In Gennesaret

“Who are we when there’s nothing to keep us busy?” Facebook tells me I posted this quote a little over three years ago and attributed it to Henri Nouwen. I can’t find now where he said this insightful thing, so maybe he didn’t. Nevertheless, it is a question that has made me pause. Because my school year has ended. (Do I hear an “Amen”?) I’m back on duty the first week of August, but that gives me two months. I’ve got three weeks of camps I’m teaching in July, plus VBS. And I leave this weekend to visit my eldest in Missouri for several days. But for most of June, my time is uncommitted. Of course, I have a list . . . I ALWAYS have a list. But none of the items thereon are terribly urgent. I have a month ahead of me with not much to keep me busy. And that’s downright weird. I have always been busy. Always . I honestly don’t remember a significant period of time since middle school that I didn’t feel stressed out. There has always been something I was in the middle of doing . . ...

The other day, I was driving along in my pretty blue Nissan Rogue Sport, my sweet little thing I bought after I wrecked the family van over a year ago, the biggest personal expenditure I’ve ever made in my life, my precious sapphire-blue Rogue that I love , listening to some 1990s Third Day CD, having a great time . . . when my rear-view mirror suddenly fell to the floor. I mean, out of nowhere , people. I cannot tell you how disconcerting this was. For the record, I got home safely. I was able to easily slip the mirror back in place when I stopped – and I’ll be taking the Rogue in for its six-month look-over soon, so I’ll ask them to make sure that won’t happen again. But those of you who read my blog even on an infrequent basis KNOW that I immediately started looking for spiritual significance in this situation. Because that’s what I do now. Here was my first thought: I need to stop obsessing about what is behind me. That’s the past. I’m beyond that. My focus needs to be ...

I knocked my cheap little lamp off of the bedside table a while back. Its ceramic base broke into three or four pieces. It wasn’t a big deal – like I said, it was a cheap little lamp, and it’s not like I was emotionally attached to it or anything. But dang, I was annoyed with myself. Somebody more handy than I would have gotten out the superglue and stuck it back together. And part of me kept thinking I should do that. I was raised by children of the Depression; my mother actually rinsed out Ziploc bags and reused them. The idea of throwing away a lamp (even a cheap one) that was probably quite reparable just goes against my thrifty, waste-not-want-not upbringing. But I’m not sure I even have any superglue in my house. (Should I be ashamed of that? I’m choosing not to be.) And I wasn’t inclined to run out to the store just for glue. I have another lamp. It’s not like I was desperate to keep this last-minute Walmart find from a couple decades ago. So, into the trash it went. I cou...

My play opens this week – the play I’m directing with my drama class at school. We have one more dress rehearsal on Tuesday, then we perform Thursday and Friday. Yeah . . . it’s crunch time. I love this group of students, but teaching my drama class always challenges me. We meet twice a week for one hour each time. I schedule some after school rehearsals during the second semester, but I can’t do too many. Those of you who have done theatre understand how painful those time constraints are.  And the majority of my kids this year (and many years) are brand new to the stage. They’re still working on basics like speaking loud enough to be heard. And slow enough to be understood. Not turning their backs on the audience. Sigh . . . basics . And that’s good – they need to learn the basics. And I do have a handful of veterans that I can rely on for more than that. They're all working hard. They're all doing their best.  Still . . . this is a stressful week. The local youth theate...

Wherever he leads, I’ll go. (I’ll gooooo . . .) Something someone said the other day brought the chorus of that old hymn to mind. I haven’t heard that in years – decades probably. It was an invitation hymn, one of a handful that we cycled through in my childhood church, so I heard it often. [Moving up a third] Wherever he leads, I’ll go. (I’ll goooooo . . .) That parenthetical echo was the lower voices in the congregation who knew how to read music and harmonize. In particular, there’s a certain voice I hear in my memory of a gentleman with a booming bass who seemed to groan that syllable, stretching it out to eternity, bless his heart. I’ll follow my Christ who loves me so . . . The other notable thing about this song’s echo in my mind is its somberness. We sang it slo-o-owly. Solemnly. Maybe because it was an invitation hymn and we didn’t want to disturb someone doing business with God. Maybe because the first verse begins with, “’Take up thy cross and follow me,’ I heard m...

Early one morning this week, in the midst of some casual exchanges among a few friends in a small group text, dear Jessica suddenly dropped this: “Since we are awake and communicating, can I ask you to pray for me? Tomorrow is my brother’s 2 nd birthday in heaven, so to speak. I am sitting in my kitchen weeping.” And of course, the sisters stopped to pray. By text. (This is the new world we live in.) JoAnne (a widow well-versed in grief) typed an eloquent plea to our Father for peace and comfort, which we all Amen’d. We committed to pray for our dear friend and her family this week.  And Maureen said, “Thank you for inviting us into your grief.” Those words hung with me for the rest of the morning. Thank you . Thank you for inviting us into your grief, for trusting us with your heart. Thank you for pulling us into your sadness so we can carry it with you. It is an honor and a privilege and a blessing. Really – it is. A recent episode of The Chosen reminded me that in New ...

I watched The Passion of the Christ over Easter weekend. Yep, the old, gory, Mel Gibson flick. It wasn’t my first time; I saw it in the theater when it initially came out and was, of course, quite moved. A friend told me then that she sat through the movie in tears, saying to herself the whole time, He did this for ME . Voluntarily. Of his own free will. He endured this for me. The story had a different effect on me nineteen years later. The first time, I was moved by Christ’s suffering. This time, I was horrified by his tormentors. HORRIFIED . The savagery. The laughter –  the heartless, bloodthirsty  laughter.  The abject cruelty. I could hardly bear it. Even if someone tried to argue that Gibson was maximizing it all for effect, history makes it quite clear that the Romans scourged and crucified many people, and that it was sadistic and torturous. Stories of southern lynchings in the 1960s affect me similarly. I’m also reading Leon Uris’ Exodus  r...