Category: Thoughts

dream sessions

No, I’m not in Nashville trying to outdo Taylor Swift by recording “Blue” (the teen/country/bubble-gum/southern anthem album for adolescents whose emotions are speeding like the 1990 Caravan you just retired from the road). No, it’s nothing like that.

The dream sessions are accountability – a window of time where Emma and I sit in the coffee shop and lay our dreams bare on the table space in between. We get ridiculous about what’s possible and then we keep going, keep dreaming.

I knew early on that these little encounters would need some structure, mostly because I know myself and I cannot finish a good idea without structure. So, we decided these dream sessions would be about sharing, inspiring, and then working.

Well, it’s natural, isn’t it? Once you’ve laid your dreams out like undergarments on a clothesline you feel… a bit exposed. It takes everything in you to refrain from gathering up all the unmentionables in a large, haphazard bundle and running inside to hide them in the farthest corner of the house. That’s why we needed structure. So, we get together every week to remind one another what it is we are working toward and to nudge each other toward baby steps to get there.

We share about steps we’ve made toward our dream.
We inspire each other with conversation and prayer.
and then…
We go to work like our dream is our real job, because it is (kind of).

We bend our heads over the coffee table to work on something that uses our gifts, stretches our abilities, and reflects the creativity of the One who made creative desires in us. We take turns breaking into the silence with questions and challenges before honoring our gifts with the grindstone again. We really do believe that we are called to steward well our resources – that working for the Lord might mean digging deeper than what appears on a job description to find what is written on our hearts.

Sundays are for dream sessions.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 2

thoughts on the last bowl of chili

The last week of October, I dished up my last bowl of chili and ate it at my desk.

I took each spoonful from the styrofoam bowl (only thing I can find at the office) nice and slowly to savor the flavors that reminded me of harvest. Well, it’s not really the end of the leftover chili – a giant tupperware found its way to the freezer after my harvest party on October 13 (It seems my math skills = extra, so it’s a good thing there was freezer space).

There is no better celebration than one that invites others to join in.

This is exactly the kind that happened right around my birthday about a month ago. The blessings got to be too much, so writing about it seemed like giving one bar of notes to what deserved a full symphonic movement.

I finally decided that something was better than nothing and so I’ll share some pictures to give you a taste of the blessing that overflowed.

There is no better celebration than one that invites others to join in… and I hope to be doing a lot more inviting.

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Posted on by Caroline 1

in feast or fallow

It is not winter, not yet.

Now is the time for harvest. Now is the time for bounty and breaking bread and gatherings that overflow into more gatherings.
But sometimes in the middle of harvest one can feel the winter.

While seated at the abundant table, the soul can sometimes taste the bitter cold. It’s not that life is depressed and dreary – not necessarily a sudden dark night of the soul. But sometimes in the middle of harvest, our hearts stretch pained because we daily do battle with brokenness.

It’s a beautiful thing, really, to feel the brisk breeze of winter while seated at the table of abundance. Oh, how sweet it is to remember who provides and protects and presides over our broken assemblage! It is not the work of our hands, but the Lord’s alone that allows us to taste and see that He is good. In the harvest, we remember that “whatever comes, we shall endure” because He is good. And so, we give thanks. We delight in provision and give thanks for the warmth before winter, but we know that in winter our certain hope is found in the same place.

Our winters will surely come, but in Christ our hope is found.

For these times, we need a simple tune that invites us into praise for every season. We need a song that prays, “Come, Emmanuel.”
Sing with me today?

When the fields are dry, and the winter is long
Blessed are the meek, the hungry, the poor
When my soul is downcast, and my voice has no song
For mercy, for comfort, I wait on the Lord

In the harvest feast or the fallow ground,
My certain hope is in Jesus found
My lot, my cup, my portion sure
Whatever comes, we shall endure.
Whatever comes, we shall endure

On a cross of wood, His blood was outpoured
He Rose from the ground, like a bird to the sky
Bringing peace to our violence, and crushing death’s door
Our Maker incarnate, our God who provides.

come, oh come, Emman- u- el
come, oh come, Emman- u- el

When the earth beneath me crumbles and quakes
Not a sparrow falls, nor a hair from my head
Without His hand to guide me, my shield and my strength
In joy or in sorrow, in life or in death

Posted on by Caroline 0

freed from bondage | freed to weakness

I was thinking about the Exodus as I climbed out of my dreams and into the morning. I can’t explain why I had Exodus on the brain, but I remember reaching for a blog title and rolling around the words “bondage” and “weakness.”

This pre-waking creative exercise faded into daylight tasks until a friend sent me a text update. The jumbled Exodus-freed-bondage-weakness message popped into my head and came out as encouragement that my friend and I both needed to hear.

Remember that slogan that appeared on every men’s athletic shirt in high school?
“Pain is weakness leaving the body”

It’s not true.

Pain might remind us of our weakness, but no matter how many hours we spend in life’s weight room we will always be weak. No matter how strong we manage to make our muscles or how disciplined our diets, we will always be weak. No matter how many times we beat the diseases that threaten our health or how many tragedies our hearts weary through, we will always be weak.

When the Israelites marched in a freedom parade out of the place of their bondage, they might have felt like they conquered. I imagine they felt a sense of national pride at what had been accomplished by way of the (somewhat questionable) negotiating techniques of their leader. As they put one free foot in front of the other, I wonder if they spoke to each other, “We are no longer slaves to those who oppressed us! We are absolutely free to order the day as we please!”

Free. They probably waved their own kind of flag that day – proud to be a nation set apart and not defined by slavery.

But, O! how their hearts forgot who bought their freedom!

Freedom has a way of emboldening a person – planting a seed of misplaced courage. I wonder if a strong, newly freed man turned to another and said, “Look – we are free! Think what we can do now!”

We know what they did with their freedom and it wasn’t praise God for life and breath and rescue.

I’ve been thinking about weakness and not because I want to get rid of it.
I’ve been thinking about weakness because the white flag is the only one that can fly when we walk out our exodus.

The only reason I am freed from the bondage of sin rests squarely on the shoulders of Christ – the sacrifice planned by God’s grace to release me from my chains. But it is not a singular freeing event. The victory He won over my sin is not simply a mark in the timeline of my sanctification.

If I shake the Eqypt dust off my feet and believe the glory of the sin defying victories was a one time event, I will forget that I will always be weak.

My weakness is an invitation for Christ to be strong.
My weakness is a proclamation that I have nothing in which to boast.
My weakness is a reminder that it is to this we have been freed.

We are freed to be weak and our sanctification will never lead us to be anything else.

Posted on by Caroline 2

The Tower of B84

I got off the airport tram at terminal B, following the calm recorded directions on the loudspeakers, and I meandered my way toward Gate B84.

My airport method is simple when it comes to layovers and connecting flights (mostly because I once missed a flight because I was making lazy conversation at Customs): make mad pace to get to your gate and then determine whether you have time to wander.

Last Monday, I made mad pace to get to B84 and then I snuggled in to people watch. Coming, going, waiting, boarding – I sat comfortably underneath the B84 sign until I realized there was an arrow beside it that pointed down a hallway.

Then I scrambled into mad pace mode thinking with the giggles, “I would sit comfortably people watching just outside of earshot of my boarding plane. I would do something like that!”

The hallway opened up into a mess of crowded activity and 5 or 6 attendants with overlapping announcements,

“Flight 10667 to Albuquerque is now boarding, we’d like to board any military and–“
“As a reminder, passengers traveling to Pensacola will need to check your carry on baggage with a pink tag. The flight attendant–”
“We are now boarding zones 1-7 on flight 4584 to Lafayette. Flight 4584 is now boarding in B84C – that’s C as in Cat. Enter through the door marked C and continue–“
“Those passengers with small children on flight 33092 to Grand Rapids are welcome to board at this time out of B84D. That’s D as in Dog.”
“And that’s the last and final call for Flight 10667. Last and final call for Albuquerque.”

Gate B84 in Houston is actually the hub for about 8 gates with planes pointed in all sorts of directions, from Florida to Arkansas, Texas to Michigan, and from Louisiana to Nebraska. Passengers are amassed in the mayhem and these continuous announcements seem aimed at corralling the chaos.

The attendants keep a practiced calm over the loudspeaker and then immediately panicked over their walkie-talkies (which were just as loud), “We’ve got someone here for  Daytona Beach! Have you left? … I sent down two–“

And there was one very little man. I imagine Zaccheus looking exactly like this little man, although I don’t know if this robed figure would have clamored up a sycamore tree to get a good look at Jesus. He walked steadily and slowly right up to the attendant, rolling his small suitcase behind the burnt brown of his robe that touched the floor. I couldn’t hear his words, but the attendant replied, “Oh, Memphis? That’s Door E” and waved her left arm in the general direction of Door E and 4 other doors.

The robed man calmly turned and wheeled his suitcase over to a chair where he seemed to survey the scene.

I should have offered to help, but I couldn’t have known that this very little man would stand in my boarding line for Omaha. I couldn’t have known that the attendant would look at him astonished and say, “Oh, you want the Memphis plane? That plane has already left, but you were here!” She turned to a neighbor attendant, “He was here when it was boarding…” and then turned back to the little man, “You will have to speak to someone upstairs about booking another flight.” And all the time, the very little man maintained his calm, blank stare.

As I walked down the jetway to board my plane, I realized what caused this mess keeping the very little man from Memphis: Babel.

When man became obsessed with self-promotion and protection instead of submitting in obedience to the Lord, confusion and chaos caused a division that cut clear into the 21st century. I don’t know the heart of the little man or the intention of the attendant who failed to communicate his boarding procedure, but I do know our chaos and disorder are a direct result of our proclivity to wander. Systems and structures designed with the greatest efficiency and engineered for the highest efficacy still fall short of the original design.

We still resemble those folks in Genesis 11 who thought they could improve God’s design and what we get is B84 in Houston.

In God’s grace, there’s a redemptive “rest of the story” in the person of Christ that translates truth with divine clarity and invites the chaotic crowd out of confusion.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

a steady boat | a raging sea

O, goodness.

When life is like a fistful of jacks, jostling around in a child’s sweaty palm and waiting to be thrown to the carpet – when life is like that, you get desperate for something steady. My first inclination is to pray for the jostling to come to a gentle stop because the obvious antidote to jostling is the opposite, no?

I recently scrawled this prayer,

Thank you, God, for your provision that steadies the seas so you are glorified in my sailing.

And then, I thought about my prayer. I tried to cut through my poetic tendencies to find out what my heart was saying (sometimes my pen gets carried away and wants the words to read like a song). I thought about my prayer of thanksgiving for steady seas, paused, then added,

Thank you, too, for “steady enough” to sail through the thickest of storms looming on the horizon. 

If I only thank the Lord for steadying the seas, then I would be silent while I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I was offering God thanksgiving that depended on His actions (and my judgment of them) and not on His character. God is always able to steady the seas, but sometimes He instead steadies the boat. When we pray desperately for Him to stand up and lift His hands to silence the storm, sometimes He simply readies the boat to weather the waves.

I am thankful He provides and protects, but if my thanksgiving is dependent on the existence of storms, I will end up feeling abandoned. His provision and protection are simply part of His character – He will never not be Provider and Protector.

We can always describe the Lord as being steadfast – His love never ceases. During the storms? He is steadfast. During the stillness? He is steadfast.

For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
(Psalm 100:5 ESV)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

We must always remember that it is appropriate to be thankful for who God is even when we are hoping for His character to provide or protect in a specific way. The raging storm is not evidence of His carelessness.

God is always able to steady the seas, but sometimes instead he readies the boat to weather the storm.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

good is purpose fulfilled

Unless you know the purpose of something, you can’t make judgments about whether the thing is good or bad. (p. 165 from “Generous Justice” by Timothy Keller)

Ice cream is a bad lubricant. Used in place of WD-40, I can’t think of an instance where it would be called good. But ice cream is not meant to make a door hinge turn squeak free. The purpose of ice cream is different altogether and at that it succeeds brilliantly. But without the right understanding of purpose for the frozen dairy product, we do not have an appropriate scale on which to decide its value.

Last night, I sunk into a cushioned wooden pew at a little Lutheran church in Simi Valley, California to watch my friends rehearse today’s wedding ceremony. The music accompanied delight on their faces and I let the beauty sink in. And I wondered at what made the moment magical.

rehearsing

Beauty is the observation of harmonious relationship – when colors perfectly complement or when sounds layer a story or when people are as they were meant to be. This is beauty that stirs up gratitude for gifts we don’t unwrap. We are thankful for things that are missing our scrawled name on a gift tag. These are the things in life that are good because they fulfill their purpose – they reflect a harmony only found in the Trinity.

And this is why marriage is so beautiful. It is a harmonious relationship that reflects the character of God – a partnership that puts His glory on display.

Today, I get to step into something that is good because it fulfills exactly the purpose for which it was intended.
Today, I’ll be unwrapping beauty and enjoying every delicious moment!

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

the dance I do when I realize I’m free

Don’t treat me like things of this world
I’m not that kind of girl
Your love is what I prefer, what I deserve
Is a man that makes me and takes me
And delivers me to a destiny, to infinity and beyond
Pull me into your arms
Say I’m not the one you own
If you don’t, you’ll be alone
And like a ghost I’ll be gone

from “Single Ladies” by Beyoncé

Is it too soon to take this song to task? I hope I don’t ruin it for every wedding and their bouquet tosses. It’s not my intention, I promise.

I want to talk about Buzz Lightyear.
Isn’t that who Beyonce is looking for – all that infinity and beyond business? No, but seriously, who is she talking about?

200 px

She prefers.. ahem, deserves a man who makes her and takes her to a destiny, to infinity and beyond.

I don’t know any men like that.

Well, I don’t know any women like that either, though I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard girls say to other girls, “He doesn’t deserve you, honey. You are so much better than that. You deserve someone really great. If anyone deserves someone really great, it’d be you.”

Yes, I’ve heard those exact words spoken from one girl to another in tender moments where one girl is seeking solace and another girl is spreading the salve as thick as she knows how.

Nothing against either girl, I just think it’s unfortunate.

Let’s say a girl is still looking into her late twenties. Let’s say said girl goes in and out of a few relationships that didn’t pan out. Let’s say this girl’s friends constantly tell her, “It’s definitely not you – you’re great…. too great for him. That’s for sure. You need a man who makes you and takes you to a destiny, to infinity and beyond.” Let’s say that said girl starts thinking, “Wait, if I am so great why is this taking so long? Why do so many men think I’m not great enough?”

What?

It sounds silly because it is.

What makes Beyoncé deserve such a man and how did she attain such a status? Are we all “deserving” of these superheroes? If not, who decides who gets a Buzz Lightyear and who gets a Captain Underpants?

I just wonder if we need to take a step back (not so far back that we don’t appreciate her unbelievable talent or dance skills) and ask ourselves if we should be shopping the superhero aisles for the multi-colored spandex suit that best fits our fancy.

I’m gonna go with no.

“In Christianity, the moment we believe, God imputes Christ’s perfect performance to us as if it were our own, and adopts us into His family. In other words, God can say to us just as He once said to Christ, ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

You see, the verdict is in. And now I perform on the basis of the verdict. Because He loves and accepts me, I do not have to do things just to build up my résumé. I do not have to do things to make me look good. I can do things for the joy of doing them.” — p. 40, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Timothy Keller

Good news for everyone!

Good news for all the men who aren’t Buzz Lightyear: the verdict is in. For those who believe in the work of Christ on the cross, God looks at you and says He is pleased.

Good news for all the ladies who aren’t Beyoncé (and think they “deserve” Buzz Lightyear”): the verdict is in. For those who believe in the work of Christ on the cross, God looks at you and says He is pleased.

Period.

Without Christ’s work on the cross, ladies are sucked into thinking we need to be the kind of lady who “deserves” a perfect man. Without Christ’s work on the cross, men are sucked into thinking they need to be the perfect man.

Hate to break it to you, Beyoncé, but you no more “deserve” Buzz Lightyear (if he did exist) than I do. And Buzz Lightyear can no more attain perfect performance than anyone outside a Marvel Comic who puts on a suit for Halloween.

I bet you want to see the dance I do when I realize I’m free. It’ll never be a music video that garners awards, but BOY! is it ever fun!

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 4

an unexpected ampersand

I never thought Judi would be an ampersand.

A storyteller? Yes. An entertainer? Most definitely. An anecdote worth re-telling? Certainly.

But an ampersand? No. I thought she would just be a lady that led me into giggles in our prayer class on Tuesday nights. I thought she would just be the woman who sat by Barbara and said “what the hell” when she was telling the story about her class reunion. I thought she would be someone who sat across the circle and always raised her hand to add a comment about the topic or lean in with an “Mmmhmm” more frequently than the rest of us.

I have an affection towards ampersands (that little piece of font beauty that looks like & means “and“). They illustrate all the additions that are woven through the 28-year-old story of my life. I’ve collected quite a pile of ampersands and sometimes I try to just pick one up and marvel at the way I never expected to hold it.

I never thought Judi would be an ampersand.

But, then she took my hand and asked me to sit down next to her when prayer class had ended. She told me about the replacement windows she bought and the contractor she paid and the voicemails she left and the time she went to his house and “yoo-hoooed” inside his front door because a year later the windows still sat in her garage. She told me about his questionable health and stories and that a neighbor saw his truck at Lowe’s. She told me about calls to the lumberyard and the manufacturer and that the replacement windows still sat in her garage with winter approaching. She told me about the lawyer’s advice, the neighbors’ advice, and the carpenters’ advice. She told me all this without breathing much, but often asking, “What should I do?”

I fumbled and mumbled and blank-stared because I had no idea. I had absolutely no idea what to say or how to advise this sweet old woman about her windows. I found myself post-prayer class on a Tuesday night literally feeling like the only good piece of advice I could give this woman was to pray.

So, we did. We prayed last Tuesday that this man would return her call. We prayed that her windows would get installed. We prayed with the desperation of helplessness and then we kept praying.

This week, Judi came in with celebratory animal crackers to pass around, proclaiming, “Praise God, it works!” She walked up to me and said, “He returned my call! That’s our prayer answered!”

It took me a second, but when it sunk in I jumped up and squealed. Literally, I squealed.

The Lord answered our prayers for Judi’s windows and printed a bold, beautiful ampersand on my heart with her story.

I think I’ll need that giant carrying case – these ampersands are getting out of control.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

food & sex, doing work & undoing, the unaffiliated & the labeled, wondrous love & the lost

It’s been awhile since I posted “this & that.” Trust me, I’ve been just barely keeping up – a case of too many good things, I suppose. There are always so many things to read and see and do and be. Oh, goodness that sounds like a poem. Last night, I rapped a rhyme in the break room at the print shop… so many things.

Well, here are a few for you to read and think about. Please, friends, don’t read another word if you don’t intend to filter it through the Word. What good is any knowledge unless it is made to submit to God’s purposes? Even the wonderful, giddy things are useful tools in the hands of the Father – those things people tell me are silly and childish. I believe these things and the serious things and the sad things can all be used to tear back a few more layers of veneer we’ve haphazardly patched over the beauty of God’s redemptive story.

God Created Food and Sex for the Believer. Do I have your attention? I really appreciated what this article says about how both food and sex declare the glory of God and with great intentionality are meant to be enjoyed in the best and purest way.

What is the purpose of work? Are we all destined to toil with the aimlessness we read about in Ecclesiastes or is there something deeper at play? This article from the Gospel Coalition, “The Purpose of Work,” takes a look at the life of Luther and his understanding of work and vocation being primarily a “service to God.”

Sometimes it’s nice to read something that’s not news or theology or cultural critique, at least not overtly. I loved this article from Art House America, “The Order of Undoing,” because it’s beautiful. Just the meandering description of one woman’s overnight stay at a monastery in Kentucky, but somehow she made me feel like it was news and theology and culture as well.

There’s a new trend in spiritual identity that’s caused enough rumble to have itself considered a “category.” People now identify as “nones” – as in, they are unaffiliated, unattached, and unfettered to any sort of spiritual grounding. They mark “none” when there are multiple choice boxes about religion. This intrigues me and this article by Albert Mohler, “The Great Clarification: Fuzzy Fidelity and the Rise of the Nones” says beautiful things about how this means hope.

Do you know a prodigal? No, really… do you? Or maybe you are the prodigal in the parable about the son who wandered away with his inheritance to experience the world. What a beautiful story and what a beautifully mysterious ending! This song by Wilder Adkins (you can get his music for free at Noisetrade) invites me into that story in a new way and bids me marvel at the wondrous love of the Father.

Posted on by Caroline 0