The Power of Color

I had a fist-sized rock lodged firmly in the pit of my stomach. Too much work, too little time, too much anxiety. Suddenly while researching thumbnails of images for a freelance job, I ran across yellow.

A square of yellow filled with vines and leaves and butterflies. But mostly it was the yellow I saw. My spirit reacted immediately to the sunshine color. Stress was subdued, my brow unfurrowed itself, my soul softened.

I think in heaven there are colors beyond our wildest imagination, and they have more power than we know. Here on earth I can only taste a bit of the emotional impact that color has, and how it can unexpectedly make my soul respond and rejoice.

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Seek justice. Help the oppressed. ~ Isaiah 1:17

Sweet September

Sweet September. What a golden month it is, when summer clings to many of its days, and Autumn nudges into evenings and early mornings. There's a heaviness to the leaves now, sagging under the thickness of their deep green color. Here and there the landscape is startled by a tree that has jumped the gun and is already turning glorious shades of burgundy and mustard yellow.

I'm going to miss the symphony of crickets and frogs outside my window. Is part of the purpose of their sound to soothe the souls of humans and quiet their minds? I wonder.

My poor blog

I have been woefully neglecting my blog, and yet I've been yearning to blog again. Yes, ironic. The thing is, I've always used this space more to talk about my spiritual journey. But gosh, so many things are part of our soul and who we are. Maybe I won't worry if this morphs or transitions a bit. Maybe I'll just say what I want, whenever.

A Safe Place to Fall

K. will be moving in Sunday night. It was kind of hard to tell Carman because he has to move out of his little bedroom and into what we call the den, and sleep on the futon, which isn't very comfortable.But K. is 19 and has no place to go. She thought she was all right for awhile living in the apartment in back of her grandparent's store.

But her dad works there, and she found out that he was going through her dresser drawers while she was at work. When she stepped outside late one night and saw him sitting there in his truck with the lights off she knew she had to get out. I don't know the whole story of sexual and physical abuse. I only know that K., this young woman I've just gotten to know, needs a home for the summer.And yes, honestly, it feels a bit sacrificial. Carman and I live in a small mobile home, and a third person definitely makes a noticeable dent in our space -- especially for my son.

And yet, as my pastor quoted tonight from John 1:14 in The Message: "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood." So as a follower of Jesus I need to move into the neighborhood, not just do comfortable acts of kindness that assuage my guilt, not just hand someone a Bible and walk out of their life. I have to move in. Get my hands dirty. Walk alongside someone in need. Enter into all the messiness of life with someone who is in a very broken place.Once upon a time many years ago, another young woman came and lived with me for a short time. We lost touch through the years, but I always knew that I meant something to her.

The last time Sara called me she was a single career woman in her 30s and five months pregnant, with plans to give the baby up for adoption. She called at midnight. She called in pain and confusion and we talked a long time. I tried to call her back two or three times after that but never got her. And then about a year later I read her obituary in the paper. It didn't say how she died, but I knew she had struggled with suicidal feelings before, and so in my heart I know she killed herself. I've prayed many times like that to never stop reaching out to someone when they need me, to always do whatever I can to listen, to talk. To ask my son to move out of his bedroom, so that another young and hurting girl has a safe place to fall.

I'm doing it for Sara. I'm doing it because I want to grow in love.

A Tower of Yes

Each Yes of mine
I added to a tower of others.
With a deceptively sturdy base it
was so easy to add another yes-can.
It began with a foundation
I could build upon.
It was so simple to add one more
seemingly small, aluminum weight yes.
Yes, I can do that. Yes, I will call.
Yes, I will help. Yes, I can listen.
Yes, I will be there, do that, jump that hoop,
ride that rail, hoist that sail, drive that car.
Yes.
And one more.
And another.
But it got hard to reach the top of the pile.
I stretched.
The stack grew higher
And higher
and harder to balance.

And then one inevitable day
a final yes toppled into another.
And another.
And another.
And suddenly with a rush and roar
The cans of yeses tumbled down.
A waterfall of crashing cans
falling in a metallic scream
that finally echoed into silence.
And then...
I heard the calling of the sparrow,
and the singing of the crickets,
the soft brush of an angel’s wing.
And sitting there in my pile of
Yes rubbish
I could hear God’s whisper,
His voice beckoning,
asking me to follow him.
I only needed to answer
with one single, solitary,
Sacred and holy,
Joyful and liberating,
Life-giving, spirit-filling
Yes.
Oh yes.

Love as Choice

In his book Return from Tomorrow, George Ritchie talks about meeting a man who'd been a prisoner in the concentration camp where Ritchie was sent as a soldier right at the end of WWII. He talks about the amazing compassion "Wild Bill" had for all his fellow prisoners and how he was regarded as a friend to all. Wild Bill even counseled others to forgive the Germans for the atrocities they'd been through, and said this:

"We lived in the Jewish section of Warsaw. My wife, our two daughters, and our three little boys. When the Germans reached our street they lined everyone up against a wall and opened up with machine guns. I begged to be allowed to die with my family, but because I spoke German they put me in a work group. I had to decide right then whether to let myself hate the soldiers who had done this. It was an easy decision really. I was a lawyer. In my practice I had seen too often what hate could do to people's minds and bodies. Hate had just killed the six people who mattered most to me in the world. I decided then that I would spend the rest of my life - whether it was a few days or many years - loving every person I came in contact with."

Ritchie continues: "Loving every person...this was the power that had kept a man well in the face of every privation. It was the Power I had first met in a hospital room (during a Near Death Experience) in Texas, and was learning little by little to recognize wherever He chose to shine through - whether the human vehicle was aware of Him or not."

Here's to Love - to the will to love, to the choice of love, to our hearts opening wide and spilling out love during the moments of our lives. May the story of Wild Bill be another way God uses to point me to his Truth.