Remembering the Purple Iris

Yesterday as I walked toward work under a dark sky, I looked ahead at the way I needed to go... I saw a staircase and sighed with weariness as I contemplated what I needed to walk towards and through in my day. The lowering clouds seemed to underline the weight I carried... I happened to be walking with a friend, a very dear friend, who noticed some deep purple irises planted by the way we were walking... she said, "Oh, I need to smell those!" her exuberance drew me along in its wake... I too smelled the iris and said "It smells like purple" because I had heard her say this of the smell of iris before. She smile and noted the ruffly edge of each petal and murmured "God is SO extravagant!" I smiled and as we parted I carried the memory of that iris with me... still had to walk up those stairs into the darkness of my day, nothing of the circumstances of what I had to carry would change... but I did carry the smell of purple with me as I walked....

God Alone Knows....

Well, I'm reading through Job now and it seems to me that there are 4 guys talking a lot about things they know nothing about... they appear to be trying to understand God and explain how we "ought" to live to make things "work"... it's pretty clear that they don't know what they are talking about... no clue as to what is really going on... I wonder what God wanted us to know about Him when He gave us this piece of writing... it seems clear to me that suffering is inexplicable in Job's story and somehow God shows us a man who continues to trust Him despite his personal suffering... and how that suffering is increased by his friends... wow... how do I do that? Where am I clueless as I talk to those in pain? What would be a better way to respond to their hurt?

Something like "I don't know why this is happening to you. I am so sorry." Perhaps that is it? I believe that God is good despite the circumstances, but is that helpful to hear when you are hurting?

Please lead me with Your Spirit and I walk through this day and come in contact with hurting people....

Whole Hearted

^{2 Chronicles 12:12} Because Rehoboam humbled himself, the LORD’s anger turned from him, and he was not totally destroyed. Indeed, there was some good in Judah... ¹⁴ He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the LORD.

I want to be about more than "some good"... what would it look like to "set my heart on seeking the LORD"?

Sunday morning we sang these words:

"He became sin

Who knew no sin

That we might become His Righteousness"

Words from the song "Jesus Messiah" by Chris Tomlin based, I suppose, on the passage in 2 Cor. 5:21:"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

I wonder how I might be the righteousness of God today?

A little before this in the same passage it says:

"For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." (emphasis mine)

What does it mean that "all died"... something to consider that those who have died are no longer under the law.... how might I live today freed from the law of sin and death?

Romans 7:1 "...the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives... 4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. ⁵ For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. ⁶But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code." (emphasis mine)

Also this morning, another line from a Chris Tomlin song, "Here I am to Worship":

"I'll never know how much it cost to see my sins upon that cross--" (emphasis mine)

I frequently substitute the word "sin" with the word "Friend"... as if the two words are engraved on the opposing sides of a flat oval disk which spins and flips over and over until they are a blur... no longer one or the other but one and the same thing, a new thing, a three dimensional shape that exists in and of itself... a mystery.

... we who serve God by the Spirit.... Phil. 3:3

Is that me... really?

Phil 3:8-11

"8 I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,...that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead." (emphasis mine)

What does it mean that I "belong to another" and "serve in the new way of the Spirit" as I walk into my world today?

The Kingdom of Heaven

Matthew 13: ³⁷ He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. ³⁸ The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels."

I was looking for the kingdom of heaven this morning... I found this particular passage in my search. This is a good reminder to me today that I need not worry about the weeds... He has already taken care of that... He has appointed harvesters who have the job of sorting things out in His time... that isn't my job.
Allow me to rest in this today.

Process

I created this coil while I was listening to my friend Dawn talk during her workshop entitled: "Vocabularies of Sight and Touch, Sound and Movement, Texture and Taste: Embodying Our Words in Writing, Art, and Life".






The thing that fascinates me is that I was not "thinking" about what I was doing as I was shaping this form... at least not very much... I had initially selected a different colored (green) rectangular prism of modeling clay and suddenly remembered some beads I saw in my friend Merna's shop earlier that week when I was there with my daughter Zoe. The beads were green lady bugs... and I thought about making a lady bug (lady bugs hold a deep personal significance for me)... but I didn't want it to be green... so I returned the green bar and picked up a "red" one... because I thought I was going to make a lady bug.... As Dawn talked, I began squeezing the bar into a lump... I continued to squeeze it until I decided to punch a hole in the center and make a circle... I was trying to open the circle as far as I could without breaking the circuit I continued squeezing throughout the entire process... I didn't roll a "snake" as I would usually approach using clay like this.... The entire time my conscious mind was focused on my friend's thoughts... this was a new experience for me... to make unconsciously....






I'll insert this thought here... though I am not sure I was thinking it at the time, but prior to leaving I was talking with my daughter about going into this weekend with an open mind... there was something about openness/vulnerability that was a conscious/unconscious part of this weekend for me. I was surrounded by strangers and in an unfamiliar context and there was an ongoing sense of "listening to the Spirit's leading" as I journeyed into the weekend... I was also unsure how "open" I should/could be... but more about that in a moment....






It was important to me somehow to make the circuit as large, as open as I could... at some point the circuit kept breaking and I kept mending it and trying to make it larger and more open... I finally decided that it couldn't open any farther and began to compress the coil back onto itself... this made some interesting curves to the circuit... I kept compressing until the entire circuit could fit onto my hand... I closed the opening in the circuit by continuing to compress the coil until it was a flat shape with all the curves touching all of the other curves... no opening to speak of at the center... only the small spaces between the curved coils... as I looked at that flat shape it sort of resembled intestines to me...






I don't know at what point I recalled the ancients believed that our souls resided in our bowels... and at some point in history we began referring our "hearts", not sure what caused it to move... but the culture at large values our "brains"... all these thoughts have been rolling around inside me, but I don't know the exact chronology or sequence that they came... often we speak about moving from what we know in our heads into what we know in our hearts... somehow this circuit began to connect this disparate housing of our souls... there is a connection between brain and bowel... the life that flows through us is a continual circuit between these and encircles our hearts as well... if you think of blood flowing through this circuit... providing life energy to the entire being... there is truth embodied in this piece....






After looking at the flat shape, I decided to fold it over and enclose it into a sphere... I don't know exactly why, but later I recalled the rest of the conversation with my daughter... she had said to me (after I explained that I wanted to enter the weekend with an open mind) something to the effect of "Yes, momma, have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out."






I looked at this shape and then someone in the group called it a brain... it was then I thought of my daughter's words to me... I wondered many times about the twofold meaning (or perhaps more) of that sentence... I found myself entering a space physically that I never imagined I would go (my friend's talk was held in the LGBT center of the MSU campus - I didn't know what those letters stood for until I saw the sign above the door with the words spelled out Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender)... many of the folks I met that weekend identified themselves as Queer... what an interesting word....






I remember discussing boundaries with one of the participants... when reflecting on my daughter's comment it seemed that openness does have a boundary... but where to set that boundary? My friend Dawn said, "Just don't set the boundary too soon." That seems important somehow....






What is trusting in the Spirit's leading? Isn't it "not setting the boundary too soon"? Will I be able to walk openly, trusting that the Spirit will carry me? Can I remain open/vulnerable and allow the Spirit to set the boundaries for me? What does that look like for me today?

A Good Reminder to Me Today

Humble yourselves... endure suffering... receive grace

1 Peter 5: 9b: "...because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

¹⁰ And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. ¹¹ To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen."

We are not alone in this life... even if we don't know all those who are fellow sufferers... and it really is only for a little while... even if our perceptions of time while in the midst of our suffering seems interminable....