From the Emerald Isle

If you wandered over here via Dorcas’ blog, welcome!

About my blog: there’s little rhyme or reason as to when and what I post. Most of it is ramblings and musings about life, wonder, and God. Subscribe to email posts using the button on the right, or use your feed reader of choice. (Being a bit of a blog junkie, I LOVE Google Reader!) Nose around my recommended book list and pieces of advice to wannabe writers, and leave a comment if you agree or even if you don’t.

About my book: Unfortunately, due to some mistakes, it is out of print but not forever. Stay tuned here for news of the next printing. I wrote the book with a target audience of single women ages 20-30 because that was the scope of my experience and I didn’t think I could speak into anyone else’s experience outside of that. It has been most surprising and delightful to hear from many people outside that narrow scope. I love how God dreams bigger than I do.

I dream of a living a life filled with words and people, where no one needs money, and windows never get dirty. But I live in the real world (albeit a wonderful world on this clear bright moon lit night), and so now I’m off to wash dishes.

 

The Weekend Magazine

Part of my Saturday ritual is to read the Irish Times Weekend Magazine between taking care of customers. Today’s edition had an exceptional article of an Irish lady’s take on Thanksgiving. It made me laugh and nod in agreement several times. Enjoy!

 

Giving Thanks

“Is everyone unhappy?” the child Lovejoy was to ask Vincent in despair.

Vincent said, “Everyone,” but after a moment, when he had thought, he added, “That doesn’t prevent them from being happy.”

–An Episode of Sparrows, Rummer Godden

For the last week I’ve been reading about people in the US who are gearing up for Thanksgiving. I feel far away and detached, an interested on-looker, fascinated by the movements and ruminations of people doing something I’m not.

When our family moved to Ireland in April of ‘96, I was homesick now and then but the worst moment was on the first Thanksgiving Day. It had been my favourite holiday, because it was simple and happy, and now no one even gave a nod to it. I was devastated and felt sure that this was a heartless, cruel, God-less place to live.

Now, 13 years later, it’s ok. Thanksgiving as a holiday seems like a foreign entity, like part of another lifetime (which it is), like something I can be an observer in without being a participator. And, because I don’t have to be at work til this evening, it’s sort of like a holiday anyhow, only without turkey and cranberries, and I’m ok with that.

Part of the change of heart has come about because of the passing of time. Other people and priorities precede the importance I once placed on my favourite holiday. Now, Thanksgiving is something I try to observe daily.

Every night, before I let myself turn off the light, I harness my memory to eek out and write down at least one thing that I’m thankful for, one thing that happened that day in which I heard God say “I love you” to me. It is the best, most helpful spiritual discipline in my life. It is the one thing I urge everyone to do, and is required of my students in Godly Womanhood class. My Thanks Journal is a tangible record of many intangible things. It turns my mind to God instead of letting me dwell on all that makes me unhappy. It reminds me of God’s faithfulness and my dependency on Him. Sometimes I think a long time before deciding what to write but that’s not God’s fault.

Today I am thankful for:
-the toasty warm evening and sibling camaraderie last night at my brother’s house
-a pleasant job environment
-books and pens and my laptop
-sparkling good health after a year’s illness
-girlfriends who I can call whenever I need a sounding board and wise words
-Godly men who believe in my book project and support my calling to teach
-my parents who have ‘marinated’ me with life-priorities of love and service
-dreams and ambitions and plans
-grandfathers whose worlds are big, and who forged a path that led beyond their ‘back forty’
-God, who in all times and in all ways, showers peace and joy in dews of blessing

 

Today’s Slice: The Storyteller

This evening I wept to read “The Storyteller” on today’s Slice of Infinity. It moved me deeply because I believe in the power of story–am overwhelmed with it really, because all my life I will be plumbing its depths–remember how other storytellers have influenced me, and tremble to think I can tell stories that influence others.

I loooove hearing from readers of my book. It happened yesterday again, (and I cried again. )I hear that there are some who don’t like my book, but that is second-hand information; no one has said it to my face. It is cowardly not to confront the author if you don’t like the author’s message–but I digress.

Back to sharing stories: it is in sharing my story that others honor me by sharing theirs. Then this interesting synergy takes place: we are both richer for having shared. Aren’t we richer for knowing and hearing the greatest Storyteller in the universe? I am going to spend my life and eternity sitting at His feet, listening to His stories.

 

For where your treasure is…

The SS lesson focused on various pieces in Proverbs that addressed intemperance, drunkenness, and the temptation of wine. I wasn’t into talking about alcoholism, and instead pursued a side trail that addressed issues of the heart that lead to intemperance of all kinds. It’s easy to think the drunk has it all wrong but what about our excesses that we justify easily?

One of the ladies explained that in her mother tongue, Portuguese, the word that sounds like our word ‘temperance’ means ’seasoning.’ I like that. No one wants excessive seasoning. We can take anything to excess: work, sleep, relationships ( a biggy for us women), hobbies, on-line time, food, exercise, church. Paul wrote to the Galatians that the only things there are no laws against are the fruit of the Spirit. You can never love too much or have too much peace or joy.

Thus, the only way to avoid excess is to have Christ capture our hearts, and make Him our highest joy. Out of that comes fruit that is pleasant and never excessive or intemperate.

Whatever rules the heart will exercise inescapable influence over one’s life and behavior.

If something is your treasure, you will live to gain, maintain, and enjoy it.

The things we set our hearts on never remain under our control.

–Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands, Paul David Tripp

 

Recomendation

Nearly two years ago, I took a 12-week on-line distance course from Christian Counseling and Education Foundation called “Dynamics of Biblical Change.” It was the start of a new way of looking at/dealing with life and its inevitable heat and thorns. I was impressed with how Biblical and sound the teaching is, and how it meets people in the real world. (CCEF is part of Westminster Theological Seminary, whose bookstore I have posted as a link in the right sidebar.)

The Dynamics course is the prerequisite for 2 other courses: ‘Helping Relationships’ and ‘Counseling in the Local Church.’ I’m a month into ‘Helping Relationships’ now, and am so very grateful for the opportunity. Dr. Paul Tripp is the lecturer, and his book, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands is our main textbook. Dr. Tripp is dynamic and so excitable that he frequently gets his words fumbled up in his hurry and enthusiasm to get them out. Often he’ll say “Now fasten your seatbelts for this one.” Or today it was “Now take that and smoke it in your theology pipe!”

I am learning that the Bible is not an encyclopedia for resources or topics. If it were, it would have come topically indexed in Greek and Hebrew. It is the epic story of God’s glory, and we needy, fallible humans get to witness, experience, and spread that glory as His ambassadors. I want to learn methods to help myself and others to change more into God’s likeness and glory, and this course is a good way of helping that happen.

If you love people, and feel called to any kind of Christian ministry, and have about one spare day per week for 3 months, I highly recommend these courses. Every week there is a down-loaded lecture to listen to, chapters and articles to read, response paper to write, reading quiz to study for and community forum to respond to–all due every Thurs. midnight. Dr. Tripp emphasizes that change happens in community, and the only way to do that long-distance as a class is to have a community board. At first it felt clunky and stiff, but the group spirit is coming slowly, and I have been amazingly ministered to already. I feel incredibly blest to have the time/energy/money to take in this privilege.

 

Comfort and Joy

I can’t say she’s my oldest friend, because she’s younger than I. But we go back further than pretty much all my friends, so in that way she my oldest friend. I was a basket case today, and particles of my soul were oozing out of the basket. God arranged the day so that I had an unexpected hour to be at home, and on the spur of the moment, I called my oldest friend.

She listened and commented and asked questions and for several rare seconds, there was even silence, just because it was comfortable and there wasn’t anything to say. She gave me perspective because she knows me well enough and can see my life in its wider spectrum than I can when I’m in the middle of things. She can connect the dots for me because she’s seen so many of my dots, and she lets me feel that I’m not a toad.

It was the swiftest 50 min. of the day. I cried, and laughed/howled and advised her in turn. The serendipity phone call was the best thing I did the whole busy day. The basket holes aren’t leaking so badly now.

The rest of the day, I sang to myself my current favourite hymn. For weeks now, it has fed me day in and day out. I sing to myself, plus keep the words close so that I can see them often:

O Jesus, grant me hope and comfort,
O let me ne’er in sorrow pine,
My heart and soul, yea, all my being,
O Jesus, trust alone in Thee.
Thou Prince of Peace,
Thou Pearl from heaven,
True God, true Man,
My Morning Star!
O come, Thou precious Sun most radiant,
Thy beams illumine my heart and soul.

O Jesus, with Thy advent quiet
My restless soul and anxious mind.
In true humility I welcome Thee,
Jesus Christ, my Joy divine.
My thoughts, desires, and all my longings
I dedicate, O Christ to Thee.
O come, Thou precious Sun most radiant,
Thy beams illumine my heart and soul.
–Johann Franck

 

Don Miller’s Latest Book

Don Miller is a gifted man. These days in spare moments I’m working through his 4+ hour workshop on The Elements of Story. He has a lot of good things to say, and I think Christians should join him in learning about the power of story, and how to harness it for God’s purposes. But that’s for another soapbox another day.

I recently finished A Million Miles in a Thousand Years after having waited on it for a year or so. Having read all his previous books, and with my limited knowledge of editing, publishing, and writing, combined with a lot of respect for Don, I was most anxious to read this book. Finally. Of course I can’t help but wonder what the scoop is with having it hit the shelves nearly a year later than was planned. The world of publishing has its own secrets, well protected from us mortals.

My sense of the book is that it is highly edited, tightly scripted, and of course has a smashing PR package. I mean, have you ever heard of a writer hiding copies of his book in various cities, giving directions to them via Twitter, I think it was, before the book came out? And this current 65-city tour–it’s a huge marketing scheme, and it makes me sad in a way because I feel that God’s people should support God’s artists and writers, and is this the best way it’s done? I guess it’s the modern way it’s done.

But I digress.

I think what happened to Don while writing this book is the same thing that happened to me when writing my book: it wasn’t til I was two-thirds into it that I hit my stride. And even careful editing doesn’t hide it or cure it. The first part of A Million Miles was fairly boring. I’d heard alot of it before in his various talks, plus it seemed he was trying to draw in the reader with sensational or arty ideas. Not that I did that with my book, no, never!!! Don can get away with the kind of airy-fairy writing that most of us mortals can’t.

I didn’t connect with this book until he wrote about his ‘melt down’ alone in his hotel room in LA when he thought to himself They don’t have an emergency room for the kind of pain that is about to happen to me. After that, the book isn’t arty anymore. It’s truthful and real and hits hard–and is still beautiful. Not that I took pleasure in hearing about his pain. But it was then that I knew we lived in the same world and speak the same language, and I could take on board what he was saying.

My favourite chapter is “The Reason God Hasn’t Fixed You Yet.” In it, he verbalizes the truth that things are never going to be perfect here. Utopia doesn’t come even if we do desperate things to get it. However, there WILL be a time when wrongs will be made right. Jesus will do it, not us, and it will be at a wedding, and there will be a feast.

The last chapter is edited within an inch of its life. Actually, if I ever get a chance to meet Don, I’ll ask him about it because I’m 100% sure that he didn’t write the last paragraph of the last chapter. It is so sculpted, it’s clunky and awkward. But the afterward is wonderful. It’s so beautiful and true it makes me wish I’d have written it.

Is Don one of those writers who will keep churning out books because publishers see big money coming from it? I hope not. I like to think that he’s a gifted writer, and that his message and his skill will not become diluted with more books and speeches. I hope that he is one of a new generation of writers and speakers who fan into flame the gift God gives them, knowing that they are trees in a story about a forest. I don’t know what all that means, but I do know that it means doing more than sitting on a couch waiting for inspiration to strike or for things to happen. I’m glad Don is living a good story. It inspires me. Which, among other things, is what good stories should do.

 

My new words

One of my life mottoes is: I’d rather reveal my ignorance than keep it.

Lately I learned that I was pronouncing two words wrong, and I was delighted to know how to say them correctly. Those words were Spokane as in a city in Washington state and shitake as in mushrooms. I love it! I love not revealing my ignorance about those words ever again.

Bad grammar and bad spelling are both a pain to witness. But I think that hearing mispronounced words is most painful of all. When you don’t know how to use a certain word, you can (almost) always substitute it with another. But when you mispronounce the word you chose to use, it’s more distracting than using the wrong word.

So says she who speaks far more than might be wise, and frequently reveals her ignorance in the process.

 

Slothfulness vs. Fervent in Spirit

I follow “Boundless,” Focus on the Family’s blog for singles, and this post was particularly thought-provoking. I have a lot of respect for Josh Harris, and his honesty here has potential to be life-changing.

It gave me something to go on when teaching the ladies’ SS class last Sunday. I mentioned, like Josh Harris did, that we probably don’t think about laziness in terms of wanting to sleep all day–at least I don’t. But the ladies started laughing self-consciously, and said it’s an issue for them. Then it emerged that one is prone to bad migranes, another is pregnant, another is recovering from serious ear/sinus infection, and so wanting to sleep is, for them, necessary, and not necessarily a sign of laziness.

It can be hard–if not impossible–to quantify laziness or lack of self-control in the physical realm. I’m not sure that working hard from dawn to dusk so as to keep up with the latest and preserve my reputation with the neighbors is the best kind of diligence. I tend to think that God is more interested in what is unseen, and whether my heart is intentional about seeking His face and His kingdom. That means being decisive about where my soul’s energies go. About doing the thing that needs to be done with a view of the future, and not only the convenience/pleasure of the present moment. It was the man without understanding and forsight whose house was covered in weeds and thorns. I think God is pleased when we live life with thought and intent. It is how He made us to operate, and it helps keep out the weeds from our souls.