Mired in Metaphor

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again



Like an egg on the wall … A force as sure as gravity compels the egg downward.
Such is the danger present to my heart.
I spent my life battling this threat, but something inside the egg knows it is destined to fly.

Humpty Dumpty wasn't wrong to climb the wall - he just should have waited for wings.

Icarus had his wings, but without caution, they brought him only to his end.





I will never forget how quickly I can fall, how easily I can break, or how scary it is and how much it can hurt to climb back to a high place.

"He makes my feet like the feet of the deer; He makes me to stand on the heights" (Psalms 18:33)
…to walk upon mine high places...

For over three years now, I have balanced – spun – danced, even – in this place which I forever feared.

Some miracle has occurred suspending something as sure as gravity – fear of emptiness, fear of loneliness.
Why God has chosen to suspend me – even as fractures from previous falls show through – I don’t know.
I am only grateful.

There is some justice, maybe, in a heart that beats half a world away. Truth be told, this heart would feel the pull if he were right beside me.

For now, in utter irony, there lies an ocean between us.

It seems the same ocean which one day crushes me face first into the sand, the next day embraces me.
It seems the same thing which - in good hands - would offer wholeness to the broken might - in malevolent hands - seek to enslave and destroy.
How do I know if it’s going to kill me, or if it will be the greatest experience I’ve ever known?

In this, perhaps, faith is born.

This foolish heart! It’s taken so long to set on this point without falling or breaking or otherwise brushing against some bruise… some wound old or new.

But I'm learning to fly... aren't I? Maybe learning to fly is a little like learning to ski... The direct path is not always the correct path - faster is not always better. Sometimes you have to have some turns to slow you down. Only by going slowly can I retain any control - only by caution and awareness can I avoid careening off the path, and my very life depends on it.

In either case, am I really ready for this?

I have long thought that my next fall would be my last - either because I would finally get it right - or because it might quite literally kill me.

Can I find the confidence to fall?

How can I discern between the rainbow and the reef? What can I possibly say to this mountain?

The mountain is not like the ocean - the mountain is constant. The mountain will not change for me, nor would I have it change. The mountain is perfect in its majesty, the mountain exists in a world which needs it to remain just as it is. I would not seek to change anything about the mountain. I would seek to know the mountain, to enjoy the mountain, even as it exhausts and defeats me, even as I descend in frustration and with no small amount of pain.

Can this be where Love is born?

A word was born like a wick without a candle, a fire lit in the torn place of my heart. All at once, and worse than any mountain, any wave, any rocket, were my questions which terrified me to tears.

It was on the mountain where I found a careful and cautious place, which nonetheless passionately embraced the moment. The mountain found Jenn reconciled – even as the ocean did.

Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, "Be taken up and cast into the sea," and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. (Mark 11:23)

There are lessons which can only be learned in the shadows. Only an empty place can be filled. Only by testing my limits can I find them. My strength overwhelms me when I feel most vulnerable. From a fallen place, I rise - my independence serves me. I find my capacity; I recall the embrace of the ocean. The torn place is healed, even under stress, and I am not afraid to fall. I am the bravest person I know.

Hope soars…

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13)

More summer in the City

Wrigley Field

Lost in Translation

Translation...

Its a word that keeps coming to mind. I spent a week in Germany, an invalid for my lack of language. And yet, even as I spent the days, some farmiliar bridges appeared - a word which is similar in English, a patient translator, a picture, some context - and I began at some point to recognize a favorite quote of mine:

The things that we have in common far outweigh the things that divide us (Walt Disney)

I'll be in Mexico next week. Only for 3 days, but it will be seen whether my years of toil over that language will return to me, as they did a couple years ago in Costa Rica. Maybe if grace could find me in German, such study - be it ages since - will be blessed in Mexico?

But this word keeps finding its way into my head - in English. It is in my own native language that I most frequently find a need for "translation". It is not in some foreign tongue where I typically struggle for a word, or for some combination thereof by which I might express my heart. I walk away from an encounter with a friend, and suddenly a turn of phrase echoes in my mind from a different perspective - I find myself hoping that they didn't "take it the wrong way". Email, text message, even this blog - I am buried in words, haunted by my lack of them, even among so many... fearful that one will be lost or changed as it leaves my head & finds its way in a world of perspectives not my own.

It's not only as it pertains to matters of the heart. How will my thoughts at work be perceived? What motives will be attributed to me? If I teach somewhere, what part of what I send out lands just as I intended on those who hear me? What experiences lie behind them, which translate me differently than I could ever know? As my children become such reasonable people, how will they regard my intentions towards them - my rules, even the freedoms I allow them?

And what of those experiences which are wholly "other" from my daily life? A Castle in Schwerin, a connection at summer camp, service to an orphan in Israel, or even a special, intimate time with the Lord - out of which I must go make dinner... How does all this settle - how does it translate back into the world of the mundane? These particular cases, I find, must make their home in me - they must carve themselves out a place of permanence. Is it in my "heart"? my memory? some electrical synapse in my brain? It is the place in me which makes me, me. But even in this most intimate & personal of places, some translation is needed.

My prayer becomes known: That the same Helper would serve both within and without; that the One who must so often translate me to me, would also be active in translating me to the world around me. That He would search me and know my heart, my inmost thoughts, that as He leads me in the everlasting way, He might lead me among friends and strangers in a way that protects us all from wrong perspectives. Even as I pray, another word comes to mind.

Incarnation... a very specific kind of translation...

The wild and amazing lengths to which He went in order to provide this Helper... the condescension He embraced in order to translate His very Self to me...
I come to think its not too much to ask, I come to a place of rest instead of striving, a place of trust instead of fear.
I am safe, I am valuable, I am loved, no matter what... whether I see it, whether anyone else sees it, it is true...

Truth translated – over my twisted, dysfunctional inner monologue that would scream otherwise – to a place deeper than any the world could reach. It is this which builds my conviction of things not seen.

FairieLand

Rotkohl

I am looking at it, I am smelling it, I am tasting it, I could reach out & touch it.
It is available to every one of my senses, and yet I cannot name it. I have no word for it.

There are things in this world that I have many names for - like the Eskimo's have many words for snow, or perhaps the French for love...
but I sit incapacitated by the phenomenon right in front of me, unable to label it - unable to connect with someone who is farmiliar with it.

Is there a greater distance to try and cover? Thousands of miles (kilometers?) will ultimately separate us, but this feels just as much a barrier.
I am close enough to touch this person, but I am imprisoned from even that by my inability to find a word for some vegetable on his plate.

Suddenly, I fully regret every reticence I ever had to trying new foods, from the time I was eight years old until now.
I regret not learning this language at every opportunity I ever had to do so.
I regret the rebellion of mankind at Babel that ever segregated us so.

Because all I want in this moment is for the barriers to be gone.
All I want is to be able to know what to call the thing that is transpiring in front of me,
as it pertains to the vegetable, and otherwise.

Maybe if there was a name for it, then there might be a clear path towards it.
Instead, I stand in the land of things undefined - things unspoken for a lack of words.

How long would I have to study, how proficient would I have to be,
to be able to properly know and understand and confidently move in the realm in which I now find myself?

Even if you gave me the name, my sense of being disoriented would not fade
for I am sure of only one thing now - that I've never known anything like this before.

And yet, I have to ask, what am I striving for?
What will it serve me to know a clear path when in 10 hours I will be racing home faster than a human mind can comprehend?
What is gained from such perception when the heart will only break for having had it?

Cole Slaw.

There it is - a link to something farmiliar... a guidepost in this distant wood.
And now I know. I know all I need to know. About the vegetable anyway.

The rest remains - compelling, intoxicating, a veritable need - just as distant, just as reserved, just as untouchable...
or am I only protected?

For as accessible as Red Cabbage might be 24 hours from now, how will I ever find Waldmeister - let alone THIS?

Hamburg Spring 2008

My Psalms of Ascent

My small group recently completed Beth Moore's "Stepping Up: A Journey Through the Psalms of Ascent" For 6 weeks, we studied 15 chapters tucked in the middle of one of the Bible's best loved books. Every other day, we were challenged to "rewrite" the Psalm - to become a psalmist. Surely our utterances weren't inspired, as were David's; but I enjoyed the way much of my testimony was recalled by these Psalms. "My Psalms of Ascent" are below...

My Psalm 120
From the depths of an unimaginable pit, He reached down to me.
In my shame, I looked away ~ and down.
But His tenacity got to me ~ got under me
And He lifted me up. He brought me to a new place.
When I embrace deceit, my own or others, it takes me down, and others with me.
But our road leads up!

My Psalm 121
I am surrounded by these hills.
Everywhere I look, they seem to block me in.
Yet my Helper has wings, and He is within me.
The hope of soaring clashes in me with my fear of heights
And of what lies on the other side.
And yet these wings are within and without.
Safety and success are not in my hands,
Whether by my bravery or by my caution.
It matters more to Him than it does to me.

My Psalm 122
I rejoiced to find the little white church
That I could go there, and even bring my daughters.
Our roots are taking to Fox Valley; North Aurora is a nice place
A place my daughters will call home, and it has become my home
With my bike path and my bakery, It keeps my dog and holds my cats
Educates my kids & busies my uncle…
For my family and my home, I will hope for the best for this place.
For the community of believers here, I will hope for its success.

My Psalm 123
You are high above all this – securely enthroned far away.
It does not taint You – it cannot touch You;
And yet You are not removed.
We look to You – we wait on You.
You are ready to show us what is real
~not the scorn between my daughters,
Or between tribal factions in Kenya,
Or between a Jew and an Arab in Jerusalem,
Or even the self hatred we feed~
But Your eyes see what You made us to be.
Save us from our perspectives – Show us Yours.

My Psalm 124
Things got bad when I turned my back on Him
But He never took His hand off me.
How much worse they could have gotten!
Only the fullness of knowledge in glory will ever reveal
Every escape, every protection, every carefully calculated allowance.
I have been redeemed – I am not my own – I have been bought at a price.
And from that place, I find a freedom I've never known
freedom to become who I was created to be
And not freedom only, but help, ever present help
And power as my chains evaporate

My Psalm 125
You suffer long to build this trust, so that I might stand firm.
It is Your desire to be that near to me.
You refuse to share me with those who hate You
Or to let me share what is Yours
Keep us in Your will – that You might continue to do us good.
Let us not necessitate Your discipline.
Bring peace to Your dwelling place.

My Psalm 126
I was in a daze when He chose to bring me home,
But all the way He carried me, I knew He was right,
That He would do it – but I didn't know how much.
At some point, it seemed silly even, but who was I to argue?
All who saw it stood amazed, and I was grateful.
Do I dare hope for more? And yet I know there is more.
God, help me to trust Your process as much as I enjoy Your result.
I will dare to hope for more.

My Psalm 127
Why do I bother when You're not here
~when I myself am the one to have barred You at the door,
as You stand knocking?
Did I truly seek to construct anything?
Or did I somehow delight in feeding locusts?
And yet I was blessed
~ what a generous gift was given ~
Ultimately a protection from going too low
Their mother's glass…

My Psalm 128
Even silly, circumstantial delight
is not beneath we who follow His ways.
Enjoy the fruit of your labor!
~ Enjoy! ~
The nature of blessing is growth.
Make room for more!
God loves to do this.
~ Expect the best! ~
And expect it for as long as you live.
Peace be with Israel!

My Psalm 129
I can't remember ~ I can't remember "before"
before fear, before confusion, before instability and unpredictability, before compulsion
I can't remember confidence or knowing for sure that some things were unacceptably wrong.
But I remember when the ropes were cut.
I remember a calm of quiet as God drove them back.
I remember an Unseen Protector
And knowing that His vengeance was sure, even if mine was unsure.
Its not that I've never succumbed to the shadows, the ghosts, the memories,
But the real ropes were cut,
And I remember.

My Psalm 130
From the lowest place, I remembered Your Name
And a whisper became a scream.
You heard it before it escaped me – You were already on Your way.
You knew every stop on the descent, but You didn't let it stop You.
Your forgiveness is stunning.
You were eager to keep Your Word, and so I passionately waited,
And will expectantly wait for the rest.
His abundant love and forgiveness can be seen by all.

My Psalm 131
I know I've been proud – but not now…
I know I've tried to take on the world, but not now…
I've tried to take Your job – thought I could do it better or faster
But not now…
In depletion, at the end of myself, I find You.
My wrestling and striving evaporate, and I find myself in Your lap,
Held and loved with great affection.
And where I'd thought I'd feel confined, limited, trapped,
Instead I feel secure ~ I feel rest
And if I can, anyone can

My Psalm 132
Lord, don't forget what I went through to get here, and don't let me, either.
Let's never forget what it took to bring those walls crashing down,
And to start to build this dwelling place in me.
You were the restless One – the One committed to this end – even when I was not.
But now we're here – with so much more to look forward to.
Keep me present in this place
Let me be Your resting place, and a place that shows Your strength.
Keep me clothed in righteousness,
And let everyone who sees it shout for joy and with wonder.
You get all the credit for this.
A promise made becomes a promise kept – The Promised One has been revealed.
He has kept the covenant I couldn't keep, and made me His own,
As He took His place at the right Hand of the Throne of God.
He has made His home in me. He has desired me. He has abundantly blessed and satisfied me.
He has clothed me with salvation, righteousness, dignity, and the ability to praise Him.
He has been raised up, and He has drawn me with loving-kindness into His light.
I have no fear of my enemies.
He has crowned me.

My Psalm 133
Oh the peace that comes when the discord finally ceases,
When our affections again take hold.
It captures all the senses, and draws us towards our most precious memories.
It builds upon itself and feeds a need deep within us.
It is truly a blessing, and it is ours forever!

My Psalm 134
The LORD bless you and protect you
The LORD deal kindly and graciously with you
The LORD bestow His favor upon you and grant you peace
Numbers 6:24-26 (Jewish Study Bible)

Celebrate Recovery - One year later...

My name is Jennifer, and I'm a believer in Jesus Christ who struggles with codependency and relationship addictions

As I prepared my thoughts for this week, one word kept coming to mind - HOPE. What did I hope for a year ago? And now, as we celebrate this anniversary, how have those expectations been met?

A year ago, I began to share myself in the context of this ministry - a ministry that invited my hurts, habits & hang-ups. I shared them, in church, for the first time in over two decades of church - some of my hiccups, heartaches & horrors, as I then called them. As I committed myself throughout this year to confession & community - to stepping out & staying out of denial - to being accountable - my hopes were set on healthiness, holiness & heroes.

Some of that has come to pass. I can look back on a completed step study - and along with it, a couple of amazing accountability partners. I can look around and see wonderful people - people who's recoveries I can relate to and respect and try to emulate. I have found in this place the courage to be real and authentic, without fear of judgment or avoidance. I don't feel like my acceptance here depends either on my perfection or on my keeping secrets about my imperfections.

That said, I still have some imperfections. This last year has not been without struggles. At work, at home, at church - even here at CR - I have struggled to know my limits. Evidently, I'm not fixed yet. And I'll admit that a part of me had hoped to be. And yet, even today - whether in a given situation or within the confines of a particular relationship - I still have to work to know just how I should fit. I struggle to know just what expectations I should have - and just what expectations I should let someone else have on me. There are circumstances that can really make this struggle trying on me, and there have been some discouragements this year through which I've felt as if I've made very little progress indeed.

This kind of thing isn't new. Most of my hurts, habits and hang-ups throughout the years have been my own wrong reactions to just this kind of thing. It's the result of putting my hope in the wrong place. Sometimes, I've put my hope in myself - in my own strength or knowledge or ability. Other times - a LOT of other times - I've put my hope in another person - that they might in some way distract me from the struggles I seem to have when it comes to genuinely turning over my life and my will - and to honestly asking God to remove my character defects. The struggle - and my avoidance of the struggle - go back as long as I can remember.

But this year, something different happened. This year marks the first year in which I let the struggle coexist while still pursuing the healing that I believe is possible. This year - largely because of the structure of this program, but even more because of the people in this program - I feel as if I lost very little time wallowing in defeat or guilt. Oh, there were days... There were days I spent staring at the phone before I picked it up to confess something I'd really rather not have confessed to one of my accountability partners. There were moments I spent sitting in a driveway before a step study - sorely tempted to run away. But I didn't. Because I knew that the ladies on the other side of that phone or on the other side of that front door - wanted me to be real, not perfect.

As amazing as that was - to have people care about me like that - the single biggest difference I have noticed from a year ago is one that's only just becoming clear to me now. It has to do with where my hope is at. For the first time in my life - and I've been a Christian since I was twelve - but for the first time, I have this rock solid assurance. I know that I know that I know. Hebrews 12:1 says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." I've known that verse for nearly twenty years, but this year, I get it in a new way. I have often said of my life or of my faith "before" that it felt like a house of cards. Now I see - that's probably exactly what it was. Because it was all dependent on me - and on my effort - and on my focus and determination. But it always seemed that my focus and determination quickly evaporated when a distraction came along.

As I pursue better ways, the context of this program continually reminds me that my wholeness matters more to God than it does to me. I am regularly reminded of it - consistently encouraged by it; and I see it again and again in the faces of people who know me and love me and support me. And should those people let me down, my God hasn't changed. And all the times I let myself down, my God doesn't change. This program will forever be the place in which I allowed myself to be swept away by my unchanging God. He has been the answer to my hopes from a year ago - and He will be my hope in years to come.

I'd like to close by reading Isaiah 40:28-31

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God
The Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary
and His understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary
and young men stumble and fall;
But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength

They will soar on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not be faint.

Thank you for letting me share.