The Road of Life (reflection)

Not sure where and when I saw this originally, but it still speaks volumes to me...

At first, I saw God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I had done wrong, as so to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there, sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I really didn't know Him. But later on, when I met Christ, it seemed as though life were rather like a bike ride, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Christ was in the back helping me pedal.

I don't know just when it was that He suggested we change places, but life has not been the same since. When I had control, I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable . . . it was the shortest distance between two points. But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places at breakneck speeds, it was all I could do to hang on! Even though it looked like madness, He said, "Pedal!"

I worried and was anxious and asked, "Where are you taking me?" He laughed and didn't answer, and I started to learn to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered in to the adventure. And when I'd say, "I'm scared," He'd lean back and touch my hand. He took me to people with gifts that I needed - gifts of healing, acceptance, and joy. They gave me gifts to take on my journey, my Lord's and mine. And we were off again.

He said, "Give the gifts away; they're extra baggage, too much weight." So I did, to the people we met, and I found that in giving I received, and still our burden was light. I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He'd wreck it; but He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, knows how to jump to clear high rocks, knows how to fly to shorten scary passages. And I'm learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I'm beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful and constant companion, Jesus Christ.

And when I'm sure I just can't do any more, He just smiles and says . . . "Pedal."

(author unknown)

Tear Down the Walls

I've often thought about the walls we create, not just physical walls to separate ourselves from others but the mental walls we create, build up around us and hide behind. The concept of tearing those walls down has also fascinated me. And I suppose - to some extent - my interest has been driven by my great love of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" song cycle, especially since it was popular at a time in my life when I was dealing with a lot of walls of my own. Some time ago I was reading an article about the city of Berlin in Smithsonian magazine, and there was this quote from Berlin novelist Peter Schneider:

"It will take us longer to tear down the Mauer im Kopf ('Wall in the head'), than any wrecking company will need to remove the Wall we can see."

The wall in the head. We all create walls in the head. We hide behind them, and we seek to imprison that which we don't want to deal with behind other walls. It's not long before our psyche becomes a maze of walls of varying heights and substances that we can't see over, get around, or pass through. Tearing down those walls can at times be painful, but often - as Pellucid wrote - we tear them down to find there really isn't anything behind them.

Why do we create these walls? How do we tear them down?

Dazed and Confused

Wow... you ever have those days (or weeks or months or - God forbid - years) when you just feel dazed and confused by the maelstrom of life you're faced with? I'm (hopefully) coming out of one of those weeks that started as a day and stretched to a month or two.

It seems I spend a lot of my life trying to just "get through" things. I'll look at the landscape and think "Boy, if I can just make it until July 1st I'll be okay." But then of course July 1st rolls around and I'm already thinking "Boy, if I can just make it until August 1st I'll be okay." Or, "If I can just make it to vacation I'll be okay." And when the vacation comes along of course I'm frantically trying to take care of things so I can "enjoy" the vacation, and I go on vacation and I'm running around like a maniac because I feel compelled to DO things so that I can properly "enjoy" my vacation, and then it's over and I'm panicked because I have to step back into the maelstrom of my working life and then I'm counting the days and thinking "Boy, if I can just make it until September 1st..."

We've forgotten how to relax, how to let go, how to just BE. Our culture instills in us the mentality that we have to be busy, we have to be doing things. Even when I have a day off - like this coming Saturday - instead of just relaxing, not doing anything, I'm planning on how I can squeeze 10 activities in so that by the end of the day I'm thoroughly exhausted and wondering where my weekend went.

The pressure builds. And builds and builds. And builds some more. Where does it stop?

Well, I know soon enough I have to jump back into the maelstrom. A short respite, but the waters call and suck me in...

God's Embroidery

This has always been one of my favorite ministry illustrations...

When I was a little boy, my mother used to embroider a great deal. I would sit at her knee and look up from the floor and ask what she was doing. She informed me that she was embroidering. I told her that it looked like a mess from where I was. As from the underside I watched her work within the boundaries of the little round hoop that she held in her hand, I complained to her that it sure looked messy from where I sat.

She would smile at me, look down and gently say, "My son, you go about your playing for a while, and when I am finished with my embroidering, I will put you on my knee and let you see it from my side."

I would wonder why she was using some dark threads along with the bright ones and why they seemed so jumbled from my view. A few minutes would pass and then I would hear Mother's voice say, "Son, come and sit on my knee." This I did only to be surprised and thrilled to see a beautiful flower or a sunset. I could not believe it, because from underneath it looked so messy.

Then Mother would say to me, "My son, from underneath it did look messy and jumbled, but you did not realize that there was a pre-drawn plan on the top. It was a design. I was only following it. Now look at it from my side and you will see what I was doing."

Many times through the years I have looked up to my Heavenly Father and said, "Father, what are You doing?"

He has answered, "I am embroidering your life."

I say, "But it looks like a mess to me. It seems so jumbled. The threads seem so dark. Why can't they all be bright?"

The Father seems to tell me, "'My child, you go about your business of doing My business, and one day I will bring you to Heaven and put you on My knee and you will see the plan from My side."

Trust in the Lord

Some time ago I took my children to the Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. to see their exhibit of works by Japanese artist Hokusai, who most will recognize as the artist of the painting "Beneath the Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa." While there I picked up a wonderful book titled "Opening to You - Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms." This one comes from that book, Psalm 4, a psalm of trust in the Lord...

Because I call
You answer
For you are fitting
Because I am small
You enlarge me
For you are gracious
You hear my song

How long will the others
Darken my light
How long will they
Live in uselessness
Lies and seduction
Knowing you set aside
The good for your own
And answer me when I call

People, tremble
And be upright
Commune with your hearts
In the deep of the night
Awake on your beds

Be still:
Offer that
For it is fitting
Trust it
For it is the rightness
Of all that is

People say
Who will bring us
What we need?
Who will beam
Heaven's light
On us?

But already My heart has more joy
Than full granaries
And wineries
Could provide

And I will lie down
To sleep
With a deep peace
For in you
I find my completion

A Poem for Today

A few years ago I was working on a project with three other artists. Our focus was creating an exhibit that through our art reflected how cultural influences and pressures have become like a cacophony of sound that batter us into submission. In the planning of that exhibit I came across this wonderful poem by William Wordsworth. Even though he wrote the poem in 1807, it seems every bit as appropriate to us in our world today. Enjoy...

"The World is Too Much With Us"

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.