Meditation

Pantocrator icon: Progress Report

Creativity, Holy Spirit, Icons, Imagination, Love, Meditation, Ministry, mystery, Prayer, purpose, Secrets, Spirituality, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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Progress: the 13th hour on the Pantocrator Icon.
Acrylic on gold primed canvas. 18″ x 24″.

Good things come to those who persevere.

Painting an icon is one of the ancient spiritual disciplines. The artist isn’t just copying by rote or filling in a design, as in a paint by numbers craft piece.

Instead, the artist is rendering a true copy of a window into heaven. As I focus on the image, the image is also focusing on me. As I seek to be faithful to the forms I see, in a mysterious manner unknown and unseen, the icon’s presence allows the Spirit of God to work within my heart and mind to transform me and bring me closer to God’s original image.

There are days in my life when I think I should paint more icons. There are days in this world when I wish all people honored and venerated the holy icons, or at least honored the call for peace within their own religious traditions. Perhaps that day will come in my lifetime, but if not, I can live in peace and not contribute to the warring nature of this world.

WOUNDS, HEALING AND LOVE: THE MYSTERY OF THE JOURNEY

Food, Forgiveness, Health, Icons, Imagination, Italy, Love, Meditation, Ministry, mystery, poverty, purpose, renewal, salvation, Spirituality, Strength, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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At dinner Friday night with some friends, I met a lady from their church. I remarked that I needed to find something on the Mexican restaurant’s menu that wouldn’t damage my wellness plan. I’ve been pre-diabetic for eight years now, but I’ve managed my condition with diet and exercise. I even have a Fitbit exercise monitor that links to my sparks people food record. “Gosh! That’s so much trouble” she said, “why do you worry with all that?” I looked at her and replied, “Because I have a family history of diabetes, I’m pre-diabetic, and my younger brother is insulin dependent and already had congestive heart failure. I don’t want to go there too.” “Been there, done that. It’s all part of life,” she said.

I have been on a healing journey for years. What, you say, are you just spiritually slow, recalcitrant, a backslider, sluggardly, or just too busy to take care of yourself? If our healing journeys are toward our recovery of our original image of divine creation, I’m not yet there, but I persist by the grace of God.

I don’t berate myself for not yet arriving, but the last few years I’ve had a hardness of my heart regarding others who have gone “so far, but no farther.” They have in effect become settlers and comfortable at some village located in a cozy hollow beside a pleasant stream. They have nice neighbors and maybe a few quaint nut cases to liven up the town gossip mills. I confess that as one who can hardly wait for the next adventure, the next project, or even the next day, I’m not big on being “settled.”

This is why I’ve had six careers in my working life: artist, real estate investor, art teacher, insurance sales, wife and mom, and ministry. Now that I’m in retirement, I’ve taken up writing and resurrected my artistic endeavors. I’m not settled enough to sit around, drink coffee and rehash my glory days or even talk about current events. I’m too involved in making current events!

This icon, “He Healed Others, Cannot He Heal Himself?” Is made of found objects which I picked up while walking around Mercy Hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas. This 1.5 mile circuit from my local YMCA takes me from one healing place past many others: doctors’ offices, cancer treatment sites, home healthcare training schools, pharmacies, and clinics of every type. Across the street one can get food for the body. The busy roads and highways are a bountiful source for the castaway chunks of this human life.

As I picked up these assorted pieces of debris, I thought of the cast off people in this world: the hungry, the dying, the disabled, the terminally ill, the deaf, and the blind. The greatest healing sign was raising Lazarus from the dead! I had an old postcard from a trip to Italy I could use, along with some old embroidery hoops from the grandparent’s house that I’ll never use on a cloth, but I’ve “saved for the memories of their name.”

In the first three Gospels, the “chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him” (Matthew 27:41-42). To “save” is to heal, to preserve from harm, or to get well. We speak today of “being saved” as if it were a one and done, but in fact it is both an instantaneous and a long term process.

We want our wounds to be healed NOW! By golly, and don’t leave any visible scar as a sign of our past pain, but remove all signs of our imperfection from our hearts, minds, and souls. Just as the Son of a God took a human body to taste all of our peak and low experiences, even to the abandonment of death, I think God may have a purpose in leaving us with our scars as we continue on our journey.

The scars we bear are signs to others of the journey we’re still traveling, much like the stamps in our passports. They are the marks of our past pain and brokenness. If God were to wipe those identifying marks away, no one would know to seek us out as guides along their own journeys. God may be leaving these wounds open so that we can pour God’s love out through our brokenness into the lives of this hurting and hopeless world.

Our world is full of people that have been told that they need to get well before God will love them, but what they are really being told is “My wounds are covered over with a fake skin of perfection, so until you adopt your fake skin, find another place to worship.” Our open wounds that let God’s love flow through to all people, the wandering wounded and the settled saints both, is what will bring us closer to God as we come closer to our neighbor. Sometimes it’s easier to love a holy God than an unholy neighbor, but loving God’s creation should be a goal of our spiritual journey.

THE HOLY NODE AND THE FOUND BUTTERFLY

butterflies, Creativity, Health, Icons, Imagination, Meditation, Mental Illness, mystery, Physical Training, purpose, renewal, Strength, Travel, Uncategorized, vision

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I’m not a fast walker, for my first goal in walking isn’t to break any record for my usual 1.5 mile jaunt around Mercy Hospital here in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Neither do I stroll, for Bon Jovi and the Boss sing a strong striding cadence in my ear. I can manage the hills better in one direction than another, for at least one is nearly 45 degrees. I go up this hill once a week. It never gets less steep. The rest of the week I go down that hill. At my age, there’s no sense taking any more years off my life than necessary!

My goals as I walk are to be more conscious of my body, to care for it better, to build my body for endurance and health, to be outside in the sunlight (natural vitamin D), and to develop a better attitude (exercise releases endorphins that lift one’s mood). Walking also seems to clear my mind of worry and anxiety about others.

In that large hospital, I know that healing is going on. While some may be “losing the battle” against whatever dread disease has attacked them, they have “won the war” and received their final healing from God. We think our life is over when we close our eyes and breathe no more, but our life is just beginning in a newer and more wonderful way!

As I make my rounds about the hospital grounds, the wind blows through my hair, the sun falls on my face, and I see the sun shaped shadows of the pines and the pear trees. Even the ornamental lake reflects the colors of the sky and clouds. Heaven and earth are more connected here even though my path is just beside the eternally busy bypass of Highway 270.

There are nodes in space and time at which the intersection of heaven and earth seem to open up to one another. The Celtic tradition calls these “thin places.” All across the world we can find sites that were considered holy by one successive people & faith after another. When you walk into such a place, you can feel the years of prayers within the space.

This route I take, while short, has become a holy node for me. It was the reason for two found object works: The No Room Inn and The Healing Christ. I also did a landscape of that decorative pond. Now I am painting the various butterflies I have collected on my journeys. These are symbols of the new life to come because they wrap themselves in a cocoon (grave cloths). I think of them as an icon of the new life we live when we see the light of what is possible in Jesus Christ himself:

“I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.” — John 12:46

A ROAD IN THE WILDERNESS

Creativity, Fear, Forgiveness, home, Imagination, Meditation, photography, purpose, renewal, salvation, Stress, Travel, Uncategorized, vision

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As I am entering the outskirts of my city, I leave the local highway and climb onto the bypass that loops around the south side of town. I wouldn’t dare climb this route in a winter storm, but on one of our interim false spring days, I can negotiate the incline and curves without fear. On one of my journeys home, I arrived as usual near sunset, so I was driving into the setting sun. The light was falling between the low mountains with a flooding glow that didn’t seem to come from the sun, but from a holy presence.

Since I was driving sixty miles an hour on a two lane, one way elevated road, I did not whip out an Instagram memory. Instead, I committed this to my mind’s memory and sketched it out when I got home on the first piece of paper I found, which happened to be a magazine page I had ripped out and put into my purse. Then I unloaded the car and went inside to my home.

Where are the people? Where are the distinctive landscape markings? I didn’t make these on purpose so that this road can be everywhere for everyone. We each have our own personal wilderness in which we wander before we can come home. We can’t come home as long as we are just in this world, but we can come home when we realize that we are walking with God in God’s world. The problems that keep us from having good relationships with our family, our friends, our neighbors, and our god will be healed when we realize that God has already prepared the highway for us on which we are to travel homeward:

“A highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
but it shall be for God’s people;
no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” –Isaiah 35:8-10

One day we will climb up the entry to this bypass, the light will strike us as truly different from all other days we have been in this place, and if we are aware of God’s speaking to us in his world, we will hear his voice calling us home. The burdens will lift from our shoulders and the tears will dry from our eyes. Songs of joy will burst unbound from our hearts and our feet will leap and dance with gladness.

Art is Always a Suprise

Creativity, Imagination, Meditation, mystery, Secrets, Spirituality, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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Dropped by for new art supplies. Big sale at Michael’s. This tiny haul? $175–I only buy the best pigments & best quality tools. This is the way I was trained: like the old masters, to make my work last not just a lifetime, but for centuries.

We live in a throw away world now, however, so not too many care beyond today. Disposable plates, cups, relationships, and beliefs are tossed in favor of the latest pattern or desire.

My image may seem frozen in time, but on the wall in the changing light of God’s day and seen through the eyes of our changing hearts, it reveals something always new and fresh.

That’s the difference between art and a picture: you’ll get tired of a picture, but art is always surprising the viewer.

SNOW CHANGES EVERYTHING

Holy Spirit, Imagination, Meditation, Ministry, mystery, purpose, renewal, Secrets, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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Classes get cancelled, teachers have to reschedule. Parents have to miss work and pay checks to stay home with the kids or go to work and pay extra for child care. Some people make it home by the grace of God and the angels that walk among us, while others abandon their wrecked vehicles on the icy roads and trudge their weary way home alone. Some of us heeded the warnings, slept late, and never left our warm houses. Some of the city’s homeless citizens froze to death on the cold streets last night even though multiple warming centers were open. They went with a warm coat and blankets, their need to be outside overriding their need to be warm. Some people feel safer in the open, even if it doesn’t make sense to you or me.

Most of the time we see winter in this way, like an old sumi ink painting: black and white with only a few marks denoting the strengths of the shapes and their lines. The rest we only imagine into being from what we remember to be true in the other seasons of the landscape.

So it is with our spiritual life, when we are caught in a time when things are out of sorts and nothing goes right. This isn’t what we signed up for! Maybe it’s a health crisis and now you can’t work at the job you love. Maybe you just got a pay raise, but now the company has been sold and you’ve been outsourced; life ain’t fair! Or the love of your life decides to leave, or your kid says that he/she wants to change to a different sex than the one you’ve loved this child as for all these years. Surely this is the winter of your discontent!

God asks the following question of his suffering servant, who seems to unjustly be the victim of woe,

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
for the day of battle and war? What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?” (Job 38:22-24)

Of course not. Job hasn’t visited these unknown places! They are known only to the good Lord himself. The lesson God has for Job and us is that calamity falls upon both the good and the evil of this world, but God is always with us. We want to be spared from all harm, just as we want to spare our children from any distress, harm, trial, or pain. This keeps our children from growing strong, however, so just as we endure trials in life, we grow stronger spiritually with God by our side. Either that, or we freeze to death because we didn’t want help. One of the most frequent names for God in the Old Testament is Help or Helper. When Job recognizes God speaking to him, he reframed his thinking:

“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? ’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me. ’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2-6)

Sometimes we need to see the black and white world in the beauty of God’s colors.

Are we the Good Shepherd or Are We the Lost Sheep?

Children, Food, Health, Icons, Meditation, Physical Training, Prayer, purpose, renewal, salvation, sleep, Spirituality, Strength, Stress, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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Recently a male acquaintance of mine had the temerity to suggest that perhaps I might need one of those buttons that calls for help to a distant monitoring site. I had told him I’d been sick and he knew I lived alone. I was feeling much better by then and retorted, “As long as I can walk the around the 1.5 miles of Mercy Hospital, I don’t need a button that says I’ve fallen and can’t get up!” He escaped my wrath by a quick exit into the elevator. Indeed!

“I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” Paul said of Christ to the Philippians (4:13). Isaiah reminds us that God “gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young fall exhausted; but those that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they run and not be weary, they shall walk and not be faint.” (40:29-31).

With verses like these ringing in our ears, well meaning people of faith do great harm to God’s gift, which is God’s own image, whether male or female (Genesis1:27). We run our precious images into the ground until they are flat exhausted, burnt out, overwhelmed, physically sick or plain old addicted to either the work, the adulation, or some other less desirable habit. We forget that the one person who is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15) is also the same one of whom was said, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). John’s gospel alone mentions that “Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well” (4:6). No other gospel author speaks of the Lord’s humanness as does John. If Jesus can get tired and need rest, why is it we who follow him cannot do the same thing?

We think we are being good shepherds by being always at work, always on call, always at work. I have clergy pals who feel they have to justify their exercise time as “prayer time or sermon preparation.” I have other friends that have worked themselves into the hospital with exhaustion, yet tried to leave against medical advice just to do someone’s funeral because they were jealous of another pastor coming into their church. The stress of disaster relief efforts in addition to all our other responsibilities can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Hurricane Gustave in 2008 put several of us in lower Arkansas into the hospital with stress related heart events. Fainting into your spaghetti at the community meal gets you a free ride to the local hospital, even if you go under protest!

I won’t begin to list the side effects of all this stress on our precious bodies, other than to say that when we put ourselves under this much stress, we eat more comfort foods, we exercise less and we sleep less. All these acts cause us to eat more comfort foods. If we really want to live a Jesus lifestyle, start walking! Give up your need to be a Ken or Barbie doll perfect person and tell your people you are going out to find the lost sheep.

The lost sheep is your identity as a child of God, not your calling as a pastor or your ministry in the church or the world. It isn’t how you make your money as a banker, a mechanic, a coder, or a salesperson. This isn’t you as a mom or a dad, but you as God’s own child. If you are feeling lost in the role of what you do, you are a lost sheep. This icon (image) of the Good Shepherd should point you to the only one who can find you and bring you home safely from the wilderness. If you are with him, you stand under the tree of life, whose leaves are used for healing. Your wounds will be healed and you will heal the wounds of others also.

For further reading, a classic spiritual text is Henri Nouwen’s THE WOUNDED HEALER

THE PARK MAY BE CLOSED BUT THE CITY ISN’T

at risk kids, Creativity, Food, generosity, Imagination, Meditation, photography, poverty, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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I took the back way home. Even though I was using the GPS, I deviated from her well intentioned directions. Perhaps I was just intent on exploring, or perhaps I had “authority issues” I needed to work out on leadership, since no one in our country’s Capitol seemed to care for the the poor and the weak any more. “It doesn’t affect me, so why should I worry? Most people won’t notice anything amiss in their daily lives.” How easily we discount “the other.” We think so often only of ourselves: of me, myself, and my. My exploration, as I call the GPS recalculating mode, led me to an island of peace in the heart of the industrial zone of Hot Springs National Park.

Because of the current government shutdown, the park spa, museum, and natural spaces are shut down. We can still walk up to the fountains of the ever flowing springs and fill our water bottles for free, but hiking the trails are forbidden until the money flows from DC. The City of Hot Springs National Park belongs to the state of Arkansas, so it was Wednesday as usual. Our schools had lunch and adults went to work (unless they were federal employees or national guardsmen).

I ended my exploration at Sanders Plumbing Supply. There I found an old wooden railroad trestle bridge crossing both the road and the creek that runs beside it. I parked in the business lot, took my iPhone and crossed the street. The slope down into the creek was gentle and dry, for we haven’t had much rain in these parts. As I clambered into the shallow stream, I walked on an extruded basalt flow. That this old volcanic rock had coursed across the earth in an ancient time and still persisted reminded me that life is more than just today. Even the years of water had not worn it down. I made a short instamatic video of the rippling water, the waving weeds, and the sunlight touching the water. I was finding my peace again.

These black basalt beds were big enough to stretch out on, so I took advantage of this position. Folks in Arkansas aren’t much used to seeing a gray haired lady dressed in bright yellow and red lying in the middle of a creek bed and taking photos. I got a lot of friendly honks & waves from the passing cars. Then again, a person of any age doing something out of the ordinary is apt to get encouragement from the folks who aren’t quite up to stepping out of the safe path themselves.

When I came home, I made this little drawing in a Strathmore watercolor sketchbook. It’s no bigger than an iPad mini. I used an ordinary ink pen, the same tool with which I journal on most days. To focus on the antiquity of the natural elements and the constancy of God’s divine providence for God’s creation reminded me that this day’s problems are being handled by a higher power. As I drew the old railroad trestle bridge, I realized that “this train is bound for glory” (Woody Guthry). We may not see the train right now, but it won’t carry the self-righteous anymore than the hustlers or the sinners. It will carry the humble, the ones who put their trust in God, and care for all of God’s people, not just for the ones who can return the favor.

“For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land” (Deuteronomy 15:11).

The Sunlit Tree

Imagination, Meditation, Ministry, photography, Spirituality, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, Work

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I am not a point A to point B person, but what right brained artist is? Yet, making a work of art requires planning and structure, just as building a house requires plans, or both will fall apart before very long. This is why some of our efforts continue to please us many years into the future, while others, with our more experienced eye, now are relegated to paint over land.

This field of trees caught my eye, not because it was full of light or promise of abundance, but because only one great tree stood proud with a glorious yellow robe amid a field of dried up stunted trees and weeds. It was so different that I had to detour from the interstate, retrace my path on the old state highway and take a picture with my camera. I’ve kept this photo for a dozen years, waiting for the time when I had both the skill and the spirit to bring it to life as a painting.

I have shown this photo to various people over the years. “That’s nice, a big tree, it’s a lot of yellow and brown, and it looks half dead and half alive” are some of the comments I’ve heard. I’m used to this, for most folks don’t have vision. They cannot see the promise in the grey clouds of the rainbow to come. The rainbow must be there in all her radiance, dancing all seven of her colors across the heavens, for the hope of the promise to be written in bold enough letters for most of us to read it in the sky.

A few rare people have vision. Some are cooks, some are tinkerers, some are prophets, and some are artists. If I had copied this photo, I would have made a very different painting, one in which all the values are nearly the same, for it was an overcast day when I took the image. As a photograph, it was unworthy, but as a sketch or a plan for a future work, it was worth keeping. My mother saw this photo and said, “This is a strong tree that survives and shelters others.” My Mother had vision.

I could have gone in several directions with this painting. One choice I considered was the gathering grey clouds anticipating a certain storm. The lighting of the trees and the field would have been more dramatic. I decided to go with a brilliant autumn day, with the sky and fields full of light. All the trees were in their full dress glory as the winds shake their leaves of yellows, oranges, and reds.

The verse from Ezekiel 17:24 came into my mind: “And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.”

This vision of sunlight, warm wind, healing and uplifting the dried up landscape brought hope into my heart! We may be discouraged for a season, but our standing rooted as we trust the God who loves us means that we will be there when God’s promises come true. If we are the dry tree, we will flourish! If we are the low tree, we will be made high!

As artists, we are constantly creating, so we share this activity in common with God. Do we have the vision to see beyond our circumstances to God’s promises that await? Do we have the courage to continually work along side God to bring God’s vision into reality? Take your sketchbook, your easel, or your camera this week out into the countryside. Find the tree that calls you apart from your designated journey. Enter into a conversation with this place. Perhaps you are not used to being still, or quiet. Listen to the sounds of this place. Do not be too quick to hurry off to worship the idol, “I’ve got better or more important things to do with my life.”

SURVIVAL SKILLS

Family, Fear, home, Imagination, Meditation, Prayer, purpose, sleep, Strength, Stress, Uncategorized, Work

“in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
until the destroying storms pass by.”
~~ Psalm 57:1

Drop me behind enemy lines with my machete and I’ll make my own way out. I was born for challenges: I am a first child. My parents had to learn on me and I always had to test the boundaries as I was growing up. Not that I was a particularly wild child, but when I discovered my other friends in the seventh grade had bedtimes ranging from eight PM to midnight, I was able to convince my folks I didn’t need to be put to bed at seven PM with my younger brothers. I was always the first to do anything new, since I was the oldest.

When it came time to pick a college, my parents wanted me to live at home and attend their alma mater, Centenary College. I wanted to go far away to Wellesley College, but my dear southern Daddy said, “No daughter of mine is going north of the Mason Dixon Line!” So I said I wanted to go to the notorious state party school LSU, and was told that was not an option. We compromised on Agnes Scott College, a small Presbyterian woman’s college that sends 90% of its graduates on to postgraduate work.

In the midst of my junior year, my art teacher was killed in a freak accident. We had a very modern art building that had all the floors cantilevered over the ones below so that it was open and airy. Sounds also carried very well. Those of us that were in the building heard the last screams before the sheer silence. The death of my mentor in the midst of an ordinary art activity had a profound effect on me. She was remixing clay by adding it into a grinder, but her sleeve got caught and that pulled her into the machine. There is nothing like the death of someone you love to focus your mind and to focus your actions.

When the storms of life come, and come they will, taking shelter is sometimes the better part of courage. The storm chasers who photo extreme weather events have special, modified vehicles in which they chase these powerful natural events. “Professional driver, closed course, do not attempt” ought to scroll under their videos. We need to remember that the best way to ride out a tornado is in the bathroom or closet (the most interior room without a window), and never to ride out a tornado in our car (think matchbox toy blown to kingdom come).

I can sleep through anything, but one morning when I was on the Blevins Charge, I awoke to this horrid sound roaring right over the roof of the parsonage. I looked at the clock, thought it was way too dark thirty to wake up, and went back to sleep. When I woke for good, my coffee pot wouldn’t work because the electricity was out. I went to the Gas and GO, three houses away (Blevins has more chickens than people), but they were in the same shape. I am a woman who needs my coffee (it is my machete). When I inquired, the clerk said “Are you not aware that a tornado came through here this morning!? No one has electricity! You might find coffee in Hope.” Oh, so that horrible loud sound early this morning was a tornado? And I just opened my eyes and went back to bed.

That tornado didn’t even lift a shingle off the parsonage, but that is the vagaries of the animal. The recent OKLAHOMA tornados were much larger and more devastating. Half of a city blown away, but thankfully not many lives lost considering the amount of physical destruction. The recent thunderstorms that brought flooding to Arkansas also caused several deaths. Some may ask, where is God in all this? People lose loved ones, their homes, and their business. Why does God let bad things happen to good people? Couldn’t a good God keep this from happening?

God is with us at all times, whether we acknowledge this fact or not. God’s steadfast love is a gift to us, for when our love fails and we turn away from God, God still remembers God’s pledge to love us. “You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.” ~~ Job 10:12 there was a time in my life that I decided there was no God, but God still remembered me even when I had forgotten God.

When we ask, why does God let bad things happen to good people, sometimes we re asking “does God cause bad things to happen?” This is a broken and fallen world in which we live. The world itself isn’t in harmony with God’s good purposes, but one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth. We too are part of the broken and fallen world, and as much as it pains us to hear this word, we are not yet “good” in biblical terms, for good is a term belonging to God alone (Mark 10:18–
Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”)

Could a good God keep these disasters from befalling his loved ones? I think if we humans thought we were immune to disasters, we would throw caution to the winds and go bat crazy. I also think we would soon forget the source of our protection and begin to worship ourselves. Oh wait, that sounds like us right now!

The question we ought to answer is “How do folks endure tragedy?” For some it is a challenge: they thrive when they have a machete in hand and are behind enemy lines. When you come out of your safe place and see your whole neighborhood blown away, you are behind enemy lines. When you find out your kid is on drugs, you are behind enemy lines. When your job gets downsized, you are behind enemy lines. The doctor tells you it’s cancer: grab the machete, honey. It’s time to meet the challenge standing up.

Even behind enemy lines, we need to rest. We have to find a hiding place, a quiet place in which we can restore ourselves and be ready for the next day. We need to be “in the shadow of your wings” and “take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by.” (Psalm 57:1)Those can be the storms of doubt, fear, hopelessness, weakness, anger, grief or inadequacy. When others depend on us to be strong, we need to take time to care or ourselves. A quiet time to meditate, to pray, to read scripture, or to hold hands with your family and to speak aloud the thanksgivings of your day can be “refuge in the shadow of God’s wings.”

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