“Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:
If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.”
Ecc. 4-9, NIV
I’m just back from a quick trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama, where I snapped the
picture of these two little sandpipers running along the beach. They reminded
me of the Bible verse above, maybe because this was a lonely stretch of sand
and they seemed to be sticking close together.
A friend is a blessing!
I snapped a photo of this little boy last night at Lulu’s, a restaurant in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Turns out Lulu is owned and operated by Jimmy Buffet’s sister, which explains the beach-fun atmosphere and live music. I love that Lulu’s offers lots of things for kids to do and play with while their parents wait to be called to a table.
Love this New World translation of Matthew 18:3, too: “…Truly I say to you, Unless You turn around and become as young children, you will by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens.”
Isn’t it sad that when we grow up, we start feeling guilty about taking any time to play? We can worship God in our play as well as in our work, as long as we honor His creation and love each other.
Hope you will do something fun for yourself today, and revel in the joy that comes from remembering how to play!
We had a fierce storm last night–I mean, fierce. The winds were so strong, they blew rain right through the window screens, into the house and all over the floor, which made me hop up out of bed, when I realized what was happening, and grab a mob.
But before I rescued our floors, I ran out to the porch, where I’d left a couple of trays of seedlings. I knew that our gutters were packed with the last of autumn’s leaves, and soon rain would be pouring onto the railings where the seed trays sat. I saved them in time, although they took a bit of a beating from all that water.
When I got up this morning, I made the picture you see above. Not very impressive, is it? Just a plastic tray with a few tiny green shoots coming up. Or maybe that’s all you see at first glance. Squint a little, please, and use your imagination, and maybe you’ll see more.
To me, these are brave little seedlings. They’re still small and fragile. One hungry bird could take them out in a quick peck, or they could collapse from a fungal disease, since this spring has been cool and wet. But they haven’t. At least, not yet. They’re still standing, just growing their tiny hearts out.
Maybe it sounds silly, but I love that. Isn’t that what we are called to do, everyday? Sometimes we get pounded by the storms, and they can hit in our darker hours, when we’re feeling weak and defenseless. But you know something? We’re stronger than we guess, because we have have a living Spirit in us, just as these little plants have a life-spirit in them.
My seedlings made it through a bad-weather night, and now I’m looking forward to seeing them grow and bear fruit (tomatoes and peppers, in case you’re wondering). So, too, the Father waits for us to grow and bear fruit, and we can do this, because we know that the storms are not bigger or stronger than His love.
“…I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last….This is my command: love one another.” John 15:1-6-17, NIV
grace and peace,
Lynn
You’ve seen those “unplugged” concerts on TV, right? That’s when a musician–let’s say a guitarist–unplugs his instrument and amplifiers. He drags a tall stool onto the middle of the stage and climbs up on it. A cone of light shines down on him, spilling over his shoulders. While you watch and wait, he tunes his guitar; maybe he strums a few practice chords and props one foot on a rung.
You can’t see into the darkness that surrounds him. There’s just the musician on the stage, the guitar across his lap, and a golden pool of light.
Then he plays, and you really hear him. Not the amplification, not a back-up group or a band. Just the singer’s raw voice. Just the guitar’s pure music.
I thought about what it means to be unplugged the other day, when I came across an interview with the writer Anne Lamott. Lamott is wildly popular for her books on faith, which recount her journey from druggie and alcoholic to a deep and abiding faith. Lamott is a Sunday School teacher now, and a church-goer, but you’d never mistake her for some blue-haired grandmotherly type with a Bible under her arm. Her language can be profane, and pretty much everything about her life is unorthodox and unconventional. She has, I think, described herself as “Jesus-y,” not in the sense that she is “kind-of” committed to her faith (she is very committed), but because she’s not typical.
I’ve attended one of her talks, and the effect she has on people is amazing. The crowd that turns out to see her isn’t your usual church group. Instead, it’s likely to be made up of addicts and recovering addicts; gays; aging hippies; people who’ll stand up with tears in their eyes and say that they haven’t been to church for years and years because (fill in the blanks–there are so many reasons to fall away or run away), but now they’ve read her words and they feel God’s love again, and they’re so glad, because they’d felt lost and now they are found…and oh, yes. There are folks there that look and sound just like the regular Sunday morning worship group.
Lamott draws a crowd, I believe–she draws this crowd–because she writes about a Jesus whose love is so deep, so high, so limitless and sweet, that it reaches everyone. Everyone. No one has to feel left out or unwanted, because the Jesus she knows loves us all.
So. I came across the interview she gave the other day. And I read about how she has decided to unplug.
Lamott “unplugs” by not having a Facebook page. She doesn’t tweet or post on a blog. I don’t think she even has a website, other than a couple of fan sites people have created about her–but she’s not affiliated with those. Her agent has a site, so people can reach her there to book an appearance or request an interview.
But Lamott says that time is precious, and she has chosen not to engage in all this social networking stuff so she can be present for her family and friends and write. That’s it. She simply writes.
Most of us who are trying to build a writing career are told that we don’t have that luxury. We’re supposed to build a community, a following, by reaching out through every avenue available to us. We should have thousands of followers on each social platform. That’s what editors and agents want to see, if we’re asking them to publish our work. They want to know that we bring not only our best writing to the table, but also many potential readers. It’s all about the business of writing.
What would happen, I wonder, if we unplugged? If we didn’t worry about the platforms and the blog posts and we just wrote? Would readers find us, if our content was good enough? Or is the world so cluttered and noisy now, that nobody hears that single, raw voice?
Is the meditation of one heart enough anymore?
Gives another dimension of meaning, doesn’t it, to that line we hear on the commercials all the time: Can you hear me now?
Can you?
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14, KJV
Churches that sit alongside busy interstates get a lot of needy visitors, and the one where I worked was no exception. We met all kinds of people, like the construction worker whose job just ended, leaving him without a paycheck to cover his rent.
We saw single mothers with kids spread out in age from nursery school to high school, who ran out of milk and peanut butter and diapers. Sometimes a guy in an old car came by, saying he needed gas money to another state, where his family would take him in. Sometimes we met scary people whose eyes were glazed from drugs or drink, and it was hard to figure out what they even wanted.
But there was only one George.
George showed up one spring day, when the dogwoods were scattering their creamy petals all over the church parking lot like confetti in a parade. The wind was blowing, and when he opened the door to the church office, we felt it sweep in with him, a kind of restless, unsettled wind that wasn’t winter and wasn’t spring, just that moody, changeable, impulsive energy that pulses between the seasons.
There was something off about him, although we weren’t sure at first what it was. He stopped by the first time to ask us to heat up his cup of instant soup in our microwave. His pupils were huge and dark, and he talked non-stop, and so fast, we couldn’t answer his questions before he was saying something else. Some of what he said was nonsense. He’d been to another church that was going to buy him a ticket to go to Hawaii, he said. He had friends that let him stay at their house, but made him sleep outside. He knew all about the Bible, but he didn’t want to take the one we offered when he left.
The next time he came back, he asked us for shoes. Sure enough, the sneakers he had on were too small for his feet. Our associate pastor got a new pair for him, and he was on his way again.
In a few days, he was back, this time with a Styrofoam box of leftovers he had probably scavenged from a garbage can, and we let him sit in the office to eat it with utensils from our employee kitchen. He rambled about how 29 policemen were after him with drawn guns.
He was intimidating and scary, because we never knew what he was going to say, and once we had to tell him to stop cursing or leave. He could be insistent, too, asking over and over for the same things—more shoes, although he had a new pair now. We gave him food when we could, but after many visits, the pastor told him he had to limit his visits, because we had to help a lot of other people, too. And he couldn’t just come in and disrupt our work, muttering under his breath and swearing.
One day he came in as summer was approaching. The days were getting longer, but George was still wearing an old nylon coat he’d had on since the first day we met him. It was made of black nylon, quilted into diamond shapes, and it was ripped in places. Dirty, broken feathers fell out as he walked, leaving a trail of cheap duck feathers in his wake.
I helped him when he came in that afternoon, asking once again to have some soup microwaved. While we waited for the timer to beep, I found some duct tape and tried to patch the holes in his jacket. He shrugged and told me not to worry, the weather was getting warmer anyway. The soup was ready, so he sat down to eat.
Our pastor came in, and George started ranting about some wrong he’d suffered. He asked again for that ticket to Hawaii. Our pastor listened and tried to calm him down, but George got more agitated. He shook his dreadlocks and told us there was glass in his hair, that those 29 policemen had shot at him, shattering his windows.
His voice got louder until the pastor had to ask him to go outside. This time, George got mad. He threated to send somebody to hurt the pastor. I’ll get so-and-so to come back and knock you up-side the head, he said. George said this to the pastor who had found a shelter to take him in, although he refused to go. He said this to the pastor who had given him shoes and food. Finally the pastor said, you can’t come back.
I want a ticket to Hawaii, George insisted. The pastor shook his head. Leave now.
George might have been crazy; he might have been high. But he knew he’d crossed the line. He never came back.
Oddly, I missed him. That afternoon, I saw another feather on the floor from George’s ragged jacket, and it made me think about angels’ wings, and how we were all like George, in a way. He was just a man wearing a ragged, ugly coat, and we are all just men and women wearing the ugly rags of sin. But underneath, we all bear the marks of our Maker. Underneath, we still have a few feathers. They may be tattered and torn and dirty, but they are there. They are the remnants of heaven in all of us.
There is this, too: who doesn’t want to go to Hawaii? Who doesn’t want to find Paradise?
This has been a great week for making new friends. On Sunday, I met a wonderful group from Providence United Methodist Church, who treated me to a delish Southern-style lunch: a buffet at the historic Green Manor Restaurant in Union City, GA.
The ladies had read and discussed my book, Mustard Seeds, and presented me with my very own potted mustard plant to take home! Thank you all again. Here’s a photo–not of my plant, but of one that’s very similar:
And yes, to answer a question that comes up a lot, you really can grow mustard here in the South (and across the U.S.), and it can be both ornamental and edible. My new plant is an annual, but I’ll enjoy it indoors, by a sunny window.
Mustard plants also come in red-purple varieties, which are great colors for a fall garden, and especially beautiful as the weather starts to turn. You can find seeds for sale at local nurseries and garden centers, or buy potted plants like mine.
I’m surprised how often people tell me that they’ve never eaten mustard, especially here in the South, where we eat a lot of garden greens. Then again, maybe mustard is an acquired taste, because it can be pungent. If you’re willing to try it, toss the raw mustard leaves in your fresh salads. It’s also good, if a big stronger-tasting, when cooked and seasoned as you’d do with any other kind of edible greens, like spinach or turnips.
Thank you again, new friends from Providence, for the gift of the plant, the lunch, and the wonderful conversation.
Thanks, too, to the Georgian Garden Club of Villa Rica. I visited last night and read a devotional from Mustard Seeds (which is a collection of essays about faith, not gardening, in case anybody is confused by now). I couldn’t have had a warmer reception, and I enjoyed the delicious mango-passionfruit tea you served–can’t wait to try it again!
This has been a great week for making new friends. On Sunday, I met a wonderful group from Providence United Methodist Church, who treated me to a delish Southern-style lunch: a buffet at the historic Green Manor Restaurant in Union City, GA.
The ladies had read and discussed my book, Mustard Seeds, and presented me with my very own potted mustard plant to take home! Thank you all again. Here’s a photo–not of my plant, but of one that’s very similar:
And yes, to answer a question that comes up a lot, you really can grow mustard here in the South (and across the U.S.), and it can be both ornamental and edible. My new plant is an annual, but I’ll enjoy it indoors, by a sunny window.
Mustard plants also come in red-purple varieties, which are great colors for a fall garden, and especially beautiful as the weather starts to turn. You can find seeds for sale at local nurseries and garden centers, or buy potted plants like mine.
I’m surprised how often people tell me that they’ve never eaten mustard, especially here in the South, where we eat a lot of garden greens. Then again, maybe mustard is an acquired taste, because it can be pungent. If you’re willing to try it, toss the raw mustard leaves in your fresh salads. It’s also good, if a big stronger-tasting, when cooked and seasoned as you’d do with any other kind of edible greens, like spinach or turnips.
Thank you again, new friends from Providence, for the gift of the plant, the lunch, and the wonderful conversation.
Thanks, too, to the Georgian Garden Club of Villa Rica. I visited last night and read a devotional from Mustard Seeds (which is a collection of essays about faith, not gardening, in case anybody is confused by now). I couldn’t have had a warmer reception, and I enjoyed the delicious mango-passionfruit tea you served–can’t wait to try it again!
Just a few pictures today from my trip last spring to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Makes me want to go back soon, to see the mountains coming back to life after the long winter.
“Let heaven and earth praise Him, the seas and all that move in them…” Psa. 69:34
