That dance

Create in me a clean heart, O God, 

and renew a right spirit within me."

Psalm 51:10

Until the day when I see Him face-to-face, I will be dancing with Him--two steps forward, then one or two or a thousand steps back, anywhere in between. How I love, savor, promise I'll never lose the sense of intimacy that He allows me sometimes, often unexpectedly. Yet, inevitably it slips away. I have spiritual ADHD.

Lately I have been lost in a far-away place, unable to find God. The human struggle of death, illness, strained relationships, and inability to make decisions has had me in a cage. I keep crying out, "Help me, Lord! I really don't know what to do. I'm stuck!" And when I get into a zone of frustration, whispers of doubt sneak into my head. "Are you sure He exists? Are you sure it's not a fairy tale, a figment of your wild imagination? How long has it been since you've heard from Him?" Those taunting voices recognize my vulnerability.

Last night, soaking in a hot bath, as I scrubbed the soles of my feet, I heard the words, "Create in me a clean heart, O God."

Yes, that verse, I thought. I remember that--it's a good one. Where is it in Scripture? But I soon forgot to look for it.

This morning I sat in my usual spot to spend time with the Lord, whether He was going to show up or not. (I know He's there--I'm the one who doesn't show up.) I've been working my way through Psalms and turned to the Psalm where I was to continue reading, but I got side-tracked. Create in me a clean heart, O God--yes, I was going to look that up. I found it in Psalm 51.

The Lord sat next to me as I read it aloud and read it again.

Behold you delight in truth in the inward being,

and you teach me wisdom in the the secret heart.

The secret heart . . . 

Create in me a clean heart, O God. . .

Restore to me the joy of your salvation . . .

My sacrifice is a broken spirit . . . 

Tears flowed down my face and I just let them drip on my chest. My sacrifice is a broken spirit. What can I give Him in exchange for all He has done for me? I can take that broken spirit and humbly offer it to Him. I can let Him restore my spirit, create in me a clean heart, and start all over again. I give Him my broken spirit and in exchange He gives me everything. From this broken spirit I find nothing but gratitude and praise for the One who loves me.

Rilke reconsidered

Funny how things you might have read in your youth might slip through your head--

"Oh, yes, that's interesting, well said. I must remember that."

And as age advances to the point that you have many more years behind you than you have ahead of you, you read it again--

"Wow--that's so profound. Didn't I read this once before? Funny how I forgot it."

As Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) wrote in his Letters to a Young Poet:

I want to ask you, as clearly as I can, to bear with patience all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves. . . . For everything must be lived. Live the questions now, perhaps then, someday, you will gradually, without noticing, live into the answer. [1]

  

[1] Rainer Maria Rilke, A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows (HarperOne: 2009), 49.

Yearning

Credit: Gabor Murray

A few days ago I had a discussion with a friend about yearning--like, among other things and despite our advanced age, we don't give up wanting to have a close, romantic relationship with a member of the opposite sex. I still yearn for a perfect garden, warm sourdough bread, and linen sheets. I have linen sheets, will always have linen sheets. Lord, please grant me that one concession and let me die on linen sheets. (In a perfect garden with the love of my life holding my hand . . . ) And I yearn for a closer union with God and avocados that are always at the perfect stage of ripeness. Avocado on warm sourdough bread.


This brought to mind a John O'Donohue poem--For Longing--that I posted here some time in the past. John O'Donohue expresses it so much better than I ever could. It bears repeating.

For longing

blessed be the longing that brought you here
and quickens your soul with wonder.

may you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

may you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
to discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

may the forms of your belonging – in love, creativity, and friendship –
be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

may the one you long for long for you.
may your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

may a secret providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

may your mind inhabit your life with the sureness
with which your body inhabits the world.

may your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.

may you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
may you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

by John O'Donohue

Shards of glass

Last night or, to be more precise,  just before dawn this morning, I awoke from a dream that I remember in startling detail. I was at some sort of tribal, artsy party on a beach. I had applied all kinds of beach debris--shells, small stones, bits of seagrass, and crab claws--to my body with glue. I was covered in bits of the sea and quite proud of my creativity. There was a man there (James) whom I had known as a boy when both of us were in high school. I wasn't that interested in talking to him, but after I had fully adorned myself in sea bits, I sat beside him as he leaned against a sand bank alone, in silence, staring at the water.

When I sat down he put his arm on my shoulder and, still looking at the water, said, "You know, I really used to love you back then."

My hands were covered with glue and my mouth was full of shards of glass. I said, "I want to tell you a story. But wait until I get this glass out of my mouth." I removed glass and more appeared. I continued removing it, waiting to tell James my story.

At that point, my former bastard bully of a husband stood at the shore and shouted at me, "What are you doing with him? You get away from him!"

I saw the ex-husband without feeling any emotion other than mild amusement. He didn't frighten me or make me anxious. I just chuckled and said, through the shards of glass in my mouth, "I don't care what you think. I'm free now." And I awoke.

My first drowsy thought was to thank God for the dream. "Thank you, Lord! Thank you--you know I needed to feel that. Thank you!" And I recall thanking him for my interaction with James and my confidence that I could remove the shards of glass--not for my lack of fear or emotion toward my husband.

But now, hours later, the images of the dream still vivid, I wonder why I was so grateful to God for the dream. I know that dreams are often God's way of sending us messages. But what was the message?

Having sharp things--pins, needles, glass, or fish hooks--in my mouth, throat, sometimes my arms, is a recurring image in my dreams. Always I remove some and more appear--I can never get them out. I used to interpret that as meaning I was frustrated that I wasn't able to express myself without retribution.

My sense is that my gratitude was more because I knew that James loved me when we were young. I was fully aware that it was in the past. And this time I felt that I could get past the shards of glass and tell my story and that my husband was just a silly, angry guy on the beach. But the intense feeling of gratitude, that the Lord had sent me a message, I still can't decipher. I need to sleep on that.

Demo

For months I've been silent. Last week my mother died after years of struggle. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.

A few days ago I was in a fancy downtown office building for a meeting. During a break I sat in an empty conference room, staring out the window, asking the Lord to bring me some peace. I was staring vacantly at a the shell of a building directly across from where I was sitting. The building looked like a bomb site, either being torn down or completely renovated. Something caught me eye that I had not noticed at first. Above a dumpster, spray-painted, was the word DEMO. I realize the word meant that this was the designated receptacle for discarded materials. But it meant something different to me. My childhood nickname, the name my mother called me even until her dying day, was Demo. Pronounced deemo, it is the name my family has called me all my life, derived from Donna Demo because they said I was a demon.

Was the Holy Spirit playing a little trick on me, when out of nowhere in a most unexpected setting, just days after her death, there appeared the name my mother called me? I had been thinking about her, that I wasn't what she wanted me to be. I was her ugly duckling, the one born with a deformed head (a story told so often, I could recite it with her). I was the one who never had the right hair--always the hair--until, when she died I had no hair at all. But when she was dying, I laid my head on her shoulder, and she rubbed her gnarled fingers across the stubble on my scalp and said, "Your head actually turned out fine. You have a nice-shaped head after all. My baby girl. My Demo."

Now she is gone.

Just like before she died, when I said my strength was failing, I relied on the Lord's strength. I asked Him to give me compassion and caring and He filled me--not through my efforts but from His deep well. Now I am depleted. She has died--I watched her dying, yet it still seems so unreal.

And what do I need now? I feel frozen, exhausted. Again I will go to Him--to the Lord, my Lord who provides. I need rest to refresh my energy. Lord, please fill me with joy, with a new appreciation for life. I need comfort. Please show the way to a new purpose. I have tried to do your work, fulfilled my obligation to my mother--admitting that I often did it with a begrudging attitude. Please forgive me for that.

It's my mama, Lord. It seems incomprehensible that she is gone, after all these years of courting death, she finally surrendered. Lord, fill me with a new spirit. I know you have been equipping me for this, but I can't find the "on" switch. Fill my heart with what I know in my head. I need your spirit to fill my emptiness. I know it's there, that there is joy, a new purpose in me that hasn't reached my heart yet.

More prayer. More time with you. More trust. And total surrender to your will.

Walking home

Imagine this: An elderly woman, her life now counted in months, weeks, perhaps only days. She is distressed and questioning what will happen at the end of her days--will there be nothing, will she see God, will she ever be with her beloved husband who departed before her?

Despite spending a lifetime following her faith, she now doubts. That seems to me to be a cruel conclusion to a life spent observing her religion as closely as she could.

So a priest comes to see her to discuss her concerns. She is old school, she hangs on his every word. He is a priest she has known for years and she trusts him to interpret God's plan for her. She tells him she wonders if God exists, she fears death because it could simply be the end of everything. What if there's no life after death? What if she never sees her husband again, never sees her parents, or all those she loved who went before her? The promises of Scripture ring hollow and, in her advanced age, she can't remember what it was that once gave her hope.

And the priest tells her that he feels the same way, that he has the same questions. I imagine some words of comfort, reassurance came after he told her that he shares her fears. He probably said, " . . . but the Lord has told us not to fear . . ."

She only heard what he said before the "but" statement. All she absorbed is that the priest, the one with the direct line to God, the one whose faith surely must never waiver, that the priest has fears too.

So she, who can be outrageously funny and talkative and the life of the party, is now despondent and fearful. This is not the way it should be. I want to see her at peace, assured of her salvation, resting in the anticipation of an eternity spent in perfect bliss. She deserves to walk home in peace, basking in love.