mixtape monday [summer vacation edition]

We're on vacation this week -- at home. Two days in and I'm loving every minute! Yesterday my latest title from BOMC2 arrived. I'm probably not going to get to that until fall because of the reading challenge all six of us have undertaken. It's all about reading the right titles from now through August; my apologies to Anne Rice but since she's not {yet} on a classic literature list she has to wait until September.

Books:

Every summer I try to give us a reading theme to rally around. One of my favorite, favorite, favorite things about summer is the less-scheduled pace which means lots more time for fun reading. My kids are older and I'm not getting dumber with age so this year I attached a cash incentive. Brian and I are even paying ourselves!

For a couple of years now I've been compiling lists of classic literature and this summer that is our goal in the Murphy house -- to get some classic literature under our belts. Want to join us? Check out the list (but don't expect me to be handing you any cash)!

With my vacation time I've completed two-and-a-half books in the last couple of days (oh, the joy)...

Solomon's Grave by Daniel G. Keohane

You may or may not realize that this book is quite a distance outside of my normal taste. But my friend Kevin Lucia has been educating me on the suspense/horror/pulp-fiction genre and this is one of the titles he loaned me. I had speed-read another title that, honestly, was not one I would have wanted to spend much more time than the quick browsing I gave it. But this book was different.

One of the reviews on the back cover reads: A fascinating occult suspense novel, fluent to read, for all those who prefer subtle suspense and finely woven characters over bloody murders and hardcore action...

Based on my clear preference of this work over the first I'd guess I'm one who "prefers subtle suspence over bloody murders". In many ways the plotline and characters reminded me of those I've read in one of Frank Peretti's novels. The main character is a young pastor in a small town wanting to do right by his faith, friends and family but, unwittingly, finds himself in the middle of supernatural clashes between good and evil forces.

Although I did get caught up in the book -- twisting my hair and turning pages as quickly as I could -- the characters were not as convincing to me as those Peretti created and I did not find myself wanting to hide underneath the covers as I did reading This Present Darkness while I was up in the middle of the night feeding my newborn. But I read them a long time ago and I could just be a little bit harder to please now. Either way, I'm glad Kevin is helping me to learn a new genre and I am convinced that we do not tell the whole truth in any artform that does not convince us that evil exists and must be fought. I applaud Kevin and his ilk for pursuing this genre with gusto!

Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle
Moving from occult suspense to this title from one day to the next should have given me some sort of literary whiplash! But moving back and forth between genres is half the fun in reading for me and this author and this book rank right up near the top of my packing list for that day I get stranded on a deserted island and can take only one book.

This morning all six of us (plus Kendra's girlfriend Kaitlyn) walked the two blocks to the neighborhood library - summer book lists in our hands. I had decided to read from the poetry category and looked up Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare's Sonnets. But I could not resist going back to my reading roots with this series. And, within 12 hours had the first title completed.

You know that feeling, right? When you go back to one of your favorite childhood books and it's almost as comforting as if you were actually curled up in your old bedroom, surrounded by your stuffed animals and other assorted adolescent bric-a-brac. During this re-reading I may have realized for the first time how much of my own parenting dreams have been formed by the ideals held by the Austin parents, Victoria and Wallace. I had to also fight the temptation to be discouraged by how little I've matched those ideals. I mean, honestly, how could I be feeling discouraged when I had spent the morning with all of my children scouring the shelves of our little library? Surely the Austin family would approve. Now if we could just have a bushy-eyebrowed grandfather that lived surrounded by books in a renovated stable on a quaint island near (I'm guessing) Nova Scotia surrounded by coastline and beaches where we'd cook hotdogs and make sandcastles and play leapfrog and....[sigh].

Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor by Brad Gooch

I've read more about the storied southern-born, Catholic-bred author than read her actual stories. I've read The Geranium (in a collection of short stories) and The Violent Bear It Away...that's it. And, while they both affected me with their gritty, defiant characters and mythic tone, I wouldn't say they are my favorites. But the woman -- or at least the stories about her -- intrigues me. I thought, perhaps, if I read more of her life-story I would gain more insight into her novels and short stories.

This book is growing on me. Biographies normally do. (but I've mentioned that before, haven't I?) I am fascinated by the way a life and a work come up from out of a stew of circumstances, genes, opportunities and choices. The backstory of O'Connor's growing up years in the south during the days of Jim Crow laws and World War II and later in the almost-legendary Writer's Workshops at Iowa State University are as interesting to me as the stories the author has imagined into existence in the pages of her work. I'm not sure I would have liked O'Connor too much if we had been classmates -- she was anti-social and often bitingly sarcastic. But her contrarian, ironic persona and her clear focus and determination to write and write and write and write, are teaching me about this craft and those who pursue it. It is also teaching me about myself and my fears and my continued deference to the status-quo that I don't like to look at very much. If her writing does not have any further impact on me, than hopefully her life-story will.

Films:

Perhaps to counter-balance all the quality reading we're doing as a family this summer, we've decided, in the movie department, to crank up the melodramatic and the kitsch -- you guessed it... 1980's films!

This idea formed during a seemingly-innocent conversation with our friends Paul and Margaret. We were on our way home from dinner at another friend's place and were just making conversation, really. But as we poked into the fog of our near-forty-year-old brains and shouted out one 80's title after another the idea to flood our Netflix queue with every title became too good to ignore.

We're starting with the quintessential drama of teenage angst (The Breakfast Club)and then moving right-into the testosterone-laden romantic glamour (Top Gun). Our kids really aren't too excited about this and Brian and I just can't figure it out. How could they NOT want to take this trip back to our glory days with us? Don't they want to understand better the culture that formed their parents?

Romancing the Stone is coming later this week, and Pretty in Pink after that. What titles would you pick?

Music:

Speaking of the 80's, last weekend Brian and I shared a blast from the past at an outdoor Huey Lewis concert. Who'd have thought I'd love his live music even more than my cherished copies of Fore! and Sports? Between Meet the Austins, The Breakfast Club and Huey I may just be entering some sort of mid-life crisis. (actually I think it's just a much-needed vacation for my head) But, dang, did I need a reminder that there is some feisty girl still kicking around underneath this aging skin! And, in a freaky week of deaths, it was a good reminder of the power of pop music.

You might say, the heart of rock and roll is still beatin'....

Links:And, speaking of freaky news, you gotta check out this comic strip... (thanks to Jeffrey at Looking Closer for the link)
I'll leave you with this video of my son drumming during his youth group's end-of-the-school-year worship service. It has been a while since Brian and I have been able to watch him play and when I got to watch him in his space I was kind of overwhelmed by the knowledge that he has only one year of highschool left. That Brian and I get to help him channel this passion and energy into the next phase of his life are thoughts that are almost devestating to me.
The kid can rock...

petition [disciplines for the inner life]

My friends Lori and Chris are great dancers. First hand I've seen them swing, waltz and polka. For my birthday gift this year they demonstrated for us a polka to the tune of In Heaven There Is No Beer. They had us roll up the rug and move the furniture in the living room and then gather round to observe before it was our turn to give it a whirl. We watched and clapped and laughed along. Then we tried to dance and *some* of us did a pretty decent job.

Some of us, not so much.

I realized -- quickly -- that watching Chris and Lori dance was not nearly enough to teach me how to dance. I would probably only figure it out by following their example and then doing it like them. (and Chris was so kind to give my two left feet a whirl around the room to Roll Out the Barrel). The apostle Paul tells us that being united with Christ is putting Him on like putting on new clothes. Recently my friend David Taylor told me a story of how he learned healthy confrontation from his brother-in-law Cliff and now when he finds himself in a similar circumstance he chooses to put on Cliff because Cliff is so excellent at healthy, productive confrontation. In other words, if I find myself in a polka match some day, in order to even come close to looking like a dancer I would likely put on the stellar skills of Chris and Lori.


And what the heck does this all have to do with the discipline of petition, you might ask? Well, I'm getting to that: In the same way as I've been studying and meditating on the inner discipline of petition I have stumbled on many saints (ancient and contemporary) who know how to pray. I studied passages about prayer -- Matthew 7:7-12, Psalm 5, James 5, for example -- and I read profound insights about prayer from Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Albert Day. But out of all that the best example I had was a brief, simply-written biography about the life of famed prayer George Muller: The Guardian of Bristol's Orphans.

The man knew how to pray, but even more importantly knew what to pray and when to pray. He chose to put himself in a place in life where he could not rely on anything or anyone more than on God. He did not surround himself with crutches, escape hatches, door #2's or plan b's. He did not take one moment of his time away from rescuing orphans and teaching underprivileged children and pastoring a church in order to raise funds. But he did take many, many moments to pray. [and it would be appropriate to laugh at that last sentence as a major understatement!]


He knew what his purpose in life was and it wasn't because he spent years reading books about how to find his purpose or attending classes about his purpose; he prayed about it and then made choice after choice after choice that left him solely dependent on his Creator for everything he and his family and his church and his school and his orphans needed. When God didn't meet the need he was praying for he simply knew he needed to change course. The man lived in desperate situations (including experiencing the death of a child and two wives) for his entire ninety-two years on earth.


Desperate Prayer is one of our covenant values at Union Center Christian Church : God doesn’t answer prayer; he answers desperate prayer. That doesn’t mean we contrive a constant state of anxiety. It means we have a clear understanding of what’s at stake, and we’re aware that without God’s blessing, wisdom, and direction, we’re a mess. A covenant commitment to prayer means that there are times we refuse to accept that God is done answering us, and we’re bold enough to wait and wrestle with God until he answers.


But, after reading about George Muller I'm not sure I have any idea at all what desperate prayer really looks like. I'm thinking I need to put on Muller when I'm petitoning God but also when I'm making choices that will eliminate crutches, escape hatches, door #2's and plan b's in my life. What good is desperate prayer when I've surrounded myself with so many options and ideas and comforts? I can't even pray intelligently because I haven't figured out what I'm truly desperate for.

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (James 4:3). To ask rightly involves transformed passions. In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God's thoughts after him: to desire things he desires, to love the things he loves, to will the things he wills. -- Celebration of Discipline, Foster

And this bold statement from Foster makes me think of that beautiful line Liv Tyler's character gives to the self-absorbed rocker who breaks her heart in That Thing You Do: I have wasted thousands and thousands of kisses on you. .. Shame on me for kissing you with my eyes closed so tight.  I wonder how many prayers I've wasted on my own passions. Prayers that felt desperate because I hadn't decided on what God was asking me to spend my desperation.


Shame on me for praying with my eyes closed so tight.


At the end of his life, George Muller had provided care for over ten thousand orphaned children. He went from being a con man and petty thief in his youth to being a man whom God trusted to steward a fortune. He supported Sunday schools and regular schools around the world, printed Bibles and supported missionaries [at one time he sent his friend Hudson Taylor enough money to support all the missionaries of the China Inland Mission!] But history remembers him most as a man who, in his very own lifetime, rescued and cared for over ten thousand orphans.


So when I enter the discipline of petition I choose to put on George Muller both in the times my eyes are shut tight in desperate prayer and my eyes are wide open in desperate living.

mixtape monday [father's day edition]

I have a strong suspicion that the summer mixtape posts will be filled with lots of photos and fewer words. That's just the way summer rolls around here -- lots of Kodak moments and much less time to be quiet long enough for words to form. Today the Kodak moments are captured more on video than film; either way, you get the point.

I have just a couple of titles for today's mixtape, but they [just happened!] to form around the concept of fathers and father's day. Enjoy!

Links
Another Mustache Mayhem production, Grandpa's Santa letter-reading goes awry.

While you're at that page (yes, it's my brother, and, yes, my two sons were part of the editing genius of this masterpiece) check out the secret film footage of my parents' reaction.

While they were in one room of the house creating sacreligious patriarchal homages, I was in another room creating this ...

Have I ever mentioned that Brian and I had our four children before we turned twenty-eight years old? Several of our friends have had babies recently and watching them go through the early, exhausting stages of parenthood reminds us of our first days. The first night after Andrew was born and Brian had left me and his first-born son at the hospital and had gone back to get some rest in our west side apartment, he had a full-blown panic attack and ended up driving to his mother's apartment in Johnson City to spend the rest of the night in his old bed. Parenting is just a pretty big deal and Brian has risen to the occasion like a pro for the last [almost] eighteen years. That's why he is my hero.

Films

Gran Torino

I've been thinking a lot recently about the difference between grandfathers and fathers. Maybe I'll write about it more on another day, but for now I'd have to say that Clint Eastwood captures some of the essence of the contrast between the two in the machisimo peppered with tenderness in his portrayal of Michigan retired auto-worker Walt Kawalski. There is something about his ferocity in protecting the vulnerable that allows us to forgive him his lack of parenting skills evidenced in his self-absorbed, materialistic, milk-toast sons.

And there is something about his no-nonsence approach to mentoring a fatherless teenage boy that makes us think we'd be willing to suffer the same abuse as Walt doles out if it meant we'd get to experience the same affirmations he offers. This, in spite of the fact that he can't even tell his own son that he's dying and that he really does love him.

In the end, though, I think the most poignant contrast between father and grandfather shows up when the strong silent member of the so-called greatest generation indulges his one and only luxury -- a shortage of days left to live -- by committing a selfless and thorough act of justice that protects the vulnerable, stops the atrocities of the evil and slaps the wrists of the mediocre.

As a film, it's quintessentially Clint without losing tenderness and nuance. Oh, and the car is great too! (as is the song of the same name co-written by Eastwood and his son, Kyle) We watched with our friends the Graveldings and as the credits rolled Scott was memorizing lyrics and Coleen was weeping. It's really that good.

Photo of the Week In honor of Father's Day, a vintage pic of my Daddy and me (1971) ....

playing at words

For the summer, Tuesday nights are for art workshops at Andy's house. I don't make the kind of art that you can dab onto a canvas or sketch with a pencil, but I didn't want to miss out on the fun of being artsy in one of the many cool spaces on his property. So I decided that Tuesday nights will be my time to play with words. In the treehouse.

I'm still stabbing at that 250-a-day goal but I've noticed that those words end up being serious words. Words that talk about discipline and learning and teaching. I want Tuesday nights to be about words at play.

First, you have to picture me walking to the top of this hill and climbing the ladder into that tree with all my stuff spilling out of my big ol' leather purse. And me in flip-flops. Next, you have to imagine me checking the time and trying to do the math of how long I had to play before the bats come out. And how long it would take me to skedaddle out of that tree.

So, here's some words. They are just playing. Don't be too hard on them; I haven't made them straighten up and fly right yet. I just put my pen down on the yellow pad and this is what came out.

I realize this is an impossible plan. Writing up here in this tree. Sitting on planks with mosquitoes bobbing up and down on my pantlegs.

I like the aloneness, though. If I have to trade mosquitoes for people bobbing up and down with poisonous small talk, I pick this.

What are red, scratchy welts on my feet and scalp and hands compared to the pricks and stabs of the platitudes and cliche of meaningless conversation?

At least I have Calamine lotion for the bug bites.

Perhaps it would be helpful to apply some sort of pastely salve on each spot I am bitten with babble about the weather in NY or prattle about your busy schedule.

Better yet, a polluting aerosol to spray upon my head when I see you coming. Perhaps the scent of it would magically change your words to poetry.

Or some sort of chemical reaction would take place mid-air so that all your words would be about Annie Dillard or Bob Dylan or Degas' dancers.

Or even Dr. Suess.

Now picture me making a note to stuff a can of mosquito spray into my purse next week.

Voice.

I must have one. I'm pretty sure God did not forget.

What I can't figure out is the sound and shape of it.

Soft and flowing like a warmly-lit woman or clipped and spiky like a queen of renown.

Perhaps it's squashed and sullen like a cuss. Or hollow and pleasant like a bank teller or a receptionist.

I'm not particularly impressed with any of these options. And I'm jealous of (almost) all of them.

I'd like to be able to curse like a prophetess and judge like a queen.

I'd like to whisper like a lover and sing like a Siren.

Mostly I'd like to know the voice when it comes up from my chest and over my tongue. I'd like to be able to recognize it as my own.

Connected to the truth stitched into the core of me.

I am so homesick for the taste of it. I've forgotten what it sounds like.

This got me on a roll about voice.

I think I change my voice on purpose.

I make the decision how to sound by what I'm hearing outside my head instead of what I'm hearing inside my head.

It's like a giant sponge fills up my belly all the way to the back of my throat.

When I hear sounds it's like tiny seeds fly through the air into my mouth, between my teeth, across my tongue and drop into the nooks and crannies of the giant sponge.

The sound-seeds put down high-speed, quick-growing roots and send out flowers of their own kind.

The leaves crowd out the air inside of my mouth and the blossom forces it's way through my lips leaving sticky sweetness on the backs of my teeth.

Then the people I'm talking to pick the flowers and pin them to their collars like a boutonniere.

Even for play, this one got a little silly so I'm sparing you the sequel.

That and the one about my mother that I'll have to publish posthumously.

In plenty of time to avoid the bats I climbed back down out of the tree, purse slung over my shoulder like Mary Poppins' carpetbag. Flip-flops askew and toenail polish dented. But, dang if it didn't feel good!

I'll leave with you with a few snapshots of my artist friends at work in Andy's house of art.

Beau channeling Frank Lloyd Wright in the kitchen.

Linda and Dawn in the open-air studio loft. Mary in the plain old open-air.

Join us if you're in the area!

Tuesday nights through September, 6-9 PM

Andy Palmer's house: 506 High Street, Lisle

monday mix tape

i made a mix tape for you of all my favorites this week!

Links: Dialogue / Design for Mankind

File this under the category of "reading outside my tradition". I am pretty much ignorant of the world of design but love the way that blogger and magazine editor Erin Loechner celebrates art and design/artists and designers. I recently stumbled on these short vignettes of a variety of artists talking about the real-life, every-day kind of stuff they deal with. Click on any that interest you; so far, my favorite is "overcoming artist's block":

Design For Mankind - Dialogue Episode 5 from Design For Mankind on Vimeo.

Books:

Finished reading Homer's Odyssey this past week (Fitzgerald translation). Also Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Way. Both have been on my reading list for a couple of years. David Taylor booted my backside during the talk he gave about disciplined disciples during our Worship & Arts retreat.

I enjoyed both. Certainly The Odyssey is more like the thrill of watching an action flick (filled with romance, monsters and reconcilations, of course). Feeling pretty impressed with myself, I sat around the campfire of last weekend's Memorial Day trip reading the centuries-old story. That is until my seventeen-year-old boy said, Oh, Odyssey. I had to read that in ninth grade. Well bully for him, then.

The Violent... like a disturbing, yet gratifying, thriller. That woman can write and I can't wait to dive into the biography I picked up from the new release shelf of my corner library. It's so crazy how a good author weaves words to describe characters that I can identify with -- even, temporarily, to become -- while our circumstances are nothing alike.

For example, this description of the schoolteacher, would-be guardian, Rayber:

He had kept it from gaining control over him by what amounted to a rigid ascetic discipline. He did not look at anything too long, he denied his senses unnecessary satisfactions. ... He was not deceived that this was a whole or a full life, he only knew that it was the way his life had to be lived if it were going to have any dignity at all. He knew that he was the stuff of which fanatics and madmen are made and that he had turned his destiny as if with his bare hands. He kept himself upright on a very narrow line between madness and emptiness, and when the time came for him to lose his balance, he intended to lurch toward emptiness and fall on the side of his choice.

I suppose it's a topic for another day, but most days I'm pretty certain I'm made of the same stuff as Rayber.

Films: UP

If you haven't seen it yet, just go now. We celebrated a rare Saturday that all six of us were home by heading to the theatre and we celebrated even further that all six of us loved it, laughed out loud and (most of us) cried, too. Rare, indeed.

Music: Best of Bonnie Raitt

Another outcome from that Memorial Day weekend campfire? My friend Lori talked a bunch of us into seeing the classic Bonnie Raitt in Philly this summer. I'm way rusty on her music and gosh-darn determined to catch up enough to make that ticket worth every penny. If you can't sing along on a few tunes, what good is the show?

Memorial Day boating. Daughters....

...& mothers (yeah, we don't quite got the hip-ness)

Confession, part 2 [disciplines of the inner life]

Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with. {James 5:16, MSG}

So I will call you Peter, which means "a rock." On this rock I will build my church, and death itself will not have any power over it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and God in heaven will allow whatever you allow on earth. But he will not allow anything that you don't allow. {Matthew 16:18, 19, CEV}

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. {John 20:23}

We believe it. Or we don't.

We, as a people of Jesus, have a role to play in hearing and giving confession and in asking for and giving forgiveness. It's pretty mind-boggling. I mean it's already stretches me to understand the access Jesus gives us to the throne of the Creator. But to know that he has given us his authority to serve each other as priests is almost too much.

From my meditation and study on this subject, I have three quotes, two stories and one cautionary tale to share.

Three Quotations on Confession in Community

1. Confession is a discipline that functions within fellowship. In it we let trusted others know our deepest weaknesses and failures. This will nourish our faith in God's provision for our needs through his people, our sense of being loved, and our humility before our brothers and sisters. Thus we let some friends in Christ know who we really are, not holding back anything important, but, ideally, allowing complete transparency. We lay down the burden of hiding and pretending, which normally takes up such a dreadful amount of human energy. We engage and are engaged by others in the most profound depths of the soul. -- The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard (read all of his section on Confession, pp. 187 - 189)

2. We are grateful for the biblical teaching, underscored in the Reformation, that "there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Tim. 2:5). We are also grateful for the biblical teaching, newly appreciated in our day, to "confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another..." (James 5:16). Both are found in Scripture and neither need exclude the other....if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinners, we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God's love and to confess our needs openly before our brothers and sisters. We know we are not alone in our sin. The fear and pride that cling to us like barnacles cling to others also. We are sinners together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied, but transformed....The followers of Jesus Christ have been given the authority to receive the confession of sin and to forgive it in his name...What a wonderful privilege! Why do we shy away from such a life-giving ministry? If we, not out of merit but sheer grace, have been given the authority to set others free, how dare we withhold this great gift! -- Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster (read his whole chapter on the corporate discipline of confession, pp. 143 - 157)

3. In confession a man breaks through to certainty. Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confession our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution. And is not the reason perhaps for our countless relapses and the feebleness of our Christian obedience to be found precisely in the fact that we are living on self-forgiveness and not a real forgiveness? Self-forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin; this can be accomplished only by the judging and pardoning Word of God itself. Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. As long as I am by myself in the confession of my sins everything remains in the dark, but in the presence of a brother the sin has to be brought into the light. -- Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (see entire chapter "Confession and Communion", pp. 110 - 122)

Two Stories about Confession in Community

First a story from the New Testament. For several years I have participated and led in a small group at Union Center that focuses on healing for the relationally and sexually broken. When the curriculum was first introduced from the pulpit on a Sunday morning our pastor cautioned us to not assume each of us was not part of this large spectrum of the relationally and sexually broken; that the category covered about 99.8% of us. The founder of the Desert Stream ministries uses the story of Lazarus in John 11 to give us a picture of confession in community.

On the one hand, Jesus has raised us up from the dead, just as He raised up Lazarus. On the other hand, we come out of the tomb still wearing the old and familiar "grave clothes" that we wore when we were on our own. -- Cross Current study guide by Andrew Comiskey, chapter "Getting Clean: The Cross and Confession"

In essence, when we meet Jesus at the cross he calls us to life from our deadened, sinful state. He calls out our true self -- the image He originally intended when he created us. But we still have old, stinky grave clothes unravelling from our old, dead self that we need Jesus' help to identify and remove. Another word for grave clothes would be sin. And just as Jesus had to tell Lazarus' friends take off his grave clothes and let him go, we need the help of other Christians to identify and unravel the deadening effects of sin on our lives.

Next, I'd like to tell you a little bit about my first experience of intentional confession to a group of women after learning this value of confession. I was attending a pilot series of the Cross Current small group at Union Center. Because it was a pilot it was only offered to elders and pastoral staff and their spouses. It was like the first month Brian even worked at the church so we were new to this group anyway. And we were quite a bit, ummm -- younger -- than most in the group. I was put into a small group with elders' wives. I was, ummmm -- intimidated -- to be included with what I would naturally presume to be spiritual giants among women.

What's worse was that I had just come out of a season of committing one of the most painful sins against my God and my husband that I had never imagined I would have committed. I was still feeling the sting of how easily I had been led away from what I knew to be true and right. I had not been able to share the experience with anyone other than Brian and a spiritual counsellor and I was carrying the weight like it was a stony-eyed gargoyle crouched on my shoulder.

Each week I arrived to the large group worship time with hope and anticipation of what I would be able to learn and experience. And each week, about 2.5 minutes into the time I would become so angry I literally had to hold onto the seat of my chair to not get up, storm out of the room and drive away for the night. This was so unlike my normal self I was able to realize (through the fog of my general pissed-offedness) that there was some other sort of evil at work. That thought alone kept me in my seat through the large group worship and teaching time until I could get into the small group time. But it didn't get me to speak up to the group until about four weeks into the group.

Pretty quickly it had become clear to me what I needed to speak out loud, to confess, to bring into the light of truth in order to receive forgiveness and healing. But I could not speak it out because I was pretty sure this group of spiritually mature women would not want to hear what I had to say. Would not understand it. Would not accept it in it's raw and embarrassing form -- which was mostly a vague sense of wrong without a concrete confidence of what to label it. As I tried to picture what to say and how they would respond, I pictured them smiling courteously and then saying, Tamara, you need to be more sure of this before we can pray for you. But the longer I kept quiet the more miserable I became so I went for it. I took the risk of opening my mouth. I could not have been more shocked -- or more quickly healed -- when the first woman spoke up and said, Let's pray about this, Tami. Let's ask God for wisdom together. What have you got to lose?

In other words, I stood in front of them holding up several layers of smelly, rotten grave clothes and instead of them turning their heads away in disgust they gathered around me, picked up a corner of the cloth and helped me unravel and destroy it. Some of it they just took right out of my own trembling hands because I wasn't able to even look at it or touch it without them.

I'd known the verse in Romans that tells us it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance, but I'd never even imagined His kindness would be wrapped up in the eyes and prayers and hugs of a group of elders' wives. I made confession and was forgiven, cleansed and healed by the kindness of God alive in those women.

A Cautionary Tale about confession in community

I can't write the whole book of my learnings in this context, but I don't want to write only the beauty of the kind of vulnerability confession in community takes. It's the single-greatest risk I've taken in community. In the story above (and many others I don't have space to share) it has paid off with eternal reward. But I have other stories I could tell of confession in community that has killed relationships and felt like it would almost kill me. It wasn't until I had done this mediation and study of confession in my year of looking at the inner disciplines that I was able to give some context to that pain. To wrap up the painful learnings with words that will guide me in the future.

Even though I'm not at liberty to share the specifics of my own story yet, I gladly share these words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer with you:

There are two dangers that a Christian community which practices confession must guard against. The first concerns the one who hears confessions. It is not a good thing fro one person to be the confessor for all the others. All too easily this one person will be overburdened; thus confession will become for him an empty routine, and this will give rise to the disastrous misuse of the confessional for the exercise of spiritual domination of souls. In order that he may not succumb to this sinister danger of the confessional every person should refrain from listening to confession who does not himself practice it. Only the person who has so humbled himself can hear a brother's confession without harm.

The second danger concerns the confessant. For the salvation of his soul let him guard against ever making a pious work of his confession. If he does so, it will become the final, most abominable, vicious, and impure prostitution of the heart; the act becomes an idle, lustful babbling. Confession as a pious work is an invention of the devil. It is only God's offer of grace, help, and forgiveness that could make us dare to enter the abyss of confession. We can confess solely for the sake of the promise of absolution. Confession as a routine duty is spiritual death; confession in reliance upon the promise is life. The forgiveness of sins is the sole ground and goal of confession. -- Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 120

Perhaps when I am an older elders' wife myself I'll have the courage to share more specifically how perfectly on-target Bonhoeffer's words describe the painful, killing experiences I've had -- with confessor and as a confessant.

On the healing power of confession in community,though, I do have one other story I'd love to share....

Confession, part 1 [disciplines for the inner life]

On March 28 we held special prayer service at Union Center. The purpose for the evening was for all the Good Friday volunteers (and any others from our church family who wanted to join us) to learn together and pray together before we did tons and tons of work together. Messianic Rabbi Ron Goldberg taught us about the Jewish tradition of removing every speck of yeast from the house leading up to the first day of Passover.

In the Hebrew mind leaven represented the evil impulses of the heart. And these evil impulses can not just be pushed aside or ignored, they must be destroyed. He explained why yeast is such a perfect picture for this -- even a small amount of yeast grows and spreads through the whole mound of dough.

Yeast is also a perfect picture because it is so ordinary. Baking bread is such an ordinary activity. This is not only about getting rid of the capital-E evil offenses. It's about every little ordinary speck of evil that follows us around in our everyday, ordinary lives.

In the same way that the Hebrew housekeeper -- and then the whole family -- would take extreme measures to destroy or remove all yeast from their homes before Passover (even going so far as to temporarily sell whole vineyards and foodstuffs to Gentiles until after Passover) so, too, we must be diligent to destroy all evil impulses from our own lives.

Rabbi Goldberg did the thesaurus work for us. Destroy = remove, evacuate, evict, move, oust, purge, relocate, take away. And what can be harder to destroy than microscopic specks of yeast? The evil, hidden impulses inside of us. The unspoken thoughts, attitudes and behaviors that spread throughout us like specks of yeast multiplying in a rising lump of dough.

The Hebrew tradition, searching for chometz, is a family activity. Historically, it started with the housewife, as the main keeper of the home, but as the first day of Passover grew closer the whole family became involved hunting through every nook and cranny of the house to destroy every sign of yeast. Really, it is a community activity as each family unit is doing the same activity at the same time, holding each other accountable. The local rabbi acts as a sort of clearing house for yeast -- making temporary business transactions with neighborly Gentiles who are willing to hold onto bulk food items, vineyards, shop goods until the completion of Passover.

This picture of removing sin as a community event has captured my stunted, individualistic, evangelical imagination for a couple of years. It really started when I found myself in the place to make confessions in a small group setting. I had imagined this to be painful and risky and ostracizing. I was right on two counts, but not the third. I had guessed that when I brought into public truths about me -- sins committed against me and sins I had committed -- to form into words that crossed my lips for the first time ever in my life that these words would be held against me as accusations and condemnations.

I couldn't have been more wrong....

250

250. Two-fifty. Two-hundred-fifty.

Words. A day.

Thirty. (30)

Days. In a row.

That’s the commitment I made to some friends last week. David Taylor inspired me with this challenge in his talk about being disciplined disciples. So my girlfriends are checking up on me. And I feel like I’m back in school again trying to figure out how to take up space on the white sheet in front of me. For example, by the fun little creative tool of writing out numbers in both words and numerals above I’ve already managed to crank out 94 words today.

Ninety-four. Words.

In case you’re wondering, I’m only 50/50 for the challenge. Fifty-fifty is only half-bad, right? I met the challenge two of the days out of four (I’ll spare you the numeric repetitions). That’s better than nothing, right?

As David challenged us: Something begets something; nothing begets nothing. So this challenge has begotten at least 500 (plus the 154 new ones I’ve just written in this post) words that otherwise would have been pestering me inside my head. Also making me very cranky. If I were a runner I would feel this way if I’d been locked inside an office for months on end while the weather was sixty-two degrees and zero humidity (62 and nada). I am not a runner. But if being cranky when you are deprived of an activity defines you, then I am a writer. And all kinds of beautiful and sad and funny things have been going on outside my window and I’ve been stuck inside churning out tasks instead of words.

I’m not promising you’ll see all the fruits of this discipline in this space. (Go ahead, you can breathe a sigh of relief. I can’t see you anyway.) But perhaps you’ll see one or two little gems that pop up to the top of all this word-churning. Apparently it’s a numbers game.

A few people who inspire me toward greater discipline...

David reads words churned out by poet Billy Collins.

Kevin gets up at 2:30 AM (!) every day just so he can churn out words.

Andy churns out stuff he makes with his hands instead of words. He told us that he thinks only one or two things he's ever made qualify as great. But all the churning got him there.

Lester G. Morgan, 1911 - 2009

Janice Morgan Meacham, Lester G. Morgan, Alexander Morgan Murphy
October 2008

Two years ago today I watched my husband watch his father die. It was one of the most gut-wrenching things I've ever done. (I wrote about it here.)

Today -- two years later to the day -- I will stand by Brian at his 97-year-old grandfather's funeral. Death and grief are uncanny figures, creeping up on us without invitation or welcome. But we are forced to sit with them until they choose to leave us, promising to come again soon.

Brian and I spent the afternoon together yesterday, resting, reminiscing, drinking cabernet sauvignon, watching the Yankees. I asked him if he remembered the first time I had ever seen him cry. He said yes, he did. He said it was the first time he realized how much he needed me. We were only fifteen? Sixteen? He stopped by my house unannounced one weeknight. My little sister opened the door and Brian just kind of slumped into the chair inside the doorway and started crying. My little brothers and sisters scattered and I hugged Brian. I wasn't sure what else to do. Eventually he was able to say that his grandfather had a heart attack. And that he was scared. That he loved his grandfather very much and didn't want to lose him. That his grandfather was a father to him.

But Grandpa Morgan was a hearty old soul. He recovered from that heart attack as well as a bout with cancer and other ailments throughout his tenure on this earth. Heck, the man bowled a couple of times a week until a year or so ago. I hope he passed along his genetic sturdiness to my husband and children.

So today we will remember this man, Lester Grant Morgan. We will remember him by telling stories. Some will be slightly exaggerated because that is what you do at funerals. Some will be skipping whole paragraphs of unflattering realities about the flawed man who did not speak often of his love for his family. Those will be left unspoken, set aside for each to deal with in his own private grieving space.

For sure, we will talk about Grandpa-the-Snappy-Dresser and Grandpa-the-Big-Tease and Grandpa-the-Father-Figure for the single mother of five - er, active - Murphy kids. If there is a lull I might tell the story of how we wanted to name our second-born after Lester's middle name, but the doctor guffawed at the similarity between our chosen name, Alexander Grant, and a certain historic figure. We caved and christened our screaming infant Alexander Morgan.

But I have a feeling there will not be a lull. This family likes to tell stories. Instead, I will ponder my own memoires with this man whose obituary made me cry because his life epitomizes an entire generation in this part of New York state: World War II Army veteran, Endicott-Johnson factory worker, longtime church member and deacon, father of three, grandfather of 13, great-grandfather of 26, great-great-grandfather of 2 (soon to be 3). And husband of one for seventy years. Seventy years. The obituary does not have the space to tell us how many of those years were spent watching the painful decay of his wife into Alzheimer's. Or how hard it was for him to spend his last days in the same nursing home he sent his wife to in her last years. But these are stories we will remember. And tell to our children and their children.

The last time Brian and I saw Grandpa was this past Tuesday morning. The hearty old soul was fighting a contest with his weary body. And losing. I was reminded of the first line in my essay about watching Brian's dad pass away: Death is a violent visitor.

To know that Jesus conquered death and the grave means a lot more to me when I am given a ring-side seat to this contest between life and it's arch-enemy, death. Grandpa was made to live and not die. He was designed to breathe deeply and bowl 300 games and wrestle with his grandchildren and eat bacon. Death is a violent visitor, but his stay is short-lived. And today we will tell stories about that kind of Jesus-hope that Grandpa passed on to his children and his children's children and their children, too. Yes, he passed it along quite imperfectly, but he passed it on, nonetheless. Our true Father was perfect and even on his worst days, Grandpa mirrored a tiny glimpse of that truth.

We will sit with the visitor and mourn for awhile. And then we will hope.

re:Imagine [worship & arts retreat]

The goal was soul-rest.
Reconnecting.
Check.
Renewing.
Check.
Re-imagining.
Check.
The surprise was how much fun we had doing it. Mostly not the rowdy, racous ha-ha sort of fun – although listening to fifty people mill around a room mooing, meowing and whatever-it-is-a-parrot-says is pretty hilarious. And there was that bit where David made a comparison between Christian fiction and porn. Maybe not hilarious so much as facetious. Mostly though we just enjoyed being together in one room. At the same time. Thinking and talking about the same things.


It occurred to me Friday night as we were doing the all-too-familiar scurry of trying to fit in all we wanted to say and do within the time we had available that almost all the time we spend together is dictated by clock-watching. Do we have the extra thirty seconds to sing the chorus one more time, can we keep that extra paragraph of dialogue without losing the audience, how can we keep our conversations brief enough to send everyone home before they are exhausted? To not sweat the minutes, to know that the childcare workers were getting paid for chasing toddlers an extra half-hour, to have a full, thought-out conversation that didn’t take place between services – ahhhhh, rest.

Not necessarily the kick-back with a tall one kind of rest so much – although the continual array of food being paraded in and out of the room by our very own personal chefs (one of whom I have the privilege of sleeping with every night) was delicious and we did manage to celebrate the official end of the retreat with shots all around at the Murphy house. Mostly though we rested by having new conversations and reimagining old ones. We got to know the names and a story or two of faces we’d previously only seen from across the sanctuary.


And the stories were good. David told stories about his lemon tree and about a homeless man he met one Sunday and about the disciplines of his artist friend Jim Jangnegt. Phaedra told stories about facing her fears in the studio, dancing angels and wistful deer with enormous ears. We confided stories in our small groups around the tables. We discovered hidden stories walking around in unknown artists. That Beau and Lael stayed at the table even though they’d rather sometimes sleep in on Sundays. That Andy isn’t sure he needs people, thinks we might as well ask him to tap dance in church every Sunday morning and that he makes art when he is in pain. That Kevin sacrifices sleep so he can write, work, go to school and still play with his kids.


Speaking of play, we did some of that too. Ping-pong, fooseball, acoustic guitar, Rachmoninoff, Flatlander and that other -- er, memorable? -- movie clip. After the official retreat (and the ensuing whiskey shots) we played farcle and Apples to Apples. Might I add, we played the latter two rather fiercely.









But mostly, mostly we talked. We talked about things that we hoped for and things we we weren't sure about. We talked about ideas and dreams and ambitions that had been long-buried under the busyness of life, jobs, ministry. We talked about art we'd like to make, forgiveness we needed to give, disciplines we planned to learn and books we wanted to read. We talked in stories, songs and prayers. We talked during small group discussions around dining room tables and over big pizza pies. We asked each other questions, set goals, gave and received blessings. We called each other up and asked our Creator God to get glory for His name.



And now I give thanks. I give thanks to our Father for answering our need for rest, reconnection and renewed imagination for the arts at Union Center Christian Church. I give thanks for my fellow artists and friends who took the risk of being challenged to think differently about art and themselves as artists. I am thankful for our church leaders who initiated the idea for this retreat and who served us and spent time with us over the weekend. And I am forever grateful to know, learn from and befriend David and Phaedra Taylor. It's one of those providential gifts of Christ's community so beyond my hopes or expectations I find myself wrestling with the desire to trap all it's goodness down into a glass-jar like a June glowbug. More than once this past weekend I had to ask my beautiful husband to pray for me to be able to know how to receive good gifts with open hands. Grateful for each moment of glittering light my Father sends my way until we are able to bask -- uninterrupted and undistracted -- in the communion of saints around the throne of His Son.
Until then may we live as fully alive men and women bringing glory to our God.

Good Friday at Union Center (2009)

Make a Smilebox slideshow I am grateful to all the craftsmen, artists, prayers, and helpers who collaborated to learn together, pray together and work together so that our church family and community could remember together Christ's once-and-for-all work for us on the Cross. This year I have been changed again by the experience.

monday mixtape

i made you a mix tape of all my favorites this week!

While I fasted from blog-reading during Lent a lot of my blogging friends were doing some wayyy-fun stuff. I've been having fun catching up and thought you'd enjoy checking a few out for yourself.

My Front Porch

My sister Kaley, with some help from her witty husband Wesley, has been cranking out one compelling post after another. Her posts mix the day-to-day antics of mothering a pre-schooler and an infant with her passion - - nee obsession - - with finding free money and living frugally. Some of my absolute favorite posts from the past couple of months?

• Grieving
• True Confessions of a Tired, Busy, Happy Mom (pure blogging genious, this post!)
• How We Got Here, parts 1, 2 (featuring a lovely pic of yours truly) and 3 (this series tells the story of how Kaley and Wes have been able to live for the past year of Wes' unemployment without having to dip into their savings)

Living large on a limited budget is the motto for Wes and Kaley's newest online venture and TODAY is the grand opening of the new site: Cha-Ching on a Shoestring !!!

Go there, sign up and enter their grand opening contest for free stuff!

GrantDeb.com

I promise this is not some sort of blogging-world-nepotism, but I have to give a shout out to my cousin and his wife Grant and Deb Perry for the highly excellent work they have been doing at their photography site. Check out their blog for photo samples from each of their projects. If nothing else, check out the wedding pictures from Pavrita and Nicholas' wedding. Absolutely. Gorgeous. (makes me want to get married again just so they can take our pictures!)

Culture Making

What a fun surprise to find a feature this week from Ithaca, NY!

I leave you on this rainy Monday with a livingpalm PSA. Loving wives do not allow their husbands to play street ball without protective eyewear.

This is Brian's eye. This is Brian's eye after a giant thumb from a large, beastly man chasing a loose ball tore right in through the upper eyelid.

'Nuff said.

*photos taken by an amateur blackberry user.

no writing, no reading, but lots and lots and lots of things...

Since March 1, I...

• began a new job


• gave a talk, Becoming Secure in the Father's Love, at one of Union Center's small groups


• guest lectured three times at Davis Colleges' creative arts seminar


• attended my mother's retirement open house, a friends' birthday party and a spa facial with my 11-year old Natalie


• planned a mid-Lent prayer service for our Good Friday volunteers and church family


• learned about the Jewish Passover tradition Searching for Chometz from a messianic rabbi


• watched my oldest son's enchanting performance of a cowboy in Oklahoma!


• met the goal I set on January 13 to lose 15 pounds by Easter


• competed for points per time spent exercising each week with Team Buttzilla!


• felt very old


• co-wrote a dramatic sketch for Easter morning with my 17-year-old son


• turned 38 years old with a beautiful birthday evening with friends


• got the flu


• got over the flu


• celebrated my daughter's entrance to the teen years (Kendra is 13!)


• watched - with disbelief - the news all day one evil Friday in Binghamton


• re-planned our Palm Sunday services to become a prayer service for the families of the 14 dead


• grieved with my city at a community-wide prayer vigil


• wrote a 37-page presentation on Worship & the Arts at Union Center


• delivered said presentation like a stammering school girl


• coordinated Union Center's Good Friday events: Road to the Cross and Tenebrae


• helped to coordinate Union Center's Easter morning celebrations


• kept Lent with a Wednesday/Friday meat fast and a 40-day facebook and blog-reading fast


• celebrated Easter with my family


• took a nap a day since Sunday

I'm spent.

(but it's all good)

*picture at top: a really cool random art thing done with flourescent post-it notes by a rogue arts group in some unidentified city. for six weeks my life has been ruled by those two tyrannical words...

Binghamton is grieving

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

Psalm 34:18

For the last several weeks my days have been filled with preparation for Union Center's remembrance of Holy Week. I could not have known that the week would be ushered in, not with the waving of palm branches during Palm Sunday services, but with silence, mourning and petition for the God of all comfort to bring healing and peace to Binghamton.

For those of you not from Union Center, I highly recommend you download the audio stream from the prayer service yesterday. For those of you praying for Binghamton, I encourage you to actively participate with the audio stream and pray intentionally for the three areas of focus.

I do not know what to do with my days but to stay with Jesus in His grief for this town. To join him, the Man of sorrows who is acquainted with grief. To experience the tension of a heart at grief and at peace.

Christ suffers until the end of the world.

-- Blaise Pascal