Part 4: Whiteclay

... a tiny unincorporated town given to alcoholism and to poverty, to crime and tragedy and filth. This is where we spent the majority of our time during our trip, in a tiny Nebraska border town with a population of about 20. The southern gate to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota, only yards away from the state line.


What is the significance of this town? I did not realize much until I returned home and began doing some research on my own. But this is the town where 555 Whiteclay, the ministry that we worked with under Bruce Bonfleur, is located. I have mentioned this before, but there is not much beauty in Whiteclay. You drive up state highway 87 until you think you are almost in South Dakota... then you pass by four liquor stores, two convenience groceries, and 555 Whiteclay. Half a mile later, you are on the reservation.


The sides of the road are littered with broken glass and all manner of trash. Even the grass along the highway is sparse and brown along this small stretch of road. You can see a couple of houses as you pass through--I do not know if they are inhabited, but with broken windows and rotting siding, they appear as if they should be condemned and bulldozed to the ground.

Why does a town of 20 people need four liquor stores? Well, Pine Ridge is a dry reservation, but its people have been known for alcohol abuse. The location of Whiteclay, just inside the state of Nebraska and outside the reservation, makes it a prime location to sell liquor to the people on the reservation. I don't know what current statistics are, but in 2003 the four stores were selling a cumulative 11,000 cans of beer a day to Indians on the reservation--about $4.5 million dollars' worth of beer. The reservation is home to about 15,000 Lakota... These are staggering numbers to me. In talking with Bruce and some of the Lakota in town, I got the sense that these people truly hate the hold that alcohol has over some of their own--but what are they to do? They feel hopeless, and I have to admit that when I was there I experienced moments of hopelessness myself. I had to remind myself that God loves these people so much, and aches for them... and that God is a refuge and strength, and an ever-present help in trouble. I believe He will fight for these people, as more and more begin calling out to Him on their behalf.

Alcoholism was never part of His purpose for them, but it ensnares so many. I had the opportunity to talk to several Lakota men, one of them in jail for a DUI sentence, and their words left such an impact on me because of their hopelessness. They do not love alcohol; they love their homes and their children and their people, and they long to change but see no way out of their situation. The man in jail said that he wanted to clean up, but he doesn't think he ever will. He says he is not strong enough. We were able to tell him that he isn't strong enough, but that God is. A Lakota woman who was with us, a woman who used to be an alcoholic but sobered up and surrendered her life to God, was able to share her story of hope with him. We were able to pray for him... and we are able to continue praying.

There is an old prophecy of the Lakota which states that the Black Hills would be taken, and for seven generations they would be without their sacred land. The people of the seventh generation are the ones who, according to prophecy, will rise up as leaders, and mend the sacred hoop which represents the continuity of the Lakota people. Then would the Black Hills be restored to the Lakota.

The Black Hills were taken from the Lakota nation in 1877. According to the way that the Lakota count their generations, today's generation is the seventh. Now is the time for people of strength and integrity to rise up from within the tribe, and restore the hope and the unity of their people. As we were there, I really sensed that God wants to move in a powerful way in Whiteclay and in Pine Ridge... and He is just waiting for people to cry out for it.


Despite all the trash and the barrenness of Whiteclay, the town does have one place where beauty is invited to exist--the Green Tipi Gardens, a tract of land held by the ministry and given back to God. There will be vegetable gardens, and flower gardens, and running water... it will be a place of serenity. We were fortunate enough to help start that, and I know that God will develop it into a place where He can dwell, at the southern gate to the reservation. May it help bring the light of hope and truth to the Lakota people, and may this generation rise up and overcome for their people, and begin to lead them to a better existence. May the Lakota become who they were intended to be!

Part 3: My land, not your land

The Black Hills of western South Dakota have always been a sacred place to the Lakota people. Their Lakota name, Paha Sapa, means "the heart of everything that is." In 1868, the U.S. signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie which guaranteed that the Black Hills would remain Sioux land. However, less than a decade passed before rumors of gold in the Black Hills led our country to revoke that promise. In 1877, after several land disputes had led to battles between the U.S. government and the Sioux nation, Congress signed a bill that forced the Lakota to sell the Black Hills, their sacred lands, and return to their reservations.

One of those mountains, known to the Lakota as "The Six Grandfathers," was renamed in 1885 after a New York lawyer, Charles E. Rushmore, during a gold expedition. According to Wikipedia, Rushmore saw this mountain and asked its name; his companion said "Never had any but it has now--we'll call the damn thing Rushmore." In 1927, to increase tourism in the Black Hills, the carving of the Four Faces began.


Our trip took us unexpectedly to Mount Rushmore, which is a celebrated monument of our nation's government that should never have been carved. Our government broke its promise to these people by taking this land from them, land that they knew as sacred. Then we defiled that land by carving faces that represent our government which had so wronged the Lakota people. As I stood and looked at this monument, faces carved in stone of people that our country reveres so highly, I could not justify it in any way. Is it offensive to God? I am in no position to judge, but my gut tells me yes--it does not revere Him in any way, and the story behind it is a tale of gross injustice committed against a people that He loves. And from a purely aesthetical standpoint, who are we to think that we can add value to the natural world by carving up these beautiful hills? Sad, on so many levels. And I am thankful that I was able to see it, if only to rouse this sense of injustice inside of me.

Part 2: Brothers and sisters

A theme that arose from our mission trip was that of unity. In many ways, the Lakota are disunified--those who live in poverty, sadly, do what they can to keep others from overcoming. They would rather see everyone remain stuck in the same miry condition than to allow talented and ingenuitive individuals rise up to something better. If a few could overcome the poverty and the addiction, then it could really be a springboard for change within the whole tribe--and there are many talented artists, storytellers, and entrepreneurial minds among the Lakota. But the masses put great effort into keeping these individuals out of work, and they scorn one another for their successes... and it makes me sad not only for those who are being oppressed, but for their oppressors as well, who are indirectly perpetuating their own oppression.

These are the words that we shared with the Lakota community in Whiteclay. I may have been the messenger, but the message was the Lord's.

All of us on this earth are God's people... and though we are many and varied, God designed us all, and desires for us to live in peace and to be unified through Him. Psalm 133 declares, "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!" We are the brothers and sisters, and it is God's Spirit that can bring us--each family, the whole of the Lakota people, and every tribe and nation of the world--together in Him.

The tradition of the Three Sisters--corn, beans, and squash, grown together in a single plot of land--began out of the understanding the Indians had of a need for unity between the crops. Corn stalks grow strong and tall, providing a support for the beans, which need something sturdy to climb. The beans, in return, support the corn stalks, and they add their nitrogen to the soil so that future generations of corn might have the nutrients they need to prosper. Spiny squash vines run along the ground, defending the entire garden from predators. Their shallow roots keep the soil moist so that nothing dries out.

The Three Sisters portray a beautiful picture of the unity that God intended for all His creation--most importantly for us, His people.

But what if the corn, towering over the squash and beans, blocked them from receiving the sunlight? What if the beans climbed the corn stalks to pull the corn down? What if the squash vines tangled and choked the corn and the beans? If the crops lived in competition and strife, they would destroy each other. And they would ultimately destroy themselves too, since none of the Three Sisters can prosper without the help of the others. If each tried to pull its sisters down, then none would thrive.

So it is with God's people. We are all brothers and sisters through Him, and He says that it is good and pleasant for us to live in unity. Envy, strife, anger, jealousy, are seeds that our enemy sows to try and bring division among us in our homes and our communities, to choke out our love and concern for each other.

But our Lord Jesus commanded us to love one another, just as He loves us. He demonstrated that love in His life on earth, and in His sacrifice on the cross for each of us. When we love each other as Jesus taught, then we do not pull each other down--instead, we lift each other up and help each other grow.

This is unity that God declares good and pleasant--and our unity as brothers and sisters in God our Father brings greater abundance of life to all of us.

While we were there, God used us to turn this:


Into this:


What began as a solidly packed hill of dry, flaked earth, permeated with weeds and lifeless, rotting tangles of grass roots will become a Three Sisters garden, at the southern border of Whiteclay. As we dug weeds which were anchored deep into the fallow ground, as we tilled the soil and broke up the rocky hunks and made it arable again, as we planted and watered the corn seeds which will shoot up within days, we prayed that God would do this very same work in the hearts of His beloved, the Lakota. There is much dry, packed soil to till, and I believe that we were used to begin that process. Only God knows when the harvest will be ready... but I have faith that there will be a harvest, that beauty will come once again to Whiteclay--in the physical land that has been reclaimed for God, and in the people who are now so content with their filthy rags because they cannot imagine anything better. When this garden begins to flourish, when God transforms the southern gate to the reservation into a place of great physical beauty, may the Lakota begin to see their Creator's beauty and harmony reflected in the land itself. May they begin to conceive of God's plans to prosper them, to give them a hope and a future... and may they unify themselves as a people, under God their Father, to let go of the old and take hold of the new! The missionaries who live with these people are Bruce and Marsha Bonfleur, and their name is French for "good flower." Thank You, God, for sending Good Flowers to such a desolate land and a hopeless people, to bring them hope for new life!

Part 1: Lord, can You heal this land?

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14

The picture above is a photo of the Badlands, a region of South Dakota which French settlers said were bad lands to travel across, and whose Lakota name mako sika literally means "bad lands." There are remnants of life holding on to this landscape--here or there you will see a puff of rugged flowers fixed to a slope or a dwarf tree shooting up out of the rocky ground, and there are dry stream beds that run along the valley floors which indicate that in days gone by, the Badlands were indeed alive. In their barrenness there is beauty... but this dry, dusty chasm is not what they were meant to be.

I just returned from a mission trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Our purpose in this trip was not to Americanize the Lakota people or to bring them a "white man's religion." Our ancestors in this country did enough of that, and committed many horrors against the indigenous people of this land in the name of God. In many ways these people are forgotten, and the wounds that we left them with have never healed. As one Lakota man whom we met told us, his people are not angry with ours, and they don't want vengeance. They simply want us to listen to them and remember them, and love them. And that was the purpose of our mission.

There are so many things I could say about what I saw and learned in South Dakota... I will have to cover them in a series of posts. For now, I will say that I learned so much about God's heart of reconciliation. Not only does He want to reconcile His people and His creation to Himself, but He wants to reconcile them to each other as well. There is power in asking brothers and sisters for forgiveness for the sins of our ancestors, and we did this. We asked the Lakota to forgive us, and we gave ear to their stories and learned how deeply connected they remain to their history--a history we as Americans are not generally taught in the light of truth.

We worshiped and prayed at the hill of Wounded Knee--where the American government committed a massacre against men, women, and children of the Lakota tribe on December 29, 1890. More than 300 Lakota, unarmed, were killed that day, including many innocents. The U.S. government subsequently issued 20 Medals of Honor to American soldiers in connection with the event... and the Lakota, even today, still remember this tragic event and mourn, and ache to understand why it had to happen.



This memorial marks the mass grave into which the bodies of the Lakota were thrown, days after their death, having been left to freeze in the blizzard. The inscriptions honoring the brave and innocent Lakota victims made my heart ache.

Horn Cloud: The peace maker died here innocent.

Big Foot was a great chief of the Sioux Indians. He often said "I will stand in peace till my last day comes."

Many innocent women and children who knew no wrong died here.


As we prayed at Wounded Knee, and we watched the sun set over the hill, I knew that God's purpose is to bring healing to this people and to their land, which has been bitterly contested for hundreds of years and has been host to tragedies and abominations beyond number. As the Lakota have remembered and ached over their past, they have lost hope for their future... and much of the life that God has intended for them has dried up. But as God breathed life into the valley of dry bones, I believe He will breathe life into these people again, and I believe that He will literally heal their land as He heals their spirits... and that the "bad lands" will be called "good lands" as streams flow and birds sing and flowers grow once again.

As I continue to remember and pray for the Lakota people, I pray that reconciliation will come--that the relationship between whites and Indians can be healed, and that we may finally treat each other with love and respect, as brothers and sisters. Then will God be able to move in a powerful way to bring the healing that should have happened long ago. Black Elk, a Lakota Medicine Man who survived the Wounded Knee massacre as a youth, reflected on the incident as he approached the end of his life, nearly sixty years after that day.

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . . the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.


Sunset at the hill of Wounded Knee.

Mad world...

I live in a world that seems, every day, to be more and more racked with madness and pain. Genocide in Africa, war in Iraq, hurricanes and tsunamis and tidal waves more devastating than we have ever seen, corporate control of the world's food supply, suffering everywhere you turn... and most recently, yesterday's senseless massacre on the Virginia Tech campus. Millions of children are raised in broken homes... millions more have no homes at all. Across the planet from me, young women and girls are daily being taken from their homes and sold as sex slaves; across town from me, the homeless population of this city walks the streets, in need of food and shelter and medical care--basic rights that ever elude them as they beg and plead passers-by for tonight's dinner.

As I reflect on this world which spins sickeningly, like a Tilt-a-Whirl, two thoughts scroll continually through my mind--thoughts not on my own behalf, but on behalf of this insane world. One is in the voice of Darius Rucker, whose repeated chant sounds hauntingly near.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child

My generation has grown up in a world that is more lost and broken than ever before; we as a whole have seen more rejection, more addiction, more senseless violence than our parents did in their formative years, and it only worsens as time goes by. We are faithless and godless; we are the iPod generation, increasingly detaching ourselves from reality. To deal with the pain of our rejection? To build a reflective shell and hide our hearts from the slings and arrows?

The other voice I hear is that of the messiah, whose desperate cry two thousand years ago rings poignantly true in this day.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

These words cut to my very bones. Don't we feel forsaken? Are we not a world in despair, at the mercy of a society gone mad? So much death. Rape. Murder. Sickness. Starvation. War. Addiction. Rejection. Hate. Fear.

But the man who cried out those words was not forsaken by God--he was a part of God's ultimate plan. He was God's ultimate plan. A plan for redemption... a plan for hope.

Hope? That's difficult. Sometimes, don't circumstances just seem hopeless? Yes. I let myself ache and fear and despair, sometimes. But then I search God--I cry out, God, why have you forsaken your world? And I am reminded... When Jesus conquered death, the whole world trembled at the power of God. The God of today is no different--he is still powerful, and he still holds victory over death and fear. I wish that living was easy, and I wish I had answers to all the many questions that one could ask of a God who allows such things to come into a world as we see day after day. But I don't understand--I just have to trust, and believe that the heart of God is love and redemption. We, even amid the madness, are not motherless children, for we have a God who aches for us and longs for us to come home.

The healing power of violets

I love wildflowers. I love them for their special, unique beauty that a neatly trimmed flower-bed can never duplicate. I love the way that each flower has its own season in which to bloom and flourish, whether it is the summer sunflower or the winter gentian. I love the way they sing, raw and unrefined, like the folklorists of the earth.

The season of violets is just coming to a close--they first began appearing in February and lasted through the chilly season, and now are yielding to the spring bloomers--dandelions, wisteria, and others. But violets have a special meaning to me...

Here, I will share with you an excerpt from a narrative I wrote about a time in my life when I was truly depressed, and how God used the world around me to lift me out of the pit I was in. I hope you enjoy it.

* * * * * * *


True friends walk with you through the low places in your life. Friends I didn’t know I had were the friends who saw me through depression, encouraged me to continue holding onto what I had, faithfully believing that everything would take a turn for me if I allowed it to happen. And so I held on and on, and learned to lean on them for strength.

Sharon knew I loved wildflowers. Their beauty sometimes gave me peace, their fragility sometimes made me feel not so alone. I was at her house one Saturday afternoon early that spring; I sat on the swing in her backyard, staring at the ground beneath me where various feet skidding against the ground to halt the swing had worn a bare spot in the earth. The dirt was black and spongy.


“Laura, look! Wild violets!” I looked up and saw Sharon kneeling in the grass across the yard. I dropped from the swing and walked over. She knelt before a deep green patch that had looked like grass from farther away, but as I knelt down beside her I saw the deep violet-blue flowers whose tiny heads emerged from the greenery. I smiled as I studied their form—they were like newborns, with soft and pliable faces. The markings on the petals looked like eyes squeezed shut, too sensitive to the sunlight; they turned away to face the soft green below them.

I stretched out my body and lay flat on my stomach, my face next to the violet patch. Resting my cheek on the ground beside them I could feel the feathery leaves tickle my skin. I saw the flowers eye-to-eye now, the firstborn of spring, and for several minutes I lay there with them.

Sharon stood up to leave me alone with the flowers. As she did, I propped up on my elbows and turned to her, smiling. “I’ve never seen violets before…” Then I got to my feet and walked away with her, leaving the young flowers to nap placidly in the gentle afternoon light.

From "Time to Weep, Time to Heal"
March 2006

Blood Mountain

I was ever so thankful this weekend for a chance to get away--from Athens and my computer and life as I know it right now. My backpacking class drew to a close with a class trip to Blood Mountain, Georgia's fifth highest peak, in Blairsville. I am sure I have said this before, but when I am hiking, I feel closer to God than in any other moments of my life, because I feel like I can really worship Him in a pristine corner of His creation, somewhere special and holy and undefiled by human touch. Even among people who do not believe in the God I love, there is a sense of awesome wonder when one is out in nature... looking out at a distant mountain peak, or down into a hazy valley, or through the ground cover of dead leaves at the first wildflowers of spring that are beginning to push their small, shy heads up out of the rich earth. In this place, it is hard to deny the existence of some power that is greater than yourself.










Let everything that has breath praise the Lord...

Learning to be silent

Be still, and know that I am God...

In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength...

I hear my heart screaming, even as my voice falls silent. It doesn't take much to upset my world. I pride myself on my sense of responsibility, my dedication to the task at hand, my perseverance through all my worldly busyness--dedication and perseverance to the point, perhaps, of forgetting to rest and trust in the Father? Do I strive to do well because it is the godly thing to do, or does it come from a sense of urgency because if I do not provide for myself I may not be provided for at all?

One of my favorite stories is the story of the manna the Lord provided to the Israelites. Lost and weary in the desert, unable to rely on themselves, the people of Israel awoke every morning for nearly forty years and found this supernatural substance on the ground. It sustained them through their wanderings, but they could never store up more than they needed in a day, for if they tried to secure a stockpile of this mysterious what is it?, it would be no good the next morning. The only exception was on the day before the Sabbath, when they were to gather enough to carry them through the Sabbath--they were instructed not to work on the Sabbath, of course.

The verses in Matthew which document the prayer of Jesus which we commonly call The Lord's Prayer refer to this time in the history of God's people. The verse Give us this day our daily bread... may be better translated as Give us our bread day by day... Rely on God to give you your bread, your sustenance, every day. Don't try to store it up for yourself; your effort will be in vain. As much as you strive for comfort and security, you are surely at the mercy of God. And that is nothing to be afraid of, for God offers abundant mercy...

There is a line between being faithful with what you have been given, and striving to do for yourself what only God can do for you. I spend my life dancing along that line, trying so hard to keep myself in equilibrium so that I will not totter to one side or the other. For I never want to be someone who did not try hard enough in this life...

But it's not about me, is it? It's not about how hard I try. The truth is, whether I try a lot or a little, I still ultimately have to rely on the one who gives me my sustenance day by day. So while I do believe that God wants us to be faithful, diligent stewards in this life, I know in my heart that he does not want us to constantly be concerned about toeing that line. Our concern should be trusting him--that is the heart of faith. If I truly come to a place in my life where I can stand and close my eyes and cross my arms over my chest and let myself fall, knowing and believing that his arms are wide enough to catch me wherever I go--if I can get to that point of faith, then I know that everything else in my life will align to the purpose that I strive so hard to attain.

Let me not strive to let go. Instead, let me pray, day by day, for the grace to be a child of reckless abandon.

Art and redemption

As a writer and a lover of nature and of all things beautiful, I have spend a decent amount of time thinking about the place of the arts in the Church, and the role of artists from a spiritual perspective.

If God is the Creator, then His creation is the greatest art ever made. But if He made us in His image--if we are the pinnacle of His creation--then He made us with the ability to create things ourselves. I feel like it's our place to "add to" creation. Art, I believe, is one of our highest forms of worship. The first role God played in our documented knowledge of His was the role of a Creator. If we create things and try to make them beautiful and meaningful, then we're imitating God in the very first capacity in which He revealed Himself to us.

Last year I was involved in leading a ministry called Artspeak, which sought to unite artists (writers, painters, dancers, actors, musicians...) on campus and encourage them, in their artistic expressions, to seek and express the very heart of God. If all of our talents and abilities are breathed into us by our Creator, then they are inherently good and intended for good purposes. The arts are in need of redemption, and I have seen God moving in those artists who have given themselves to Him, all around the world. All art is a chance to explore the natural world, human nature, and even God. Exploring God and His creation is something that, I believe, is very lovely to Him.

There have been great human minds that have contributed so much to the marvels of this world. While I tend to look at mountains and oceans and leaves and feathers and think that there is no created thing more beautiful than creation, there is still much beauty in the creations of mankind. Some of the most amazing art is in the form of architecture. The pyramids of ancient Egypt, old castle ruins scattered across northern and western Europe, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, Aztec ruins, the Great Wall of China. The list goes on forever. It is perfectly acceptable, even wonderful, to build and invent for our convenience and our progression and our expression--as long as we are good stewards of God's original creation. Do we always remain good stewards? Certainly not. But that is a tangent to be exploerd in other posts.

I do not try to bring undeserved glory to human art. I try, like the apostle Paul, to "count all things as loss for the sake of knowing Christ..." But our God is a creative God. And He has made us as reflections of Him. So every human characteristic that is not inherently bad can be redeemed to reflect an aspect of God's personality--to express in fresh ways His heart of love and beauty.

Why have I felt compelled to explore this topic today? Two and a half years ago I went on a mission trip to Paris, France, where we worked directly with an arts ministry. Imagine a group of 70-100 artists, all coming together in an effort to bring glory to God through their creations... It was beautifully moving. Here is a website that tells about the event we worked with.

This morning, I had an unexpected contact with one of the artists I met while on the trip. His art is incredibly beautiful and expressive of the Lord. His blog features some of his work, and it's truly worth checking out. After two and a half years, a comment from him pops up in my e-mail box and sets my mind in motion again. Such incidents do not happen without meaning; I have always known that my purpose on this earth was connected with art, and each time I forget that, a reminder is sent my way.

Amazing, yes?

My progression

Early on this semester, I made a promise to myself. Live for the things that truly matter. Well, here I am to document my success and failure over the past eight weeks--my progression from an anxious perfectionist to... whatever you may call me now, I suppose.

I told myself I would walk to Earth Fare once a week. That I've held to very well. The walk from Bloomfield to Five Points has become a truly special time--a time for me, along with my husband, to enjoy the outdoors, the exercise, and the unique character of an Athens that I have not even opened my eyes to until now. It has been a time for us to talk about issues that are important to us--about veganism, about the environment--the things that naturally come to our mind on a grocery shopping excursion.

I promised I would spend more time with Abby and Jessica, not doing accounting but really cultivating friendship. We have done things together as the time has been afforded to us, and now I truly do feel like I can call them close friends, not merely friends by default.

I vowed to keep some kind of creative outlet in place in my life, so that the life of accounting and business would not swallow me up as it so often threatens to do. Well, I've been cooking and blogging, and blogging about cooking. And writing--always writing. And only recently, I have developed an interest in beading and jewelry-making. In fact, Abby and Jessica and I are planning a little trip to a beading store over in Watkinsville later this week. These sorts of things help me stay balanced and maintain a positive outlook, even when the thoughts of being an accountant gather in and suffocate my mind.

I intended to exercise more frequently. Well... I have not exercised so much per se, but I have come to enjoy Pilates as a calming and solitary pastime. Bob and I have picked up tennis again. And, with the environmental enlightenment that we have experienced in recent months, I have been walking as much as I can stand. Walking has always been truly enjoyable, but even more so of late, as I have used those times to reflect on God and nature and beauty... and breathing.

Where, exactly, is God in all of this? I'm afraid He is not in the place He should be. I still struggle to put Him at the top, even when I feel like I am living a life that more closely reflects godliness. And that is evident in my persistent impatience, my frequent snaps of anger and depression. But I have earnestly tried to keep God and His word foremost in my heart; I have sought to draw near to Him, knowing that He, in return, would draw near to me. There have been challenges to my faith, to my trust, to my love, and I have met some and cowered at some. But I have definitely felt a turning in my heart, and it has been toward better things.

And still better things to come...

A new meditation

I have been really frustrated lately. Frustrated, because I get so caught up in everything I'm doing and forget to stop and take time to enjoy the little things that really matter. Like being with my husband. Like being with God. Like clouds that look raised and textured, like blots of white oil paintspread across a canvas that is as blue as nothing but the sky can be.

Yesterday at church we sang a song, written by one of the members of the congregation. The words were something I needed to be reminded of, and still need to be reminded of every day. Here they are--my prayer each day (I hope).

Today I Choose

There is a life I am meant to live
There is a hope I am meant to give
There is a freedom I am meant to choose

There is a joy I am meant to share
There is a load I am meant to bear
There is a freedom I am meant to choose

And even though I've walked this path many times before
Today I'll say it all again and choose this life once more

Today I choose to walk with You
I choose to show the love that I receive from You
And not just say some empty words
Today I make the choice to live like You

There is a person I am called to love
There is a family I am now part of
There is a freedom I am meant to choose

There is a power in the words I say
There's life or death from my mouth today
There is a freedom I am meant to choose

There is a conflict that I am called to see
There is an armor that I can put on me
There is forgiveness that I can choose to give
And in repentance I am free to live

And even though I've walked this path many times before
Today I'll say it all again and choose this life once more

Today I choose to walk with You
I choose to show the love that I receive from You
And not just say some empty words
Today I make the choice to live like you

To live like God... I wish I knew what that really meant. But despite my failings, I know that He is pleased with my efforts, and He helps me grow more and more like Him every day. And that gives me hope--to know that tomorrow I will live more like Him than I do right now. SO now, let me store up my treasures in heaven. Where my heart belongs...

Disclaimer

Please, read my previous post. I strongly believe in adopting more eco-friendly attitudes and habits. It's urgent, really. But in regard to what I have written, I feel compelled to point out a few things concerning God and nature.

First: Each of us exists within the rhythm of the planet.

This is not an atheistic or pantheistic statement. I do not suggest that everything is not ultimately governed by God. God created the heavens and the earth--we know this all the way from Genesis 1:1--but He also designed them to work in a very specific way. Thousands of years have told us that the earth tilts in predictable patterns to bring us further from and closer to the sun, creating the seasons. They have also told us that the tide changes every six hours, that hurricanes come in September, that rainfall is abundant in some climates and haphazard in others. Obviously, the planet has fallen into a rhythm. And while God could rock the entire world in a fraction of a second, history dictates that He has more or less allowed the world to persist according to His original design.

Second: To my brothers and sisters in Christ out there, environmentalism is not something to be wary of. In fact, I believe that the commission to cultivate the land and to oversee all the creatures of the earth, which God gave to Adam in the beginning, still stands for us today. God created this world, and He created it for us to enjoy. The world is fallen, but we still live here, right? I cannot believe that God's desire would be for us to simply drop the ball when it comes to being stewards of His creation.

Puffins are pretty funny looking birds, right? Did you know that puffins are nearly extinct? They have been protected over the past several decades, and at last count 52 puffin pairs were inhabiting their natural home near Eastern Egg Rock, off the coast of Maine. Puffins were once a thought in the mind of God, and He put them in this world, with their funny faces and comically enormous bills, for a reason. I don't think He wants puffins to die from the face of the planet due to our lack of sight or concern. Everything God put here was a creative thought that He made a living, breathing, beautiful organism--and every natural thing on this earth, in some way, gives us a glimpse into the mind of God Himself. I know that conservation is not a traditional Christian value, especially in today's world. After all, one day Jesus will come back and this earth will perish. But none of us know the hour of His return, so let's not bank on it being before we've wrecked His creation completely. We're still responsible for caring for what He's given us.

Third: Someone told me once to avoid "falling more in love with the works of the Lord than with the Lord of the works." This is a genuine struggle for me, because I see awe and beauty in all of nature, and I enjoy this relationship. But this beauty and this awe are of the Lord Himself, and none other. So for those of you who know me, this is not only to remind you but to remind myself as well, that in the end, all of my heart is for God. I relate to God very intimately through nature, but nonetheless nature is not the end--God is the end. I am thankful for His creation and I do want to protect it and be always aware of it, but that must come after my relationship with God Himself. After all, "the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." (Isaiah 40:8)

A rough but good beginning

School starts tomorrow, which I am not excited about. It's not the worst thing, but certainly not as good as doing all the things I love to do--writing, reading, Pilates, cooking, even working in a real accounting job. But it will be okay, as soon as I get back into the proper mindset.

When school starts, Wesley starts too. And that's a nicer thing to look forward too. We went on the leadership retreat this weekend, and I really didn't want to go at first. But as I got back into worshiping God and praying with the undivided heart that I should have had all summer, I realized that I'm just letting my personal fears get in the way of what I love--communion with God. Bob is working at Wesley this year, and I really am excited about the year. I grow so much when my heart is in it, and I have so much joy when I don't let it slip away from me.

I realized that much of the depression that I went through this past year was rooted in my being afraid to be different. But the fact is, I am different from a lot of college kids--I'm married, I study a lot, I am a vegan, I don't really wear make-up or fix my hair or anything that even my best friends spend their time on. I am comfortable with who I am, but I often feel estranged, no matter what group I am with at the moment. I feel understood very little--perhaps only by my husband sometimes. And since I am a person who values very close connections with people, it is scary to feel alone.

But I understand now that I let myself assume the worst about other people's thoughts of me. While I know that my close friends love who I am and will never judge me or condemn me, I let thoughts sneak in that tell me my friends aren't interested in me anymore, or that they think I'm making bad choices. And in the Christian community I am a part of at Wesley, though many of my values are different, I have to remind myself that they don't think I'm not good enough to be a part of them. These are the very same things that have haunted me my entire life, and I have to get over them.

I have to get over my need for validation from others. It's nice to receive encouragement, but I should not need it to feel worthy of love and friendship and acceptance. And I should not have to feel constant pressure to please my friends, please my parents (I don't even know why this is an issue anymore), please anyone. And I know that I shouldn't be under this pressure. Why do I let myself sway to it, like a feeble pine tree in a gale storm? Am I not a stronger person than that? Was I not created for more?

I was created for more than that. I was created to live in complete freedom, to have joy, to love and be loved, to be always enfolded in the arms of God. And these are the things I long for and pray for. I have a long way to go, but I am optimistic. Because every day I draw my strength from the God who knows my inmost being... the same God who knows every grain of sand on the beach... the same God who died in my stead and was powerful enough to defeat death forever. And I know He is on my side. And I know He longs to be closer to me.

There is a song that changed my life when I was in high school. It is by Michael W. Smith.

This is your time, this is your dance
Live every moment, leave nothing to chance
Swim in the sea, drink of the deep
Embrace the mystery of all you can be
This is your time

What can I be? I can be more than a broken, sad, inward-focused woman who cannot get past her own shortcomings. I can be more than a fearful girl who feels condemned by all the world. And I denounce these things in my life. And I refuse to live under their oppressive power. And I draw near to God, and I know that He will draw near to me.

I continue on... I fight the good fight. And I know that I am never alone.

For no real reason

I just thought this was amazing sunrise. This is Bob's parents' farm, and it's probably about seven in the morning, in early February. Sunsets and sunrises are so beautiful--I don't think anyone would contradict that.

One of my favorite books is Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. If you've not read it, I strongly recommend it to you.

" 'Un jour, j'ai vu le soleil se coucher quarante-quatre fois!'
Et un peu plus tard tu ajoutais:
'Tu sais... quand on est tellement triste on aime les couchers de soleil...'
'Le jour des quarante-quatre fois, tu étais donc tellement triste?'
Mais le petit prince ne répondit pas."

" 'One day,' you said to me, 'I saw the sunset forty-four times!'
And then a little later you added:
'You know--one loves the sunset, when one is so sad...'
'Were you so sad, then?' I asked, "on the day of the forty-four sunsets?'
But the little prince made no reply."

I add this for no real reason, other than whenever I think of the sunrise and the sunset I think of that passage. There is something calming about watching the display of light, slowly fading in, slowly out. It does quell sadness, and it evokes thought and reflection and, most soothing of all, silence.

Recently I've been learning to love silence. Particularly silence before God. But silence before God has to start somewhere--silence within myself. In a world of constant white noise our spirits become starved for silence. You cannot find it unless you set out to look for it... or unless the Most High leads your stubborn spirit into it. But once you're there, in the silence, you find all the peace and all the comfort that you have made all that noise in seeking. Then you can reflect, and think, and hear the still, small voice that you have tuned out so effectively for such a long time.

There will be silence before You,
and praise in Zion, o God..."
Psalm 65:1

Refuge

Terry Tempest Williams's Refuge made me think a lot about my faith, and finding comfort in it. It was beautiful to me, the way she clung to her Mormon traditions during a very hard time in her life; but at the same time as being a devoted Mormon, she also questioned many of the cultural traditions. She made her faith personal to her, by thinking about it in terms of the world around her and not just in terms of what had been ingrained in her from childhood.

I've felt differently about a lot of the mainstream Christian ideals lately. Once I would have called myself a political conservative; now I prefer not to think about politics at all, in relation to my beliefs. It seems stupid to me, when I really think about it, to comingle politics and Christianity anyway. When my ancestors came to America in the 1600s it was for religious freedom from the Anglican Church. Now conservative Christians want to outlaw, one by one, every non-Christian practice. You cannot pass laws to force a religion on someone--you have to show them and cause them to believe that your religion is something worth living for.

I love being a Christian. I love God and I love experiencing Him in the world around me, every day, in new and exciting ways. But for a long time I believed and subscribed to everything every other Christian told me. Now, I prefer to learn about God's heart myself, with nothing but my Bible and the Holy Spirit to lead me. That's what I felt like Terry Tempest Williams was doing, when she blessed her mother in private when women in her religion had no official authority to do so. I felt like she did that throughout the book, in little ways. Her deep connection with nature helped her to experience her faith in ways that one could not if one were not willing to dig deeper into the heart of everything. I feel like, in seeking God through the natural world, I have learned a lot more about God than a Baptist pastor would tell me on a Sunday morning. I can see the Psalms come alive with depth and meaning. I can see so many different sides of His character, one piece at a time. Seeking Him for myself has meant so much for me and helped me to mature in my faith.

Terry Tempest Williams, and more on nature and spirituality

You know, thanks to Kristin I have been thinking a lot more about the idea that we discussed somewhat in class, about a genetic need for spirituality. On the one hand I have a hard time believing that could be true--in my mind, everyone has a need for something spiritual, to believe that there's something greater than themselves out there. Whether they run from that feeling or embrace it is a different matter.

I have never been one to boil everything down to genetics--in the nature versus nurture debate, I tend to think that our culture and values and a lot of our personality get stamped on us when we are young. Certainly there is a hereditary factor--a huge one. I always thought identical twin studies were cool, and it amazes me to hear stories about identical twins who were separated at birth growing up apart yet living radically similar lives. But when I think about spirituality, a lot of people who are raised in very spiritual environments turn out to embrace spirituality themselves. Is that because of genes? Or is it because of the way they were raised?

My parents profess little or no need for God--they don't go to church and at times have actually discouraged me from going to church. The certainly don't see the value in prayer, or see any sense in trusting God. My grandparents? My mom's parents, and my dad's mom, have all been faithful churchgoers at some point in their adult lives. Both of my parents were raised in the Southern Baptist church. If spirituality were in our nature, then what happened with my parents? Did that need for God skip them and resurface in myself? I don't know--that's definitely a possibility. What I tend to think, though, is that my parents were raised in the post-World War II era, during the Cold War, when people were taught that hard work and success were a way of life. I think people to some extent were conditioned to fear--and I think fear ultimately leads you to turn inward to find answers, because it takes an awful lot of faith and trust to turn outward and find answers in the spiritual realm. My grandparents stopped going to church at some point when my parents were still young, and it wasn't until their old age that they returned. And then what happened with me? I don't know when my need for God surfaced and I really started seeking after something consistent to bind the universe together. But I remember feeling that it was the answer I always knew, and had just turned my face away from for so long. I have definitely needed God all my life. I personally feel that most people, if they could really search themselves objectively, would admit the same thing.

I have thought a lot about Terry Tempest Williams in exploring this idea. Here is a woman who is deeply rooted in the Mormon faith, deeply spiritual--she clings to faith, to spirituality. No doubt that need arose from her family--but was it the nature or the nurture? You cannot separate her from the genes that her parents gave her, nor can you separate her from the Mormon culture in which she grew up. Is there a genetic need for spirituality? I cannot be sure.

Speaking of Terry Tempest Williams, I want to talk so much more about Refuge. But I don't have time to go into that right now. What a beautiful, moving book! That's all I will say, until this weekend.

Nature and healing

I know I've mentioned before the idea of nature being a healer, and I thought I would run with that thought a little more. After all, my long nature piece is about healing--and a little about reconciliation. It was through communion with nature that I came out of a season of clinical depression and came into communion with God. What was going on the whole time, was that He revealed Himself to me, piece by piece, through the natural world--His creation--and then it all came together and I knew that I couldn't be depressed anymore because the Lord of heaven and earth somehow loved me and wanted me to have a meaningful and joyful existence here on the earth. But there will be more on that later--say, perhaps, at the end of the semester.

But for me, nature was the beginning of my healing, and the vessel through which I was drawn out of a very dark time in my life. It was initially because nature would not reject me; if I drew close to nature, then I would know it and it would know me. Unlike in my relationships with friends and family--it came to a point where I did not want to trust anyone with a piece of myself again. I withdrew to nature often, listening to the sounds of birds and crickets and running water and wind through the trees, and letting the world listen to the sounds of my crying and my shouting and my breathing. There, my secrets were safe. There, I could be myself and never worry about being cast away.

There came a point when I started seeing so much of myself in nature, and it made me feel like I wasn't alone in the world anymore. I saw the weather change sometimes as unpredictably as my own stormy emotions; I saw flowers hide their faces from the sun; I saw little points of light in the night sky and knew that there was hope for me even when I felt like I was trapped in neverending darkness. I remember once I went to the zoo with a friend, and as we neared the tortoise exhibit it happened that the tortoises were mating--very loudly. When we got there people were crowded around, watching, whispering, pointing. I remember turning away, ashamed for the people who felt like this very private occurrence was for them to gawk at. And so I felt sympathy with nature, and in sympathy I found healing, because for so long I had not felt sympathy for anything except myself.

Finally, there was the realization that God made all things. He made the sky, the birds, the trees, the sunset, the tree-frog and the Venus flytrap. And He made me. And everything he made, he made with purpose. Do you remember the hymn "All Things Bright and Beautiful"? All things bright and beautiful / all creatures great and small / all things wise and wonderful / the Lord God made them all... Look up the rest of the verses--it's a beautiful expression of God's creative nature. In that song I was able to remember God all around me, His personality shining through every single piece of artwork that He set on the earth--and I began to see myself as beautiful, "A rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys" (Song of Solomom 2:1). If that realization does not heal you and restore joy to your heart, then I don't know what does.

The whole process took a couple of years. Looking back it's hard for me to understand what I found to be so upset about for so long. But really, it didn't take much to upset me. If I had no purpose on this earth, if I did not have the very handprints of God all over me, then what would I have to be joyful about? I would rely on experiences--which is exactly what I did. And great experiences come and go. But God--just like nature, and in fact more so than nature--does not come and go. He does not change. And He created me and knows me, inside and out. Isn't that great? It's all I need for the rest of my life.

Nature journal excerpt

...But when I am in the woods, or on a hike, I like to slow down and hear the voice of God speaking to me through the mountains, through the trees. When I stand on a mountain cliff and see the misty green valleys descending down from me, then up miles away to the pinnacle of another tree-carpeted mountain, I can hear Him assure me of His majesty, can feel His omnipresent spirit moving through me with every breath. When I stand in the core of a deep, high forest, trees rising up all around me, extending their long, stout arms over my head to weave an umbrella over me, I remember His compassion for me, and His strength in my all-consuming weakness. Yet when the delicate needles of a young cedar tree mingled with the holly's hearty, waxy leaves brush against me on the trail, I think of His beauty, and the beauty and exceptionality in all He created, even in me. Hiking, I am overcome with reverence and adoration for my wonderful Maker.

Winter makes a comeback

It's been so cold this week! I've been abrupty reminded that February really is the bleakest, most colorless month, and that the unseasonal weather we've had recently was bound to end. In previous years I have rarely minded the winter weather, but this year is new for me in that Bob and I don't have central heating in our little house and we have relied on a small, cast-iron wood-burning stove to thaw us out. The inconvenience of heat (and air conditioning, in the spring and summer months) has allowed me to appreciate warm spells in the wintertime more than I normally would.

The sky is entirely blanketed with clouds like a thick-gray fleece right now. But when I woke up this morning and peeped out the front door of our east-facing home, the sun was just beginning to rise in the corner of the sky. Coral-colored waves of light shot out from behind the tree-line and reached out, engulfing the roof of the neighbors' (my in-laws') house. The light glossed right over the stretched-cotton clouds, dyeing them a powdery pink; between the clouds pierced the reds and oranges, until they faded gradually, purple, then into a whitish-blue sky.

God impresses me, the way he stretches the heavens out above us each day, smooth and elastic, like a balloon over the rim of a cup but encompassing infinitely more dimensions. Always familiar, but a new experience every morning.