Today I am Writing: On the Seedbed of My Heart

He challenges me. (Why is He always challenging me?)

Every week I go to see the friend who counsels me. We peer into the places I can't seem to unpack on my own, and he applies all of his training and all of his listening wisdom. And every week we hit the wall that says: I will not allow access into this place. To anyone.

My friend says, "Lauren, do you trust God?"

I say, "Don't be rude, of course I do."

But we both know that in this place, I do not;
when it comes to this place, I say, No.

My friend says, "Lauren, the presence of God is so real when we meet!" He wants me to remember how the Holy One is fighting for me, desiring for me.

But I say, "Whatever."

I say "whatever" a lot these days.

My friend says, "Lauren, you have got to pray. You have got to go to the places you have not gone before. You cannot have the Amen without the Yes."

He starts to preach, he starts to praise. I just watch him. Everything about me says: Unavailable. Everything about me says unavailable, but it comes down to my heart. Unwilling.

I say, "I'm so glad you're having such a good time over there..."

And then I go home.

I hear Jesus: "He's telling you the truth, you know..."

And I see the walled off compartment of my heart,
a seedbed of who-even-knows-what.

This morning He tells me that in this now moment there is a call to be a woman I have not yet been. He leads me to Proverbs 31, the "Proverbs 31 woman" that I am just a bit tired of hearing of, in Christian culture overplayed and substance underdone. I read the list of all the things this woman accomplishes in her day, and then I hear that whomping challenge, come down from above:

"It's about her heart," He says.
It's not what she does; it's about her heart. How she does it.

I think about a woman I know, whose surface polished and perfect is but a thin veil covering hatred and hostility. The fruit reflects the seedbed. Her seedbed is not good.

I think: Is mine? And am I willing to let Him change it?

I don't know. (I'm thinking about it.)

From Friday to Friday, 14

[When whatever ends up on my phone, ends up here.]

Today I am Writing: On The Little Bit by Little Bit

My yard is crawling with men.

Today is "clean up the landscaping, and demolish every derelict weed" day, and my yard is crawling with men. I hear them, calling to each other: "It's looking good!" "We're making good progress!" "We're getting there!" I imagine high-fives being thrown through the air from bush to tree and back to bush.

I look out expecting to see all this progress and think:
What are they so geared up about? This place is a mess.

It reminds me of last week, where every day a group of Amish men drove their trucks and trailers into my yard, and climbed up on the roof of my landlord's house. They ripped off shingles and then they stapled them back on, day by day.

These were the same days where my kitchen was put to the use of feeding some visiting family members, resulting in piles of glassware and dishware and bowls and pans. Everywhere. The next few days were busy, and the end of the week had me slated for feeding a largish group of friends. The meal was to be held elsewhere, but I went to the store and loaded up my grocery bags. I took them home and there they sat, interspersed in any open spaces left between all the rest. And when I returned from the dinner late Friday night, I put the bags right where they'd been, full of things I'd pulled from my pantry, all needing to be put away.

I turned my back on it all, and went to bed.

Saturday morning I arose. I made the coffee. I sat for a bit out on the porch steps, gathering my breath. And then, little bit by little bit, I began to deal with the mess. I put the salt and pepper in their place. I moved the dishes in the drying rack to the cabinets and washed what was in the sink. I poured lentils into a jar and tucked it into the pantry. I recycled the recipe sheets, crumpled up and stained. And little bit by little bit, it began to clear out. It took me all day, the little bit by the little bit. I took moments in between to drink deep of the air outside, to make my bed, to run the errands and meet up with the friend. But little bit by little bit, all returned to order. Almost without my noticing.

It's analogous to my internal life too, the fragments of me all twisted and roaming, getting little bit by little bit restored to the order in which they were made to be.

I look outside again and see that those men have actually made some of that progress they keep claiming.

And I think: Sometimes all it takes is setting your mind, to the little bit. So I take a deep breath, and keep going.

Today I am Writing: On Where I Do Draw The Line

Of course, the second you say "I'll draw a circle!" there are the ones who cry "but the boundary! protect yourself from abuse, draw the line, the boundary!"

I'll tell about you the abuse I've seen. It is out of the mouths of the believing-themselves-righteous, the ones who speak out of fear and call it faith having never once gotten flat out on their face to really truly walk-with-humility listen.

These are the "get behind me satan" abusers, the voices who twist because all they do is like Lot's wife look backwards, their feet mired in the hypocrisy of ideology that stands up as good and right but is really just idolatry, whose ears cannot hear that when they say "but this is more godly!" out of the other side of their mouth comes "stay in the boat, it's safer here" fear.

 But I hear the call of Jesus, His heart pulsing wildly:
Lauren. Get out of the boat!

He's not messing around. This is the Urgent Now, to go where He's calling, to do what He's doing. In the border lands, where the hurt ones live. The truly humble.

I draw lines. But I draw them where the real abuse happens.

Because all I can think is: I don't have time for that.

From Friday to Friday, 13

[When whatever ends up on my phone, ends up here.]

Today I am Writing: On the Circle or the Line (Compassion)

Recently I sat at a piano before a choir, and was asked to play my "part" for them to hear. I dove in, swirling my notes and bending my lines, until I realized: This is a lot easier with them than it is without them.

Turns out, our parts intertwine. I rely on their swoops to send my swoops swooping, I rely on their bends to send my bends bending.

Turns out, we were in it, together.

This has been a theme of late in my life, the learning to say "we're in it together" instead of "well now I've got to draw a line."

Each moment placed before me is a moment to either say, "I will draw this boundary line, because it is safer for my heart if you stay over there and I stay over here," OR to say, "No matter what you choose to do, I will draw this circle around us, and I will sit here, with you."

It's compassion, I think. I read that the Greek for "to be moved with compassion" is splanchnizomai, "and it's what we'd call guts. When Christ was moved with compassion, it's like He got kicked in the gut.*" (Emphasis all mine.)

"Who wants to be kicked in the gut?" I think, and then I realize:
Jesus did. Jesus does.

I see His compassion for me every day, when I'm weak and listing, when I cannot face what is in front of me to face, when the call to walk straight on through the very center of the burning cross feels like not at all what a wise person would choose with her head on straight.

I see His compassion for me every day, I feel Him, with me. Not telling me what to do, not changing my circumstance or my story; just with me. In His gut, compassion.

And I sit in a lecture on how our hearts get all broken up and how Jesus literally steps inside the moment with us, how His purpose is to heal us, with His very presence, His compassionate guts just oozing out all over the place. I sit in the lecture and I hear about this, and I know it is true, because I have seen it. For myself. For many many others.

I hear how our behaviors step right up and out of the lies we are believing as the only truth available to us. I think: It's compassion that asks not "what were you thinking?!" when the hurtful bad behavior comes, but asks instead, "what, dear heart, were you believing?"

Because if I can find out where the belief was sitting in that moment, then my heart can sit there too. My heart does not have to pull back, draw its line. My heart can say, "Here is the circle. You are in it, your belief is in it, and I'm in it, with you. We are in this, together."

And so the rejection moment happens, and I say:
I see where that comes from. I'm with you.

And the anger flashes; I'm with you.

Where the cold shoulder lingers, I'm with you, where the walls go up, I'm with you, where the active choice to disobey slices like ice,
I'm with you.

Because, don't you see? I'm talking about myself too.

Where every angry cold disobedient rejection wall has slammed against me, I have slammed it in my own time too. And then I've seen: Compassion.

If I draw the line, the one that feels like protection, I only draw it against myself. If I draw the circle though? Richness abounds.

Because Jesus always does what He says that He will do. Compassion always wins. But the line cuts me right off from the place where I get to see it, the breathing of life and light and every healing kind of Capital-T-Truth. The circle though? The "we are in this together" includes the "me" as well as the "you," getting to see with our eyes wide open: Compassion wins, for everyone.

(Emphasis heck yes, mine.)

*The Broken Way: A Daring Path into the Abundant Life, Ann Voskamp, p.230

From Friday to Friday, 12

[When whatever ends up on my phone, ends up here.]