I am that little child with that flimsy toy drum strapped around his angular little boy shoulder. Come, they told him. The sticks strike that moon face, commanding air and passers-by to listen to the rhythm, the foolish parade of one. I am that simple, repeat refrain. And even then, he does it better. He found the drum and the sticks and the bravery to begin.
Honest talk, I’m getting a little worked up facing this blank page. I am sad for being gone, sad for not playing my song (foolish as it sounds), sad for hiding my gift under a bushel basket full of distractions – mindless social media and early bedtimes with a tired brain.
My wet mess of a face almost matches the mess I meant to clean in our apartment when Pat left with Zella two hours ago. I don’t know why, but imagining myself into the story of the little drummer boy is just so exactly where I am right now. I guess the small gesture – lifting strap over shoulder and calling on a hidden, inner repertoire – convicts all my defenses.
Whew, I didn’t know I needed this kind of cry – let me take a moment. Let’s all take a moment.
I know – it’s not technically Christmas music. But sometimes the song beating rhythms behind our ribcage isn’t jingling bells. Most times, in my case. The Advent season is not triumphant. It is precious beauty, but it is sad too. We are the reason Jesus came all the way down, all the terrifying way down, from celestial glory to stomachs growling and torrential storms. I am both loved by this act and reminded that there was reason for His condescension. I am the reason.
My proneness to wander so pressed on the heart of God until it broke Him and compassion poured out in the real life of a little babe.
Anyway, I salute you – little boy and your silly pa rum pum pum pum refrain. Thanks for being brave enough to bang on your drum and make a grown woman cry while thinking about it. Here is me striking my drum in your honor.
The sun’s spotlight made the trees in Prospect Park two-tone. Bright, lush green where the last evening rays hit and deep, dark green where night had already set in. We stared up from our little picnic and commented on the pink shading of the clouds.
Something about Iceland – the wonder and magic of pure creation – made me more persistent to find beauty here in the city. The sky is the same sky and the sun is the same sun, so there really must be a way to see the wonder and magic of creation here as well. Last night, we did. In the perfect cool of evening, as dusk settled on the typically eclectic Brooklyn crowd, the sounds of Nickel Creek’s acoustic genius played with the pink hues in the clouds and the green hues in the trees.
The loose hanging bulb lights felt perfectly lazy, though I know they were intentionally placed. Kind of like Nickel Creek, I guess. The harmonies are so tight and the instrumentals are so on point, but it feels as if they are discovering it in the same moments we are, with an effortless sway.
I had a long week. Super long. And I had worked up some anxiety about some things. Silly things. Anyway, getting off the F train to meet my best friend (who had secured the picnic site, brought the picnic, and owns the best smile I’ve ever seen) was some kind of heaven provision.
Picnics and musics and talks and walks. These are important summer things and if you haven’t had your doses, get ’em while they are hot because summer is not forever!
Seriously, go make this ridiculously simple blueberry-pomegranate frozen yogurt from my friend Lauren’s adorable blog, sit out on your porch or stoop or fire escape (in my case) and just soak it in.
There is wonder and magic where you are, too. I promise the same painter painted it all.
Remember all those days I thought commuting was beautiful? All those days I fought the NYC face and left early in defiance of minute crunching? Remember when I arrived to work in time to write a blog before the day began?
Well, anyway, I guess six months will do it. No more leaving early and no more new routes, but I don’t need another reason to talk about commuting. Train lines pretty much start and end every conversation – trains to live by, trains to get places, trains under construction, trains delayed, and trains full of “showtime, showtime, showtime.”
But it is okay to savor minutes in my apartment in the morning. It is okay to be quiet and sit still before the day begins. It is okay to declare Sabbath daily before chaos and maybe I should do it more often. Because, gosh, it is busy here.
When I first moved to NYC, I had two things on my mind: love this manand find beauty. I did not move to make it in this city as an actress or a business lady or to struggle up abstract creative ladders. Somehow, knowing that was like saying, “I’m not like the rest of this concrete madness. I value minutes and sunshine and neighboring.” I was different.
Six months later, I still value minutes and sunshine and neighboring, but I am desperate for Sabbath rest. I am like every other commuter in the morning, fighting crowds and sounds and shoulders. I am like every other apartment dweller, fighting for quiet minutes and then fighting to fill them. And now I am desperate for Sabbath rest.
My pastor talked about Sabbath rest on Sunday, right after I wrote about it unfolding slowly. Gathered around the weekly spread of cheese, crackers, fruits, and sweets last night, we revisited the passage in Matthew 12 where Jesus heals the man with the shriveled hand on the Sabbath.
It’s funny, living here. Because there is nothing we don’t work for. The act of striving is kind of the moving gears of this city. Commuting is work, work is work, plans are work, friends are work, keeping up appearances is work. We work for everything; we strive hard to believe “everything” is important to work for.
But rest.
We can not work for rest, regardless of the comp hours we accumulate or the vacation/sick/personal days we are allowed. We cannot gain rest for our souls by living better, though we believe with the Pharisees that somehow we can.
Christ accomplished our rest.
It’s a different kind of Sabbath because Christ fought for and won our rest on the cross. I do not know how to make this more of my rhythm, but I want to learn what it means to rest in the middle of moving gears. I want to learn how to rest while hosting, neighboring, friendshipping, loving, and being.
I need to learn better how to rest.
I don’t know what your Sabbath soundtrack would sound like, but mine has John Mark McMillan’s new song, “Love at the End.” If you have a minute to listen and read the lyrics, do it.
This Friday is passing without much ado about anything. I’m not sure if I’d prefer much ado about nothing. I think I’d prefer much ado, period.
But, Fridays and Tuesdays and Sundays are not about preference as much as they are about presence. So, I’m streaming the new Civil Wars album while I write reports and smiling about the next three weeks that are about to unfold in front of my face. I’m just jamming to this beauty and loving the Lord who gave us song.
It feels like I just said yes to a hot air balloon ride without a destination – and now I will just enjoy the surprises with the scenery. Nothing makes sense and I am so glad I can laugh at that.
Well, I take that back.
One thing makes sense and that’s all the sense I need.
My monthly reports are breathing down my neck, I’ve got suitcases and plastic bins stuffed to the gills around my feet, and I’m waiting with bated breath to hear back from my job interview in Brooklyn.
Sounds like madness, but it feels like the right kind.
I know as little as I did yesterday about when I’m moving to NYC, what I’ll be doing, where I’ll be living, and how I’ll be making ends meet.
And it’s okay. I am trusting in the Lord’s provision and leaning on His grace. There is no one more worthy to trust with my future than the One who knows it already. I can’t find a better love than His.
Fear is always lurking in dark corners, but joy is like sunshine starving it out.
I have a song to sing and this one by Green River Ordinance is beating like a drum in my soul today.
Last night, Brandi Carlileinvited The Lone Bellow back up on stage in the middle of her set, backlit by a lazy summer sun at the Simon Estes Amphitheater in Des Moines. They were the opening act, these brilliant three, but they were the reason my sister and I paid the big bucks to sprawl out on a blanket by the river with expensive drinks (the kind they make you buy inside after making you dump your waters at the door).
Something clicked when they sang this song. It’ll get unhinged soon enough. I’ll forget and I’ll fret and I’ll fury. But something about those few minutes was bound to break my blog silence.
Vacation was too good to me. It swallowed up my bones in bliss and I was happy there, really happy. Every clockless morning and every unplanned afternoon, every impromptu tennis match and every adventurous trip down to the beach, every late night campfire-lit conversation, every slice through the water in the kayak, every forest run, every conversation – everything.
Vacation swallowed up my bones in bliss.
I didn’t really know how to shake myself out of it – how does bliss make sense with clocks and schedules and plans and expectations? How do you get un-swallowed? How do you not wish yourself back in those blissful moments when you’re in moments that feel so regular?
Then The Lone Bellow started to sing and I started to sway with all my hippy hair, belting out this brilliant tune.
Yes, I lost myself a little bit and I’m not worried about your judgment.
I was probably 1 of 10 concert-goers who had heard of The Lone Bellow, so I was definitely one of few singing along. But, I belted it anyway – like the ba-ba-da was something inside me fighting to find air.
There is a reason life isn’t endless vacation.
And that reason made sense as I swayed to this tune,
“Breathing in, breathing out, the salt in my mouth
gives me hope that I’ll bleed something worth bleeding out”
It might not shake vacation dust off your feet, but it did mine. This is an anthem that says our hands should get dirty and calloused and worn, an anthem that reminds us that respite gives fuel for our daily fight against the lies we can sometimes escape on vacation.
“All the buildings, they lean and they smile down on us
And they shout from their rooftops words we can’t trust
Like you’re dead, you are tired, you’re ruined, you’re dust
Oh, you won’t ‘mount to nothing, like thanks full of rust”
These are the lies of life, the weary and rugged and cumbersome kind that sneak into kitchens and coffeeshops and haunt our closet space. These are the lies that try to make our lives less redeemed. But, in Christ, there is no more or less saved. There is no scale to our redemption.
Our sin entangles with all kinds of cruel efficiency and the dull hum-drum of everyday life is its favorite booby trap. But a sliding scale salvation would strip God of the power to make it complete, and we are not capable of making Him any less glorious than He is.
Thank God. Thank God He did not leave us as exiles from the kingdom of God, banished from forever beauty and bliss.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, ESV)
Thank God, in His grace, the blood coursing through our veins is more than mostly water. In Christ, this blood we carry around is something worth bleeding out. It is not nothing. It’s this blood, keeping us alive to proclaim that we’ve been redeemed and redemption is free by the grace of God and the cost of Christ. It is the blood by which we can sing the next lines,
But we scream back at them from below on the street
All in unison we sing, our time’s been redeemed
We are all of the beauty that has not been seen
We are full of the color that’s never been dreamed
Because nothing we need ever dies. Isn’t that so? Our needs – physical and otherwise are slippery things, but we get parched and desperate for them. We beg and plead for them, our needs. And those needs never die.
But there is one need that trumps all other needs and it’s what started beating like hope in my chest when I heard this song. There is a reason life isn’t endless vacation and it is because there is work to do. There is toil and sweat and there is work to do. My blood is worth something because Christ’s blood was shed on my behalf.
O, precious HOPE that redeems us in the bliss of vacation and in the dull hum-drum of Monday-afters. I’m still swaying to this precious hope that my life in the regulars and the weekday sways and sweats for a greater story.
Even if I was lonely, even if I was broke
Even if all the dogs in the pound left me notes
Sayin’ it’s never over, it never ends
Grab my heart and the fire, let us descend
To the darkest of prisons, break their defense
We will rattle the cages, rules will be bent
Oh, remind us our days are all numbered, not spent
And peace it comes easy like mist on a ridge
Chorus
Breathing in, breathing out, the salt in my mouth
Gives me hope that I’ll bleed something worth bleeding out
All the horoscopes tell us to break all our ties
To our families and loved ones we leave when we fly
To the cities we think we need in our lives
Oh, you Manhattan jungle, you tangle our pride
Chorus
All the buildings, they lean and they smile down on us
And they shout from their rooftops words we can’t trust
Like you’re dead, you are tired, you’re ruined, you’re dust
Oh, you won’t ‘mount to nothing, like thanks full of rust
But we scream back at them from below on the street
All in unison we sing, our time’s been redeemed
We are all of the beauty that has not been seen
We are full of the color that’s never been dreamed
Where nothing we need ever dies
Where nothing we need ever dies
There is a mother bird feeding her baby birds outside our front window as the owl down the street sings his morning song. I don’t have a song to contribute, but I do have one to share. This song by Kye Kyeis called, “My Sight” and it’s exactly the kind of seeing I need to do today. It reminds me of Jeremiah 15:16, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.”
The Word can become to us a joy and the delight of our hearts! Through the Truth of the Word we can believe fully, trust deeply, love fiercely – because in the Word we see the One whose grace empowers us and sustains us and loves us with a sanctifying love.
If the song isn’t your style, at least read the lyrics today and be encouraged as God shows Himself faithful in His Word to be your sight.
Lyrics:
Thoughts of cloth that lay on stone (Jon.20:6-7)(Ro.6:10-11, 8:6 ,12:2)
I am watching a cross that bled
alone to be the only valley of trust and hope we know (Ro.5:2)
we envision that place then watch it flow through us (Ro.15:4 &8:24-25)
Your words
Are my sight (2Cor.5:7)
Trails we walk then see them glow (Heb.11:1)
we are watching a church that builds
and grows to be a lovely picture with frames that hold so close
(Eph.4:12-13) (1Cor.12:12-13)
we imagine that place and watch it flow from us (1Jo.3:2)(Ro.8:29 & 12:2)(Eph.4:15)
The birds are singing again this morning. I’m not sure where they hid when weary winter came for a surprising May visit. I saw many of them fluttering about in confusion, but this morning they are singing again.
And I know who is sustaining them.
I know the One who is holding things together so the birds can sing their song to heaven for a morning audience. I know Him.
The birds are singing and how can I not sing with them? I get overwhelmed at the song creation sings because I know there is always a place for me in the choir. As God does whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3), He is pleased to hold things together (Colossians 1:17) and invite us into His joy.
The birds do not sing to say thank you as God holds them together and writes the music for their song. They do not sing to exchange beauty for beauty.
The birds sing because God gave them a song.
Who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. (Romans 11:35–36)
The birds sing because God receives glory when creation steps into His joy and He wrote the music for just such a celebration. He is the conductor as much as He is the composer of creation’s song and there is a part for me to sing today.
May God be praised as I sing the song hidden in my heart in praise of His glorious grace!
Today, I will rest on His goodness – in my doubting and in my fears.
And inside my resting I will sing freedom and joy into the blowing, Friday sunshine. I will sing to remember His constant friendship, His faithful refuge, and His future grace.
I will wake up my affections at morning and noonday and evening to throw my heart’s melodies at the skies because this is what my heart is most at home to do.
I have an East facing window in my little upstairs room. It’s actually more like a closet, but it’s the perfect size for full sunshine and that’s what I got this morning.
Waking up can be something holy, something set apart to proclaim the excellencies of God’s grace. I won’t say I do it well, but I will say that sunshine pouring through my window and dancing on my face makes it a lot easier.
Since starting this job in social work, there have been some weeks where Friday night surprises me. It kind of gets lost in a planner with too much crammed in its little squares. This week it started feeling like Friday on Wednesday and these last two days are probably not going to fly by.
But, I’m going to believe that I can live each moment awake. If Christ can say, “Not my will, but Yours be done” then I can say the same. Because it is His power in me that wakes me up to His promises – to the joy in every circumstance and the peace in every trial anchored in His grace.
I’m thankful today for my East facing window and for the way the Lord wakes me up with sunshine. My prayer is to stand in the sunshine all day long – to soak up the power of the resurrected Son and claim the promises He secured in His victory over death.
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 