Author: Caroline

When I'm not riding in the backseat of my Grandpa's restored vintage car "Mable," I'm doing other things like... rising to most adventure occasions my husband proposes / chasing our toddler around Brooklyn / enjoying neighbors, strangers, and friends / making countless trips to the laundromat / writing for various publications and for personal reflection / loving and serving our local church / cleaning the bathroom / hosting small and big crowds in our home / meeting up with a friend for coffee / thinking Vocation is my strange frenemy. Though I have worked and existed in many stations/places, I am convinced that each day has good work to be done and that I am equipped and prepared to do that good work. This blog explores the tension and the intersection of a constant vocational call - to good work, neighbor love, and living in the kingdom come. My favorite things are coffee and creating and laughing (preferably with company). I love to listen to sermons and read biographies and make tea before going to bed.

it was 1994

“… and then you put your legs up like this and be careful because my legs will swing around really fast. Now, put your knees up, balance, and jump.”

I was transported to my nine-year-old self in the middle of this manic Monday as Meredith swung upside down from the metal bar on the swing set. She took the tone of teacher as she swung with the seriousness of a backyard gold medalist.

I know that seriousness well. My grandpa knew it, too. My birthday gift was unlike any other 9-year-old I knew. It wouldn’t fit inside a gift bag and you can’t find one at a store. It was a custom-made, hand-crafted balance beam with a limited edition, special carpet cover.

It was beautiful and it sat in our backyard where I was Dominique Moceanu or Kerri Strug on summer afternoons. My performance always decided whether we got the gold or the silver medal. The air hung thick with pressure (and good Iowa summer heat) and the beam was more than inches off the grass. It felt like miles.

I positioned my socked toe in front and stretched my arms up high (everyone knew the judges gave points for style and I never wanted to lose any – that was the easy part). I twirled, jumped, steadied, and then positioned myself for the dismount. The dismount decided everything – everyone knew that, even my dad. The question would pound in my head through the whole backyard routine, “Can I stick the dismount?”

I would back up to the very edge of the beam and then start my swirling combination toward the other end, where I would flip end over end (in my mind) and always land with two feet nestled into the Iowa grass.

My arms would erupt from my sides and I would proudly stick out my chest, acknowledging the audience of trees and cattle and cats on all sides.

It was 1994 and I just clenched the victory with that landing in my stocking feet.
And it felt good.

Posted on by Caroline 0

don’t tell the farmer or the owner of the mansion

A real runner would have a running buddy and wear a watch and map a route and follow a strict training schedule and beat a personal best. But, I’m not a real runner.

Somewhere around 6:30 pm tonight (to top off a beautiful day of wonderful things), I laced up the Brooks my generous Pops gave me when I got back from Honduras last June. Somehow, it seemed fitting that these same shoes would accompany me today when I set my sights on 10.5 miles.

I had a plan, kind of. Not being completely familiar with Ames (and knowing my tendency to detour), I wrote out reminders on my hand of where to turn and street signs to remember.

I won’t say I was excited, but I will say I was determined.

Right around mile 4.5 (give or take), I was wishing I had more written on my hand. I knew I meant to follow a river, but didn’t remember on which side. I spotted a bridge over the river and a forest beyond. Based completely on the aesthetic (and not at all on the yellow signs surrounding the bridge that seemed a bit superfluous), I decided to cross over.

The trails were magic and I was mesmerized. I kept giggling to myself that I’d found such a gem – curving around, climbing up, and carrying me around loop-de-loops under the thick, green forest cover. I was in the movie Bambi and Lion King and Robin Hood all at once and running with the perfect amount of breeze at my back.

And, then the trail looped and curved and … ended in a field. No bridge, no road – just field and field and field as far as I could see. This just sent me into a more delirious state of giggles because not an ounce in me wanted to turn around. I reasoned that all fields must border a road at some point – I farmed with my uncle, you see, so I know these things.

I carefully directed my path between the wee rows of soybeans and curved along the edge of the field, noting the distance between the rows. All I could think about was my Uncle Craig, so I took mental pictures to share what I project to be the above average yields in central Iowa.

Suddenly, I realized that (the way farmers use technology these days) there might be some sort of satellite camera monitoring the fields. I wondered if I looked like a crop scout or maybe a spy. I wanted to let the satellites know my good intentions, so I started removing the dead limbs from the soybean rows. Just so you know, Mr. Farmer, you have some dead limb problems and I did what I could but you might need to bring your burly son out to get the big ones. Also, Mr. Farmer, there were some large rocks that might cause you problems – just in case your satellite didn’t pick that up. Also, Mr. Farmer, there is a family of deer that seem very comfortable on your property. I’m just saying.

Somewhere, in the middle of that field, I thought, “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

But, I kept running. I decided the treeline would be a good place because there was either a river or a creek or (hopefully) a road somewhere beyond it. What there wasn’t was a path.

I high-kneed it through what might have been poison ivy and happened upon what was once a creekbed. I ran along the creekbed over the deserted houses of beavers and the former hideouts of foxes. I realized two things at this point: I could get attacked by a wolf and/or shot by a suspicious farmer. Somehow, laughing still seemed the best response.

Running, running, running.

I finally spotted something very un-foresty just above the treeline and thought, “This will be awkward, but it might save my life.” I planned to run up to the old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere (which is where I was SURE I was), knock on the front door of Farmer Joe and Wife Edith and say, “I know this sounds crazy, but I got lost running through the back of your property and I just wanted to let you know I’m not trespassing. And also, could you point me in the direction of Ames?”

I had practiced interrupting their nightly tea and the prime-time cable feature, but I was completely unprepared for what appeared when I finally topped the ravine: a mansion. That’s right. I was smack dab in the backyard of Ken and Barbie’s dream home. I ran, stuttered, and then decided knocking on a mansion’s door to let them know I wasn’t trespassing was not a good idea. I tried to put my best “young-girl-lost-in-the-wilderness-don’t-hold-it-against-me” look on my face and made a beeline for what sounded like traffic.

Once I hit that highway, I knew I would live. No farmer would shoot me and no millionaire would sue me now. I meandered my way back to the little city I call home and every other racing step was accompanied with laughter.

This would never happen to a real runner. But, I am not a real runner.

As it turns out, I am someone who can run 13.36 miles unintentionally – trespassing through multiple properties and finding it the most amusing end to a most wonderful day.

Posted on by Caroline 10

parody, tarp surfing, learning to teach, and open heaven

It’s been awhile since a “this & that” post. There’s plenty to look at, click on, hear, watch, and do. Do as little or as lot as you wish, but whatever you do – let knowledge be something that produces action. It’s my hope that the more I know, the more I can translate that knowledge into love actions in a way that pleases my Lord. Just like all Truth is God’s, all knowledge is possible only because He’s allowed it to be so.

  • Andrée Seu is a woman I’d love to meet. This piece, “Under an Open Heaven,” seems to be a page right out of my heart. Here’s a taste, now please go read the rest!

My lover is the fresh wind of the Spirit, blowing through the rafters of my melancholy. My lover speaks of God “in season and out of season,” like Jesus at the well in Sychar, in his fatigue and hunger. There is no difference between his “religious” talk and his regular talk. He does not sound one way in church and another at the mall.

Walking with him I feel no sides, no floor, no ceiling, and everything all new: No past, no future. No rules but God’s. No servitude but to Him. No man-made impossibilities. We do the adventure called “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Let me be blunt: This is fun!

  • Wanna know what makes a great story? Seems like this post would answer it, “1+1=3 Ken Burn on what makes a great story” but it may not answer your math questions.
  • If I could choose a conference to go to this summer (in addition to the Muslim Missions Conference in Dearborn, Michigan), it would be the gem of a conference in Florida – The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference. The next best thing, of course, is to read/listen to everything. Carrie Sandom, hailing from the UK, will be speaking and here’s an introduction that makes me excited to hear more from her. “Learn the Bible to Teach the Bible” makes a bunch of sense.
  • Do you doubt that a landlocked country could surf waves? Doubt no more. This is really sweet.

  • Not to be “that kind of fan,” but Metaxas has proved himself as a brilliant writer and historian (Amazing Grace and Bonhoeffer). This article, “Spirituality as Parody” is definitely worth the read as well (and a lot shorter than Bonhoeffer).
  • What does your view of Scripture have to do with your view of God? See what J.I. Packer has to say about that, “Your View of Scripture and Your View of God.”
  • If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been grooving to the new band Citizen. They’re cool enough to spend $3 on, for sure.

Okay, friends. That’s all for now. Click, read, listen, watch, and… then DO something.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

practice resurrection

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

.
.

Practice resurrection.

(snippets from Wendell Berry’s 1973 poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”from The Country of Marriage)

I’ve been meaning to read more of Wendell Berry and summer seems like a good time to “get around to it.” The vibrant green leaves and the smell of blooming peonies seem a fitting backdrop to his poetry. I map my runs to intentionally include the rowdy peony bushes on S. 3rd Street. I always “stretch” long enough to fill my lungs with peony air before putting my race face on again.

The smell of peony makes me sad for people who don’t lean over to breathe in their beauty.

And that’s why Wendell Berry’s advice to, “practice resurrection” is nestling nicely somewhere deep in my soul. We are so forgetful. We live like we don’t know we’re resurrected. We live like we’re not sure how this day will end. We live like Christ’s resurrection was too long ago to rearrange my daily toil. We live like all the wonder in the wind moving through the trees is something not everyone has the time to admire.

We live like we’ve forgotten how to practice resurrection.

We were dead in our trespasses and sins. Dead. Gone. Lost. Limp. Lifeless. Stuck. Trapped. Suffocated. Dead.

There’s no way to make that sound nice or easy. But if that were the end, I would have a hard time getting you to stop and smell the peonies.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

(Ephesians 2:4-10 ESV)

But, God…

What a beautiful interjection!
What an altogether unexpected and undeserved display of mercy!
What glorious gratitude is birthed when life displaces death!

This is our resurrection. We are made alive together with Christ. We are raised up from the grave to sit with Him, to search out the immeasurable riches of His grace, to seek all the beauty of His face reflected in the glory of creation. This is our resurrection.

Practice resurrection today, friends.
Practice resurrection and do not forget.
Practice resurrection because, in Christ, life has displaced death.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

sought

In tenderness He sought me
Weary and sick with sin
And on His shoulders brought me
Back to His fold again
While angels in His presence sang,
until the courts of heaven rang

Something about being sought in tenderness.
Something about being shown grace and favor while sick with sin.
Something about the vantage point of His shoulders and the heavenly accompaniment that swelled.

I imagine when Jesus chases after those prone to wander, his pace is not frenzied and his voice does not growl. I imagine His eyes set like flint (just as they were for the cross) and joy filling the creases in His face. I imagine He knows just where to look – all the best hiding places and dark corners. I imagine His touch tender as He cradles the fragile soul in the arms of His grace.

Oh the love that sought me!
Oh the blood that bought me!
Oh the grace that brought me to the fold of God
Grace that brought me to the fold of God

Oh the love.

It makes no sense and I’m the more grateful for it. He sought me out in my favorite, darkest corner and then swung me up on His shoulders and carried me out of darkness and into His marvelous light. And with tenderness He sought me.

What a glorious and merciful Savior!

This new song by Citizen is a beautiful reminder of how we came to know our Savior.

Posted on by Caroline 1

do you feel salvation in your fingertips?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourself in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live
and I will make for you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
Isaiah 55:2-3

Oh, the thousands of times I have not listened. And the thousands on top of those thousands that I have lacked diligence.

And, oh, the rotten food I have eaten as a result.

Listen.
Listen diligently.

These words dripped like the sweet sunshine that rushed to meet me in mid-afternoon – God’s reminder that delight always waits on the other side of diligent listening. His invitation hovers patient, woven through my schedule and rests the right kind of heavy on my heart.

“Child, if you just incline your ear and come to me… delight is on the other side and inside my words.”

Listen. And I will eat what is good, I will delight in rich food, my soul will live and I will enjoy an everlasting covenant.

On this side of the life/death/resurrection of Jesus Christ, these sweet words mean salvation. It means joyful abundance in the depraved, daily trenches of our days. It means being satisfied (Psalm 63) in a way the best home-cooked meal will always fail to do. It means tasting and seeing that He is good (Psalm 34:8). It means feeling life leap in our souls and it means experiencing a love with the certainty of an everlasting, covenant promise.

It means pushing myself back from the table of my rotten concoctions and trusting that delight will be on the other side of diligent listening.
It means stretching out my arms and feeling salvation in my fingertips.

 

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

the chase

Isn’t it funny how little ones love to have someone run after them? Very few kids turn down the chance to be caught and smothered in hugs and giggles. They may act like they want to escape, but they can’t hide their excitement about being wrapped up at the end of the chase.

Oh, the chase!
Don’t we love it when someone seeks us out to show us love – when someone chases us down just to collapse with us into giggles?

Today, I was babysitting a little one with a fever and I couldn’t tell if his laughter was delirious or if he just loved the game that much. When we weren’t snuggling or singing, I would hide behind the coffee table and say, “I’m… gonna… get… you!” When my head appeared from whatever direction, he would burst into a fit of giggles that I couldn’t resist.

I would join in and admire his dimples.

And then we’d do it all over again.

Posted on by Caroline 4

to wait and to hope

It’s like finding the door to secret garden or discovering a hidden cave or tapping on the right rock in an Indiana Jones movie.

No matter how many times my pride tries to convince me otherwise, studying the Word never gets old. Sure, I have my seasons where the words look like black text on a white page and little more. But, go ahead and tell a child that there is no cave or secret garden or hidden passage while they are inside it and see what kind of response you get. Laughter seems most fitting. This is the joy of the Scripture – to be inside a mystery that never grows old.

As I was reading Psalm 130, I crawled inside this mystery and stared out in wonder. The urgency leaps from the misery and clings to the Lord’s forgiveness as the only hope against His righteous standard. My thoughts drifted toward Spanish again and the word, “esperar.” It means both “to wait” and “to hope” and, though I don’t know the original text, the interchange in verses 5-8 makes all kinds of sense.

1,2 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3,4 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
5,6 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
7,8 O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
(Psalm 130 ESV)

Our waiting is hoping and our hoping is waiting. And it all rests on the Lord – the waiting and the hoping – not on our willpower to do it. The Psalmist makes certain we understand the intensity of his waiting. I’m sure watchmen assume the highest form of vigilance, filled with the gravest kind of hope. Twice the Psalmist says his soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning. How closely a watchman must hope for the dawn to break the darkness, for the sun to shed its light on the sky. Even more than a person whose purpose it is to wait and hope – he waits even more than him. What great expectation!

What a rush of beauty, to wait and hope in the One who offers steadfast love and plentiful redemption! Redeemed, restored, renewed… and we find these things in abundance!

Fo what else could we hope, my friends?
For what else should we wait?

go ahead, dive in to the mystery and

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

I almost forgot: the importance of clamará

I was standing between pews of neat rows and English words hung in the air above my head. I was supposed to sing along after the guitar solo opened the song, “Inside Out.” I was supposed to be thinking of God’s attributes. I wasn’t doing either of those things. I was thinking about the word, “clamará” and the first time I heard this melody.

Panic froze my praise. I grasped for the words – the right words – to fill in the space between me and the sky. I wanted just the right words to put my heart’s love to song and English wouldn’t do. The drums swelled and voices harmonized and I stood unable to sing.

I tried to read the words on the screen and translate, but the order is all wrong in English. The phrases are all out of place and the r’s are dull.

I closed my eyes and my heart opened up.

Dios eterno, tu luz por siempre brillará
y tu gloria incomparable sin final
el clamor de mi ser es contigo estar
desde mi interior, mi alma clamará

Every word climbed on top of the next, an expression in process – a verb in past, present, and future tense all rolled into one presentation of praise to my Lord. The word, “clamar” means “to cry out” and I love to picture my soul crying out in a way that rolls over into future tense. In Spanish, the chorus reads,

“God Eternal, your light for always shines/and will shine,
and your uncomparable glory has no end.
The cry of my being is to be with you
From my innermost, my soul cries/and will cry out”

I’m starting to think the notion of “heart language” or “native tongue” can mean many things and sound many different ways. This morning, singing praise to my Savior meant communion behind closed eyes with the Lord in a second language that seemed to better explain the verb tenses of my soul.

A little waterfall followed my communion, but I meant that to be praise as well. I knew the Lord would understand. He speaks all languages and knows the importance of clamará and remembers the events that make it mammoth in my understanding of who He is. He knows each young lady who pushed me to a more honest “clamará” in Tegucigalpa as I desperately wanted to know, love, and delight in Him so that they would, too. He understands the unspeakable desires in my heart that won’t ever find an outlet in letters. He knows my delight is and will always be found in knowing Him, finding out what pleases Him, and delighting to do those things.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 4

you are not enough

What a funny word.
“Enough” means sufficient, even if it means barely squeaking by.

I wonder what happens when enough is a challenge. Are you man enough? Are you strong enough? Are you brave enough? Are you mom enough?

These questions issue a challenge to those places in us that can’t resist – those places in us that say, “I’ll show you…” in response. We might even get a little carried away in proving that we are, indeed, enough of whatever quality is in question. We might even, on the wild proving grounds of this challenge, reveal just how great is our need. Because when we start to think that our adequacy is found in what we do, we’re beat from the start.

We were never meant to rise to the challenge of enough. We were meant to see our not enough and recognize our need.
We were made to find our enough in Another who is always sufficient, always abundant, and always.

This little excerpt (thanks, Tim Challies) from John Piper’s book Pierced by God gives helpful perspective. I realize it’s a bit much for this morning, so if you don’t read the excerpt below, just know that you are not enough.

You will never be brave enough, strong enough, smart enough, or mom enough. You can’t reach down deep and muster up the willpower. It’s not in you. And it’s not failure to admit that – it’s just recognizing that you are not God. You are made to depend on God’s enough-ness (if you will) and bring Him glory.

We are not God. So by comparison to ultimate, absolute Reality, we are not much. Our existence is secondary and dependent on the absolute Reality of God. He is the only Given in the universe. We are derivative. …We were. He simply is. But we become, “I Am Who I Am” in His name (Exodus 3:14).

Nevertheless, because He made us with the highest creaturely purpose in mind—to enjoy and display the Creator’s glory—we may have a very substantial life that lasts forever. This is why we were made (“All things were created through Him and for Him”, Colossians 1:16). …This is why we eat and drink (“So whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”, 1 Cor. 10:31). …This is why we do good deeds, (“Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven”, Matthew 5:16).

That is why we exist—to display the glory of God. Human life is all about God. That is the meaning of being human. It is our created nature to make much of God. When we fulfill this reason for being, we have substance. There is weight and significance in our existence. Knowing, enjoying, and thus displaying the glory of God is a sharing in the glory of God. Not that we become God. But something of His greatness and beauty is on us as we realize this purpose for our being—to image-forth His excellence. This is our substance.

Not to fulfill this purpose for human existence is to be a mere shadow of the substance we were created to have. Not to display God’s worth by enjoying Him above all things is to be a mere echo of the music we were created to make.

This is a great tragedy. Humans are not meant to be mere shadows and echoes. We were to have God-like substance and make God-like music and have God-like impact. That is what it means to be created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). But when humans forsake their Maker and love other things more, they become like the things they love—small, insignificant, weightless, inconsequential, and God-diminishing.

Human life is all about God, isn’t it? So, why do we love being enough more than the One who is enough? Piper continues,

Listen to the way the Psalmist put it: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; they have eyes but they do not see; they have ears but they do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them” (Ps. 135:15-18: see also 115:4-8).

Think and tremble. You become like the man-made things that you trust: mute, blind, deaf. This is a shadow existence. It is an echo of what you were meant to be. It is an empty mime on the stage of history with much movement and no meaning.

Dear reader, be not shadows and echoes. Break free from the epidemic of the manward spirit of our age. Set your face like flint to see and know and enjoy and live in light of the Lord. “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:5). In His light you will see Him and all things as they truly are. You will wake up from the slumbers of shadowland existence. You will crave and find substance. You will make God-like music with your life. Death will dispatch you to paradise. And what you leave behind will not be a mere shadow or echo, but a tribute on earth, written in heaven, to the triumphant grace of God.

In God, we find all our desire for enough so that our lives can be a tribute on earth to the triumphant grace of God. You are not enough, but in Him we have more than enough to

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 2