tornadoes and birth pangs

     I was telling one of my students about the tornadoes in AL this morning - finals are coming up and keeping on top of the news is not on the top of their "to do" lists.  As I showed him some of the photos online, he looked and said two words, "birth pangs". 
   In the past, there have been times when people have said this to me - in particular I remember this occurance after Hurricane Katrina and after the tsunami that hit S. Asia that Christmas season.  Never did those words resonant and they actually instead created great dissonance within me.  How could a loving God allow these random acts of nature, of violence, to occur?  I still can't answer that question, but I could tell you a story involving a lightening bug that gave me some perspective...  another day perhaps for that...
   Today, the words "birth pangs" jolted me.  I was reminded once again that things are not as they were meant to be, that creation groans for the day when all will be made new.  Actually the word "groans" is all I could say in response to my student and in my head I was reminded that birth pangs bring forth new life and there is so much joy and celebration in the light of this that the pain and tears are no more.  Life as it was meant to be and as it will be is beyond my imagination.  It lies in the hands of a loving God whose vantage point is greater than mine, whose power and ability exceeds my own, and whose faithfulness and lovingkindness outlast all my rebellion and apathy.
   I can't bring myself to write or say or claim that the pain of these major disastors and my personal minor devastations will pale in comparison to what eternity holds.  Yet something within prompts me toward this hope.  I can't see it now.  I can't imagine that these things fit into renewal when they are so destructive.  I yearn for the liberation, the freedom, the glory, the adoption, the redemption that is and is to come.  I hope for what I do not see.

Romans 8

Present Suffering and Future Glory

 ¹⁸ I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
 ²² We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³ Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵ But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
 ²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
 ²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

As I wrote this, I remembered that I'd read one of my pastor's blogs about this same topic after the recent earthquake in Japan.  Thought I should cite him :)  http://www.dannold.com/?p=2920

...in the light of His glory and grace

I awoke yesterday morning with the refrain of this song in my head and on my heart - 'tis still spinning around.  I love the focus on His Glory and His Grace.  The second verse really stood out to me...

TURN YOUR EYES UPON JESUS  ~Words and Music by Helen H. Lemmel, 1922 

O soul are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There's light for a look at the Saviour,
And life more abundant and free. 

Refrain
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His Glory and Grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
Over us sin no more hath dominion -
For more than conquerors we are! 

Refrain
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His Glory and Grace.

His Word shall not fail you - He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well;
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell. 

Refrain
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His Glory and Grace.

Hope as we reflect on this glory and grace that are hearts and heads are filled with light and love to celebrate our Savior and to follow after Him more freely.

the day between

the saturday between good friday and resurrection day is a day of dormancy

when life as we know it and life as we thought it would be, isn't any longer

when what is to come, isn't within the realm of our ability to even imagine

today i remember what Mary said when her life as she had known and planned it to be was over and yet she could not begin to grasp what lay ahead.  on that day she said "Nothing is impossible with God" (Jn 1:37)

this morning I really needed to hear this preached "It's not over"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flZ1phdgyZw 

returning home

the theme of home has come up again and again over the past two weeks as i've been away from home - traveling first to CA for work and then to AL and FL for a family visit

it felt like returning home
to be with my grad advisor and former labmates and to use equipment that i purchased and used daily throughout my grad school career - despite the fact that the lab had moved across the country from PA to CA

it felt like home
running into former colleagues as i walked through the hallways of the convention center, although this was not the passing in corridors of academic spaces we previously shared

it tasted like home
to be sharing breakfast and good conversation with a friend who used to live across the street and now lives across the continent

it was home
to return to Alabama and sleep in the bed my parents purchased for me when I was 9

it tasted like home
as i drank down the delicious nectar of sweet tea that used to be my daily fix

it felt like home
to be with my mother, father, aunt, and sister even in a hotel room

it was home
even in homes i'd never entered as my sister and brother welcomed me into their apartments and took me around their respective campuses

it felt like home
to have the temperature rise and the storm clouds gather resulting in sirens heralding tornadoes and delaying my flight as i was returning home

Did you catch that?  I just said "returning home", as in returning to Michigan.  This was a purposeful use of the term calling Michigan my home.  This is me choosing to call Michigan home.

Did you catch it in the first line?  I said I was "away from home".  This wasn't purposefully stated, but is how I've felt for the past several months.  I've felt like I'm away from home (and not just when I've been traveling).

It was these trips to these people and places that are home that have me thinking about what it looks like and means to be at home.  It is the familiarity that rings the most true.  I'm familiar with the weather patterns of Alabama and knew that my flight would be delayed.  I'm familiar with how to use the metal evaporator I used regularly in graduate school.  Seeing familiar faces and having shared experiences provides groundwork for meeting again in an unfamiliar place and after time has passed.  It is familiarity birthed from connections. 

"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."
(EM Forster in Howard's End)

I delight in connecting the ordinary to the extraordinary.  This quote carries a lot of weight with me, but I'll save most of that for another day.  For today, I want to share that I'm choosing to connect to Michigan.

I'm putting my stake in the ground.  I've put in an offer to buy a house here.  I'm choosing to put down roots.  I'll no longer be able to play the game (in my head) that this all can be temporary because I'm just renting.  I'm investing in this house, but more than that I'm choosing to create a home.  A home where I pray connections (of all sorts) will be made and where love will be experienced at its height.  That my meandering journey and fragments of all my homes can be brought together into a sort of bird's nest, with twigs and string gathered along the way.  A place of rest and growth and strengthening set high in the bough of a tree, a tree that connects us all together.  Remembering that this house is as temporal as the nest, I am reminded that it is in my Father's house where all the fragmentation will cease.  Shalom is found there.