Laid Down Daily

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies”
(2 Corinthians 4:8-10)

I am saddened and at the same time inspired by the stories of Christians persecuted worldwide. Pastors jailed in Iran who will not recant, an aide worker hunted and murdered in Asia and another takes up her ministry, Christians burned out of their churches and homes in Indonesia but Christ is not abandoned. Such grace, such honesty and courage, such support and respect for one another is seen in persecuted communities.

I am equally saddened but completely uninspired by the persecution I see in our own churches and communities of faith that are far from the dangers of foreign fields. Churches which often thrive and grow for a period but whose leadership stalk and destroy those who are viewed as competition inside of and outside of their own denominations.

Pastors who oppress worship leaders or dynamic youth pastors whom they feel outshine them, Boards who treat the pastoral leader as an indentured servant and are hypercritical of his family. Group leaders and teachers who do not grow up those under them in order to keep the talent hidden. I have often encountered more passive aggression and plotting in the House of God than I have in corporate offices. Sometimes there is more simple courtesy to be found in the Tents of Wickedness.

How shameful is it to read that opening scripture from the standpoint of experience within the Christian community as opposed to the persecution that was the mainstay of the Colosseum?

Do I overstate? Hardly. We have all seen it. Felt it. Felt shamed or excluded by it. We may have done it.

If the statistics I read in numerous publications are to be believed, exhausted and diminished servants are leaving their positions and their denominational churches in droves often with their marriages and hearts in tatters.

We need some healthy self examination. We need to make room for one another and find joy in one another's success. We need to have short memories for failures-our own and other peoples. We need to allow Christ to meet our needs and to preach the funeral for envy and jealousy.

I recently read an article about Christian gangsters. Religious spirits whose tongues do not know the law of kindness. Cliques closed to those who do not dress alike and think alike and acknowledge the hierarchy or sing out of the hymnal. May God forgive us. May He know us differently this One with a towel tied around Him.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.  But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.  Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.  For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
 
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.- James 3:13-18

It is difficult for hell to find an ally in a life laid down daily*. I doubt there really are such things as five year plans in the Spirit. We are only promised today. 

Let's do something real with it.

From Peacemaker Ministries:

We are committed to building a “culture of peace” that reflects God’s peace and the power of the gospel of Christ in our lives. As we stand in the light of the cross, we realize that bitterness, unforgiveness and broken relationships are not appropriate for the people whom God has reconciled to himself through the sacrifice of his only Son (John 13:34-35; Eph. 4:29-32; Col. 3:12-14).

That laid down life was also speaking to Ann @ A Holy Experience and she said it beautifully.
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/01/when-you-are-weary-of-vanilla-christianity/

*You lie down today, yesterday you lay down, in the past you have lain down. :)

I Long For A World

“The tree on the mountain takes whatever the weather brings. If it has any choice at all, it is in putting down roots as deeply as possible."-Corrie ten Boom

What makes a grandmother put her former life in storage and move half way around the world to a place where human life is cheap and female human life is not believed worth the time to tally it up?

I think it must be in the seeing. Seeing what is but also what may be and seeing it through Divine eyes not just kind eyes. Kindness is a blessing but Salvation is a miracle. Salvation that is saving the seer as well as the seen. Salvation that knows the forgiven have had their hearts enlarged in the limitless way that defies the confines of the stained glass world where most of us worship. Salvation like bread that was made to be broken and shared. Salvation that fills a cup for a lifetime not just for lunch.

There is such a grandmother that John and I support and agree with her that Christ is the game changer in a world of empty cups. I would like to share with you something she wrote at the holidays that moved me. Please hear Jackie's words from India where she works to help women and children discover the One who will walk with them in the storm. Where she helps young trees grow roots that will hold, "whatever the weather brings."

 I long for a world where children do not sleep in the mud, under plastic sheets, rats running through their “houses.”  Where they don’t sleep on concrete slabs, in the open, alone.  A world where people don’t eat what they find lying on the street; I long for a world of enough.

I long for a world where people are not used, abused, treated as objects, outlets for the anger of others, mere commodities for the use of another’s egotistical and insatiable appetite.

I long for a world where children are not slaughtered, where humans dare not murder and kill and fight in ways that even animals would not think of.  Where life is viewed as sacred, something to be preserved, treasured, celebrated.

I long for a world where governments protect their people and look out for the well being of those in their care.  A world where corporations do not annihilate and steal from and cheat indigenous peoples, unempowered peoples, poor peoples in their quest for land and for more and more and more.

All of these things touched my life today.  Yet today, in a world of such suffering, I was blessed to see joy.  The joy of thirty children who sleep by the railway tracks celebrating their first Christmas.  Celebrating with a chili chicken breakfast, with a gift of a warm blanket and new clothes, with songs and dance, with smiles and laughter.

I was blessed to celebrate a second Christmas with a few hundred others, made even more joyful by the memories of their first Christmas.  Celebrated with songs and rhymes and verses and dances and dramas and the Most Important Story of All.

I was blessed to overhear an amazing answer to a question—What does Christmas mean?”  Without hesitation, “happiness.”

I long for a world…

Romans 8:18-23

Jackie Tallent, Calcutta, India
Reaching the street children of South Asia

Donations may be sent to:
Jackie Tallent 
1445 N. Boonville Ave.
Springfield, MO 65802
Donation Acct. #207093

(If you too long for that world, consider investing in it with your prayers and a contribution. Sometimes money can in fact buy "happiness" and often does to the glory of God.-Kathy)

The Ravens of Revival

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19

He was dressed all in black with long black hair and a beard shot through with gray. The brim of his black hat was pulled low over his piercing yes. He was a man off his meds. He was hungry, homeless and had anger issues that he warned you about first rattle out of the box. He wore his hat and coat indoors the way homeless people have as a way of protecting their possessions.

I had come to cut up onions for stuffing and to help with the turkeys and the best Volunteer Coordinator I have ever met was in the middle of giving me my gloves and my orders when the man in black came to check me out. Where had I come from? What was I doing? Would there be enough turkeys? Did I like Poe?

I kept my answers simple. I was married to the Chaplain. I was the onion chopper. There were abundant turkeys. I could quote The Raven from memory.

"I like John," he offered with almost a smile as he left me to glove up.

Over time I learned a bit more about the man who loved The Raven and dressed like one. I also learned another not unexpected fact- John liked him back. John had made an effort to take him aside and spend time finding out about who he was, what he liked, what he needed...and if he had any refills left on his meds.

John shared poetry with him and Jesus. He prayed for him and over him and with him. It was just a trickle at first, more a promise of moisture than the real thing but the desert was retreating. A new fresh thing was happening.

They talked about The Telltale Heart and the heart of love Christ has for us. There were prayers for housing and a job. Prayers for deliverance from anger and physical pain. His own heart was coming back to life as the desert surrendered its captive. The journey would be long but it had begun.

In one of the last services he shared before his housing prayer was answered, The Raven Man rose at the end of chapel and asked if he could sing a special chorus of a Johnny Cash song. (What is it with men in black?) John prayed it was not going to be Ring of Fire and agreed.

He sang it the first time a capella but the second pass through the band joined in behind him and then, as his voice declared his desire that the Circle Be Unbroken, he received the affirmation of Jesus and the applause of the totally surprised audience.

Once upon a time I had the privilege of watching my first chair clarinet husband play Debussy's Premiere Rhapsodie from memory standing in front of a full orchestra. The applause was considerable. When John came home and told me the story of the chapel service, told me about anger laid aside, Jesus glorified, about one man's baby steps toward wholeness and the audience's embrace; I knew John was happier for the applause lavished on The Raven Man than he had ever been for himself.

Jesus told a despised tax collector that he was coming to pay a visit. He called up to a little thief in a tree that he was coming to lunch. He asked a lost woman for a cup of water. Jesus' way was "I see you. Come see me." Christ didn't just put a pamphlet in their hand. He shared himself. He became to them just the God they needed.

It is so easy for someone homeless to lose their identity. Jesus never forgets who we are to Him. We must not forget who we were intended to be to each other. Family. Neither should we forget the God who is doing new things with fresh love.

John does not see The Raven Man every day now but he continues to cover him in prayer that the circle may remain unbroken and that he will be homeless, "Nevermore."

 

Special thanks and blessings to all our Urban Missionaries who daily take Jesus to the streets.

Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1 MSG

A John Thing

“The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him.” (I love this quote!)
― Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

John has no sense of  direction. The first clue came when he took me home to meet his family and he could not remember how to get to his grandmother's house. (She had lived in the same place for 40 years).

John has no sense of direction and he will not ask for directions. He may pass a dozen gas stations (a dozen times) but will still drain the tank trying to find his way in silence. I have observed this is not just a John thing but a man thing.

We have friends (Gary and Alice) who, like us, the wife is the navigator always and the driver if you are lucky. The day both of our husbands struck out on their own to go to Costco together over lunch, we started lining up replacements to preach and lead worship the following Sunday in case they didn't make it back on time.

When we drove up the Alcan Highway to Alaska I mapped out the entire route and rechecked it every night when we stopped. I always knew where we were. My plan was to plan ahead and stick to the plan. That was a success until we hit a 125 mile stretch of land under construction and the road itself literally disappeared.

I had never experienced anything like it and it was frighteningly confusing. There were detours out into the middle of nowhere with steep drops onto rocks below. There was a fog of pure dust obscuring everything from sight. There was no real road, just bumpy dirt that allowed a top sped of 5 mph. No markers of any kind. We were lost and blind and John was driving!

I was praying out loud. The map was useless. All my planning was obscured in a haze of Canadian clay dust- but we were moving forward. John was driving on and slowly our moving van and the car in tow were headed to Alaska.

In a sunless, dense, brown fog, John was following the very faint tail lights of a vehicle quite a ways ahead of us. When it turned, John turned. John matched its speed (if you can call it that) and never lost sight of it until we were out the other side.

My sweet driver has another birthday tomorrow. Maps still mystify him even though he says otherwise. But like the Peterson quote where he was talking about what he refers to in his book as "a long obedience" John is still following Jesus. No matter how hazy or strange, how dangerous or barren the landscape, John's compass finds true north. It does.

God told Moses he could see only His back parts because Moses could not look Him in the face and live. God's taillights remain in John's high beams and our family is headed to a more beautiful place than even Alaska because of such a long, steadfast obedience. He may not stop at gas stations for direction but John has always sought it on his knees.

So Happy Birthday to my traveling companion of many seasons, my friend and lover, my chauffeur. Your navigator loves you. Loves Christ in you. Whatever the next year and the New Year have up their sleeves, we will keep following the One who drew the map and charted the course that will lead us into His will and all the way home.

Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.” John 8:12

The Button Man

“Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.” Kahlil Gibran

A man told me a story yesterday that is now part of my story. It is one of those moments that puts down roots and refuses to budge- as if you would ever want to forget it. It is a story-of-stories and it is as great as it is humble.

The storyteller is my husband who has recently become the chaplain at a rescue mission that serves the homeless. Homeless is an inadequate description of people who are not just lacking a home but all the other necessities. Hope is also often in short supply.

He told me a story and then placed something precious in my palm. Precious like homeless is also too small a word.

The chapel service ended and a well spoken man approached John and asked for a moment. He had no home and all he owned he wore or carried with him. He had been watching and listening to John interact with someone in the service.

The man wanted to give John a gift and John assured the man that no gift was necessary. The man persisted. He looked into John's face and told him he had seen the way John behaved towards someone as well as that individual's response. Then he reached down and pulled a silver button from his jacket and placed it in John's hand as a gift of appreciation and encouragement.

He had found a lovely button in his poverty and had sewn it into the inside of his coat just over his heart. It was his only treasure. The one thing that made him feel as if he had "something." He had nothing of real value to give as the world assigns value, nothing the world considered precious, but he did not let that stop him from giving. He trusted John to comprehend the weight of the gesture.

One      single      button.

I looked at that tiny offering now growing warm in my hand and I heard a faint beating sound that grew more distinct as I held its silver goodness. I heard the beating heart of a God who treasures such sacrifice. A God who understands that something even less than a widow's mite can be irreplaceable treasure.

It is an irrefutable fact that John will give you his saxophone before he will part with the button. It sits in a place of honor and in his line of sight in his office. It has fastened John to the work and has bestowed a generosity one has to go to Calvary to fully appreciate.

We are humbled and blessed by the button man's contribution to our Christmas and to our lives. His gift and friendship enriched us. He taught us to be aware of people's eyes upon us. May we unfailingly look to others like the One who loves them best.

You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know that Christ was rich, but for you he became poor so that by his becoming poor you might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9

(The button above is from an ad on Etsy as I did not have a picture of John's which is similar but has a lily on it.)

Pirates In The Orchard

Milkweed drifts
on honeyed breezes.

Silken nets
breathe
with the wind.

Glistening webs
stretch
between cherry branches.
Eggless nests
cling
to her limbs.
She is home
to spiders
and climbing boys.
Boys who tasted
her sour and sweet
and dreamed her
a pirate ship
sailing
in blue waters-

far from orchard

or bathtub.
High summer games
will soon
go the way
of picked cherries.
There are oceans
to navigate

and treasure
to plunder

before her leaves
yield 
to crisp
school book pages.
Eager branches
lift and
embrace
the sweaty men
of tomorrow
who will remain
pirates with
a taste
for cherries
past this boyhood
summer.
The sun
burns away

cool autumn's 
momentary threat
leaving boys
and spiders
to sail and spin
in peace.

From Pirates In The Orchard

-Kat Cavanaugh LaMantia

The New Year approaches. I have several friends and family who have seen 80+ New Years come and go. Who have seen the world "spin" one way and then reverse itself and spin another way.

All of them enjoy one thing in common, a fresh faced, young soul that lives inside of them in spite of those years. A hopeful, optimistic child heart that remembers trees long past but yet looks forward to cherry trees unclimbed and inviting, "Come up!"

You all inspire me. 
 
He crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown.
He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
He renews your youth—you’re always young in His presence.

God makes everything come out right..Psalm 103 (The Message)

http://library.byways.org/assets/51635
Photo by Dennis Adams

As Good As Eggs

You lay blue plates upon the table

Chipped, they are still good for us

and for friends who are never company

Eggs like steaming, golden clouds

fill the room with goodness

Such joy and nourishment from broken things

Our eyes meet over Grace and know

we are as good as eggs.

Breakfast from Since You Asked Me to Dance
by Kat Cavanaugh LaMantia 2012

...You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you... Joel 2:25-26

http://www.hermanstudios.com/egg.jpg