Selected for Courage

 

This past fall, my brother, like so many in this season, got a puppy. Nala is smarter than any dog has a right to be, and is already unfailingly devoted to him. The breeder, who supplies dogs for the K9 unit of police services, explained that she selects for courage in her breeding program; running a series of behavioural tests upon each new puppy; looking to continue the next generation of dogs with the most fearless individuals. While a family pet might be able to cower under the dining room table during a thunderstorm, a working police dog can’t shrink back at a critical moment.

Selecting for courage is an interesting idea, especially since it seems to be a forgotten virtue these days after endless months of “Stay home. Stay safe.” Nothing wrong with home—I’m quite partial to it myself—but there is something disquieting about the constant public messaging that personal safety is the highest ideal. If that were so, we wouldn’t lionize the likes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Joan of Arc, who stood up to terrifying foes and paid for their courageous convictions with their lives. Rather, we would instead congratulate the nameless multitude who did nothing to counteract the evil of their day. Likewise, our culture wouldn’t tell the tales of the personal courage it takes to overcome overwhelming odds. Frodo would have stayed comfortable at Bag End. Aslan wouldn’t have sacrificed himself upon the stone table. Bonhoeffer wouldn’t have tried to kill Hitler. Joan of Arc wouldn’t have carried her banner into battle. And, most critically, Jesus wouldn’t have set His face like flint to go to Jerusalem to endure the cross, either. 

The personal temptation toward comfort and safety is always singing its siren song—and unless we stop up our ears like the sailors in Homer’s Odyssey—we risk being broken on the rocks of cowardice and consumed by unholy monsters. But what engenders courage? It’s a question we’d do well to ask ourselves since we aren’t running newborn babies through behavioural tests to demonstrate which one will cower at home and which will rush a bad guy with a gun.

“Courage is not just one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at its testing point.”  

C.S Lewis

Fear--and its attendant uncertainty--is a litmus test revealing where we have placed our faith. It is in the storm of known and unknown dangers where we face threats to our safety and comfort; that we instinctively reach out to that in which we have placed our trust. 

I think we hope that it will be God, but it isn’t until we are tested that we find out for sure. In His mercy, He allows this testing to reveal that we have turned to other gods—which are not gods at all—because they are solutions that we can see and touch and make with our own hands. A test reveals deficiencies for the sake of remedy,--not condemnation. Even when we are faithless, He is faithful. 

Time and again throughout Scripture He reveals His character of faithfulness; urging us to rely on Him. Faith in God will always require that we trust Him unseen against the mounting odds of what we can see. He hasn’t allowed us another option, reminding us in Hebrews that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Faith is an attribute of God’s own character gifted to us—and it takes courage to wield it.

This past summer Nala amazed everyone with her constant displays of courageous devotion to my brother. She rode confidently on a jet ski with her head rested on his shoulder because she wouldn’t bear to be parted from him; persistently swimming after him if he tried to leave without her. There is something of Moses in that dog. “If your Presence does not go with me, bring us not up from this place.” (Ex. 33:15) Trusting God in the midst of a storm takes courageous faith that is renewed moment by moment as the wind howls and the waves mount. But courage isn’t as hard to find when we truly trust the One to whom we’re devoted. We can rest our chin on His shoulder and enjoy the ride. After all, He selected us for this courageous faith before the foundation of the world.

A version of this article was published in the Sept/Oct issue of live magazine. Check them out at: www.baptistwomen.com

Irritable for a Reason

“…you told me never to use words like that except in ex—extreme provocation, and Francis provocated me enough to knock his block off!”  

(To Kill a Mockingbird)

Back in my high school days, I wrote a series of short articles that I titled “The Irritants of Morg.” It began as an email to a friend about something that I found provoking and snowballed into a semi-regular exercise of opining sardonically about my daily life. If I’d been more of a go-getter, I might have posted my witty teen narratives on a blog, but I wasn’t; and so only a few people were readers of my brief series. I had copious material to artistically mine. Being a teenager is a provoking time without many compass reference points to keep one steady as she goes. Emotions slosh around like water in a bathtub, ready to overwhelm the margins without much warning. Sarcasm seemed an innocuous coping mechanism in comparison to some of the other options the culture had on offer; and so I wrote out my irritants with what I fondly recall was humour and gusto while trying to develop some self-control.

Recently, I’ve been thinking of reviving the old series since being provoked is a regular feeling most days. But provoked to what? Is irritation, dislike, and dark humour enough of a response;—or are these circumstances meant to draw forth something of the Kingdom of Heaven from me and drag it into the earth?

"…Since the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.”  

(Matthew 11:12)

Such a curious verse that doesn’t sit well with our 21st century sanitized Christianity that exults niceness. We Canadian Christians are even more flummoxed by the idea. After all, being nice is a point of national pride. Yet as a result, we are in danger of being misled by our cultural expectations of what it looks like to demonstrate love; or what exactly constitutes the sort of good works that our faith enjoins us to undertake. As much as the circumstances of the last year or so have brought us all to the point of extreme irritation; what are we actually being provoked to? Is it just to be nicer and maybe more calm? No one argues with a nice, calm person. But the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t a yoga class. That ‘peace that passes understanding' can only surpass our understanding when the circumstances are anything but tranquil;—otherwise we’re just having a nice day.

Jesus was provoked and threw over the tables of the moneychangers and made a whip to drive out those who were using the temple for their own ends. Elisha was moved to prophesy a son for the Shunammite woman who was hospitable to him. David danced with abandon before the Lord when the presence of God returned to Jerusalem. Lot was grieved daily by the sin of his culture and was rescued by angels from destruction. Paul was so irritated by a spirit of divination in a slave girl that he cast out the demon and was imprisoned and whipped for his trouble. All of them—and more—were provoked to action by their response to the circumstances at hand.

These are provoking times for a reason. None of us can afford to avoid asking God the question of what exactly we are being provoked to do. Is it going out alone to kill the giant who mocks God? Is it blessing someone in their barrenness? Is it delivering those bound in spiritual darkness? Is it preaching to those who don’t want to hear? Because it just might be that these irritants that provoke us to action are divinely orchestrated inciting incidents meant to usher in the kingdom of Heaven.

(A version of this article was published in the July/Aug issue of live magazine. Check them out at www.baptistwomen.com )

Bloghost Strikes Again

 A notice to all my email subscribers:

For some opaque technical reason, my bloghost (sounds like a dreadful sinus problem) is no longer willing or able to manage the email subscription service for this blog. I apologize for the inconvenience. If I had anything beyond rudimentary technical skills, I would seek to remedy this for you. However, in the words of Jane Austen, "It is my unhappy fate to seldom treat people so well as they deserve."

So, dear subscriber, if you find yourself cut off and languishing in the absence of my profound musings, fear not! If you happen to check back here every three to six months, you'll probably be relatively up to date. 

If, by some uncanny chance, I manage to find another so-called "email widget", I'll do my best to remedy the situation for you.

The Six Hour War

 

"Besides we are men, and after all it is our business to risk our lives."

(Alexander Dumas, The Three Musketeers)

I don't know how your morning looked today, but I couldn't help thinking of another April 9th eighty-one years ago. Those who know a little of my writing history will be aware that deep in the vault of my files, there is a graphic novel which tells the story of Danish heroism throughout the Second World War through the lens of a superhero. As a result, April 9th doesn't pass without my awareness of this anniversary of the Six Hour War when Nazi Germany invaded Denmark on April 9th, 1940.

Despite being ridiculously outmatched, the Danes scrambled to defend their country against an attack that began at four o'clock in the morning. Their airfields were bombed. Their cities were littered with occupation pamphlets and sporadic skirmishes took place as the Germans sought to take control of the small maritime nation.  The Royal Guard at Amalienborg Palace fought bravely to protect King Christian X but within hours, the government capitulated in the face of overwhelming power, hoping to spare their cities from the bombing that had afflicted other targets of German interest. From that day forward Denmark was occupied by the Third Reich until its defeat at the hands of the Allies five years later.

It is a strange thing to contemplate that nearly four million Danes went to bed as citizens of a sovereign nation, but awakened the following morning to find their country already overrun. Before the church bells tolled noon, they were all the imprisoned supplicants of a powerful enemy. No more defence would be mounted in any official capacity from the Danish government. 

But, as is so often the case, it is not the actions of the government that shapes the outcomes of the future, but rather the beliefs and subsequent actions of individuals that determine the type of world that we live in. Of course, Denmark had its share of quislings and collaborators hidden amongst the populace of the unwillingly occupied--those who make us despair for the fallen nature of humanity--but its people also exhibited a far greater share of heroism than one might expect from a country without the military might, resources or influence of many of its more powerful neighbours. And surely, the social fabric of Danish society was torn between those who felt a resigning ambivalence about the occupation and those who sought to resist it. Five years is a long time to live under siege. Of course, that wasn't how the German occupiers framed it. They were there to 'help'. To 'protect'. To keep the Danes 'safe' from the predations of the British. Funny how that kind of help always comes at a steep, steep cost. The Danes lost their sovereignty and freedoms, their food was rationed, their government neutered, and they lived under ever watchful eyes.

Nevertheless, shining brightly like a jewel in the midst of the ashes is the story of the Danish Resistance and its crowning achievement of facilitating the rescue of Denmark's Jews in 1943. Tipped off to an impending Nazi crackdown roundup of Danish Jewry, ordinary Danes sought to protect their Jewish neighbours. Within a week, nearly 7200 Danish Jews were being smuggled to neutral Sweden on fishing boats after being hidden in homes and churches. The vast majority of Denmark's Jews escaped the Holocaust and survived the war because the Danes refused to turn them in, or turn them away in their hour of need. 

I've been thinking about this story a lot of late. It seems relevant these days when we hear of yet more lockdowns and restrictions; of a pastor thrown in jail and his church property seized for refusing to enforce the policies of unaccountable bureaucrats that claim to 'protect', 'help' and keep us all 'safe'. Danish Jews survived the Holocaust because individual Danes refused to snitch on them and turn them over to a hostile government intent on harm while calling it something else. Instead, they hid them and helped them escape to a safe haven. 

It isn't the actions of our governments that will determine what kind of people we are, but rather the individual actions we all choose to make. 

Just something to think about as you go about your day.

A Pebble in my Shoe

My pen hovered over the blank page in trepidation for a moment before I wrote the words in the scrawl of an inconsistent ballpoint pen.

    “Lord, is there anything You want to say to me?”

The question stared back at me blankly. I tapped the end of the pen on the miles of empty page and waited. A seemingly random word or two came to my mind;—the beginning of a sentence—not even a complete thought. I hesitated; unsure if I should write it down. Was that  God? It seemed so incredibly presumptuous to assume. What if I was wrong? What if I wasn’t?

The words come piecemeal. As though the Holy Spirit were giving dictation to a slow typer; or perhaps just a slow listener. He waits for me to write down what He’s given, before He says anything more.

I used to be jealous of Christians who had a clear sense of what God was saying to them personally. Not just a timely Bible verse that came to mind,—nothing against that, of course—but some people really seemed to talk with God instead of at Him, as I did. They would say confidently, “The Lord showed me…” “The Lord said—not audibly—,” they’d carefully caveat, before sharing a testimony of their personal relationship with Jesus. It made me jealous. After all, I was a Christian, too.  I prayed. I talked to God. Why did they have such a clear sense of Him while I usually felt like I was leaving a voicemail?

Little did I know that this niggling dissatisfaction with the status quo of my prayer life—and my hunger to have what others did—was God speaking to me already, though I couldn’t discern it. The unresolved disquiet wasn’t my soul crying out; but rather the Spirit speaking to one who wasn’t used to listening, and couldn’t discern the language. 

My hearing has gotten a little better over time, and I’ve come to recognize that God’s voice is like a pebble in my shoe. A tiny distracting thought that looms larger and larger until I fully consider it. Sometimes it is a pebble of conviction that cuts; or a warning to pause and examine. Other times it is a comforting reminder to take off my shoes because the ground I’ve wandered onto is holy.

This type of listening is unfamiliar territory. Particularly for those of us in the evangelical tradition. We want clear direction, well-enunciated, (preferably with a Scripture reference), so that we won’t make a mistake. We don’t want to have to guess. We don’t want to have to practice discerning the voice of the Holy Spirit; if practicing involves the risk of getting it wrong. We don’t want others to think we’ve wandered off into questionable realms. We want everything we hear from God to be obvious to all and approved by the majority. 

But, the thing of it is, no one else can feel a pebble in your shoe. No one else can feel the unyielding sharp stone of conviction that brings about repentance. No one else can have your personal relationship with Jesus for you.

God is like an untameable continent upon Who’s shores we arrive after passing from death to life. Certainly, one could stay on the soft sand looking backwards over the uncrossable distance by which she has come rather than venturing into the undiscovered country. And yet, some irresistible magnetism beckons in a language we’ve yet to learn to adventure into the Unknown. The Deep calls out to the deep places within us until we resolve to become pilgrims in the Wilderness of God; discerning the language of heaven.

And so, I scrawl the words of the question day after day. 

    “Lord, is there anything that you want to say to me?” 

A version of this article was published in the March/April edition of live magazine. Check them out at www.baptistwomen.com

The Antidote to Fear

One summer when I was fifteen or so, I asked my grandmother what it was like to live through World War II. We were seated in lawn chairs with our feet held aloft over sun burned sand; listening the the lapping of the waves as they spent themselves on the shore of Mara Lake.

“Were you ever afraid of what would happen if you lost?”

The question of losing is on my mind a lot these days, for it feels like we are all in a losing game. “Social distance” is no longer giving people air hugs from a six foot distance, but rather the contempt we have for those who have different opinions about how to handle the times. And then there are all the fears. Fear of getting sick. Fear of getting someone else sick. Fear of breaking the law. Fear of the law being obeyed. Fear of the government not doing enough. Fear of the government doing too much. Fear that people will think badly of us. Fear that we might never be able to think well of each other again.

For indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were troubled on every side. Outside were conflicts, inside were fears. (2 Corinthians 7:5)

Conflicts on the outside. Fears within. Troubled on every side. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Fear is a kind of idolatry. It overruns our minds with its vain imaginations and seeks information that reinforces its position of authority. Catering to its demands is the claiming a new god to whom cowering obedience is always due. We obey it or else—as one obeys a hostage-taker—always hoping that this last concession will end of its reign of terror.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4:18)

But what is perfect love? The question has to be asked, so abused is the word within our context. I’ve gone to enough weddings to know the answer lies in 1 Corinthians 13. Pachelbel’s Canon in D is playing while someone is intoning seriously that, “Love is patient and kind; it does not envy or boast. It isn’t proud or rude or self-seeking. It isn’t easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It rejoices in the truth and has no pleasure in evil. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…” 

Love sounds an awful lot like a person;—and an unbelievably wonderful One at that. Love is neither action, nor feeling—but rather a being with a will and emotions of His own. When Fear has taken hold, it can only be cast out by One who is greater than every terrorizing circumstance and imagined scenario. And, it must be cast out, or we doom ourselves to ever-cower, courage-impoverished and perform the rites of its idolatry. Honouring fear is an affront to God’s nature for it denies His character as all-capable, all loving, all knowing, all perfect.

The antidote to our troubled times is less related to the question of how to manage fear and navigate our conflicts, but rather who casts out fear and resolves our conflicts. God has deposited His Spirit within each believer and it is only in our complete dependence upon Him that the fruit of His Spirit—His own nature of love—is empowered to change the parameters of our lives.

And, it isn’t the first time that a monumental war of fear has raged and people have been caught in the jaws of the unknown as powers clash against powers.

“Were you ever afraid of what would happen if you lost?”

My grandmother paused a few moments before she spoke. Perhaps she was remembering how she felt when her brothers enlisted, or the correspondence she shared with my grandfather before they were married while he was training to be an airforce pilot. She squinted against the over bright sun and looked at one of the grandchildren she prays for every day and said,

“It never entered into our minds that we would lose."

Love bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:7-8)

Things I thought while walking around during a Plague

“Cosmo, I just want you to know that no matter what you do, you’re still gonna die. Okay?”

(Moonstruck)

Spring

There’s a lot of people out walking. We’re all walking for the sake of walking, moving around, one foot in front of the other, going nowhere. But the sun is shining and it’s either walk or stay inside glued to some screen, working on my terrible posture while morbidly tracking statistics. As Mark Twain (possibly) said, “There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” The mainstream media, social media and the self-proclaimed experts are offloading their wares in all three categories non-stop these days, but I’m not interested in buying so I head outside instead in a daily quest to get the step count into a self-satisfying range. I walk past the densely packed homes in my district and inspect my neighbours’s flower beds for plant inspiration; trying not to grow too attached to the idea of a front yard full of bosomy peonies in all their glory. I need shade plants of the sort that L.M Montgomery might have waxed poetic in one of her novels. Shy greenery and tiny winsome blooms that thrive in the whispering shadows. They are hard to find though, most people don’t bother much with trying to make things grow in inhospitable places.

I pick up my pace and reflexively glance at a my disappointing number of steps. Keep it moving, unless you want to gain the Covid-19. (Too late.) I come to the end of the houses and pass by the construction sites with newly printed signs hung on the fences warning the tradesmen to work in specific ways while under the cloud of this novel corona virus. “Novel Coronavirus”, the news anchors wearing jewel tones say it with such solemnity.

I consider titling my next book, Novel Coronavirus. Of course, I would have to start a brand new manuscript for it—none of the three works-in-progress could carry such a moniker. Search engine optimization would undoubtedly be in my favour;— for all that marketing and promotion that I am (supposed to be) doing.

The toe of my shoe catches slightly on an uneven lip in the sidewalk and I pitch forward as though shoved by a foe. I catch myself in the sudden rush of adrenalin and feel my face grow slightly warm at the thought that someone at the construction site saw me. Like that time in high school when a new pair of shoes with a thicker sole (Damn you, platform Converse trend!) caught the lip of a step and sent me sprawling up the central staircase. Arms valiantly windmilling, I caught the hand rail with both hands; hauling myself—hand over hand—up the last few steps while my legs dangled uselessly behind me. I vaguely wonder if platform Converse are still a thing as I regain my stride and keep walking as though nothing has happened. After all, I’m no teenager battling insecurity anymore. I can shake off an embarrassment. Besides, since I can’t help but laugh at physical comedy, I can hardly resent providing it for some poor soul peeking out behind the curtains. I see a lot of them these days;—people staring out their front windows, or standing in their doorway looking out on the world. It’s a strange thing to see so many people doing it. We’re all looking out the window as though we might see the end of the plague coming down the street.

I leave the construction site behind and walk past the barren lot covered with weeds still thinking about the signs on the fences. Will future people unearth these weathered metal signs in curio shops and marvel that they were hung during the scourge of COVID-19? Will they blow away the dust gathered in the intervening decades, read the public health instructions and find us quaint? Perhaps these future people will collect them as memorabilia of this bygone era; hanging them ironically around their homes. But instead of “Keep Calm and Carry On” emblazoned on everything from coffee mugs to pillow cases, and Rosie the Riveter displaying her bicep and can-do attitude; it will be the anemic messaging of “Stay Home. Stay Safe” and “Practice Social Distancing”.  Hardly the inspirational stuff of two generations ago, but maybe our fearful measures will seem endearing to the people of the future in the same way that we find leeches and blood-letting curious medical treatments of the past. “Oh, those ignorant little dears, they just did the best that they could. Like superstitious children, they were…”

Because, after all, isn’t that how we all tend to view the collective wisdom of previous generations? We assume that whatever we have attained in the present age is better than what came before it. Our attitudes are more virtuous. Our thinking more nuanced. Our societies have evolved. That’s a pet peeve of mine: the usage of the word evolved. It’s a badge to show your bona fides. You didn’t learn something. You evolved. Learning requires effort, pursuit, discernment and practice. Evolution requires nothing of the individual except a fortunate set of genes. My mind wanders backward to a bygone biology class showing Darwin’s drawing of the beaks of Galapagos finches who found the right sized seed for the times. “Darwin’s Beak” might also be a good title for a book. Maybe it could be about the way that we think we are advanced and wise when really we are just the ungratefully fortunate beneficiaries of all that came before.

My gaze falls upon the thistles that are getting along like gang-busters in the empty lot. Deep green and thriving; their stalks are thicker than my thumb as they pass the three foot mark. Those spines are more dangerous than a lot of items confiscated by airport security;—including the new tube of toothpaste I lost on my way to Vancouver a few years ago. What a different world that was. Being able to leave one place and fly to another. We didn’t even know how free we were.

But a lot of people don’t feel that way, I realize, and it shocks me. “Free” is just an abstract idea to them—and a dangerous one—whereas “safe” is the ultimate good. The sudden intrusion of government power hasn’t rankled some the way it has me. But the petty tyrants are popping up everywhere and their calls to the quarantine-related snitch lines reveal just how thin our social fabric has worn. When this plague has subsided, will it be airport security that demands passengers wear masks, or will it be the finger wagging of other passengers who demand it? I think know the answer already and it depresses me.  But maybe this madness of control will pass as fatigue with the fear of life and death begins to set in. 

I doubt it—but maybe.

Summer

I’m still walking—the same route around the empty lots and the place where the school buses are parked, lined up neatly in two long rows like yellow pills in the hands of an OCD apothecary. ‘Apothecary’ is such a fun word, while ‘pharmacist’ has had all the whimsy wrung out of it. The buses haven’t moved in months, empty of their charges, even as the playground nearby languishes in prison; blockaded behind a steel fence meant to keep everyone oh-so-safe from a virus with a 98% survival rate. I shake my head and keep moving. The thistles have bloomed spiky purple crowns and begun to die in the summer heat. The ground around them is cracked and parched and, I kid you not, tumbleweeds are rolling by me in a perfect picture of western desolation as a hot wind gusts over the face of the land. If only I had a faded cotton print dress on and a sunburned face to complete the picture. But I don’t. I put on sunscreen because I’ve been conditioned to do so by the fear of “the effects of aging”. Same, I suppose, as all the people wearing masks to keep an unseen virus at bay;— or away from other people— or to show what good people they are… It’s hard to keep track of the reasons for our measures anymore. Gone are the “wash your hands” and “don’t touch your face” instructions from mid-March. We’ve entered into some new phase of counter measures. You can feel it in the atmosphere. I think about getting a bunch of cloves of garlic on a string to wear around my neck, you know, in case this coronavirus just also happens to be a vampire.

A car passes me and the driver’s features are obscured by a swath of light blue fabric. He’s all alone in his car wearing a surgical mask and I want to ask him who he is protecting. Did he just forget to take it off? Or is that “PPE” doing a better job than the steel and glass of his car in protecting him from the danger of a COVID miasma  in case he should happen to drive through one. I could ask the black masked bicyclist who rode by too—but he wasn’t around long enough to chat.

It doesn’t really matter, though. The message is clear. Stay safe. Stay safe. Stay safe… it’s on constant repeat from the government, the businesses that have finally been allowed to open, the signs in the windows of private homes; not to mention the messages from the glitterati on their social media platforms desperate for relevancy. Stay safe.  One could be forgiven for thinking that the phrase has been trademarked and is earning cents on the dollar every time it is used in conversation.

I want to escape but there’s no where to go. Even the astronauts who left Earth’s problems behind on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule on May 30th had to come back to its shelter eventually on August 3rd. What must that be like, I wonder, to go into a hostile atmosphere that requires every ingenuity of Man in order to survive? In space, you’ll know whether your mask works or not.

I shake my head again, wishing to shed the tiresome subject like a dog shakes water from his coat. I look at the beauty of the billows of white stacking up on the horizon against Alberta’s impossibly blue August sky. The sky is bluer here than in other places. I don’t know why, but it’s true.  More so than ever before in my life, heaven is calling. This world is not my home, and I’m feeling it. There’s a row of poplars swaying their hips in breeze and somehow the fluttering of the leaves makes it seem as though time has stood still even though I’m still walking and the cars are whooshing by with snatches of their music reaching my ears. The atmosphere of the culture has been oppressive and like the summer heat that breaks into a terrific storm, I can’t help but wish for lightening to crack with a deafening boom and roar and reshuffle the deck of cards that we’re all playing with.

Autumn

The trees are shedding their gold leaf to pave the gutters and the flowers are beginning to look weary. For the first time since this juggernaut of Fear began, it feels as though something might be beginning to shift—to crack—letting the light get in a la Leonard Cohen. It’s faint and glimmering, and sometimes I can’t catch sight of it at all, but more and more the artifice feels like it is beginning to crumble. 

I breathe a sigh of relief and feel myself walking faster; walking taller as a smile spreads across my face like a wave flooding the shore. This is what I’ve been missing for months and months—the gladness of faith in the goodness of today. The leaves swish and crunch under the soles of my shoes. The air is as crisp and sweet as the first bite of the apple harvest. It has been ages since it felt like there was something to be glad about. It has been ages since I felt like singing just for the joy of it.

I’m rounding the way back toward home. The distance is shortening all the time, and as I walk along part of me wants to turn aside and add to the journey, walking further and longer because this is the day that the Lord has made for me to rejoice and be glad in it.  And, why shouldn’t I? Why rush back to a chair and the loud voices who wish to direct my thoughts and words toward their aims? I only owe my allegiance to God. He holds me in the palm of His hand and He made this day for gladness. It washes over me in a slow—bearable—realization, that this has been true for each day in this miasmic season of fear.

Only I can give place in my thoughts to desolation because this wide beautiful world wears its griefs on its face while it tells lies with pathological abandon; because mankind is a ruin of wonderful intentions. Because even the people you love and admire will disappoint, betray and misunderstand you.

So I turn aside—like Moses—to enjoy this thing that He is doing. To listen for the words that He is speaking; to keep walking wherever He leads. “Perfect love casts out fear”, and what is perfect love but God Himself?

Winter

It’s coming on Christmas but it only feels like it when the snow falls down in big flakes and gets caught in the faux fur on my hood. I’m walking in different shoes these days and taking smaller steps; shuffling along over the slippery patches with only a few adrenalin-inducing losses of balance. Animals have left their footprints in the snow as well; leaving me to muse over their tracks of differing intentions. 

Halloween’s ghoulish decorations are disappearing—though the forgotten pumpkins are getting more and more ghastly in their frigid decay on front steps. Sparkle and red is beginning to dot the city like stars appearing the the night sky as people trim up their doors for the new season with holly and pine boughs bedecked with ribbons and bows to greet all the guests we aren’t supposed to invite over. There is a perverse irony to the solemnity with which the experts and political leaders are talking of cancelling Christmas. There was another leader who felt that the coming of Christ was too dangerous, as well. King Herod the Great mandated the Slaughter of the Innocents in order to lockdown the coming of the Messiah, as it were.

All of summer’s flowers are frozen into twisted clumps of branches and twigs; denuded of their leaves and contorted by the icy breath of winter and a weight of snow. It isn’t as easy to keep walking at this temperature. There’s something about the cold that makes you feel weary. It’s the deadly deception of the frozen North: the temptation to fall asleep in the snow. The wind cuts through the folds in my clothes and my eyes begin to water. It’s hard to imagine lying in a drift and falling asleep, perhaps because the snow isn’t deep enough to be an inviting bed, but it also isn’t quite cold enough to give up yet.

Winter has a way of killing things—and it’s a good thing, too. On the insect front alone, it is a really good thing. There’s a lot of stuff that grows in the comfort of the temperate zone that needs a deep frost to wipe out. But good things die back in winter too and so it makes us afraid. I was rewatching that old series Pioneer’s Quest: A year in the Real West—where two couples lived as homesteaders in Manitoba with only the tools and means that would have been available in 1860. They built their shelters. They took care of the animals they needed to plow the land. They sowed and harvested their crops by hand. They experienced failure and had to depend on neighbours for knowledge and help. They got sick and it was scary. It was hard, hard work—and they loved it.

Besides the personal inconveniences of no indoor plumbing or toilet paper—what struck me was their focused awareness of the season. How imperative understanding the times and the seasons were for their very survival. Plant your crops too late in the spring and you’ll starve in the winter. Spring, summer and fall are the seasons of intense productivity. Winter is the season of trust; where we must believe that on the other side of all this cold and death, there will be a resurrection.

Things are coming to the surface in us all—the idols—the gods that we fear.  Whether it is fearing death from a disease, or tyranny brought in under the auspices of combatting it, or whether it is feeling virtuous for meeting all the ever-ballooning measures, or feeling justified in ignoring each instance of government overreach--idols, all. They can all be ideas that we serve with fear and trembling, without realizing that they aren’t gods at all. Fear, and its hand-maiden, Self-righteousness, must die in the cold of this season so that what is true and real remains. The homesteaders knew it back in the day, and we’re learning it again: our lives are in God’s hands—always. 

It has always been thus--; but we've forgotten it. We've come to trust in the illusion of our own control. In the prudent and responsible use of seat belts and helmets; healthy diets and good exercise; masks and hand sanitizer, and so on.  But then the Winter of Circumstance comes and destroys the illusions of our strength and betrays our truly fragile state. We may rage against it and attempt to reassert our control through the proclamation of Science™ and rule by experts, and schoolmarming one another with wagging fingers and calls to snitch lines, but the fact remains unchanged by the depths of Winter's death: we are so fragile. And, we cannot forget it. 

This awareness of our fragility presents us with a war of perspectives. To give rein to fear; seeking to return to the comfort of the illusion of our control. Or, to rest in that intangible faith that the loving Father who sent His only Son to save us carries us in the providence of His will. 

This winter is long and dark, but the resurrection is coming.  Just keep walking.