The Time In Between

The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined...They rejoice before You according to the joy of harvest... Isaiah 9:2-3

I have a friend who has been chasing the moon. Sneaking out of bed to see moonlight and shadow, snow falling over the mooncast landscape outside her window; pulling on boots to crunch her way through to a good spot to cast her net. Her pictures are winter jewels.

She knows I am a moon lover as well. I love everything God flung out into space and commanded to stay put. I love the light He made to rule the day and the one He fashioned as a nightlight.


I love the time just before dawn when the birds are up and calling. I love the moments at summer sunset when bugs are buzzing and fireflies are blinking. (If you live where the fireflies do.) I love in between times full of expectancy.

We are approaching one such season, just past Thanksgiving- Advent. A forward looking time of preparation. Advent and Lent are treasures I savor. Looking to the time of planting or harvest, Easter or Christmas. The rising and the reigning. The miracle that follows the cleansing and the giving of thanks. A transition time.

Transition times can be wicked hard in life and dangerous. Some people liken them to desert seasons. Maybe so but I see it with different eyes.

Many years ago John wrote a piece of instrumental music and named it Penumbra. It means the shadow of a shadow, sort of. I add the definition here.

pe·num·bra:

- A partial shadow, as in an eclipse, between regions of complete shadow and complete illumination.

- An area in which something exists to a lesser or uncertain degree.

- An outlying surrounding region; a periphery

Doesn't that sound like our transition time? The holiday season on the small scale and Christ's return on the larger. What a thrilling time it can be this time in our lives between complete shadow and complete illumination. Between salvation from sin and rapture. This time of lighting lamps and putting them out and relighting them a day closer. These are our days. Our warm hours. Our work hours. Followed by a celebration.

As I look to the days of holidays and holy days, I have cleaned the kitchen and swept my heart. I have set the bread to rise and let hope also leaven my spirits. Our King is coming and our reward is in His hand. This sad old world will change under the full sun of the Illuminator of universes beyond imagination. Blinding love in full gaze. Jesus! The Son to rule a nightless day.

Our praise and thanksgiving has the power to alter the course of rivers of sin and wretchedness. The scripture gives us a wonderful imperative:"Let us arise and be doing!" Let's do that very thing with all the thoughtful preparation and heart we can lend to the task in these middle hours.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him, purifleth himself even as He is pure. I John 3:2-3.

A Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving to all of our friends and family.  May there be a candle lighting ceremony in your hearts each day of Advent. A mystery wrapped in swaddling clothes to be discovered anew. You are loved by these two people who pray the richness of Christ's affection upon your lives.

Looking forward,
John and Kathy


Reposted

Picture is Moonlightning from APOD web site

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap041007.html

My Husband

Another "John LaMantia" story. Once upon a very loooong time ago when we had been married about a month, and I had been working in a new job at the Army hospital in Germany, and was exhausted from late night love and early morning work- I forgot to pick John up. We had one car and everything was so spread out and I was the one with a German driver's license. 

John was doing a Bible study in the evening for the soldiers in the Stockade. I took him there then went home to lay down for an hour. Except it was not just an hour. When I woke up it was dark and March cold and the rain was half frozen and pelting the apartment windows. I was in a panic.

I drove the ten miles to the Stockade. No John just sheets of cold rain. The night was a real stinker. I followed the road all the way into town and no John. I drove to our church, which was having a gathering for new servicemen, to get help looking for him. One of John's friends told me John would "kill" me when I caught up with him. (Such a help.)

I was already killing myself when in walked John soaked to the skin from a long, cold, wet walk. When he came over to me I blubbered my apologies, my regrets pouring out with the force of the rain. I told him how I was only going to nap for an hour. How I overslept. At the end of my speech John put two wet hands on my shoulders, looked into my eyes and said "Oh, I am so glad you got some rest. You have been so tired." I knew then whom I had married.

Fast forward almost 40 years. It is Nov 6, 2012. I have locked my purse, keys and cell phone in the car at the gas pump. It is the middle of a work day and a Tuesday, which is the busiest day John has all week, often without adequate help, and he is still fighting a cold. I borrow a phone from someone who says, "Girl, that man's going to kill you."

15 minutes later John drives up smiling and before I can explain how I had left the door open but it somehow closed on its own...the John from that long ago rain storm says, "It sure is wonderful to see your face in the middle of the day!"

In a world that is sometimes apathetic, often hostile and unforgiving, there is a constancy for me- John LaMantia, a good man, loves me still.

my husband

my faults are invisible as glass
you look clean through

my graces you gently multiply
and those accrue

oh the blessing of living my life
palm to palm with you!

kl

I urge you who have been chosen by God to live up to the life to which God called you.  Always be humble, gentle, and patient, accepting each other in love. Ephesians 4:1-2

Holy Baggage

Teach us the Holy Songs,
the Sacred Songs,
the Love Songs.

Teach us the Holy Dance,
the Sacred Dance,
the Love Dance.

Teach us to Think like You,
to Speak like You,
to Look like You.

Yet...

I want to Heal like you
but I don't want my hands pierced.

I want to Walk where you would send me
but I don't want my feet pierced.

I want to Love like you
but I don't want my heart pierced.

I want roses
but not a thorny crown.

You come with so much baggage, Jesus.
Must I carry it all?

Must I be tired, dusty, homeless, crucified
and eat with sinners?

I will sing them your song
as long as I can do it from a distance.

I will show them your dance
as long as I can dance alone.

It's that looking like you part
that is the rub.
You were plain.

How do I look like you,
love like you,
speak like you
if I do not allow myself
to be you to this world?

Yes, there's the rub.
Whole church movements
have sprung up to avoid
facing that detail.

If I take you
I take all your baggage.
All the forgiveness, grace,
hope and healing
and the unending supply
of people you care for
whom I may not.

Dirty feet in the lap,
hunger at the door,
hot tears demanding.
Your world has lepers.
L-e-p-e-r-s...

Still, my tongue is longing to
sing the Sacred Words.
My feet itching to know
the Holy Steps.

So teach me
your extraordinary plainness.
I'll find someplace to
put your things.

What are you going to do
with that hammer and those nails?...

Teach us the Holy Songs,
the Sacred Songs,
the Love Songs.

Teach us the Holy Dance,
the Sacred Dance,
the Love Dance.

Teach us to Think like You,
to Speak like You,
to Look like You,
.....Love like You.

Teach us to follow, pierced,
to lead this world, loving,
as we walk in your steps,
transformed.

(Holy Baggage by K.Cavanaugh LaMantia)

Not much writing time this month but I was reading a devotion that spoke of living loved and it made me thoughtful about how extraordinary our position is in the world. What a unique opportunity we have to be Christ's arms wrapped around broken people and to be broken ourselves, as bread, in sacramental love for all that is or would be His. I found this older posting and hope it makes you thoughtful. Blessings. kl

Wake Up, Kathy!

As, therefore, God’s picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And, above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues. Colossians 3:12-14

How God loves us is translated: discriminating affection which involves choice and selection.

We are representatives of a "new humanity" hand picked to wear the virtues of God's own character as our embellishments. A lovely and lofty ambition but sometimes it is not so easy.

I was recently exposed to some vile comments made by someone who makes it a habit to disparage anything honest and good. This person redefines crass in some breathtaking ways.

In one of those misty moments between sleep and wakefulness God whispered to me, "Kathy, I want him."

I sat bolt upright- shocked wide awake with the truth of God's wild, "irrational" love.

"Well, yes, I know You do, Lord, but You might not get what you want."

"What if I want you to pray for him? Will I get that?"

"Will it work?"

"It worked with you."







Worth a re-visit:
http://iamcallingshotgun.blogspot.com/2012/02/hiding-place.html

I Love Thee

I love Thee, God, in ways old and new

I love Thee as a bride at first blush
when a lover's touch awakens her

I love Thee as a wife laying her first meal
upon the table

I love Thee as one full wombed
caressing the life buried inside her

I love Thee as a mother pressing the hand
of her first born to her lips

I love Thee as a shelter, a safe place
for the child growing into a man

I love Thee wise-hearted as one
you made his counselor and friend

I love Thee as the wife beloved of one man
through age and storm through hallelujah and hurricane

I love Thee in green seasons and gray
in sun and shade, full basket or bare earth

I love Thee in the days of second springs
of bearing and fruitfulness from late sewn fields

I love Thee hopefully

I love Thee ambitiously

I love Thee gratefully

I love Thee in ways old and new and forever

I love Thee

kl

To the wives and mothers, my friends, who love God and family and me. May God's matchless love and inspiration plant new fields and grow grace in every area of our lives.

Immersed In Christ

Galatians 3:27 - For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.*


Our friend Kim is recovering from just having a baby. How she will recover from raising three boys will be fodder for her own blog for years to come.

Not long before Samuel Elias made his debut, Kim emailed this lovely picture to me titled Sweet Girl. I looked at it today and saw my heart. I woke wanting to wrap myself in a mystery, wanting to strip off the outer layers of my life and dive to the bottom of the Ocean that is Christ and take a cleansing breath. I wanted to feel all that is Christ flooding and filling all my desperately un-full places.

Christ-hunger.

Sweet Girl pecked at my shell and said, "Kathy, jump into the dish!"

I imagine that she landed on the deck rail and cautiously sampled a few far flung seeds. Then she moved a bit closer, casting about a sharp eye for competition or danger. A few more delicious seeds and the bounty became overwhelming. At last we see her feet buried in the irresistible goodness inside of its source.

How is it that a bird understands what eludes us?

The occasional seed distant from the source is tasty but it was never meant as our only nourishment. It was intended to draw us closer to immersion. We are wooed to be immersed daily, completely and gratefully into the bounty of Christ. To cease concern for competition or danger and just jump into the dish.

Fill us today, Lord, with all your great, gasping mystery- with your immense, bountiful goodness- with your soul satisfying communion. Fill us with yourself. We, like hungry birds, come into your hand.

Selah


* The Greek preposition eis "into" used in this scripture tells us that our baptism is not simply into water (a symbol) but into Christ Himself.


Special thanks to Kimberly Lorentzen for her Sweet Girl. Special congratulations to the entire Schulz-Lorentzen family on the birth of their Sweet Boy, Samuel Elias.

Midnight Snack Moose Style

You visit the earth and saturate it with water; You greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; You provide them with grain when You have so prepared the earth. Psalm 65: 9


OK. So we set a record in Anchorage last winter for snow fall. Now it would seem we are going for one for summer rain fall. You would think we were living in Juneau.

We have had so much rain it has been hard to get the grass cut but we did our best last Saturday. Set it high and made several passes and mowed around a moose and her baby who helped us prune the trees. They were still in our yard at midnight which is when this video was taken.

God sure has given His Kingdom character and we get to see a lot of it here in Alaska. But my heart needs a beach sometimes so I am going to cook oysters and make wind chimes out of the shells.

Rain, sun, heat or humidity may God bless your last weeks of summer.

kl