Broken people

She was tall and blonde, athletic with a big, wide smile.  

She stood before a small group of women to share her story and had been introduced as a former head of the local chamber of commerce and active on various non-profits.  

She had organized hundreds of Christians to share their faith at the Salt Lake City Olympics.  

She was beautiful, friendly and she loves Jesus.  What's not to love?

Or perhaps, what's not to envy? 

Before my husband died, I'm ashamed to admit I had divided the world into fairly neat categories of people.  And the irritating, grumpy ones, the ones with some misbehaving brats?  They were tolerated with gritted teeth. "What was wrong with 'you' people?  I'm behind you in a grocery line and you're buying junk food and cola. Of course your kids are rotten.  And you look like something the cat wouldn't drag home.  Can't you get yourself together? And get over your attitude."

Then I became the weird woman in line. I cried and fled from the men's underwear section. I saw his favorite lemon meringue pie in the freezer case and walked away from my grocery cart.  I went out in public without looking in a mirror and people sympathetically asked how I was feeling.  Clearly I looked like I "couldn't get myself together."  On good days I was distracted and distant in the checkout line; on bad days, I was the grumpy, disheveled women.  

And in that season of grief, my heart was broken and I understood. Everyone in line, everyone in the store, everyone I meet is either going through something or will.  We live in a broken world and we are broken people.  Jesus came to walk through the human experience. He give us His spirit to indwell us and walk within us, to walk through life.  But no one gets a pass on suffering. 

So it was with our speaker. She stood before us in her cute, short white skirt with her long tan legs. She looked great and poised.  She had notecards and a outline with more points than most sermons.  She asked us to think about our times of doubt.  She spoke of her family and their doubts. Then she repeated herself and strained to keep to her notes. 

Finally she lay them down and said, "You know why I'm here.  Last year I was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. I am not a doubter and I know God is with me but this is a horrible diagnosis. This is hard. My family can't understand how this could happen. My husband can't handle this."  Her voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears.  And at once, the whole room leaned in with love and sympathy.  She admitted her brokenness- in this case, her brain is breaking down and there is nothing medical science can do to stop the inevitable mental decline to death.  Now she lives in an independent living apartment, a step away from assisted living. Then it will be a nursing home.  

She is 52. 

And then she spoke of joy. Of learning to appreciate each day and looking for ways to share her faith with other people. She wonders if there is a ministry waiting in the facility she now lives in.  She wants to make the most of each season before her. 

The best of her life appears to be behind her and the light of her life will begin to fade, much faster than she anticipated. 

 This beautiful, 'all together' woman is one of the broken.  So am I.

May we continue to bring forth beauty. Even in the fading light. 

Above the clouds

I've been looking forward to this week in August for months. Each year the earth passes through the particles of the tail of the comet Swift- Tuttle. The particles burn up in the earth's atmosphere and once again, create the Perseid meteor shower.
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-perseid-meteor-shower

Last year I forgot but my son-in-law and his father were up late and watched from my porch. This year would be different. I set my alarm for 2am and went out expecting this.....

http://news.yahoo.com/perseid-meteor-shower-peaks-weekend-watch-online-tonight-153217562.html

I got nothing.

My neighbor had his yard light on and it cast enough light to create shadows from my trees. His light isn't usually that bright but last night any and all light reflected off the low cloud cover. It has been a cloudy, humid, lush summer in our normally arid Black Hills.  Lovely flowers, lousy stargazing.


I stood for a moment, saw nothing but a few stars peeking behind cloud cover and went back to bed. This morning the sunrise looked like this- a hazy sun under more clouds.

The morning fog hasn't burned off yet and given our cool temps, it's rarely more than 80 degrees.....
it may just be a another weird cloudy day.

When I went online to find a picture of the Perseid, I learned that the week leading up to the peak is also a great time to star gaze. There have been much clearer nights this week.  It takes up to 20 minutes to adjust to the light of the night sky- I gave it about two minutes.  There are lulls between the bursts of meteor activity. Maybe it was just one of those quiet times when I chose to step onto my porch.  These would have been helpful tips had I searched earlier, before my quick peek.

I knew the meteors were up there above the clouds. The earth has been passing through this comet tail for at least 2000 years.  Other people were showing proof of the show.  But my quick scan was fruitless.


It isn't just meteor showers and stars we gaze upward for.  How many times have we looked for answers to our questions and found nothing? Sure other people seem to have adequate "proof" that they found God or comfort or peace but it sure didn't work for us.  It's easy to read about an event and assume your experience will mirror others but often it doesn't. Or read a self-help book and assume a quick scan will get the results we seek. There may are lights or shadows in your environment obscuring your view, or  baggage and wounds in your heart clouding your vision of yourself.   Perhaps you stepped into the uneasiness of your questions and quickly retreated to the warmth of your comfort zone, the way I returned to my bed in the middle of the night.   Perhaps, like me, you read the directions after the fact.  Is it too late to try again?

Tonight is another chance and I have a plan. I'll get up and drive about ten minutes to the darkest place I know, with some hot tea in a thermos and shoes on my feet this time. I'll put a lawn chair and some blankets in my car. And I'll give this whole thing some time. And maybe I'll still miss the show- I can't control the weather!

But I know the meteors are up there. I know the particles are burning up and flaming across the late night sky. I can trust the evidence others produce and rest assured in that truth, until my perseverance pays off and I see the show, too.


In the same way, I can bring my questions up again and again and trust that in good time, the Maker of Heaven and Earth will reveal Truth in my searching.  Meanwhile, I'll try to be faithful to what I know right now, right here - under the clouds.

Boundaries

I've been on another bike ride.  It's the season to be out and about in the beautiful countryside here in South Dakota.

We've had amazing rains and cool weather and the wildflowers have popped. Fields of them.

It's been great fun to drive through parks or hike on trails and see ....

Sunflowers

Purple burgamot

White yarrow....

Last week a new friend and I rode about twelve miles- uphill first, then down back to the car. That sequence always feels like a reward.  We're just getting to know each other so we shared our stories, and everything from food  preferences to our respective marriages.  We are both widows,  eat healthy or weird depending on your perspective, and met at a contemplative workshop so our faith is the glue.  It's a relationship I can see blossoming.

 

At one point on the trail, we rode through a tunnel of decent length .  You enter from the sunlight into the tunnel and the light penetrates about twenty feet onto the rough hewn stone.  The path is ahead and you can easily see the opening at the other end, with the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel showing the stone walls again.  Up to 1949 a passenger train traveled through this very tunnel.  Obviously there's plenty of room for a bike or two, even side by side. 

 

But in the middle, between the patches of light that glisten off the dark sides, it is pitch dark. Disorientatedly dark.  For a few seconds stretching into eternity, you are suspended. No sound, no light, no boundaries.  Only  your head knows you are still traveling toward light.


My friend and I were quiet but after a few yards out of the tunnel, we looked at each other. "That was uncomfortable."  And off we rode down the trail.  Safe in the light.

 

Humans need boundaries.  We use our senses to orient ourselves in the world. We see the horizon, we hear footsteps or cars approaching.  We feel the edge of the door frame in the dark of the night to get back to bed.  We even sniff before we eat and drink to confirm  our food.  When all of those senses are removed or blocked, we are lost.

What are other boundaries we need to keep our humanness "real",
 to be "found", not lost?


I love the saying, "Don't doubt in the dark what was revealed in the light."  Riding into the light at the beginning of the tunnel and seeing the light at the other end told me that the tunnel continued safely through.  The floor didn't disappear in the center. The walls were still safely there and holding up the stone ceiling.  But the utter darkness removed the signals I rely on to understand my world.
I had to trust.



I've been in other types of darkness.  I've lost my moorings and the old reliable symbols of safety in my world.  I've struggled with anger and wondered where the Transforming God was in all my frustration. I've wandered in the darkness of depression and wondered where the Comforting God was. I have held my precious child gasping for breath in the throes of asthma and I've sat at the deathbed of my beloved husband shuddering in the last breaths of life. Where is the Healing God in that void?

I didn't always trust what I knew was true. My intellect only went so far to keep me grounded. The bike ride through the void was only seconds long. It is much harder to remain in the darkness of disorientation when it lasts weeks, months or years.


At the time I didn't comprehend the Light at the other end of my emotional darkness. But He was there.


My anger didn't just go away.  I discovered the root of fear in my anger. God, who does transform, gently and slowly worked in me.  One day I realized I was no longer the angry woman I had been. I was changed.

My years of learning about myself through depression gave me the strength to be gentle with that self when I could have truly fallen off the edge of grief.  I learned deep in my spirit, there is always hope and resting in Him will eventually lead back to the light, back to the path.

My child with asthma grew up to be a runner and a man who is mindful of his health and now the health of his own child. He is compassionate and intentional about his body.  He has learned the limits of the human frame and, more importantly, the power of God to maintain health or heal to build faith.

And my husband passed into eternity, not easily or sweetly but fighting for every breath just like he fought for esteem and confidence in life.  His body could not overcome the Fall, just as none of ours will. But his spirit was healed by the God who is as interested in our spiritual wholeness as we are in our physical health.


Boundaries include more than physical ones. I observe when I'm missing the grounding of solitude or silence or a good night's rest.  I chose to be more aware of the visceral responses in my body when I'm confronted or offended. He is teaching me something new and healing my spiritual wounds.   And just like riding in the old railroad tunnel, I move through my discomfort- continuing in faith toward the Light.

http://www.blackhillsvisitor.com/featured-articles.html?pid=879&sid=952:Time-Line-of-Black-Hills-Railroads

http://www.rosyinn.com/5600a04.html