers left, he became very broken and cried out to God...

"He was no better than any of the young people in his congregation at home. His parents had suffered in difficult situations for years. He knew pastors who had been questioned, arrested, even sent to prison camps. Yet he was touched again and again by God's direct power and deliverance...He didn't want to be special, he didn't deserve miracles or mysteries. He ought to be freezing. He wasn't good enough. Hot tears rimmed his eyes..."

So he cried and prayed and finally was about to fall asleep, when an officer called him inside. The wondering officer asked "What kind of person are you?

And out of his brokenness, Vanya answered, "Oh comrade, I am a person just like you. But I prayed to God and was warm."

This story encouraged me, because even as I read the book, I felt the weight of my own inadequacy and wimpiness. But this reminded me that it's not what I can do, but what God can do. I want to run the race and fight the fight. I want to be like Vanya, like Paul, even like Jesus, as he has called us to be. I want to live a life that faces pain and death with confidence and even joy. I don't want to always try to preserve and shield myself.

But even one of the persecutions Vanya underwent would have put me under. One foul prison cell, one beating, one "refrigeration." I'm a huge wimp. I have plenty of struggles and pains, but my life is so easy, physically, and many ways emotionally, too. I cried when I had the chicken pox and I moaned for days when I sliced my fingernail with the potato peeler. My fingernails stay purple with cold in East Texas winter. Weeding the garden is often my greatest physical hardship, and I have never broken a bone.

I cried to God that I want to pursue Him with all my heart, but I'm not fit to be His saint. I don't have the willpower to undergo Vanya's kind of suffering again and again. I can hardly stand up to my elementary hardships at home...ones like holding back complaints, helping with kitchen chores, and being cheerful in the morning. I am so easily discouraged, so easily reduced to tears, so quickly driven to my knees.

Could this be a good thing? All He seemed to say to me was "You already have what it takes to do this..." and then, "Be faithful, Cass."

Faithful. "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." Revelations 2:10 That was Vanya's last word in a letter to his brother before he was brutally killed. And in Revelations 3:8 there is a dear verse...

"I know your works...for you have a little strength, and have kept my word, and not denied My name."

Really, every time I complain or hurt someone else, I'm denying Jesus' name. He has forgiven me for those sins, but doesn't this mean that I'm fighting the same fight Vanya fought so faithfully? God has made me small and weak. I am like a cat, finicky, pampered, wanting to avoid the water as long as possible. Vanya, Paul, and many of my friends seem like joyful, bounding puppies, so ready to get down and dirty, to bear anything. But maybe He has a special place for this weak one. If I truly am driven to my knees, and not into the pit of despair, so much the better. If I am driven to tears, maybe I can share God's heart.

Just some thoughts.

Hope, that Rather Fickle Bird

Here's a poem that describes my life today, inspired by the David Crowder song I heard twice on the radio yesterday that mentioned hope "taking flight." Picturing hope as a bird was a pretty effective image for me.

Hope is nesting like a bird
In the branches of my heart.
Eye has not seen, ear has not heard
Of heaven, but in part.

Hope takes flight when morning dawns,
At night come home to roost,
Still to this bode of stubble drawn
To resume her patient post.

"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Heb. 11:1
"Without faith, it is impossible to please God. For him who comes to Him must believe that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him." Heb. 11:6

The primary work of my mundane life seems to be believing that hope is coming home for the night even when it looks like it has "taken wing."

Tomorrow we are leaving on a short camping trip to Albert Pike, Arkansas to relax as a family. It was sort of a sudden thing, and I have felt a bit overwhelmed by the tiniest things in life all of a sudden, but after all, I don't have a lot of pressing engagements at the moment, so it's a good time to go camping and be together. Mom has been incredibly busy and it will be good for her to take a load off.

We got the church cleaning done this morning, and this afternoon we'll pack up I guess. Somewhere in all this, I'm going to be buying my ticket to Ukraine as well...whoopee! There's one little exclamation mark in the day :) Just three months and I'll be gone! Very excited about that.

So, I won't be posting while out in the boondocks, I guess. By the amount of commenting going on I guess it doesn't matter too much...do I sound like Eeyore or what? Sorry, I think I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Seeing the world through puke-green colored glasses again...dear me. We'll be back Saturday night, so next week I'll mend the blogging breach. And maybe come back a little "cheerfuller," too. So long.