On waiting. . .

“All our action ends in passion because the response to our action is out of our hands. That is the mystery of work, the mystery of love, the mystery of friendship, the mystery of community – they always involve waiting. And that is the mystery of Jesus’ love. God reveals himself in Jesus as the one that waits for our response. Precisely in that waiting the intensity of God’s love is revealed to us. If God forced us to love, we would not really be lovers. … [I]t is in the passion that the fullness of God’s love shines through. It is supremely a waiting love, a love that does not seek control.”

~ Hernri Nouwen
“From Action to Passion”
Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter

~lg

Imagine a Space

They say that in space the disorientation returns you to that giddy state of childhood. When reality is turned upside-down and sideways, your imagination awakes once more in a world without limits, and kool-aid bubbles can be slurped out of the air with a straw. You decide what is floor, what is ceiling. You can sleep like a bat with your toes hooked under a ledge, or just let the air carry you to slumber on its faint currents.

In what is perhaps most magical, you are capable of surprise. You are capable of wonder, and things too undignified for highly trained astronauts. You are a child again, the world is a giant blue-green marble in your hands, and reality reforms to the power of imagination.

Where can we, earthbound, find this space? Where can we wake to a world redefined?

I’ve seen the door.

It’s small. To enter you must become the child wriggling through. You must allow yourself to be swept off your feet, upside down by a smiling Daddy swinging you by your ankles till dizzy with delight. That’s the only way to enter the Land of Upside-Down, where the king is the servant scrubbing the mud off your toes. This is where imagination runs wild on the ceiling. In this space, gravity has been defeated and new reality is an unending universe to be explored.

~lg

Single-handed Theology: The beginning of wisdom

“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
James 1:5

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
Proverbs 9:10

“Charm is deceptive and beauty is in vain,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.”
Proverbs 31:30

Fear is the humility to place oneself before God, acknowledging ignorance. Fear is the tears of frustration that turn to God in prayer, asking for guidance. Fear is knowing Whom to ask when wisdom is lacking.

Fear is the awe of the mystery that is both God’s otherness and nearness, His infinity and His intimacy.

Fear is the heart that trembles at the life given to my care, the heart that must love even while learning love, the heart that lives only because of love that has been poured in by the Holy One.

We know because He loves.

And this love casts out the shadow-fear, the faltering-fear of darkness and doubt.

Fear is knowing I am loved.

This Fear is the beginning of my wisdom.

~lg

Single-handed Theology – And a little child shall lead them

Maybe being a parent means being less of a grown-up.

Her dependence on me, the me who lacks so much wisdom and experience, is humbling.

It is this humility that gives me the heart of a child, breaks me open enough that I must run to my Father and say “help please!” because I cannot put the pieces together the way they should go.

She looks up with so much eager wonder, with outstretched arms and pleading eyes, with total reliance, and I see myself in her.

She is the little child leading me back to God.

(Isaiah 11:6)

~lg

Epiphany Playlist

I had so much fun with my Advent playlist that I decided to create one for Epiphany! Epiphany (meaning manifestation, appearance, revelation) is January 6th (after the 12 Days of Christmas), and celebrates the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, as well as the Incarnation, the revelation of God’s Son in human form.

This playlist is quite short, but I like having a few songs on hand in one place that celebrate the Wise Men, the Star, and Light.

Light of the World – Chris Tomlin feat. Matt Redman (Glory in the Highest)
Good King Wenceslas* – David Francey (Carols for a Christmas Eve)
The Wassail Song/All Through the Night – Yo-Yo Ma (Songs of Joy & Peace)
We Three Kings – David Francey (Carols for a Christmas Eve)
Beautiful Star of Bethlehem – (Stuart McLean The Christmas Concert)
Do You Hear What I Hear? – Connie Scott (25 Songs of Christmas Vol. 2)
Glory in the Highest – Chris Tomlin (Glory in the Highest)


*Good King Wenceslas isn’t exactly an Epiphany song, as the Feast of Stephen is celebrated December 26th in the Western church, but I thought it was a nice place to highlight Wenceslas.

~lg