Something Beautiful

Last Thursday, I took Jessica to the beach for the afternoon. We had a nice drive across the valley, talking, eating french fries, and reading A Bear Called Paddington. In Templeton, we picked up some feed for Leah's goats and enjoyed a wonderful lunch with the Welch's.

Our destination was the W. R. Hearst State Beach in San Simeon. It was a beautiful day on the coast - warm with high clouds and a light breeze. Once Jessica had a chance to put her toes in the water, we walked down the beach and picked up a trail along the bluff through the Eucalyptus trees.

After stopping to climb some trees, we found a path back down to the water and explored some of the tide pools, looking at the crabs and starfish, watching the pelicans and gulls gliding above the water, and just enjoying being together.

It was 4:30 in the afternoon. I suggested we start heading back to the beach, and we turned around. We walked in silence, listening to the rustling wind and the rhythm of the surf. Beauty. Youth. Peace.

Love.

We got back to the main beach and explored some more tide pools. Anemones, barnacles, and more starfish. The sun was just beginning to set on the horizon, and a full moon was rising over the hills behind us, glowing soft in the evening mist.

"It's all enchanted and wild / Just like my heart said it was gonna be..."

-Nickel Creek, Nickel Creek, "Out Of The Woods"

There was a long pier extending over the water, and I asked her if we could walk out on it before we left. We stood at the end, looking out over the water, listening to the bells on the buoys and watching the pelicans diving in search of food.

After a few minutes we went over to a bench and sat on the backrest with our feet on the seat so we could see over the rail of the pier better.

I told her some poetry that I'd written and memorized as a preface to my proposal. Then I got down on my knee on the bench seat, took her hands in mine, and told her that I loved her - desperately, with everything I am. I told her I was ready to commit the rest of my life to loving her, caring for her, protecting her, sheltering her. And then I asked her if she would be my wife.

She said yes.

Four times.

Giddy, I unzipped my coat pocket and retrieved the ring. I slipped it on her finger, and we embraced hard - still having trouble believing we weren't dreaming. I was choking back sobs, but mostly we were too amazed to cry.

The sky was crisscrossed with brilliant color. We sat on the bench with our arms around each other, both in awe of what had just taken place. I said "It's us now, in everything," and she said "Yes..." and sighed happily. We prayed together about the future, fully conscious of the holiness of the moment.

"We don't know / And we won't know / What we're in for / But it's something beautiful..."

-Alex Mejias, Alex Mejias, "Something Beautiful"

I never dreamed.

We walked back down the pier, hand in hand for the first time. On the way to the restaurant, we called our families and told them the news. The celebration spread like electricity.

Looking at each other across the table at the restaurant, we still couldn't believe it. We ordered and tried to eat, and after the meal I gave her a Bible. Then it was time to drive home.

A piece of advice for the guys: get an automatic transmission. It makes holding hands a lot easier.

What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him.

-1 Corinthians 2:9

For the Love of Books

My 17 latest acquisitions, from a few used bookstores and a library book sale:

Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
Black Dog Of Fate - Peter Balakian
The Writing Life - Annie Dillard
No Man Is an Island - Thomas Merton
The Singer - Calvin Miller
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
The Penal Colony - Franz Kafka
The Face Of God - Bill Myers
The Gates Of The Forest - Elie Wiesel
The Living - Annie Dillard
The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton
The Shaping Of A Christian Family - Elisabeth Elliot
The Borrowers - Mary Norton
Night - Elie Wiesel
Redeeming The Time - Leland Ryken
The Odyssey - Homer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

Image courtesy of tempe.gov

Eating Jesus

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever."

-John 6:54-58

Jesus preaches a new definition of life. (John 10:10) A life that is full and fulfilled. A life that is peaceful. A life that is eternal. A life that is real.

This new life requires new provisions. Just as to live you need to eat, to stay alive spiritually you need spiritual sustenance. We find this sustenance in the person and presence of Christ. I don't know all of what this means, but I believe it.

When Jesus says that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink, he is not saying that his flesh is as real as real food, or that his blood is as real as real drink. Rather he is saying that his flesh is more real than real food, and that his blood is more real than real drink.

Jesus is offering something that transcends the dust-to-dust cycle of mortality. He is offering himself. For us he was broken, for us he was made sin (2 Cor. 5:21 - was made it!), "by his stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:4-6)

I have come with one purpose / To capture for myself a bride / By my life she is lovely / And by my death she's justified... I have long pursued her / As a harlot and a whore / And she will feast upon me / She will drink and thirst no more / So when you taste / My flesh and my blood / You will know / You're not alone...

-Derek Webb, She Must And Shall Go Free, "The Church"

We need a more robust practice of communion in the Church today. No, I don't know what this looks like - I just sense we need it. We need to be partaking directly of the person of Christ and identifying directly with his life. "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me." I'm not a proponent of transubstantiation, but I have to give some credit to our Lutheran and Roman Catholic friends for taking the sacrament as seriously as they do.

We need to be eating Jesus.

Image courtesy of lcms.org

Thankful...

...for life,
for my family,
for Jessica,
for the wisdom of friends,
for the mercy of God,
for challenge and change,
for seasons,
for mountains and deserts,
for forests and beaches,
for poetry and prayer,
for potatoes and wine and cranberry pie,
for starry nights,
for grace for the past,
hope for the future,
and peace for the present.

When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them.
The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.
Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

-Psalm 126, KJV

Image courtesy of vagabondish.com

I Can't Write

Tomorrow morning I drive to San Francisco to pick up Jessica. It's been 47 days since I've seen her, and I feel like one of those little wind-up cars feels when you pull it all the way back and hold it there. I'm exhausted, excited, twitterpated, and several other things. But I can't write. At all. I tried.

After tomorrow I should be myself again.

"When love has got you in its throes / even the summer's heat just freezes your soul / and the sweetest song - it just clanks along / and the morning dew just says goodnight and leaves your heart undone..."

Image courtesy of robinsdocksideshop.com

Thinking Christianly About Art

(Image from banksy.co.uk)

To interest is the first duty of art; no other excellences will even begin to compensate for failure in this, and very serious faults will be covered by this, as by charity. -C. S. Lewis

True Christian imaging meets violence head-on, mine and the world's, but also God's... We must learn early to seek God within the wounds that reality inflicts. -Janine Langan

Art and prayer have never been conceived by the Church as enemies, and where the Church has been austere it has only been because she meant to insist on the essential difference between art and entertainment. -Thomas Merton

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. -James 1:17

The tragedy is that so many Christians, in their revulsion at the perverse aspects of [empty postmodern] art, shun all art, even that which may spring from a God-honoring imagination or a Christocentric consciousness. The other "Christian" alternative is a conservatism that responds only to kitsch, a sentimental art of the Hallmark greeting card variety that cheapens true sentiment, turning it into sweetness and light and mere moralistic propaganda - no teeth, no guts, no muscle, no reality. No real Christianity either, if we consider the Creator's work as our powerful, radical model.
But kitsch is easy. It is accessible as a Thomas Kinkade painting, and as stereotypical. It is manipulative and narcotic, and by contrast it makes true art seem difficult or complicated. For true art is not all sweet reasonableness. -Luci Shaw

We know in part. We see through a glass darkly. But it is worth our looking. -Elisabeth Elliot

The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. -C. S. Lewis

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. -Romans 12:2

Prisons, let it be said, have fostered far more art and mystical insight than any Arts Council, Ministry of Culture or other such effort in the way of governmental encouragement. -Malcolm Muggeridge

Art is the signature of man. -G. K. Chesterton

Protestantism - the adroit castrator
Of art; the bitter negation
Of song and dance and the heart’s innocent joy -
You have botched our flesh and left us only the soul’s
Terrible impotence in a warm world. -R. S. Thomas

Big Family Survival - Part 4: Laundry

Yes, the famed Big Family Survival series is back! I have several more posts in the queue, all dealing with the delightful and dramatic mayhem of living in a family large enough to qualify for its own zip code.

Today we're dealing with one of the most mundane chores of modern life: laundry. Everyone needs clothing washed periodically, especially young kids whose primary idea of fun is seeing how much mud and grass they can get onto their clothes in the least amount of time, or older kids whose occupations involve large amounts of dirt, sawdust, cement, and other assorted substances.

The mound of soiled laundry at our house is affectionately referred to as "Mt. Telianappolis," and for good reason. Climbing Mt. Telianappolis is a constant test of stamina and will. Battling valiantly through an avalanche of soiled jeans, dirty jumpers, and smelly socks, the laundry sorter organizes the chaos by color and weight into wicker baskets. That's the hard part.

From there, everyone processes their assigned loads: from the basket to the washer (don't forget to "check the pockets"), from the washer to the dryer (don't forget to "shake the jeans"), from the dryer back to the basket, from the basket to the couch (to be folded), and from the couch to the appropriate bedrooms.

Knowing what is what and whose is whose at our house requires a Ph.d. in laundrology. Reading size tags on jeans, noting miniscule differences in sock design, and developing a detailed knowledge of your siblings' wardrobes are all part of the art. Sometimes certain loads are assigned to certain people because they're the only ones who have memorized the article ownership, and yes, that includes underwear.

This all may sound like a perfectly well-oiled machine, and it usually is. Sometimes, however, the evil laundry monster rears his ugly head, and a pair of shorts or a fleece pullover mysteriously disappears. The process of recovering such an item can take weeks. Sometimes it's buried deep in the bowels of the laundry sorter. Sometimes it winds up in your neighbour's closet or chest-of-drawers. Sometimes it winds up on the pile for Goodwill in the garage (true story!).

My favorite load was always "towels." One, they're nobody's, so you don't have to worry about that. Two, they're nice simple geometric shapes - squares and rectangles - so they're a breeze to fold. (I still can't fold T-shirts "tight" - and "fitted sheets" are an absolute nightmare, even with a partner. And why for heaven's sake do we always have to fold the stupid thing in "thirds"??)

Our laundry system is rather like the Postal Service in that it provides consistent service but very unpredictable results. Depending on when you put your clothes into the central hamper it can take anywhere from several hours to a week or more. The average tends to be about two or three days: if you need it faster you may need to do it yourself.

Because our house is two stories, with the bedrooms upstairs and the laundry facilities downstairs, Dad designed a "laundry chute" that is truly an engineering marvel. Essentially, it's a curved piece of melamine in an upstairs cabinet that directs soiled clothing through a hole in the downstairs ceiling into the laundry cabinet, with a very satisfying whooshing sound. Genius.

The only drawback to the laundry chute is that it occasionally gets "clogged." Depending on the severity of the "clog," you can generally ram the clothes through with your foot. Other times you have to get down on your hands and knees and fish everything out piece by piece in order to clear the blockage, which is quite exasperating, but you always feel very noble and heroic afterwards, so it's worth it.

(Common-sense etiquette requires that you ensure your clothing sails completely through the chute without getting jammed. If you clog it, you clear it - just like a toilet. However, not everyone abides by the code and it's not always easy to enforce.)

In a big family, you can make scandals and celebrations out of almost anything - even dirty clothes.

Image courtesy of campus-cleaners.com