Category: writing and poetry

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

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

I’d say yes to that

Want to work with military personnel overseas? How about foster care children in San Diego? Ever thought of writing for Anthropologie or working for a government subsidized housing program in New York? Want to work in the agricultural industry? Want to teach, preach, or lead in a church ministry? Want to do administrative work for a non-profit or various secretarial duties for a start-up business? Want to drive the grain cart in the harvest parade? How about freelance or contract work – thought about that? Want to work at a university exchange program in the Dominican Republic or for the booming windmill business? Thought about working part-time at a print shop, coffee shop, branding company, advertising firm, or babysitting?

I’ll stop because your brain is swimming.

It’s just that, I would say yes to all of the above. Everything. Actually, I did say yes when people asked me those questions this past year.

Every time I got an email, phone call, or networked connection through friends, I responded as quick as I could get my resume and cover letter re-formatted to fit the job description. I was willing to do anything – literally over 100 applications worth of anything. It was a long banquet table set with a feast of humble pie and I ate slowly and thoughtfully every single day. Every job held possibility to establish my purpose in the States, so I jumped at every job and envisioned the most beautiful version of how it could play out.

I went to San Diego and felt its darkness, but pointed out coffee shops I would frequent and community organizations I would join. I visited companies in Philadelphia and imagined myself saying hi to new neighbors. I went to New York and hob-nobbed with writers in a library bar. I went to Des Moines and talked about my farming experience with the Soybean Association.

I said yes to every open door long enough for it to get shut in my humble-pie covered face. My excitement jumped from one job to the next and my plans were peppered with different geographical regions and career fields every day.

And in the midst of all those slices of pie, God was weaving His story. He was drawing me closer to Himself and deeper into a sustainable joy. He was blessing me through closed doors that pointed me toward His open arms. He was weaving a story that told of His provision, His protection, and His glory.

I’m still learning what it means to be part of His story, but I cling to the blessing that He is the author. Today, He is authoring a story and I am acting out miracles that bring Him glory. Closed doors, humble pie, new dreams, change of plans… all drawing me closer to Him and deeper into a sustainable joy.

I hope I always say yes to that.

let LOVE fly like CRAZY

Posted on by Caroline 2

brushstrokes like fire

 

my morning drive

This series of moments called autumn, when fall picks up her paintbrush and tickles the leaves with shades of fire, is favorite. When the morning wakes up to shine the sun’s spotlight on the trees stretching out in multi-colored glory, you might as well give me a brown paper package all tied up with string.

This is favorite.
(so much so that it is indeed worthy of noun status)

Autumn. Harvest. Provision. Beauty. Gatherings. Family. Colors. Bonfires. Hot drinks. Fall. Road trips. Friends. Books. Blankets.

When the September sun warms like a blanket on a cool, 70 degree day, Creation sings melody along with its painful, groaning harmony to the tune of “already, not yet.”

Even the seasons invite a study of God!

I delight in the beauty of the season unfolding around me, but I am acutely aware of all the ways Creation groans for complete restoration – where beauty can be displayed forever, free from any threat to its perfect and colorful song.

Here, in this season of beauty, we are home.
And here, in this season of beauty, we long for home.

So, today I am singing with lungs and heart full of praise for the One who invites me in to His  always home.

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

to get where I’m going

I want to get wherever I’m going. And the devil in me says that it’s not right now.

I’m impatient to say yes to something I don’t even know exists – I’m ready to be ‘all in’ at any moment, but that moment seems to stay frozen just beyond my reach. It’s maddening… though I feel foolish for speaking it.

I am impatient to get to a place and a time I don’t even know exists. And the longer it remains frozen outside my grasp the stranger these moments become. Maybe I am the one frozen as the moments move forward and what is within reach is actually where I am going – where I am now.

This is late night talking, but it’s still me.
I think that sometimes I should let the late night talk so the daylight talk doesn’t paint a poor portrait. Make no mistake, I am not articulate and ‘put together’ – less so even than my daylight attempts make me seem.

I am reaching and striving and stretching for things to satisfy and often ending empty-handed.
I am inward and withered and measured by useless, manmade instruments.
I am still young with hope and wide eyes but I am old with the growing weight of unknowns.

I want to get wherever I’m going. And the devil in me says that it’s not right now.

Posted on by Caroline 2

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

the importance of being productive

It’s no secret: I’m poor at math. I don’t get very jazzed about number crunching. If I can be suckered into an equation, it’s nearly always a story problem (such as this one). So, when I take on the topic of productivity, allow me to sketch abstractly what could be made a very reliable algorithm (by someone else).

As I process (again) all the questions my high school counselor asked me as a senior – about career and vocation and calling – it seems like I might have moved little from my simplistic 18-year-old goals. In response to the question, “Where will you be in 10 years?” I wrote a paper as a junior. I imagined myself in the middle of Africa, married to a doctor named Mr. Bergenfeld, and answering to “Auntie” from the 405 children at the local orphanage. Yes, I’m sure I wrote 405 – I was ornery like that.

I spent my college years throwing my willingness at wonderful things and learning like my face pressed to fire hydrants. Even as I met with several mentors, it seemed that “my heart” was pointing me in the direction of missions and jungles and poverty and the simple life.   This kind of calling seemed exciting, noble even. Me and everyone else on my campus dreamed of making big things happen and being in the thick of it when they do. I wanted dirt on my elbows and a cardboard box to call home. I didn’t want to be stuck in an office talking about change and waiting on red tape and bureaucracies. I wanted in.
All in.

That’s what we all said in college. Maybe a few people sheepishly said how most really felt, “I don’t want anything to do with cardboard or 405 orphans. I’ll support whoever does, but give me the office and the red tape. It’ll all work out fine.”

Everyone has their own values that make up their vocational pursuits, but for me, I envisioned myself serving others – doing something in the trenches, rubbing shoulders with folks who have real messes that I could help mend. I envisioned my passionate pursuit of Christ leading me into a simple lifestyle and most likely missionary work overseas. I envisioned purpose coming from 405 orphan children who called me, “Auntie.” I envisioned living in a remote area and tackling daily needs like washing laundry in the river.

Well, here I am almost 10 years out of high school and I’m taking stock on some of those simplistic 18-year-old goals. And here’s a bit of what I found (this is where the mathematician can offer to co-write a book with me on this).

The question of calling and vocation is not as simple as what you’re most passionate about or even what you do best. The question of calling is understanding who God is and then figuring out how you can be most productive in giving Him glory.

We are called – each of us – to know God and to be most productive in giving Him glory.

And this is where I got really confused. I was figuring out my “calling equation” based on the lives of some of my heroes + what I thought was the ultimate act of service + my willingness to spill out joy wherever I went. I thought it could look a lot of ways, but it certainly looked like me being willing to do anything – even hard things outside my gifts and passions.

The problem was that, as I grew to know God better, I started to feel like I wasn’t the most productive. I was doing everything required and meeting the expectations at my jobs, but I always had this itch to read books and talk philosophy and wrestle with the lyrics of songs and dialogue about the cultural implications of our increasingly secular secondary institutions. I wasn’t really ever with dirt on my elbows in the trenches, though I got as close as I could wherever I went. I did always end up creating newsletters and forming committees and counseling colleagues and developing countless proposals for new programs.

There was a knot forming in my gut and I’ve only now just named it: I’m not using my gifts.

Can I survive anywhere? Yes.
Will God allow me the joy that overflows in any situation/vocation/career? Yes.
Do I bring the same amount of glory to God, regardless of vocation? No.

We cannot be “above” or “below” a vocation – we can only be more or less productive. I know of many God-fearing executives or administrators who are not most productive for God’s glory in their position. They were “promoted” to that status because of their work ethic as employee or teacher – because that’s where they were most productive. I also know of high-powered executives who think they can easily translate their business sense into the trenches kind of work, but they become less productive in the process.

At the end of the day, I can give you a physical number to prove my productivity. I can give you students registered, emails sent, orders completed, papers folded, printer crises averted, and invoices sent. I’m strictly talking tangibles (I hope I will always be productive with the conversations and the laughter and the little ways to shine light in dark places).

But, the question is not, “Am I productive with whatever is before me – with energy and joy and a servant heart?” The question is, “As I know God better, am I being most productive in giving Him glory?”

Maybe the reason we keep getting tripped up on this productivity thing is that we don’t hold our vocations to a higher standard. We think we’re off the hook if we’re not “called” into a position at a church.

But, we are all called. Luther said,

“Monastic vows rest on the false assumption that there is a special calling, a vocation, to which superior Christians are invited to observe the counsels of perfection while ordinary Christians fulfil only the commands; but there simply is no special religious vocation since the call of God comes to each at the common tasks.”

We are all called to know God, find out what pleases Him, and delight to please Him together with the Body of Christ. This is not ministry, it’s life. As we walk out our calling, we’ll find that what pleases Him is excellence. Some of us will be excellent at Excel documents and some of us will be excellent at growing bananas and some of us will be excellent at conversation.

I think (mathematician, will you check my work on this?), that if the Body of Christ resolves to know God, find out what please Him and delights to please Him together, we will end up divinely appointed in every vocation, with a productivity that would shock the most lucrative corporation.

This is the importance of being productive.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

serious about sin | serious about joy

I’ve been accused of being too serious.

Does that surprise you, friends of the blog-o-sphere, with all my stories of falling down and loving laughter and chasing raindrops? Does it surprise you that people think I’m too serious?

I’ve learned that not everyone likes to read books stuffed full of long syllabled words and very few people want to ask if those long syllabled words would ever change my plans for the day. And I get it. Sometimes, I forget that “taking a genuine interest in the welfare of others” means doing things that matter little to me because they matter much to someone else. Sometimes, I act like the child who once told me, “Please stop doing anything that you like.” Sometimes, I find myself in a self-righteous wrestling match because I think, “Shouldn’t we all be serious about the things of God (even if it means strings of long syllables)?”

And then I think about the children who came to Jesus. They probably had a hard time pronouncing their Rs and words that started with C. Their understanding of love and grace and kindness didn’t come from a study of thick textbooks.

I imagine they did have a certain seriousness about them, but not the self-righteous and learned kind.

I’ve seen this seriousness play across children’s faces in the most solemn moments, when the line between right and wrong is being drawn on their hearts and in their heads for the first time. I can hear the nervous claims coming out from wide eyes,

“She took it from me and I yelled at her.”
“But Mommy said to never go in there…”
“Why doesn’t the man have food?”
“I hit my brother.”
“Laney took a cookie.”

You can hear them, can’t you? The confessions and questions come out slowly and with those little eyebrows arching high to scrunch the forehead.

There is a seriousness about children when it comes to sin that I think wears off as we age. We get comfortable with the idea that we fail and we get tired of the wide-eyed confessions.

But there is something very sad about being cavalier with our sin, an emptiness apathy and disregard can’t replace. Have you ever stuck around after a child does mini-battle with the questions/confessions above? Do you see what happens?

Freedom.

When they recognize how serious it is to sin, they are freed to be truly joyful. There is nothing hidden. Their (or human) failure is exposed and there is nothing left to rationalize – just space to revel in the gratitude that they are forgiven, accepted, invited, loved.

I’m currently reading both Leviticus and Galatians and the contrast is captivating.

We serve a serious God. Sin is not a Sunday School lesson. The hoops the Israelites had to jump through on account of their sin were certainly not neatly wrapped up in a 20 minute moral lesson. The rules and regulations set up a healthy fear of the Lord and a distaste for anything that divided their relationship with Him. Sin is serious. I cannot imagine living in that time. I mean, I’ve tried imagining it and I nearly always end up pleading with the Lord to be a little more understanding. But, the Lord keeps reminding my heart, “Sin is serious.”

Then, I flip to Galatians and just want to dance. If I have the right (serious) view of sin, my salvation is like dancing with the cast of Fiddler on the Roof as they sing, “To Life, to life, l’chaim!”

I am free. Free!

How is it that children get this – that we got this as kids – and adults don’t?

If sin is serious, then so is JOY.

We were brought OUT of serious darkness and INTO serious light.
Why is it so hard to understand that a frivolous position on the former means a frivolous position on the latter?

It’s true, I can be too serious sometimes and I’m rightly called out when I’m trying to puff myself up. But, brothers and sisters, can we agree to build up the Body of Christ by being serious about sin so we can be serious about joy?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

grapefruits and what we do with good gifts

Today I ate a grapefruit for lunch – with Saltines, just like my Grandpa Nichols. I used to try to eat a grapefruit like an orange and that never ended well. I’ve since learned a method that wastes little of the delicious fruit.Grapefruit (half)

As I was cutting into the pink today, careful to not waste any of those sweet, pink pockets, I realized that enjoying a grapefruit is a commitment. You’ve got to be willing to work in order to enjoy membrane-less, tangy goodness.

I started thinking about all the reasons I don’t choose good things – all the times I’ve passed up a grapefruit for a granola bar just because it’s easier. I know what’s better and sometimes I can even taste it because I’ve chosen it before, but something dreadful inside of me attacks my knowledge of “better.” And I end up settling for less effort and less goodness.

God promises to not withhold any good thing from us. In Christ, God lavishes an inheritance I can’t comprehend – gifts that won’t run out even if I open one every moment of my life. God promises, in Christ to withhold no good thing from us, so the choice for less is on me.

Psalm 84:11
For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

I wondered (cutting up that tasty giant took some tiempo) if we learn to recognize the good things, but are never held accountable to do/use them. In college I sat in study groups and wrote papers and made passionate presentations about all the good things we should be/could be doing, but the doing of those things is just too hard and everybody knows it. Now, I go to bible studies and post facebook links and wax philosophy at coffee shops about the best ways to change the world, but the doing of these things is just too hard and everybody knows it.

Everybody knows we’ll end up ordering Little Caesar’s instead of planning a homegrown spread from the garden. Everybody knows those ideas about loving others and living like Jesus are like climbing Mt. Everest – we can feel the rush as we raise our hands in victory on the summit, but we’re never going to train for it.
It’s just the way we do life.

I sat down to enjoy my juicy prize at my desk and thought, “But it doesn’t have to be that way.”

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 3

Occupy Life: he bought a corvette

He nodded at the two young men “in charge” on Sunday nights at the soup kitchen and then pointed toward a crooked, framed certificate on the wall, “Those two boys got started here with him, Jeremy Benton, back in 2007… Yep, he was a real neat guy – consistent.” Don paused and looked at me under sagging eyelids, letting the silence add weight to his next sentence, “He got himself a good job and went off and bought a corvette.”

He was still looking at me, both of us standing there admiring the crooked certificate hanging just above the stainless steel industrial sink, “Guess he wanted to see how fast it could go… it, uh, it didn’t end well.”

Don washes the dishes every sunday for the program that feeds anywhere from 30-80 people in our community every night in the basement of a downtown church. When I first got there, Don was methodically preparing for the night – quietly setting out trays and arranging his washing area just so. When I was assigned the “reheat meat and make sandwiches task” at a counter not far from his work area, I knew we’d be friends before the night was over.

He’s the kind of man whose face begs you to ask his story.

“I wear these nylon pants because they dry real fast,” he told me just loud enough to make sense over the appalachian banjo playing on the stereo. Everything served a specific purpose for Don.

He hadn’t always been a dishwasher for the soup kitchen on Sundays, but he wasn’t the type to establish credibility or elevate his status on the scales so many use. He asked questions to the rhythm of his dishes and wondered how I got to Ames. As it turned out, he had a roommate from Honduras while he was in graduate school at Iowa State for civil engineering.

“Guess I didn’t learn it the first time around… had to hear it again,” he said with the surest twinkle in his sage eyes.
He would wash and dry and sort and then pause for conversation – all calculated.

So, when he wandered over to the crooked certificate hanging above the stainless steel industrial sink, I wondered why he chose that story for that moment. Why did he say “corvette” the way he did and why did his eyes say the story wasn’t so simple and how did Don manage to honor a memory and mourn folly at the same time?

___

Just another night lived…This is another in a series of posts called Occupy Life. Each day you and I occupy physical time and space, making bold statements about what is most important in this life (whether we’re holding picket signs or not). Other entries: Stones, Spanish at an Irish Pub, pancake batter, tying ribbons, Alejandra,  Lunch Hour, Delaney and Roland or the original post Occupy Life: Things One Might Do While Unemployed.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

“everything’s crooked but it all seems straight, cuz everyone’s looking sideways…”

Posted on by Caroline 0