Deep Calls

Yesterday was my first-born's 4th wedding anniversary. I posted an album to my facebook site that was a scattering from the engagement to them as a family. She is a wonderful wife, and a wonderful mother. She has grown to be such a brilliant woman in every way. She is the most insightful person I know. Her advise is solid as a rock! Her insights into scripture are illuminating. She is beautiful, and funny, and strong -- delightful! She is living her 'happily ever after' All week I have gotten posts from my oldest son who is at a neuro-science conference (and he is in Colorado snowboarding in every free minute and LOVING IT!!! ) where he -- well to put it in layman's terms -- has his REAL science project on display. I take that back...as I read it, it just sounds silly. He IS a real scientist. His research is being displayed before other scientists in what they call a 'poster': real statistics, and research results for his REAL Ph.D research project ~ it takes my...

Ok, Erica, I do promise to finish....and Beth this must count for "writing" today ~ but Today I have nothing. The weariness of "keeping my chin up" this week, I find, has worn me thin. Creativity must rebloom. The only sound in my 'thinking place' is "AAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!" Dave said he hit the delete button yesterday so I am looking for it ~ haven't found it yet. So I am breathing in and out and waiting for ideas to stop churning and start swirling. On the interesting side, this commitment to write has displayed to me some intriguing insights. I now pretty clearly recognize my 'thinking place' -- the place thought forms ~ the place from which I write. I, today, feel a bit like I do when a room is in the state of 6 dyslexic people having passed through -- you've all seen the living room/dining room on our "in and out" busiest days. As I stand on the thresh hold of "time to restore order" I must look at one piece...

John 3:14-15 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. I think these are the last words Jesus spoke to Nicodemus that night. We are left hanging...did Nicodemus just leave? Did he say something else? JOHN?! What??? What happened??? Did Nicodemus "accept" Jesus and come out of the darkness to the Light? We do not know... at least not from chapter 3 of John. I think John leaves us hanging on purpose. His gospel is one dedicated not merely the telling of a good summary or synopsis of the life and ministry of Jesus' life ~ no, John wants everyone to know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and believe. John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. The way John stretches Nicodemus' story through this gospel is itself a picture of the process, the struggle of one ...

John 3:5-8 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." NIV So much is going on here. So many levels of communication are engaged. I am convinced that Jesus had literally been told by the Holy Spirit what parts of scripture were on Nicodemus' heart, and I think that this section speaks to Nicodemus at the point of his deep struggle. '...no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit" "unless" ??? Nicodemus had just been told that from where he was he could not get to the kingdom...he who had spent all of his life in study and the Temple life. Now Jesu...

I have baby spoons in my silverware drawer, I have sippy cups in my cupboard, I have 2 shelves in a bookshelf in my living room set aside for toys. I have a high chair, and a pack-n-play. I AM A GRANDMOTHER! I say, " Gramma ", Seth says, "Ah Ma " ~ I smile. I do love it. I find I am all the stereo-typical things people think and say about us ...those of us in this club: I feel NO rush to get anything "more important" accomplished when I am privileged to read him a story, or play 'stack the blocks and knock them down". I am entranced as I watch and listen to him think, and draw conclusions. He is cleverness itself! His laughter makes my whole day. He is, in all the Biblical intent, 'NO ORDINARY CHILD'. Now, I can nearly see you -- all of you -- shaking your heads, chuckling and saying to yourself, " Weeeelllllllllll , all grandmothers think that." But, really!!! He is amazing! He is so very very smart!!! He TRIES to be happ...

There will be a short pause in our regularly scheduled blogging while I entertain my grandson for a couple of days.

John 3:1-3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him." In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." NIV So...Nicodemus says, "we know you are a teacher who has come from God..." and Jesus says, "No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again." HUH? Is there part of a conversation missing? Are they even talking to each other? Then Nic responds, "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" I cannot even tell you how many sermons I heard that concluded that Nicodemus really thought Jesus was a biological imbecile who really thought reverse g...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. ... The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. NIV John 1:1-14 The Gospel of John begins with a preface -- no...

RECAP : Once upon a time (yeah, pretty long, long ago)I began a Bible study on the book of John. When I got to Ch.3 I came to a clumsy, screeching halt because I faced the fact that ... well ... I had no idea what was going on from John 3:1 to John 3:15. So! I backed up, and began trying to figure it all out by asking and exploring the questions my confusion spawned. Question 1: Why would a really good writer like John write such an obscure account? What was I missing?? OK! Fact: John was a good writer!. So...given "good writer" why did the beginning of Chapter 3 "seem" so ... well ... confusing? The problem HAD TO BE, I reasoned, with me. I was missing something. What did I know and what were the 'givens' that would help clear my understanding? I took a step back, well more like 3 or 4 steps, to come at this story with perspective. In a puzzle, like a crossword puzzle, you look at clues and you look at context and you decide what those things tell you to he...

So once some time ago I was going to teach a Bible Study on John. I began to prepare to teach the penultimately familiar third chapter of John. I think I get it now...but then ~ then I began my preparation with a realization that I stood {perhaps just like Nic } on a doorstep of discovery, shocked to find how dark my blindness was. As I have already said, I glibly thought I was familiar with and understood this passage. But then I read it, finding a disjointed conversation where two men don't even seem to be talking to each other . The conversation is abruptly ended to be followed by one of the most memorized, most quoted passages of all Christianity: John 3:16. Why that odd juxtaposition? Prefaces matter! Why would John ramble and give us a vague disjointed " un "conversation as preface to this clear powerful passage? The sermons I remembered added fog to my confusion: Nicodemus was -- in all the sermons I could recall -- depicted as a sort of doddering uneducated man...

so... one night Jesus had a visitor. He was a pharisee, a teacher of the law. And years later -- ironically well after everyone knew the story, Jesus' friend John tells the story. and... once upon a time I was going to teach a Bible study and decided to teach through the gospel of John. When I came to John 3, I thought I was so familiar with the story. Then I read it with an eye to teach. I stumbled over a very disquieting discovery: I had swallowed like pablum what ever I had heard in sermons, never thought for my self about what John 3 ~ all of John 3 ~ was about and skipped to 3:16. "For God so loved the world..." easy to understand, right? What was starkly apparent to me was that I did not have a clue what I really thought happened between Nic and Jesus. I do love when honest ignorance is the beginning of ken. (ok...digression: don't you love that word? ken : Perception; understanding: complex issues well beyond our ken. Range of vision. to know, have knowledge o...

In my last blog I said I want 'team'. That word is a powerful one for me and has, for and in me, a pretty clear definition. What I do NOT mean is team like a baseball or football team: people who do things, even the same kind of things, together for a purpose or cause etc. Team to me is embodied in a molecule: like oxygen and hydrogen combine to become water. So basic, so everywhere in our lives we take it for granted. But oxygen and hydrogen are gasses. Oxygen is extremely flammable...there are specific properties and specific dangers. But when the molecule is formed and there is water, the new thing formed by the two different elements is not really like either element. It is for me "magically" new in every way. Another example is chlorine and sodium becoming salt -- so different, so unexpected! The elements bond with such strength it takes power to break the bond. In water electrolysis is necessary, and if "left to themselves" hydrogen and oxygen will ref...

This is an intense and difficult season of transition for me. I have told people I am choosing to live emotionally as if I "have taken off my glasses". In the physical, without my glasses I see the world in soft fuzz so it is easy to ignore. All that is in focus is about 6 to 8 inches from my eyes. Emotionally that is where I am...I am not looking out beyond that which is right in front of me...I am NOT living there. It is too hard. Why is it hard -- there are circumstances: the madness of the church fight we are on the side-lines of; our finances (or LACK thereof); the fact that we feel like we are in the middle of a road-trip where being part of a church is concerned (anyone who knows me knows that road-trips are on the same list, but way below things like packing to move and trips to the dentist, with me); Layne and Sheila moving. Layne and Sheila's move was icing on the cake {OK,actually if there is an exact opposite image for "icing on a cake" that embodies...

conjure: to call or bring into existence by or as if by magic, to call or bring to mind; evoke The other day I gazed out at my garden (do not think large, do not think spreading acres of foliage...mine is a strip of land not 4 paces long sidled up against my wall.) The day was grey. The garden was winter untended, straggly, and slightly sad. Near my garden stands a maple tree; on that day it looked droopy and balding ~ old somehow. I thought of Shakespeare : Sonnet 73 : That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs, which shake against the cold. I can imagine Shakespeare, one late Autumn day, standing musing as I was As I stood, a word came wandering into my brain: dreary . It wandered in and conjured up some friends: dismal, disconsolate . And these too were conjurers: they stirred images of grey and dun, desolation and doleful despondency . They conjured too the emotions of the mood. It was no longer just the garden ~ I fel...

I have children and friends who have said, "You should write." So here goes: a blog. No promises ~ don't know that I will write every day. But this will give me a place to start. Be ready, those of you who have prodded me on : I plan to get you to enter into blog-dialog. This should be interesting...one hopes.