Laurie Klein, Scribe

immerse in God, emerge refreshed

Change: Brought to You Today by the Letter “R”

by 50 Chiming In

 

Two vases, cast off
by their owners,
stand side by side
in my greenhouse window.

My Jack Sprat-and-wife of the pottery world.

Both came from yard sales, several years apart, and I enjoy them every day. But this morning … I see them a-fresh.

Last year, you could say my life resembled the tall vase: shapely and capacious, with an easy, upward outlook. Familiar, much-loved dimensions.

Then I got scary sick.

Talk about crushing. It was like being squashed into the squat, bulbous vase: squeezed, compressed, diminished. My personal soundtrack underwent change, too, from carefree humming to yelps, groans, the occasional whimper.

In the words of Jeremiah the prophet, I was being emptied from vessel to vessel.

Without my permission.

“The people of Moab,” Jeremiah said, “are like wine left to settle; they have never been emptied from one jar to another.”

Dregs are so repulsive.

And no one wants to be forced into shape-shifting change. So we pray, rebel, scout silver linings. We whine, rage, then pray some more.

Panicky at being out of control, we pursue compulsions. (Why yes, I did solve 31 jigsaw puzzles and 413 crosswords.)

Sometimes we make lists: Things I Can Still Do.

We binge. Then pay. Grieve. Pray harder.

And all the while, friends—like you!—keep showing up. You pray, send cards, emails, puzzles, and gifts. You prepare healing foods and assist with errands.

The goodness of God shown through loving, practical grace has kept me hopeful, tensile. Malleable.

Little by little, I’ve found peace in the awkward new shape of my days.

“Through love all pain will turn to medicine” (Rumi).

Friends, after five long months my new favorite word begins with the letter “R.” I am officially in Remission. End. Of. Siege. No more Abominable Abdominal C. diff!

Now begins the slow, stretching efforts of trial-and-error diet, to heal the interior damage.

Perhaps I need a third vase.

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Have you been disrupted, too? Emptied from vessel to vessel?

I would love to pray for you.

 

You might also like Kissing — Actual, Metaphorical — Changes All

Thank you to Cris DiNoto for Railroad Crossing photo (on Unsplash)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reset: Notes from a Backward Sabbatical

by 50 Chiming In

Reset: A fresh start. A return to zero.

We humans reset our clocks & lottery jackpots,
bowling pins & broken bones,
odometers, iPhones & circuit breakers,
alarms, passwords & user names,
devices & diamonds & letterpress type.

I’ve been sick for 100 days. I am undergoing a reset. Disease has streamlined my life. Food, elimination, exercise, rest—I feel pared down to the basics. Vulnerable as a newborn.

Painfully aware of Self.

  • Self-interest
  • Self-pity
  • Self-deception

To name a few.

God seems to be tinkering with my innermost clockwork.

reset, from the inside out

A God who is beyond great, must, by definition, work in ways that are beyond our understanding.

So says Ann Voskamp.

I believe I’ll recover—perhaps with a new normal. But for now grace meets me, again and again, despite my ailing body’s fussy demands and dismal, unending commentary. Grace inches open a door.

Like the evening I’m ladling out soup. Yet another bowl of bone broth. And the phone rings. My friend Robert must rush his wife to E.R. It’s 3:00 a.m. in England and all their friends are asleep. Will I pray?

Love and compassion ignite. Purpose courses through me. I’m needed—by someone a continent away. God moves in their lives and in mine as well. Hope shimmers, a devotional reset.

O I could tell you so many 100-day stories!

Instead, fresh off the altar, here’s a new song, fitting for resurrection week. My gifted friend Bryan Bogue composed the music, and I wrote the lyrics.

NO MORE SORROW

Another night is gone, and nothing like the dawn seems to be breaking.
You lie in bed and pray, just aching for that final day of waking
light years from here, beyond all fear.
Faith used to be so clear; now it’s elusive as a cure.
Nothing feels sure.

When clouds look like a bruise, and early morning news inflames your spirit,
the steep and winding Way feels more remote each day, and still you choose it.
Bodies grow frail, and memories fail.
Passions wax cold and stale. Ready your mind, your soul, your core.
Here’s what’s in store . . .

No more sorrow. No If onlys. Lonely nights will cease.
No more weeping. Grieving wanes as pain gives way to peace.

The world looks on and jeers, the fleeting gift of years can be deceiving.
Our pipe dreams run aground and don’t always rebound. We stop believing.
Vanities pall, as empires sprawl,
prey on the weak and small.
Call to mind promises foretold. Rise and take hold . . .

No more sorrow. No If onlys. Lonely nights will cease.
No more weeping. Grieving wanes as pain gives way to peace.

No more sorrow. No tomorrow cancels grace today.
God will stroke each lifted face and wipe each tear away.

No more sorrow, Solace calls. Lift your face as mercy falls . . .

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Clockworks photo: Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
Watch reset photo: Luke Chesser on Unsplash
Song credits: Bryan Bogue (keyboard, composer/arranger/conductor), Scotty Ingersoll (lead vocal), Gage Homburg (back-up vocals), Ted Swenson (bass), Tana Bachman-Bland (violin, viola), Cheryl Carney (cello), and Keith Thomas (oboe)

Grace … in media res: (in the middle of things)

by 18 Chiming In

Grace … in media res

“In the Middle of Things”

Between our creaking dock
and the park’s rocky point,
leaching blue
from Fowler Lake’s surface,
the perilous sandbar lurked.

Rowing across it one day,
I spied my future:
strewn across restless sand,
a scatter of strange shells.

Grace incognito

Shells meant PEARLS.

And P.E.A.R.L.S. meant . . . CA$H!

Any kid who loves books
can tell you

• Pearls fall from the sky
when dragons fight, and
• Pearls always match the color
of the host oyster’s lips, and
• Pearls are made of moonlight,
trapped inside dew

The part about salt water?—
completely escaped my notice.

What would I buy first?

Sixty Years later

As a kid obsessed with treasure I’d probably spotted freshwater mussels. My schemes of wealth now seem endearing.

But the wide-open heart, the hope and dreaming … this is still me.

Especially in media res, “in the middle of things.”

It is the hour of pearl, Steinbeck wrote, the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.

Isn’t this how we often awaken, half-aware

• the dog wants breakfast
• deadlines loom
• chores clamor
• sellers may reject our bids
• loved ones battle disease
• hopes wane
• relationships fray

Where are the PEARLS?

Pain proves annoyingly democratic:

and almost all shelled mollusks afflicted by broken shells, or parasites, or one measly grain of sand can—incrementally—create a living gem.

… the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.*

We mortals, too, must process harm and grit and doses of brine, withstand rogue currents and shifting ground—while keeping our (eventual) luster hopefully strung through average days.

Give me room. I’m trying to make pearls here.

No.

I’m trying to save my self.

And I can’t.

Grace is weightless

(So Ann Voskamp writes.)

And wait-less, I’d add.

Grace is a gleam in the soul. It soothes and guards us against each day’s irritations and intrusions.

Grace is a pulling force, attracted to tacit fear and each relational shard we secretly harbor, or overlook, the mediocrity chafing our days and thoughts, our loves, and lives.

Grace lurks.

And it shifts, as needed, to meet our next breath.

Singular as each whorl
embossing our fingertips,
every pearl embodies
opalescence alongside
insult and imperfection.

Grace waits for us at the imminent, ravaged ends of hope.

Any pearl sightings at your place lately?lauriekleinscribe logo

Update: Our daughter Kristin has surgery Dec. 18, and Dreamer has an EMG (to assess health of muscles and motor neurons) on Dec. 21 with a follow-up evaluation Dec. 31. Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.

I am also so grateful for your support of this blog. May grace and peace newly delight and envelop you all this Christmas season!

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*Frederico Fellini, Italian film director and screenwriter.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Oyster Photo by Charlotte Coneybeer on Unsplash

Bowled Over: My 3-angel Day

by 20 Chiming In

Bowled Over: My 3-angel Day

Angel #1

The young coed leaps from her car, arms spread wide, calling, “I want this tent!”

News of our Giant Downsizing Giveaway has reached her, secondhand. Now, she caroms amid tables laden with things we’ve used and loved—including Bill’s camera equipment. He has captured decades of travel and family history for us through his lens and unerring eye.

The young woman asks, “You’re really giving all this away?”

I’ll call her The Bright Angel (as in a kind and lovable person). Our first giveaway recipient, she’s unknown to us and becomes increasingly dear as her enthusiasm escalates.

She points to my table of artwork. “You made these? How did you do that? They’re amazing!”

Her delight over more camping gear burgeons into spontaneous twirls of gratitude: “Wow, I really really love this. Thank you!”

Angel #2

Simultaneously, our beloved friend from Seattle unexpectedly drops by. We’ve been on her mind. Knowing nothing about our giveaway, she arrives bearing a gorgeous orchid.

giveaway orchid

“Beauty that asks nothing of you,” she says.

Angel #3

Our Seattle friend and I sit indoors, catching up with each other.

Reports of The Bright Angel’s armloads of treasures reach me via Kristin, our Giveaway Angel daughter, who welcomes newcomers, draws and mounts signs, re-stages depleted displays, and replenishes goodie trays. She keeps our spirits high.

At one point Kristin relays The Bright Angel’s latest question: Do I maybe have a smallish tray—oh, and a shallow box!—for shaking and storing dice?

I rummage through my studio and produce two small vintage cigar boxes.

When I finally step outside, both boxes are gone along with a lot of other stuff The Bright Angel needed. Her taillights wink as she drives away.

I feel like the good fairy in a story, albeit incognito.

The hours effervesce, with friends hugging us and promising good homes for our treasures. All day, we give away pieces of ourselves.

Near sundown, I unplug the coffee urn, bring the leftover treats indoors.

Dreamer and Kristin replay The Bright Angel’s wide-eyed glee. “It’s really free?”

And I glimpse how the good and beautiful God may sometimes feel, watching we needy mortals bowled over, again and again, newly astonished by unexpected largesse.

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When have you been bowled over by one of God’s giveaways?

3 angel day

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Relax into the Impossible

by 13 Chiming In

“Relax” — perhaps not your first title for this image.

Relax: Advice from a GnomeHow long has this homely garden gnome kissed the dirt? Someone seems pretty lax in their landscaping.

Re: Lax.

Lax can mean slipshod. Slapdash.

Lax also denotes loosened muscles and limbs. Deepened ease.

Perhaps it’s a continuum?

Test Case.

A dear friend is throwing a party. She wants my help.

Guests will retell their conversion experience, 3 minutes per person.

An artist assigned to each table will take notes on their stories.

  • ~20 minutes for listening
  • ~25 minutes to create something, in response
  • ~5 minutes to present it … publicly

Large room, long guest list.

Her request—seemingly impossible—suggests … extraordinary possibility.

Can it be done?

Keen attention and presence must marry crunch-time spontaneity.

Seat-of-the-pants is not how I roll.

Relax … how?

The party-room vibrates with expectation.

Pacing, I roll my neck and shoulders. Must lighten up, loosen my mind, let the nerves go lax.

I’d drop right now like a jazz dancer, collapse face-down, if I could, like the garden gnome—preferably under a table—let everyone carry on without me.

Relax. Now.

Gnome comes from an ancient Greek word, meaning “to know.” Despite my fear, I know grace has my back.

I choose a table. Memorable stories unspool.

Afterward, we artists retreat with our notes to another room while the guests eat.

Help me help me help me

25 minutes evaporate.

Showtime.

I cradle my efforts: the distillation of 5 stories rich with surprise and hope, rife with my cross-outs, arrows, and asterisks. My version is slapdash, yet deeply felt.

I teach the crowd the refrain, and we speak it aloud between each section:

“You were born from God’s longing. And here you are.”

They hear it. I hear it. Together, we relax into the impossible.

Relax is a relative term

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GNOME

What is a face plant but a dance,
staged alongside possible ruin,
another garden-variety hero,
toppled, among the shrubs,
clownish, inept. Unarmed.
Face-down is one nosedive
prayer embodies: the sudden
gravity, slapstick’s kissing cousin.
Practice pratfalls. Lean into the spill,
each bruise an inside turn, toward grace.

+++

“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”  —Rumi

 

What helps you relax into the impossible?

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Should you wish to create a similar celebration:
My friend’s O Holy Night Party gathered seasoned dancers, writers, artists, a table maven, and a musician; great food, beautifully presented; stunning stories, each teller newly-luminous in remembrance, which happens when we recount aloud moments that changed everything.
“You were born from God’s longing.” Peter G. van Breeman, God Who Won’t Let Go
“Relax into the impossible.” Susan Cowger
*No gnomes were harmed in the making of this post.