The Mediocre Samaritan

11:15 pm. 

I pull out of the parking garage at Albany Medical Center, brain fried from hours of instruction for something new on my job.  It feels like 30 below nothing outside, and it’s times like these when I wonder why I adore upstate New York so much.  (I guess even the best of our earthly loves have flaws). 

I turn the corner in front of that big complex where my beloveds were saved and I make a little living.  Alas, the heat in the car will most likely kick all the way in when I arrive in my driveway.  The pillow, the electric blanket, no doubt the cat, are waiting for my tired bones.

I nearly hit her.  

Walking down the double yellow, in this frozen tundra, is a woman with her hand up to stop my car.

   

Thankfully the engine of my brain was still functional.  I stopped, and she swept frantically to my window, motioning for me to open it to all that cold.  She looked frozen.

“Please, please I need help.  I’m freezing, and I just left the hospital…I was discharged after chemo and I need a ride to Central Ave. “ She said a few other things that made almost no sense, but she was a wreck because of the cold.

One split second to decide.  “Sweet Jesus”, I prayed, “If she’s got a gun I’m done for.”

 “Get in the car” I said. 

She was groaning in pain.  She couldn't even put her seat belt on because her hands hurt so much.

 

“Where can I take you?”  I asked, a bit nervous, and kind of stunned after practically killing this lady with my van and not having any idea where this was going.

“Why is it so cold in here?”  She groaned.  “Takes a while to heat up…”  I tried to speak calmly.

“All I need is $17.50 for a bus ticket to Lake George” she said.  I only had $6 in my wallet.  “Sorry, I don’t have that cash on me”…and I wasn't sure I’d give it to her if I did.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

“There’s these church people off of Central Avenue who have my bag and my prescriptions.  I need to go there.  And I’m hungry and I need a cup of coffee.” She said.  Maria was her name.  Maria, from the Hebrew word mara, which means “bitter”  Bitter cold, bitter life.  I was getting the picture.

“I have a three year old in Lake George with a babysitter” Maria said.  I wasn't sure I believed her. 

“Listen Maria, I will take you to the bus station and buy you that ticket to Lake George”.

The tune changed.  “Oh no, I can’t go.  I've got to get to these people and get my stuff.  I thought you said you didn't have any money”.

“Only a credit card”, I said.  And now I’m getting a revelation. 

“I’ll get you a coffee, and something to eat.  I can drop you at the City Mission.  That’s a safe place.” 

“The food would be good” she said.  “But I need to get my stuff”.

I offered to wait while she got it, and drive her to the mission, but that wasn't her plan.  I bought her a large coffee with 10 sugars and cream and a fish sandwich and fries, and felt sad as the key finally turned in the lock and I realized that she was probably a heroin addict. She most likely was lying, as addicts do, about everything.  I told her the meal was from Jesus, in His name, and I apologized for seeming less than comforting.  I was feeling conflicted.

She thanked me for the food, asked if she could have my 4 quarters I keep in the front of my car for my Aldi’s shopping carts, and directed me to where she wished to be dropped off.  At the corner near the “church people’s house”.  I dropped her off, and followed her to make sure she made it to the dark doorway she entered.   

 I wanted so much to fix her broken life.  But all God gave me to do was drive her to McDonald’s and most likely the warm house of a fellow junkie and give her four quarters and a person to listen to her. 

I felt like the mediocre Samaritan.  Reluctant, tired, unspiritual, half annoyed, and of little lasting help. 

Except that I called on God to care for her.  He has power when all we have is a lukewarm car and some chump change.

When I arrived home, I cried and laid down my head with gratitude bursting from every fiber of my being.  Thanks for a home, with a warm bed waiting and a dear man who loves me there too.  For three children, safe upstairs under blankets with warm showers to anticipate in the morning.  Thanks that I could have been that woman, easily, but I am not.  Thankful that I have been spared the catastrophe of an addiction that destroys everything it touches.  Thankful that goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, despite a crippling car accident and the heartache that followed.   Despite my own sin and folly.

Blessed be His Name.

 I’ll never get over the grace of God. Tortured, broken and alone He bought it for us. It’s there for me.  It’s there for you.

 It’s there for Maria. 

Please pray for her.     

    

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

The Great Sorting

My daughter is cleaning out her dresser.

A daunting undertaking.

So goes the sorting:  out with the unnecessary, impractical, too small, too big.  What will be discarded in this season, having served a purpose?  What should have been chucked long ago?  What was always uncomfortable but kept because...who the heck knows why?

Decisions, decisions.

And here I am, past the middle of my life, standing before a pile of choices, a pile of non-choices, and a ticking clock.  I sort, because I desperately want to live for the glory of God in the midst of this messy world.

I can’t look back lest I become like Lot’s wife and turn into a pillar of salt.  Frozen hard like stone with the regrets of a past I cannot change.  I won’t look back because the lover of my soul says this:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” 

  Isaiah 43:18-19

So I lay the past aside, only keeping from it that which teaches and builds and strengthens.  And the wrenching will cause me to have to lay some things aside again that I have pulled back from the wretched pile of wasted time.  But grace gently repeats the sounding joy:

“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”     ~Philippians 3:13-14

I sort through the present.  What can go, what must go?  What must be wrenched from my hands with reason and sanity, like one opening the fingers of a child holding too tightly to a small animal until the breath is wrung from the thing?

For three years I have sorted and let go of far more than I ever wished.  I wanted to control the content of my life.  I wanted to be the maestro.  I wanted to conduct rather than play the instrument I was born to play.  (OK, I’m mixing metaphors here…) I’m still working this out day by day, sorting, sorting.  Write that letter or watch my British detective show?  Make that easy phone call for my child, or do the harder thing and make them do it themselves?  Make time for my husband when I’m tired, or turn of f the light?  Here’s one far more tender:  worry for my injured, suffering child, or entrust her to God’s care?

Sorting, sorting. 

Between what’s good and what’s better.

Between what looks good to the outside world, and what’s really good to the All Seeing.

Between myself and the other one.

Between empty, guilt driven good works, and living, faith filled good attitudes.

The floor of my life is messy.  But the grace of my Jesus is clean, beautiful, perfect.  All I need to do to sort my present right is to seek my God who knows what really matters.  To bend, to yield, to listen.  To trust Him who does all things well.  Who hears the roar of Wall Street and the wee voice of a child with cerebral palsy in a group home in Toledo.  Who knows the heart of Barack Obama and the kid pitching his first little league game.  Who understands all about the lady in some dusty town in Afghanistan who has been battered by the law, when what she needs is the mercy of a Savior.  Who told the Pharisee he was a fool and the criminal he would be in paradise.

He doesn't sort the way we do.  Blessed be His Name.

As for the future, I can’t sort that at all.  I’m sick to death of trying.  I watch a Western world, gathering more for retirement, planning their later years in ease, trying to find a wall tall enough to keep them safe from the sorrow and darkness of a world turning colder.

I sorrow.  Partly because of the part of me that even wishes I could chase after those things. If I could, would I build bigger barns, and store up treasures for MYSELF?  Probably.  But He giveth more grace.*

 And partly because I see my people deceived and hoodwinked and sorting in all the wrong ways.  Keeping the worthless, discarding the precious. 

And here is where I long to sort rightly.  To make the time to tell the truth about Jesus, friend of sinners like me.  To be like the free folks in the movie “The Matrix”, and leave all the junk behind in one great effort to wake up a plugged in world to the reality of the cosmic deception:  This is all there is.

A million times I fall short.  But He giveth more grace.*

.

I’m still sorting it out day by day.  It’s messy.  And I write here friends, because I bet your drawers are stuffed with junk just like mine.  I’m quite sure your piles have a different assortment of stuff that’s got to go.  Let’s keep sorting…so we can get one hand free to help somebody else who doesn't even know they’re in a heap of hell.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

**

He Gives More Grace

He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again. 

Lyrics by Annie J. Flint

The Truth About Fiction

Fiction is bursting with truth.  Not fact, but truth.  Sometimes a fairy tale expresses verity far more wisely and beautifully than a news account ever could.  My heart has been changed by great fiction in its various forms. 

I'm no Roger Ebert, in fact, I rarely go to the movies these days.  I think each person has to figure out for themselves how much, and of what, they give access to this stunning organ between our ears.  I'm very careful here of the two extremes of legalism and license.  To quote the Apostle Paul:

"All things are lawful to me, but not all things are profitable.  All things are lawful to me, but not all things edify".  ~1 Corinthians 10:23

(I digress a little from my main point, but it's worth saying:  Each one must decide what type and degree of media they allow through the synapses.  Some folks are extremely sensitive, and negatively affected by certain images and types of stories.  Others are less so.  And I'm not even talking about material that is clearly garbage or clearly wicked.  I'm talking about the amount, nature and character of the reasonable communication we import into our souls.  I struggle with that tension daily.  Make no mistake, though, what you watch and listen to will impact your mind and heart.  Nuf said.)

What prompted this blog is actually the wonderful fiction I have been viewing/reading of late, and how much I have gained from it in my walk with God on this deception-ridden pilgrim road.  In particular, I have been drowning in J.R.R. Tolkien, having seen Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit", rereading the same, and re watching "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy (not all at once!). The themes of perseverance, the noble struggle to overcome evil, the joy and blessing of true friendship...all of these and many more have charmed me through these fairy tales packed with life and truth.  When Bilbo Baggins has mercy on the nasty and pathetic Gollum, I find conviction rising up within...and the reminder of the Savior's call to mercy on the last and least.  When Gimli the Dwarf and Legolas the Elf fight side by side as friends despite a gazillion years of entrenched "racism", I can pray hopefully for a world gone mad with misunderstanding.  And in my favorite scene of all in any Jackson film, I am encouraged by Samwise Gamgee.  What a beautiful metaphor for the brotherhood of the church when Frodo can't carry his burden one step further.  Sam knows he can't take on the ring...but he can carry Frodo!  That moment reminded  me to go and sit with a dear friend whose problem I cannot fix, but with whom I can share soup and bread and the comfort of mere presence.

I must admit, many of the tales I love belie the cynicism of the post modern era.  I'm pretty sure some of my fellow students from NYU film school would find me unsophisticated.  (Not all of them...I had some pretty wonderful and open minded friends at that bastion of "individuality" who really were tolerant and kind!  My own film crew, very different from me politically and ideologically, loved me just the way I am!)  I still like a story where the bad guy gets busted, and where complicated characters make me root for them to do the right thing.  I'm not ashamed to say I love a good old fashioned tale of good vs. evil.  It's the cosmic metaphor, and I think it resonates with the very nature of our being.  Enough to alter our way of thinking...and doing.

A quote by my favorite fiction (and non-fiction) author of all time:

“Children are not deceived by fairy-tales; they are often and gravely deceived by school-stories. Adults are not deceived by science-fiction; they can be deceived by the stories in the women’s magazines.”
~ C.S. Lewis

There is great truth in fiction.  And much of what passes for "fact" is rubbish in the extreme.  Give me "The Light Princess" by George MacDonald over the "fact based" TV show "The View" any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  No offense to fans of The View, but I'm pretty sure I'll profit more from Aesop's Fables.  And that's not sarcasm.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

One Word For A New Year

I sought for it.

I learned of an idea for the new year that made me glad...a new way that is better than resolutions and broken promises that are forged from frail human metal.  The idea of living with one word was so much more  doable for an easily distracted, too easily discouraged girl like me.

So I sought for it.  I looked at websites.  I listened to sermons.  I listened to my friends words, my family's words, the words mundane and the words profound.  I listened and sought and looked to God.

No great flash of light.  I had to choose.

"Change is possible, but focus is required.",  I read.  I must change.  But effort born of a self betterment mentality can turn quickly into pride, introspection, and one can wind up a pharisee and be worse off than before.

I had been compiling a list.  Asking myself questions.

What does God want for my life?  What do I most need to be more like the lovely Jesus?  Is it possible to change the broken mindsets of a woman who has lived 52 years struggling to believe she is loved, not just tolerated?

How I wanted the word to be so rich.  So unique.

But as often happens, one puts one foot in front of the other, and life happens while we're making other plans.  And I listened and I listened to hear His word, and in the seeking it settled in slowly, but not profoundly.

It was there in my list, but not particularly special.  So in rolled the new year, and I had to pick.

I listened.

Listen. Listen, Listen.

I, who spend too much time talking.  Broken by all the times I've missed hearing the hearts of others because I'm too busy trying to fix everything. Busted by the times I've interrupted my husband to get my point across.  Desperate to be gracious.  Longing to hear God, others and my own heart.  Could I do this, in the noise of this present darkness and the folly of my own babble?

Yes.  By the grace of God (there is no other way),  listening would be my appointed governor for the next 364, a simple word without complicated rules. I would certainly fall down, but I would get up with this one word.   Already, I see its power.

Tired, hungry I speak ill of another.  Out of envy, ugly words rise up from a redeemed heart that has forgotten its redemption.  I listen to myself.  And quickly, blessedly I run to repent.  I listen to the Great One, ancient words spoken to how many millions?... "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.."  "Now go, and sin no more."  And I listen a little more.  "Who are you to judge another man's servant?  To His own master he stands or falls.  And he will stand, for God is able to make him stand."

Sweet relief comes with the listening, and action:  my prayers lifted for the one I cut down, my heart turning, changing.  A determination comes to close my mouth, that member St. James calls "a restless evil".  And not only that.  Listening means acting on what one hears.  Apologies in order. Listening becomes hearing becomes doing.

No, it's not a sexy word.  It was sought for, but I think it might have found me, perhaps in the place of my greatest need.

All those broken down promises, like grist in a mill for millions every year:

Lose weight
Get your finances in order
Find dream job

Nothing wrong with any of those resolutions folks make every new year.  But I'm wagering those of you reading here have already found the discouragement of that route.  Ultimately too, on that list of good things, aren't the truly important missing?

Love God
Love others

Jesus perfected the art of keeping it simple.  How we need that in a world of fiscal cliffs, babies shot down, a gazillion tweets and the din of a technological world spinning out of control.

Maybe one word can help.  Just one.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

Here's a link to the One Word book.  I haven't read it, but I've heard good things.   www.myoneword.org

Resolve To Be A Took...A Thought For The New Year

“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

I am so much more a Baggins' than a Took.  And if you don't know what I'm talking about, well, all I can say is sit yourself down with the Hobbit (first the book, then the movie), because J.R.R. Tolkien's imagination will take your breath away.  But for the un-Tolkiened among us, a bit of an explanation:  Bilbo Baggins, a fine and sensible Hobbit, comes from a fine and sensible line of Baggins'.  Safe folk, who smoke pipes by the fire and enjoy their books and their gardens and their quiet, predictable lives.  But Bilbo has the blood of the Took's running through his veins as well.  Took's... who love adventure, risk and all that requires a noble courage.

Oh, how I wish I were a Took by nature!  It all calls to me...the wonder, the unknown, the life given away for something greater.  Alas, I am no Took.  Left to my own devises I would revel in a comfortable, untroubled life, without trials, without temptations to evil, without the blunt trauma of life on planet earth.  Thank God, He has not left me to my own devises.

Three years ago my husband and daughter barely survived the hellish nightmare of being slammed into head-on by a drunk driver.  My Hercules was only allowed to come home after 6 weeks under the condition that there would be someone there who could clean wounds, give injections and move a non ambulatory patient.  That someone would be ME.   At that time I borrowed a slogan and mixed it up a bit: "Some people are born nurses, some achieve nursing, and some have nursing thrust upon them."  You know where this is going.  I was not among the heroic first two.

It's the same with being "Tookish".  Some are born that way, some achieve it, and some have it thrust upon them.  I am ever grateful that I've been forced out of my Baggins ways.  But I have every propensity to shrink back.  Thank God His grace is so big, and that He doesn't answer all our prayers for comfort and ease.  Otherwise we would never scale a mountain of fear, never overcome a bitter heart, never find that we are more than flesh and blood. We'd fall in love with the worthless and never find the precious. I'm guessing the few who might read this have experienced their share of heartache and loss and disaster and pain.  Oh, Courage! Carry on, my friends, and give thanks that your life has not followed your plan.  Broken marriages, cancer, children dying, bankruptcy, car accidents, wrecked relationships, loneliness, addiction, disappointment, aging, unanswered prayers, and the whole, sweeping mess of sorrows and sicknesses were never God's plan.  The cost of free will is so very high...but the Great One takes all these broken consequences of The Fall to make stout-hearted Tooks out of us.  People who would stand by His side and fight for light in the darkness.  He Himself did not shirk the dark, but took on human flesh and became the ultimate Took.  He exchanged the earthly walking stick, that beautiful God/Man of peace, and took up the sword when He demolished death and sent hell scrambling forever by His own bloody sacrificial death.  Now, it's just a guerrilla war.  God has won.  But it will require a noble courage to beat off the darkness of a defeated foe whose days are most certainly numbered.

Lest all this sound dreary and dispiriting, keep in mind the cheer and contentment of ascending to the heights after a daunting climb! Not to mention that the fire and the book are part of life too!  Oh friends, as we tumble into a new year, let's forget what is behind and lay hold of what's ahead.  In the small, in the everyday, in our ordinary lives, in our trouble.. we can fight for light.  The real battle happens one day at a time; real courage shows itself strong in the endurance of one-foot-in-front-of-the-other.  Once again Tolkien says it so well:

“Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Gandalf”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

This new year, this gift, will most certainly challenge us with trials and testings.  After all, Jesus said it Himself:

"In this world you will have trouble.  But take courage, I have overcome the world."  John 16:33

Take courage friends.  Do the next small, right thing.  Be a Took.  Even if it's thrust upon you.  And have a Happy New Year!

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

The Twisting Agony and The Relentless Hope

Some days, all we have is hope. 

 

Two teenagers are dead.  Two are seriously injured.  Round and round we go again.  A drunk driver chooses darkness, and the worlds of 4 families double over.  Calamity.  Catastrophe.   His own life, too, is permanently devastated.  The grip of the fall squeezes hard again, reminding us, oh, reminding us in our half asleep state, how dangerous it is to make this fragile present our all in all .  And today, all I can do is what David did in the Psalms…lament, get angry, weep and, God help me, continue to hope.

 

The vaporous delights of this earth must eventually bump up against its miseries.  Perhaps I sound like a pessimist.  I am striving not to be.  Straining against pain and anguish at the fallout for my own child of someone else’s sin, I have grappled with this first hand.  It is a relentless choice to remember the foamy waves of Coast Guard Beach, the flavor of Stewart’s raspberry chocolate swirl frozen yogurt, the big, silly yawn of my tortoise shell cat…and the thousands of other blessings that make this darkness tolerable.  When all is, as Herman Melville so aptly put it, “…a damp, drizzly November in my soul…” I lean hard on ancient truths.  I remember this was never the plan…dead children, cancer wards, open sewers through Port au Prince, heroin addiction, gambling addiction, food addiction, alcohol addiction, prayerlessness, joylessness, hopelessness.  These were all foreign to the One who made wind, green grass, open seas, life in the womb, light bursting forth, relationship, friendship, love!

 

“God is light.  In Him there is NO DARKNESS AT ALL.”

1 John 1:5

 

I understand the question.  The big WHY.  I have spoken it loud myself, banging hard on the floor, kicking against the very walls of the only boat keeping me from drowning.  There are many why’s tonite, as  parents order coffins for lifeless ones who brimmed life 48 hours before.  They will groan, and writhe and stand stupefied…and I stand with them, and pray they will one day renew their hope. 

 

God is light.  But He entered into our darkness.  The most pure and righteous, the very bone and sinew of life and beauty, subjected the most beloved of His heart to a cruel death at the hands of human beings on a devastated planet.  He refused to stand by and watch our pain, brought forth by the wretchedness of our collective turning from light to darkness.  He spoke once and finally in a great, broken-hearted voice of a father grieving over the pain of the great cost of free will.  He crashed through eternity into time, to a dusty, backwoods Israeli town, knee deep in animal waste and stink.  From here, without ever taking away our right to choose, He called us back to His heart with mind bending mercy.  Not from the throne of heaven did He weep, but from the torture of a cross, fully acquainted with our grief.  

So many prayers for the family and friends of all those involved in the terrible DWI crash on Saturday night.  It makes no sense.  There are no convenient answers to the big WHY.  But hope remains.  Tenacious, scrappy, unrelenting hope.  He sees.  He knows.  He is Emmanuel...God with us.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann 

 

Thanksgiving: When Styrofoam Beats China

It was a beautiful Thanksgiving this past Thursday.  Twenty six sterling souls found spots, with six more filing in for Hannah’s cheesecake, Kate’s inimitable pies, Susan’s pumpkin made from, well, actual pumpkin, and other desserts brought by other beloveds.  This however, was not a Martha Stewart Thanksgiving.  And though it was far more comfortable and bountiful than that first Pilgrim feast, it resembled the bedraggled wonder of that celebration in spirit more than the polish of a Hallmark card by a turkey trot mile.

Each person, this hostess first and foremost, came to dinner with their own brand of brokenness.  Most of us, blessed beyond any of our mortal powers to get a grip on, gave thanks either quietly or out loud for this: the unreserved, undeserved mercy we have consumed from the table of a generous God.  And those that didn’t, or couldn’t, were loved just the same while we wait for the great revelation.

Our WW2 pilot with his oxygen mask, now on hospice, smiled a toothless grace.  Our dear friend, finding her way after a difficult move and relational upheaval, shines nonetheless.  A Vietnam double purple -heart war hero still weeps over the death of his dog, 10 years his only companion.  Children of divorce, children fighting depression, children climbing a mountain of unjust suffering…all these belie the famous Norman Rockwell painting, but not the reality of those sturdy Mayflower pilgrims.

This year I relaxed and enjoyed the rugged beauty of our ragtag band of grateful hearts.  I worked hard, but never felt stressed.  I burned my fingers, didn’t mash the carrots enough, and had lumps in my gravy, but I delighted in the bent moments.   Author of “The Message” paraphrase of the Bible, the brilliant Eugene Peterson, wrote a book called “Christ Plays in a Thousand Places”.  I found Jesus there in the midst of a noisy, messy, heartbreaking, hilarious, troubled, perfectly imperfect gathering of ones He so loves.  I left behind Martha’s china and opted for Styrofoam plates and plastic cups.  There was no gourmet, but there was a horn of plenty of real love and a full portion of wild laughter.  Like those aliens of 1620, we patched together a banquet of thanks on the rocky shores of trials and yet unanswered prayers.  My sore feet were no match for my heart, wrapped in the luxurious comfort of joy.  Surely the Lord is Good.  As Ann Voskamp so aptly put it:    

 “God is good” is not a stale one-liner when all’s happy but a saving lifeline when all’s hard.”

So   three years after a horrific car accident nearly killing husband and daughter, and almost a year since I thought I might never smile again, I find the potent medicine of thanks, and I stand on the shoulders of sea-crossers from ages past.  None of the pilgrims from my table have smooth travels, behind or before them.  But they have this; an unyielding Grace from a Sovereign God.  The finest food, the most costly silverware, the loveliest centerpiece, all the treasures of this passing present are rubbish in comparison. 

You, my friends, walking this unpredictable pilgrim road with me, take the tonic of thanks in the midst of your war against cynicism, despair and unbelief.  Be strong, and of good cheer!  This world is not our home, we’re only passing through.  Surely we are strangers here.  With tenacious kindness and unshakable faith…and not an ounce of judgment, let’s take as many people home with us as will come. 

Your grateful friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

The Gift of Passion

I wake up with it every morning.  It dogs me in the middle of my honey wheat bagel breakfast.  Turn around, and there it is again while I flip stupidly through droning radio talk show hosts in the car. Checking my emails, vacuuming the living room, worrying about my children, chiding myself for being not being a good enough wife.  Always the passion is there.  Always it haunts me.  The passion to know God. 

Me, a fallen woman living in a fallen world, can’t escape the Glory.  In Walmart of all places there is glory. Walking among the power bars I hear the words spoken by God to Moses:

“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,  maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”  Exodus 34:6-7

Moses asked God to let him see His face.  And God said no, because he didn't want a dead deliverer on His hands.  Trembling, in the presence of the Ultimate Fact, Moses’ passion to know God trumped his fear of God.  And God, wanting Moses to experience Him, made a way by showing the prophet his back.

It hits me like a meteor hurtling from space.  This truth that has defined me for my whole adult life, that I have often taken so very lightly as if God were some good fairy looking for good little children to bless, this truth that  is terrifying and compelling at the same time and I can’t escape the passion.  Some days I want to.  I want an easy, dignified life.  I have had neither.  Nor did Moses.  Or any other person with a passion.

Passion in any context is messy.  It stumbles over itself in the learning.  It impacts everything around it.

I met a man when I was working in public television who was a model train expert.  This man wore the railroad hat and everything.   I mean, this was before the Thomas the Tank Engine craze, and this guy was completely off his rocker for trains.  His wife was “on board”, or else he would have been divorced.  His entire basement and many of the other rooms in his house were completely taken over by tracks, trains, little plastic people and animals, fences, and all manner of miniature railroad paraphernalia.  When he talked about trains he was transformed from a guy living in a little house in New Jersey to a railroad king.  He would converse about something else for a little while, but under every other word his passion for model trains leaked out.  It was part of him, and he couldn't have escaped it if he wanted to.

In all the sorting out of my relationship with God I have done over the past three years, in the midst of excruciating pain and deep humiliation, He has left me with the gift of passion. I couldn't escape it if I wanted to.  In fact, when my desires have been for the lesser joys of this material world, and the great passion has waned, He has been to me as he was to Moses and shown me a glimpse of Himself.  I’m ruined for anything less.  CS Lewis, as always, says it best:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

I’m no special case.  We were all made for passion.  Those longings you have for something greater than yourself, for something more than your own small desires, those are the whispers of a passionate God, who takes it slow so as not to kill you with the glory.  But make no mistake, we aren't dealing with a fairy.  This is the Ultimate Reality, who wants us to have ultimate joy.  He won’t settle for anything less.  Hence the passion of His very own Son.

I’m off to seek ultimate joy, in the midst of buying jeans for my son, making meatloaf and sweeping my dining room floor.  Because God does not dwell on a mountain, but in the hearts of men.  And passion can abide in the most unlikely places.  You seek it too, friend.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

The Gospel Up in My Grill

Dear Friends,

My youngest child sometimes uses the expression: "You're getting up in my grill".

I think I know what he means.

Brother Tom spoke it from the pulpit yesterday and Sister Cindy sang it.  The book, The Discipline of Grace by Jeffrey Bridges sorts it out this morning and the Book of Romans, chapter 8 to be specific, takes the cake.  (Enoch read it in church from The Message version and it was like I was hearing it all over again for the first time...) I am undone and bewildered once more by the truth of the gospel.  The plain truth is this: Jesus Christ died to save sinners…not just sinners, but this sinner, with a reckless compassion and an audacious grace.  And what’s more, what’s rash and northeast-blizzard wild is that my performance has nothing to do with the matter.  On my most wretched, worldly, ugly days that grace abounds as much as on the days I think myself spiritual.  

Oh, how we world weary, self weary folks need the infusion of this bedrock foundation while we walk, climb or crawl the pilgrim road!  It is only trust in this unmoving love that can change us.  Only here, in the place of the finished work, where we are not judged, but loved…only here can we change.  Not by striving.  Not by being especially good today.  But by believing.  And by receiving, every day, the gift of grace. 

So I’m posting this today because The Great One brought His gospel around to me from so many directions it got funny.  I am the proverbial barn door that simply can’t be missed.  I, a Christian for almost 27 years, am again rebooted to the truth that set me free…and I require this ridiculous repetition to recall (how’s that for alliteration) that it’s the only truth that will keep me free. And I thought maybe there was someone out there who needed to be reminded too.  Simply.  Without fanfare.  (Except the reality of this should bring in the marching bands from the billions of galaxies in the known universe.)

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…”

Breathe some of that fresh air…let that get up in your grill...and keep climbing.

Thank you Tom, Cindy, Enoch, Mr. Bridges, dear Apostle Paul….

Thank you Jesus.  I can never pay the debt.  And you would never ask me to. That’s the mind blowing gospel.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

Done Clean

It’s the catch phrase at my house lately.  “I’ve been done dirty.”  These colloquialisms cycle through the vocabulary of my teenage boys in a fairly predictable rotation.  I’m plagiarizing their kitsch slogan to communicate the current turnings of my heart. 

With a twist:

“I’ve done dirty”. 

Perhaps it takes seeing the still down-dirty in ourselves to truly glory in the gospel of done clean. 

In that mess between my ears (and yours?) is the primordial soup of lust, envy, discontent and a whole lot of other uglies that can’t be thunk away.  They must be washed away. 

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

That’s the low down on the down dirty. 

Instead of animal skins to cover that shame, the reckless, bloodletting Son washes it away in scouring mercies that stab from too dear a love for such a wretch as I.

He was done dirty so we would be done clean.

Blessed be His name.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann