Giving Thanks for the Fathers

As Kirk and I have been drawn to All Saints church over the last five years, it has been, in large measure, because of the affinity we felt toward the rector of the church, Father Rob. He is a man who cares deeply about transformation, who thinks intently and reads widely, and who also has a particular gift for teaching.

It seemed every time we visited the church on a sporadic basis the last five years, Father Rob would mention a book or an author we had also come to love or would teach on a subject that was near and dear to our own hearts. Kirk and I would leave these services shaking our heads, amazed and grateful to have found such a kindred spiritual soul so close to home.  

It is also significant that Father Rob initiated the institution of the Celtic contemplative service that we began attending on Sunday nights in June. That is the service that led us, ultimately, to greater and greater involvement at the church to the point of deciding it is the place we are meant to stay.

It is not too much of a stretch, therefore, to say that our affection for this church all along has had a lot to do with our admiration and respect for Father Rob and his spiritual leadership of the church and of us.

But it wasn't until more recently than we began to connect with the other two men who also assist in leading this church, Father Stephen and Father Russell. 

Father Russell is in charge of the ministries having to do with pastoral care at the church, and when I recently signed up to indicate my interest in becoming a Stephen Minister at the church, Father Russell was the one to follow up with me.

Since I am new to the church, he invited me to meet with him in person for a chat so that he could get to know me and my interest in this particular ministry. 

I was really touched by the time Father Russell spent with me that day. We talked about Stephen Ministry, yes, and I shared with him my background and care for companioning with people. But we also talked about many other things. We talked about grief and what it is like to walk alongside someone experiencing a great loss. We talked about All Saints and the journey Kirk and I have been making more recently to explore the episcopal tradition. We talked about some of the ways the Anglican/Episcopal tradition differs from other traditions in the greater church body. 

And when I left my time with Father Russell that day, I noticed that I carried a smile on my face. I found myself wondering how long it had been since I'd spent an hour in the office of someone I consider to be one of my pastors, just dialoguing and asking questions and sharing insights and generally being given a chance to be known and get to know. It felt like such a privilege.

Father Stephen, on the other hand, is teaching the 9-month catechumenate class Kirk and I take on Wednesday nights. He, too, like Father Rob, is a man of great learning. He absolutely loves to teach and seems to particularly enjoy the challenge of a really difficult question being posed to him. I don't know that there is any question you could ask Father Stephen about the history of the scriptures or the church that he hasn't already considered in some measure, and I have come to love knowing he is someone I can turn to with my questions. 

Just this past Wednesday night, in fact, I carried a list of four questions up to the front of the room when our catechumenate class ended and asked Father Stephen if he wouldn't mind taking some time to answer them for me. Two of them had to do with things he had mentioned during the class -- questions about the resurrection of Jesus versus the resuscitation of Lazarus, and about seeming contradictions between some of the gospel stories -- but the others were more general faith questions about the episcopal tradition. 

Father Stephen spent 45 minutes with me after class that night. And when, as I left, I thanked him for the generosity of his time, he said that I would be welcome to call, to stop by his office, or even to schedule time to meet for coffee if I had more questions I wanted to talk through with him some more. 

When I walked out to my car that night, a smile played upon my lips a second time. Here again, I had found myself utterly supported and encouraged by a person standing in a place of spiritual leadership in my life right now. I never expected to find this particular kind of gift through our journey into the greater life of All Saints Church, and yet suddenly there are three spiritual fathers in my life -- our life -- each one of them increasingly dear in their own special way.

I gave thanks on that night for these three new spiritual fathers in our life, and I continue to find myself giving thanks for them yet again each day. 

Things I've Learned in the Grocery Aisle

Sollie in the lens. 

As you now know, I'm pretty obsessed with learning more about cooking and bringing more homemade meals into our home. And I've been learning so much!

So I thought it would be fun, from a beginner's perspective, to share what I've been learning in the grocery aisles these last few weeks.

1. All kinds of spices exist in the world to make food taste so much better. See, for example: turmeric, curry powder, curry paste, fish sauce, ground red pepper, crushed red pepper, cumin, ground ginger, thyme, and even cinnamon. 
2. There are so many different kinds of vinegar: rice wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, white wine vinegar, and, of course, balsamic vinegar. 
3. None of these have anything to do with distilled white vinegar, as far as I can tell.
4. And then, of course, there's dry sherry and marsala wine. These perform wonder-working miracles on your meals.
5. Produce used for cooking (such as cilantro, parsley, onions, garlic, etc.) is usually quite reasonably priced. 
6. Produce used for snacking (such as bananas, apples, strawberries, grapes, and oranges) can get quite pricey, especially when out of season.
7. You might as well go ahead and purchase a huge box of chicken stock from Costco, rather than ones-and-twos-ing it at the local grocery store, as it's used like crazy for cooking.
8. Watch out for tricks the local grocery store tries to play on you. For example, take popcorn -- the real kind, not the microwaveable kind. In the snack aisle, there are just two options, both encased in plastic containers -- Orville Redenbacher and Pop Secret -- and both offered for about $4.29. But in the produce and nuts section, hidden on the very bottom shelf of an already somewhat concealed area, you'll discover bags of Jolly Time for $2.99. 
9. The same goes for other items, like nuts. In the cooking aisle, a small bag of pine nuts costs $6.99. In the produce aisle, you can find a larger bag of pine nuts for $4.99. (Either of these seem exorbitantly priced to me, however.)
10. Surprisingly, the three-to-a-pack garlic bulbs are of much better size and quality than the individual bulbs sold out in the open on the produce shelf.
11. In case you are wondering, sundried tomatoes can be found in the produce section. 
12. Canned mushrooms are found in the canned vegetables section. 
13. Canned olives are stored near the pickles and condiments. 
14. Claussen pickles, however, are placed in the cold dairy aisle, near the eggs.
15. Ricotta cheese can be found next to the sour cream and cottage cheese, rather than the other packaged cheeses.
16. Apple cider is shelved with the fruit juices.
17. Frozen pie crusts and refrigerated pie dough are not the same thing. 
18. Anything packaged (cereal, cookies, chips, etc.) is, without fail, way overpriced and way undersized, not to mention way un-nutritional.
19. Coffee creamer is expensive. 
20. Fresh fish is expensive. 

Is there anything you would add to this list?

How to Cure the Funkiness

Please don't ever ask me to get over how cute she is.

I've been in a funky mood this week, and the worst part is being unable to form written words around it.

The funkiness feels connected to things I need to get done that I'm dreading doing. It feels connected to anxiety that rises up around certain aspects of my life. And it feels connected to ideas and ponderings and experiences I've long wanted to write about here and in another place but seem unable to write. 

Revisiting.

The "unable to write" part is possibly the worst part of all. 

So today on Facebook, I mentioned that sometimes creating a to-do list can help cure the funkiness. I've experienced this as true. The to-do's pile up inside my head, and when I'm unable to contain them anymore, I get overwhelmed. Writing them out releases the pressure from carrying them around by myself. 

Shadows and light.

But I also said on Facebook that sometimes the funkiness keeps us from writing the list at all. (Ain't that the truth?!)

Yet somehow I was able to get myself to write the list down today. I even checked a few items off of it. But the funkiness remained. 

So inquisitive.

After noticing that I kept grabbing for my phone to record particular moments throughout the day and that doing so seemed to bring a spark of life each time I did it, I finally let my photographer's eye wander around my house.

I let myself be present to the moments right in front of me. The light passing across the wall at a certain time of day. My kitty coming to sit with me at my desk. The detail on a favorite corner of curtain that hangs on the window next to me. How much I love our home.

Light crossing underneath a desk. 

In shadows. 

Curtain detail. 

Shadows on wall.

Home. 

Being present to the moment + being creative with photographs really helps cure the funkiness for me. At least for the moment I'm abandoned to those moments and that creativity.

So, Here's My Meal-Planning Routine

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I've found a new weekly routine for meal planning and cooking that is delighting me to no end, and so I thought I'd tell you more about it. 

I'll begin by saying I am not the kind of person who subscribes to company newsletters if I can help it -- I only like receiving happy, personal e-mails in my inbox! -- so I knew something big was going on when I not only created a personal profile on the Cooking Light website in order to save the recipes I wanted to try but also promptly signed up for almost every single e-mail newsletter they offered. 

This means my inbox gets inundated with e-mails from Cooking Light every single day. 

And I'm totally okay with that. 

So, here's what I do.

I let the Cooking Light e-mail newsletters pile up all week in my inbox, and I give myself permission to ignore them. Then on the weekend, when I'm ready to begin the weekly routine, I sit down at my computer and turn directly to those e-mails. 

The first thing I do is look through every single one of them.

Each e-mail contains several recipes, and whenever something catches my attention, I click through to read the ingredients and directions. If the dish still interests me after that step, I save it to my recipe file. (This is where having a personal account on the website becomes super-handy!)

After reading through every single e-mail and saving the recipes I'd like to try, I go into my saved recipe file and begin to select the coming week's menu.

I pick 5-7 dishes that I think will make for a great week of meals, trying when I can to overlap similar ingredients, and store those recipes in a special folder I've created for that week's recipes.

Note: This designated folder for the week's meals is super-helpful for creating the shopping list for the week. It also creates such an easy process for cooking dinner each night -- just pull up the week's folder and click on the recipe you want to make -- no hunting and digging through a backlog of archives required!

Speaking of shopping lists, Cooking Light makes this process super easy. With the click of just a few buttons from the special folder you created for that week's recipes, they generate a full list of every ingredient required for your week's worth of meals. 

I like to shop the aisles of the grocery store with a very handy + free iPhone app called ShopShop, which allows you to create multiple shopping lists for different stores, keeps in its memory all the items you have listed on your shopping lists previously, and makes crossing off and clearing your shopping list at the grocery store very fun + easy. (I know. I'm a nerd. But I do find that this is the perfect app for the person -- like me -- who really loves that feeling of crossing items off a to-do list!)

So, once the Cooking Light website has drawn up my shopping list for the week's worth of meals, I open up my ShopShop app and transfer to it any items I need to purchase from the Cooking Light list.

This might sound like a laborious extra step, but I've never found it to feel like extra work. In fact, it makes the shopping list process very conscious and deliberate for me, as I can check the pantry and refrigerator when necessary to determine which items I really do need, so that when I go to the store, I know the items on my list are the items I actually need to buy.

So there you have it: my newly discovered and newly favorite routine -- or, at least, the first part of it. In my next post, I'll share some of the other routines and learning edges I've discovered in the grocery store and kitchen through this process of learning how to cook.

Reflections on What Is

She just sits, and is. She teaches me so much.

As a writer, one of the worst feelings is being clogged. I've had handfuls of posts stewing on the back burner of my mind for quite some time, and yet each time I sit down to write them, nothing comes out.

I'm not totally clear on what that's about for me right now, but sometimes I turn to my Flickr photostream for inspiration when I'm trying to write, and tonight the first thing I saw when I opened my stream was this photo I took of Diva yesterday.

This little girl teaches me so much, and yesterday she reminded me what it's like to just be present in the moment and present in our own skin. Can you see that reflected in the photo above? To me, it's bleeding all over that photo and out of the edges of the frame. 

So here I am, being present to what is. 

What Is, In My Life Right Now

1. I am getting more joy out of cooking these days than I ever knew was possible. I have this new routine in my week that I've really come to love, which I'll write about in greater detail on a separate post. But for now I'll just say that planning meals and then making them each night has become a regular, integrated part of my life, and I'm totally floored to have discovered this.
2. On a related note, last week I did two things I had never done before. I roasted my own red bell peppers in my very own oven, and I peeled and cored a bag of apples by hand with a paring knife. Amazing!
3. Also related: Right now, a second batch of apple cobbler is baking in my oven because Kirk and I were so taken by the deliciousness of the first batch I made over the weekend that we just had to have more. This could get dangerous. 
4. I can't believe we just crossed the threshold into week 5 of the pilot version of the Look at Jesus course I'm teaching right now. I've spent the last couple days marveling at having completed the first four weeks in such a flash. We're now finished with our full readthrough of the gospels and are moving into a greater level of personal reflection for the last two weeks of the course. 
5. Related: I dearly love the students enrolled in the Look at Jesus course, and I'm continuing to really love the experience of teaching. 
6. Also related: This teaching experience has kept my wheels turning on the courses I'll be teaching in 2012. Can't wait!
7. I'm about to enter into a season of life that will bring with it a great deal more room for being still, reading, thinking, praying, and writing. Since I've been in supercharge mode for the majority of the last four years, I'm walking into this new season with no small amount of gratitude and glad anticipation. 

Coming Out of Grinchdom

Last year on Halloween, I wrote a post about how much Halloween brings out the holiday grinch in me. I've not been a fan of this holiday for quite some time, and usually on this night, Kirk and I will hunker down in our bedroom with a movie and popcorn, the porch light on our front porch decidedly turned off. 

But this year is different in a way neither of us expected.

It began with three pumpkins -- two orange ones and a funny looking dark green one with a huge stump handle bursting out its top -- that Kirk brought home from a pumpkin patch on his way home from running errands around town last weekend. And then last night, he suggested we carve them while giving out candy to the neighborhood kids tonight.

"Could you get some candy when you make the grocery store run tomorrow?" he asked. 

"Sure," I said, surprised.

It wasn't like Kirk to be into the candy and kids thing on Halloween night, but something seemed different in him somehow. More open. Excited, even.

In reflecting on this shift, I've come to think it has a lot to do with having discovered our village in recent months. Something in our life has shifted at a tectonic level, and we seem more open and available to participating in the world around us in a new way. We seem more rooted inside our life and more open to relationships.

I really like it. 

Here's how that looked for us tonight, for example. While making dinner, we opened our front door and let the sounds of children laughing and parents chatting drift through the screen door. We carved a pumpkin and set it out to join the two other faceless ones on our front steps. We roasted pumpkin seeds (even though they promptly burned because I forgot I'd put them in the oven). And we kept a huge bowl of candy well within reach, greeting the young kids in their colorful costumes and trying to guess who they were pretending to be as we gave them each a handful. 

And now, appropriately, we're watching Harry Potter. 

It's been such a fun night, and I really didn't expect that at all.

Little (Big) Things Worth Celebrating

I just love how this little room has come together.

(And Diva and Sollie really make the room cozy, don't they?) 

Ever since discovering the place where we belong, I've noticed so many things about the life Kirk and I share falling into place in ways that are kind of marvelous, really. And we're just allowing ourselves to bask in the gift of it every single day.

For instance ... 

Transport, Anyone?

The two of us shared just one car for nearly four years. And then in August, a member of Kirk's family gifted us with a second car for the price of $1. That's right. One dollar. We could hardly believe our ears when they shared with us this great gift!

And I'm not kidding you: every single day since we received that car, we still marvel at the gift of not having to find out how our schedules work out for sharing the car or shuttle each other around or pick each other up if it looks like rain (one impractical byproduct we soon discovered about trying life with a Vespa, especially when living in the very tropical-storm-friendly state of Florida). 

And then there's ... 

The Normal, Simple Everyday

Two weekends ago, we finally decided to get a couch. Imagine that: a couch. Revolutionary, isn't it? 

But in all seriousness, it was a big step for us. The loveseat we've owned the last few years, which was generously gifted to us by my mom when she came for a visit one year, has been quite wonderful. But we knew we'd need another couch at some point, as the loveseat only seats two.

So finally, a couple weekends ago, we decided to check out Craigslist and see what we could find. And what we found was an amazing couch -- great quality, great condition, for hardly any cost at all -- and the young guy who sold it even delivered for just an extra $10. Awesomeness.

It's been so cool to notice that almost immediately upon entering our home, that couch became a new home base for us. That very first night, we sat down in that little nook room and didn't leave for hours. (And neither did the kitties!) 

And then the next day, Kirk went out and procured a couple floor lamps and that cozy red rug you see in the photo above. We hung our very favorite wall art above the couch -- a woodcarved plaque of Psalm 139 -- and secured a few more candles. 

And then, guess what? We entered the modern age and bought a TV. And a DVD player. And tomorrow, the cable guys show up. (WHAT?!)

I jest, but that's actually a pretty big step for us, too. We've enjoyed life without a TV for four years, and that was so great for a season. But we're going to have a number of houseguests staying with us soon, and we know it's impractical -- not to mention highly uncomfortable -- to expect our guests to keep crowding around a tiny laptop screen on top of a hard dining room table just to enjoy a movie together. (Thanks, Mom, for your patience with us!)  

I'm so glad to be able to offer our guests in the coming months a much more welcoming, comfortable, cozy experience of our home.

And lastly ... 

Bring Awesomeness into the Kitchen

I've been experimenting with food. And not just any kind of food, but food that you could potentially find on a menu in restaurants. Things like: 

Snapper Tacos with Chipotle Cream

Creamy Fettuccini with Shrimp and Bacon

Herbed Chicken Parmesan

Chicken Marsala

Curried Chicken Penne with Mango Chutney

Chicken and Couscous Salad

And seriously? I must say that I pretty much rocked these meals when I made them. Who knew I was capable of that? Not me!

I've never been much use in the kitchen at all. For some reason, cooking is not a sensibility or hobby that ever took up residence with me. I've been clumsy and clueless for years when it comes to meal-planning and providing any sense of home cooking in my home. That has just never been me.

But I feel the wind of that changing.

For one, the meals I've made so far have turned out amazing! So yummy and tasty and like real food. They seriously taste like something I'd order in a restaurant. And the presentation is so great, too! It really amazes me.

But second, and this is the real kicker, is that I'm really enjoying myself. I've found a rhythm of searching for great new meals to try, then loading up my shopping list for the week, and then camping out in the kitchen to create something new each night with my trusty laptop sitting on the kitchen counter so I can read the menu as I go along.

Let's just say that CookingLight.com is totally rocking my world these days. (And I have Kirsten to thank for the recommendation!)

---

Such privilege all of this is, isn't it? A second car ... a couch ... some lamps ... a rug ... a television and DVD player ... not to mention real meals making their way onto our table and then into our bellies. It really is rich and amazing to us.

And I think real appreciation for these privileges is so much sweeter when they follow seasons of going without. Don't you agree? 

Things I'm Learning So Far (About Teaching)

Hi there, friends. 

My first-ever online course launched the beginning of this week, and I've already learned so much through this process. I thought it would be fun to share some of those learnings with you, here at the outset of this big, new adventure. 

Things I'm Learning So Far (About Teaching): 

1. I have a huge heart-crush on my students -- and we've only been learning together for about five days! 
2. I'm pretty dang humbled to be getting to teach a course about Jesus. 
3. Jesus is the real teacher of this course, not me. 
4. I get fiercely passionate about designing a course when the subject is near and dear to my heart. 
5. A collaborative learning environment is way more interesting and rewarding than a formal, didactic one.
6. When recording a teaching video, usually the first take is the keeper. 
7. Especially if you've spent time in prayer first. 
8. And you're wearing a cozy cardigan.
9. I think I really love teaching. 
10. I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at Jesus.

xoxo,

Christianne

Just Because

I'm posting this just because she is so beautiful and because she is my muse each day. 

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PS: Thanks for all your kind comments on yesterday's post about our having finally found the village where we belong. It feels so, so good, and we are so, so thankful to be here.

+++

PPS: If you've ever wanted to spend time getting to know Jesus better, this would be the perfect place for you to do it. We'll begin diving into the Gospels together next week -- and we would love to have you join us!

So, About that Village . . .

A place that makes me very happy

Do you remember my story about the image of the village? 

It happened in mid-February of this year. I'd just discovered that God was inviting me to take a journey with him through an unknown woods. I was humbled by the invitation, but also pained. It meant saying goodbye to life as I'd known it in some ways. It came before I was ready to say yes. 

A few days after the invitation into the woods presented itself, I had a session with my spiritual director, Elaine. I was telling her of my difficulty saying yes to God's invitation, and she posed an interesting question: Do you have any sense of what's on the other side of the woods? 

Well, no. I didn't. 

So she asked, Do you want to ask God what's on the other side? 

I hadn't ever thought to do so, but the idea appealed to me. So I did. I asked him, knowing full well -- and even telling him so -- that he didn't have to show me what was on the other side, that seeing the other side shouldn't be the thing that would make me say yes to entering those unknown woods. But I figured, Why not? If he chooses to show me, awesome. If he doesn't, then I can still work my way through this struggle of saying yes, and I knew eventually I would get to the yes.

And you know what? He chose to show me what was on the other side. That's when he showed me the village. 

All this time, since February, I have wondered about that village. It was so clear in the image that it was a place Kirk and I would enter together, a place and a community that would be a part of both our lives. Jesus and I would travel through the woods together and alone, but on the other side, eventually Kirk would join us and we would encounter the village. 

I had no idea what this "village" would be. But I did know one thing: Kirk and I have prayed for five long years for community. We have wondered at times about starting a house church in our home. At other times, we've prayed about starting a monthly gathering of artists in our home. We have searched and prayed for a place to belong, a group of people with whom we could do life, with whom we could know and be known. 

What we sought was more than friendship. What we sought was a place to belong. 

I had no idea what the village would look like when it emerged in our life, but I can tell you now: we have come upon it and begun to enter in. 

It began in June. 

An episcopal church around the corner from our house, called All Saints, was starting a new contemplative eucharist service on Sunday nights. We'd attended the weekly noonday eucharist service on and off at that church over the last few years, but very intermittently. It was a quiet, sacred service we could attend during the lunch hour now and then, when we had a Wednesday lunch hour free, but our attendance was quite irregular. 

But this contemplative eucharist service, which we also learned would be offered with themes from the Celtic tradition? It sounded like something we would really love. We heard it would be a simple service, offered with long periods of silence, with candles, prayers and quiet music, and with the holy communion, of course.

Sign us up!

We started attending from the beginning and have not missed a single time since it began, I don't think. We love it. It has become a really important part of our weekly routine.

We didn't know at the time we began attending the contemplative service in June that All Saints would eventually show itself to be the village from that image God had given me in February. But it has. 

It began with the decision to attend a newcomer's class in late August -- one evening spent getting to know some members of the church and a bit more about what was happening there. We shared during the introduction time that we were just exploring things, that we loved the contemplative service and Father Rob, the rector, but that we weren't episcopalians and had never -- either of us -- belonged to a denomination, and we had no idea what that would even look like or mean. 

That evening, we got to talking with two of the ladies in the group, and one of them mentioned that Father Stephen, one of the assistant rectors at the church, was going to teach a catechumenate class starting in September. A catechumenate class? What in the world was that? We learned it would be a 9-month class teaching an overview of the Scriptures, church history, and the tradition of the episcopal faith. It would culminate, we learned, at Easter with a visit from the bishop and the opportunity to be confirmed in the episcopal church. 

This sounded like a great next step for us. Nine months was a long time to take in the teachings of the church and learn specifically about the episcopal denomination, especially since I couldn't imagine converting to a denomination of Christianity lightly at all. I wanted to understand what that meant. 

So we decided to take Father Stephen's class, and we waited with eager anticipation for the class to begin in September. 

In the meantime, we heard about something called the Rector's Forum. It was a teaching time between services on Sunday morning, led by the rector, Father Rob, whom we have come to truly admire and enjoy. He's a gifted teacher, a holy man, and someone who cares deeply about the process of spiritual formation (as do I!). 

We learned Father Rob would be teaching a series on spiritual direction and sacred rhythms on Sundays for the Rector's Forum starting in September, too, and it was not a difficult decision for us to start attending that too. (Not a difficult decision? We practically ran to the class!)

And slowly but surely, with each new step we've taken, we have felt drawn further and further in to this church.

Every time we go, people walk up to us and introduce themselves. They're incredibly friendly and warm.

When we attend the Rector's Forum and watch people trickle in, it's clear this is a church of people who have known each other forever -- and truly care for one another. When we attend Father Stephen's class on Wednesday nights, it's clear this is a place of great affection. I can't help but smile when Father Stephen calls on people by name when they raise their hands to ask a question. 

Every once in a while over the last two months, Kirk would ask me, Do you think this is the village? I didn't know. I kept telling him I needed to ask God that question. But for some reason, I kept putting it off. I'm not sure why.

But then something happened.

Kirk started saying some really unusual things. Really beautiful, moving things. Things I had never heard him express about a church or a community of people before. Things that I knew were very intimate admissions of his heart to God and to me. 

It was astounding and marvelous and totally, utterly beautiful. 

Thats when I knew it was time to ask God if this was the village. 

When I saw my spiritual director, Elaine, for a session last month, that's one of the questions I brought. I revisited with her the image of the village, and she invited me to bring the question to God.

God, is this the village?

I couldn't help but smile. Each person in that church so unique, each with a different story. Each person offering their own perspective and talents. Old men with wizened beards. Women with difficult struggles not everyone sees but you would see if you really looked at them. Children running and playing, known by all the community. 

These were people I wanted to know. This was a place where I wanted to give as well as receive. This was a place Kirk and I wanted to live together. 

Yes. Yes. Yes. 

This is our village. And we are so thankful to have entered into it. It will change our life, I think, living among these precious people and encountering Christ there among us.

On Writing

Over the weekend, I read The Help in the span of one and a half days. All 525 pages of it ... I just sped right through. 

It's been a long time since a book has captivated me so thoroughly, and it felt absolutely wonderful to be swept into the story of a book again. I spend so much time reading screens that books rarely get the attention they deserve -- and used to garner -- in my life these days. 

So after that delicious experience with The Help, I started a new book tonight.

It's called Jesus, my Father, the CIA, and Me (a memoir of sorts), and Kirk has been reading it the last few weeks. I keep hearing him chuckle as he reads his way through the pages, and the chuckles are enough to compel me to read the book as it is.

But also, the author is someone with whom we've recently become quite taken.

His name is Ian Morgan Cron. Last month at church, we watched a very moving and powerful short video clip of him speaking to prodigal pain and our need to embrace the fullness of our stories, and Kirk has been reading the book ever since. 

So tonight, after a day of not feeling my best, I lit a few candles, turned some good music on my iPod, and enjoyed the first few pages of the book while taking a bubble bath.

There are so many lines I could quote from just those first few pages -- the book is really that good already, I can tell -- but these words here, on the vocation of writing, are ones I thought I would share right now:

Memoirists work with bones. Like paleontologists, we dig up enough of them to make intelligent guesses about what a creature looked like a million years ago. But here and there a femur or rib is missing, so by faith, with imagination, we fill in those gaps with details we believe are consistent with the nature and character of our upbringing.

... This is a record of my life as a I remember it -- but more importantly, as I felt it.

When I became a writer toward the end of my undergraduate life, I carried inside myself so much of a tortured soul. I tried my hand at short stories, then novels -- each an attempt to write my story into existence. I poured my memories and feelings into those stories. And when I eventually grew further along into spiritual memoir years later, I still wrote my story from a place of attachment, regret, anger, and pain. 

I haven't tried to write my story in any kind of permanent form in a really long time. It's been several years at least since I thought I was supposed to write it all out. The most permanent form my writing takes these days, besides what I write in my various online spaces, is the journalling I do on a semi-regular basis on my typewriter. 

I really don't know if I'll ever try to write out the greater fullness of my story again. But one thing I have noticed lately is a shift in my attention when considering the possibility of ever doing such a thing.

Whereas I used to write from the memories of pain, from the places that required transformation, from the places of real woundedness ... these days, I'd rather the focus be on Jesus. He's the main event. He's the one who matters. My pain is not the most interesting thing about me. Jesus is. 

It's given me something to think about, a new lens through which to recast and recollect my story. And I must say, I am so very glad for that.

The City Will Be Restored

Image credit: Wonders

Jesus and I stood and looked at the city for a couple days. I could tell as he looked upon it, his heart was full of love. I could also tell that he was giving me time to wrap my mind around its existence: that here this city was, and this was where we were going -- together. 

As I mentioned in my initial post about this, a particular passage in Matthew immediately came to mind when we stood looking at the city together. It's the passage where Jesus looks out over Jerusalem and becomes overwhelmed with compassion for the people living there because they are like sheep without a shepherd.

In the days following my initial discovery of the city, I turned to that passage in Matthew a lot. It has slowly become a new prayer of mission for me.

Here are some portions of that passage that carry great weight for me in this new place:

Then Jesus made a circuit of all the towns and villages. He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. "What a huge harvest!" he said to his disciples. "How few workers! On your knees and pray for harvest hands."

The prayer was no sooner prayed than it was answered. Jesus called twelve of his disciples and sent them into the ripe fields. He gave them power to kick out evil spirits and to tenderly care for the bruised and hurt lives. . . . 

Jesus sent his twelve harvest hands out with this charge: 

"Don't begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don't try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons . . . 

"We are intimately linked in this harvest work. . . . This is a large work I've called you into, but don't be overwhelmed by it. It's best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won't lose out on a thing." 

-- Matthew 9:35-10:42, The Message

The entire context of this passage, from Matthew 9:35-10:42, has become like an instruction manual of sorts for me in this new season. In those beginning days, I looked out upon this city he had brought me to discover, and I knew this was a field ripe with harvest and that I was one of the harvest hands he had prepared to go into that particular field. 

And so I sought -- and continue to seek -- my marching orders from this passage. 

Just like Jesus, I'm to care for the broken and hurt lives. I'm to offer a cold cup of water to someone who is thirsty. I'm to steer clear of grandiosity. I'm to be an apprentice. I'm to offer the life of Jesus.

In those first days when Jesus and I stood upon that hill, looking down upon the city we were going to approach and enter together, I saw that it was dark and forlorn and desolate and dead to life in so many ways. I knew there were people living inside the walls of that city who went about their life every single day without hope or spark at all. I knew it was a lonely, sad, forsaken place. 

But Jesus also permitted me to see what would eventually happen. 

From the ground up, ever so slowly, the Holy Spirit would begin to restore that place. It would become, eventually, a gleaming white city. Through the entrance of Jesus into that place and the work of our hands together, the city would be rescued, made well, and restored to pristine perfection. 

It would be beautiful, just as it was always meant to be.

Is the City the Village?

One of the questions I wondered right away at the top of that hill where Jesus showed me the city was: Is the city the village? 

You remember the village, right?

It's that image God gave me back before I entered the woods, when I was a bit scared to enter and feeling quite sad about saying goodbye to my cohort group. I had a session with my spiritual director right around then, and she invited me to consider asking God what might be on the other side of the woods. Where would this journey through the woods lead us?

He showed me the village. 

So, when we emerged from the woods at the beginning of May and wandered around for a bit, the village was always in back of my mind. I kept wondering when we would come upon it. I wondered what it would look like in our real life -- how it would translate. I wasn't impatient to get there, but I was quite curious about it.

When we ended up on that hill, then, looking down at the city, I felt pretty surprised. Did I misunderstand? Had I misinterpreted the village? Was I missing something here?

I didn't quite know what to make of that city down below. It seemed quite clear to me when we came upon it that the city was meant for ministry and vocation . . . but the village had felt like a place to live. Both images rendered so strong in my mind, and they didn't seem like the same place at all. 

But, were they? 

It seems like sessions with my spiritual director always come at just the right time. Right when this image of the city emerged on my radar, I had another session scheduled with Elaine. And as usual, she offered me such grace and gentle wisdom: Do you want to ask God if the city is the village? 

Yes, I did. And so, I did. 

And I learned that the city and the village were not the same thing at all. I also learned that I hadn't mistaken the village somehow. We just hadn't gotten there yet. 

So, I turned my attention back to the city. Stay tuned for the next installment . . . 

Coming Upon the City

Image credit: Official PSDS

One thing I haven't had a chance to share with you yet is the city. 

The city is the place Jesus showed me a few weeks after we left the woods. As you know, I spent several months this year taking a very meaningful journey through the woods with Jesus, and at the end of my 5-day silent retreat in early May, that journey through the woods came to an end.

Suddenly, Jesus and I were standing at the edge of the woods, looking out upon a hilly expanse of grass. It felt like we had entered upon a pastoral region of England. In fact, I half-expected us to find the village he had shown to me at the beginning of our journey through the woods as we walked among those hills.

But instead, he brought me to a city.

And I want to share the story of that city with you. Care to hear it?

When we came to the edge of the woods, we stood looking at that hilly expanse of grass for several days. And then we started walking. I could tell we weren't in any hurry to get anywhere in particular -- we were just walking and enjoying the sunshine, the hills, the grass, and one another's company. It was really beautiful. 

Along the way, we came upon a few resting places -- a bench here and there, or a rock -- and we would stop and rest for a while in each of these places. As we walked or rested, we spent most of our time discussing my Still Forming space. By this point, I'd begun writing daily contemplative posts in that space, and I was very aware as I'd begun doing so that he wanted to be a part of writing those daily posts with me. So each day, we would walk and talk, and I would ask him what he wanted to say.

But then one day, out of the blue, Jesus started walking faster. He made a sharp left turn and began climbing a hill. And rather than walking together, I was suddenly following him. I didn't know where we were going, but it was very clear he did and that he wanted to get us there. So I followed him.

And then at the top of the hill, he stopped.

I stopped, too, and I quietly asked him if he wanted to share with me where we were going. I didn't ask because I was upset or needed to know. I just wondered if that was information he wanted to share with me. 

And it turned out, it was. 

He gestured his arm out, and when I followed his gesture, I saw the city spread out before us, a bit of a ways out in the distance. It looked very much like the image you see at the top of this post -- dark, urban, crowded, dingy -- full of buildings and feeling quite empty and full of soot. 

This was the place we were going to. And I knew: this was the place we would do our work.

As I stood and looked at that city, I couldn't help but recall that verse in the Gospels where Jesus looks upon the city of Jerusalem and feels compassion: 

When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd.

-- Matthew 9:37

Want to hear what happened next?

Stay tuned . . . (don't you love when I leave you hanging like that?!)

One of My Biggest Risks Ever

Tonight I launched registration for the Look at Jesus course. 

These are words I'm just a little bit awestruck to have said. Launched registration ... as in, past tense. It's out there. The train is officially moving down the tracks. 

I'm just a little bit terrified. :-)

I realized tonight, just before hitting the launch button, that this is perhaps the biggest risk I've ever taken. I told Kirk that even though I moved across the country to marry him and we flew to Europe to get married and we embarked on unique vocational paths that took us away from conventional careers for a while, none of those things ever felt scary to me. Marrying Kirk felt like coming home. Following a unique vocational path felt like something I had to do.

This, on the other hand, feels very much like risk. 

Ever since I emerged from the woods with Jesus in early May, I've been living into a new way of relating to him and making decisions for my life. From something as simple as writing a blog post every morning for the Still Forming community to the launch of this online course, I'm learning what it means to depend upon Jesus for every next step and directive. 

It's a beautiful way to learn to live -- a way of living that is really about dependence -- but it's scary too. It means that each time I take a step forward, there's just a little bit of risk. The risk is in trusting that I'm actually doing what Jesus wants me to do. The risk is in trusting I've heard him true.

So tonight, I've risked again. Look at Jesus: a Gospel immersion course is open for registration. I'm super-excited and amazed, but also a little bit petrified.

Amazed and Blessed to Be Here

I just got back from my monthly session with my spiritual director, and I can't quite shake the grin upon my face because of our time together. (Nor do I want to!)

Our session went a bit longer than normal today, and we covered a lot of territory, but the overwhelming consensus in my mind and heart today is this: I'm amazed and blessed to be in this place. 

There were several times during my session with Elaine today that I basked in the goodness of the place I currently find myself. And there were several other times during our session that I marveled at the long journey of life I have taken to get here. It has included a very big sea change in my spiritual life that began at age 19, an intentional process of getting to know grace and Jesus, several intentional and difficult times of healing that eventually led to rebirth, a couple cross-country moves, plus quite a bit of education and training. All of it -- and even more than I've listed here, too -- is a long journey that's been lived to lead to me to this place. 

What is "this place"?

I write about spiritual formation every day. Just a couple weeks from now, I'll start teaching my first online course about a subject I passionately love. I continue to reflect upon and write about my journey toward nonviolence, which is a subject that I sense could captivate me the rest of my life. And I'm beginning to grow my practice of spiritual direction.

This is the work I get to do.

From the comments and e-mails I receive from people on occasion, God is somehow using these things. I am doing things I love -- writing, thinking, and creating sacred space -- and somehow God delights to make something meaningful out of it. 

I am so aware this is not my doing. Each day, I seek the companionship of Jesus. I ask him to show me what to say and where to go. I ask him what he wants for me to hear and then speak on his behalf. He has been directing each of these steps, and I'm asking him to direct me still. And all the while, I just keep saying: Thank you.

Indeed, I'm amazed and blessed to be in this place.

Welcome to the New Lilies!

Hello there, friends. 

Whew! It continues to be a busy season over here on the home front. I'm not sure why I thought life would surely slow down once I finished my grad program and training in spiritual direction in June, but things continue to move steadily along.

Don't get me wrong, though -- I seriously love the freedom from assigned readings and papers and other official coursework. Wouldn't you?

But I've continued to find lots of ways to keep myself busy these last few months. I talked a bit about that in my last post. One of the more recent big steps has been the launch of www.christiannesquires.com just over a week ago, which feels truly wonderful. It's such a big and helpful step for me to have one dedicated online space that sums up all the work I do in all the various places I do it.

And then this week, I transitioned my beloved Lilies blog here to its own domain space at www.lilieshavedreams.com. (Goodbye, Blogger! It was fun and you were faithful while it lasted.)

So, how do you like the new digs?

I love it here! My sweet, dear friend Kirsten designed the blog banner -- didn't she do a fantastic job?! I have always been a fan of the color green, and then when I saw the photograph of those gorgeous pink water lilies and lily pads in her photostream several weeks ago, it got the wheels in my mind a-turning concerning this space. 

It seemed about time to show this personal blog of mine a little loving attention and special treatment, as it has been my place to process and grow as a person and a writer and a seeker and a friend over the last 5+ years. 

Thanks for being here. Lots more to come in the days ahead, especially as I continue to move toward launching my first online course. 

xoxo,

Christianne 

A Peek Behind the Scenes

Hi, friends! 

I've got some fun things to share with you today that will give you a peek into what I've been up to lately. I've been busy behind the scenes working on several special projects, and today I'm going to pull back the curtain and let you get a sneak peek at some of them. Sound like fun? I hope it will be as fun for you to sneak-peek as it is for me to share. :-)

So, first -- drum roll please! -- I'm so excited to share with you a new website I finished creating today. That's right, today! It now serves as my online home base to communicate who I am and what I'm about to people who meet me for the first time.

As a bit of explanation behind the decision for the site, sometimes I suspect it's a bit confusing to grasp who I am and what I do because I manage a couple different online spaces and keep tackling different projects. This new website will, I hope, serve to communicate in one concise place who I am, what I do, and where I do it.

So, here it is . . . introducing the site I've affectionately nicknamed CS.com: my very own URL at www.christiannesquires.com.

(Woot!)

Also, I've mentioned before that I'm developing my first online course, and this is really exciting to me, too. I never realized I would experience so much joy and passion from doing something like this, but joy and passion is exactly what I have experienced in great measure through this process. (This is the point at which Kirk usually tells me, "That's what we call a clue.")

In case you don't visit my spiritual formation site, Still Forming, I recently shared a video over there about how this first online course came to be. You can watch that video here. In the video, I also shared that I've named the course Look at Jesus: a Gospel immersion course, and I will be rolling out registration and more details about all of it in about a week. (Eeeep!)

So, for a sneak peek for you here, I thought I'd share with you a few glimpses into my creative development process for the course. Sound fun? 

One of the first things I did in creating the course was to clarify my heart for it. What did I hope people would experience in taking the course? What were some of the desired outcomes I had for it? What did I hope people would receive?

I spent some time getting colorful and creative in my journal concerning those questions, as you can see above and below!

The next thing I did was ask the question, Who would take this class? I knew the course wasn't for everyone, but who was it for? Again, I let loose with the markers and allowed myself to brainstorm ideas and decorate the page with doodles concerning this question. (I really loved this creative process . . . can you tell?)

What I found so interesting about these creative brainstorms was that each of them seemed to have a single unifying thread -- a word that I felt summed up my answer to each question.

For the first brainstorm, the unifying thread was revelation. For the second, it was desire.

And then on another creative Saturday, I spent time writing down my assumptions about Jesus that I'm carrying into the course. You can see from the journal photo above that I have some pretty strong assumptions about one point in particular on that score. :-)

Throughout the process, I've also written down some of the things I believe about myself as its leader (instructor?), as well as my declarations about what the course is not. When it's time to roll out registration, I look forward to sharing more of those specific thoughts with those considering taking the course. 

Lastly, I'm privileged to be working on a very meaningful project at my church these days. I was invited several months back to serve as the project manager for an online resource that ministers to people facing a variety of emotional and spiritual struggles. It's been fun and invigorating to work with a talented and creative team of people on the site design, the content it covers, and some of the multimedia aspects we're creating for it.

Along the way, I've learned how to be a video producer . . . something I never envisioned I would learn how to do but that I've discovered I absolutely love.

Can't wait to share the resource with you when it goes live!

And that about sums up my world these days. I've missed posting here on a regular basis and look forward to getting back into a routine of sharing with you the dailiness of life and the ways God is continuing to teach and grow me.

xoxo,

Christianne

Coming Out of the Woods

The morning after the most amazing day I have ever spent with Jesus was the last morning of my silent retreat. I woke up, showered, tidied up the spaces I had used in the house, and then packed my bags and car for the long drive home.

Next, I drove to the Starbucks parking lot.

I planned to get a coffee before driving off the island and heading home, but before I officially re-entered civilization -- starting with something as simple as ordering a tall hazelnut latte from a Starbucks barista! -- I wanted to have my final session with my retreat director by phone. So I sat in the Starbucks parking lot for that next hour and filled her in on what had happened the previous day.

We were both pretty amazed at the story of what had happened between me and Jesus the previous day, especially because I'd had such an experience of struggle getting there. So for a while, we both just sat in silence with our minds collectively blown. :-)

It was so meaningful to me to have walked through those five days with her, to have in her someone who listened to my experience of the retreat as it progressed each day, who let it be whatever it needed to be, and then to sit with me in amazement at what God had done.

This is one reason I love soul friendships and also why I love having a spiritual director back here at home with whom I meet with on a regular basis: over time, these individuals learn the length and breadth of your story. They walk with you through your story and are with you in it and can then speak into future conversations because of what they've learned about the landscape of your heart and soul from having witnessed it.

Having a retreat director in Barb was kind of like that, too, but in miniature form. This dear friend of mine traveled the length and breadth and depth and height of that 5-day silent retreat with me, and it felt so meaningful to have her witness it and be amazed right along with me at what happened. She could be amazed at the heights because she had been with me there in the depths.

You know what I mean? 

Toward the end of my time on the phone with Barb that day, I asked if she would mind my taking a few minutes to sit with the image of the woods again. I sensed that Jesus and I had returned to the woods at the end of our incredible day together on the low beige wall in the sunshine, and I wanted to see if that was true.

When I closed my eyes, I saw that yes, Jesus and I had, in fact, returned to the woods. We were walking hand in hand now, back on the path, and right in front of us was the final edge of the forest.

I didn't realize this retreat would land me at the end of the woods journey, but there it was.

Jesus and I came to the edge of the woods and stood looking out over a vast expanse of fields and hills covered in grasses for miles and miles. The sun was shining, and it was peaceful out there. I had no idea what lay ahead of us next, but I felt okay with that as I considered it. I knew Jesus and I would go wherever we were going together.

As we stood there, I noticed that I kept turning to look back at the woods . . . the woods that had become our woods over the course of the last few months, not just the woods. We had come so far in those months of walking and traveling together. From where I stood, looking back, I could see all the twists and turns we had taken, all the bends in the path. 

I could see the place where I first came upon the woods and recognized God's invitation to enter. I could see where the woods began and I learned I had to say goodbye to my cohort. I could see the places where Jesus and I stopped to face one another and talk. I could see where I'd held the white cue ball of my ego, and also where I'd discovered the three humiliations. I could see the spot where I bowed and wept at the feet of Jesus and then spent five days in the grave. I could see, not too far back from where we stood, the place where I had given Jesus as much as I could and then got stuck at the last three objects.

So much ground covered between us, just the two of us, through those woods.

I never expected to reach the end of the woods while on my silent retreat. When I first entered the silence, I noticed that I sensed the end of the woods to be nearby, perhaps not too much further along on the path, but I had no sense or expectation of how long it would take me and Jesus to get there. I had lingered in some places on the path quite a while before taking new steps forward prior to this point. It could still take months to reach the end, for all I knew.

And yet here we were. Such gift.

For several days following the retreat, I held that image of Jesus and I standing at the wood's edge, looking out over the grassy hills and the expansive terrain beyond the forest of trees. It was a new country of sorts we were about to enter, and Jesus allowed me the time I needed to reflect on all that the woods had held for us and then to prepare my heart for a new journey.

Then we started walking into the hilly, grassy terrain ahead.

We walked together, sometimes side by side and sometimes stopping to talk or sit on a bench and rest a while. There was no urgency to this walking we were doing, nor was there any strong sense of destination. I still had a sense that eventually, at some point, we would land upon that village he showed me way back at the beginning of this journey. But for now, we just walked and talked.

Each day, we talked quite a bit about the posts I began writing for my Still Forming site later that month. I had made a commitment at the end of May to write a contemplative, reflective post each weekday in that space, and it has been such a joy to enter into the practice of writing those posts each day. The process always begins by asking Jesus what he thinks needs to be said, and so much of our conversations on the grassy hills beyond the woods in the months that have followed my silent retreat have concerned that online space and what Jesus wants to say in that space each day.

Some surprising things have happened since Jesus and I left the woods in May, too. I plan to share those stories with you here, of course. I also plan to continue sharing with you the ongoing process of discovering my life's work and vocation, of taking new risks, and of doing life with Kirk, the kitties, and with God.

I'm so glad you're here for the journey with me.

xoxo,

Christianne

PS: In other news, I'm launching an online course in October called "Look at Jesus" and could not be more excited about it. It will be offered through my Still Forming site, and I'd love for you to join us! I'm posting an intro video over there later today, so be sure to check back in and preview it. (Doing a little happy dance over here regarding this big step!)

The Most Beautiful Day I Spent With Jesus

When I think back on the 5-day silent retreat I took in early May, one day among them all stands out. It's the one that springs immediately to mind and invariably brings a secret smile to my lips because of what it held and what it means for me and Jesus.

That is the day I'm going to share with you today.

I'll begin by saying that over the last year or two, I have begun to experience contemplative prayer in small doses here and there. These are times when no words or images are shared between me and God at all, but where prayer becomes more like a pure and wordless offering of my heart and mind to connect with the vast, unexplainable reality of God. Thomas Merton and the anonymous writer of the Cloud of Unknowing wrote quite a bit about this sort of prayer, which they termed contemplation, and I've written previously about this shift toward pure contemplation in my prayer life as well.

That pure form of contemplation, when I began to move toward it, was a very different way for me to commune with God after many, many years of holding images and practicing imaginative prayer in my journey through life with God. For about ten solid years, in fact, images and imaginative prayer were a central feature of my prayer life, and God has used images and imaginative prayer over the years to heal so many broken pieces of my heart.

Although there has been a shift in the last year or two toward that more pure form of contemplative prayer, images began showing up again for me last October. First there was the image of the red glass that transformed into a communion cup over the course of a few months, and then came the image of the woods in February. And when I went away for my 5-day retreat in May, that image of the woods was still a very present reality in my prayer life with God.

Again, the mystics call that pure and wordless form of prayer contemplation. They also refer to it as a form of ecstatic union between the soul and God, and from the small amount of time I have spent practicing that wordless form of prayer in the last couple years, I can understand why they refer to it that way. In contemplative prayer, there is a sense in which the soul forgets itself and is caught up entirely into the unending reality of God that is perfection, wisdom, beauty, truth, and all that is real. The soul experiences a pure ecstasy of sorts when encountering this vast, unending perfection of God that cannot be explained or even contained by words.

But on that day during my silent retreat in May when I sat on the denim couch in the front room of the house for six straight hours, by no means experiencing the pure form of contemplative prayer because I held a very clear image in my mind of Jesus and I sitting on a low wall together, enjoying one another and talking deeply about the three objects I had yet to surrender to him . . . even though that day was not comprised of that pure and wordless form of contemplation the mystics talk about, the most fitting words I can ascribe to the experience of that day are the words ecstatic union.

I shared in my last post that initially, when Jesus first presented that image of us sitting together on the low wall, all we did was sit and enjoy each other's presence. He smiled and laughed a lot, and I just let him smile over me. It made me feel a little shy, but it also made me feel incredibly loved and enjoyed. 

And then, shyly, I asked him if he'd like to spend some time talking about the three objects: the earrings . . . the ring . . . the slip. And he said yes.

So that's what we did the rest of the day.

First I talked with him about the earrings. I pulled them out of my ears and held them in the palm of my hand between us. As I began to talk with him about those beautiful earrings and all that they represented to me, I discovered that it wasn't just riches or a life of comfort that they represented. It was also all the hopes and dreams Kirk and I have carried about our future, all the ideas we've had about things we hope to do someday: live for months at a time in Europe, travel around the world to attend conferences or study in other parts of the world, own a home where people can come for spiritual retreat, travel to various parts of the country and perhaps live in some of those places, too.

Those earrings represented all of it -- any claim I/we might have on our future, on choosing to do what we want with our life, of pinning our hopes and dreams on certain things instead of being fully open and available to God and his plans for us.

As I sat there holding those earrings in my palm between us, I began to think about the way God has always worked in our life together, all the stones that have emerged out of the water without our expecting them to or ever even trying to make that happen, how often God has presented us with ideas and opportunities we would never have dreamed for ourselves or thought we were even ready to have. The way we found our home was that way. So was the way we discovered the opportunity for me to complete my master's degree at Full Sail. Several of the jobs we've secured over the years happened that way. And our relationship happened that way, too! Stones emerging from the water at just the right time, more perfect than we could ever have planned or imagined for ourselves, presented with such grace and ease that choosing to step upon them was obvious and natural.

Giving the earrings to Jesus was, I learned, ultimately about accepting that continued movement and direction of God in our lives continually: his plans, not our own. Could I trust him to continue showing us what to do, allowing stones to emerge out of the water at just the right time?

I gave him the earrings.

The wedding ring was so much easier to give Jesus than I expected it to be. I'm sure a big part of that had to do with the work that had already been done in my heart at the discovery of the three humiliations the previous month.

All it took was reminding myself that Kirk is a man after God's heart, a deeply spiritual, God-fearing, and God-honoring man who wants to live for and with God. Should God ask something of us that I fear will create friction between us, I have to trust that the God in him is also the God in me and that the two of us will recognize God between us and around us.

So I took off my wedding ring -- literally, in real life, as I sat there on the couch inside the house, I took it off and put it on the pillow next to me -- and gave it to God. Inside the image, I gave the ring to Jesus, too.

Then I watched as Jesus put the ring back on my finger. What a beautiful gift.

After a little more time had passed, I asked Jesus if he'd like to talk about the shame, which is what I knew the slip represented to me.

I began by saying that my body has always been a source of shame for me, that it never developed quite the way I expected it would and hoped it would as an adolescent, and that various experiences in my life had only served to reinforce that shame.

I also said that who I am, as a person, has always felt on the fringe of groups, that I've always felt a bit like an oddball, never quite fitting in with those around me.

Then I reached a stopping point.

I didn't know how to keep talking about the shame. In some ways, it felt too big and too deep to even know where to start. It was everywhere.

Then I looked at Jesus, and a new thought occurred to me. I asked him, "Do you have anything you want to say to me about the shame?"

And he did.

I want to stop and say that everything up to this point had been so beautiful. But this next part, my friends, is the most precious part of all. 

Jesus looked at me and said, "You're beautiful. You are beloved. Every single part of you was created by me and is celebrated." I sat and received those words, just letting them sink into me. I imagined what it was like for him to dream me up and spend time creating me. I closed my eyes and began to really feel those last words: that every part of me is celebrated. My body is cause for celebration in his eyes.

Then, concerning my feelings of being an oddball who never quite fit in, he said, "You are not an accident, an anecdote, or an afterthought." Wow. I let those words sink in, too. I'm not an accident, an anecdote, or an afterthought. I'm intended to be here. I mean something. I hold weight and value. I matter. I'm noticed. I'm wanted. I'm desired.

I just sat there for a while and let all these words he spoke to me sink into the depth of my being. And then I looked at him, sitting there with me on the wall, and just smiled at him, over and over and over. I couldn't stop smiling at Jesus, and I couldn't get over his beautiful smile, either. I could have sat there forever and been completely content never to move for the rest of my life. I didn't want to be anywhere else but where he was. I didn't want to move.

Even from him, I felt an elimination of time. He had nowhere else to be and all the time in the world to sit there with me.

I looked at Jesus and said what was in the fullness of my heart: "I was made to love you."

I had come to that retreat with every expectation that God and I would talk about my vocation and the possible next steps for my life. But where I landed was someplace altogether better: at the most fundamental truth of my being. I am made to love him. If that's all I do with my life, that is enough. Vocation, ministry, other work I might be given to do . . . it's secondary. Loving him is what I'm meant to do. It's all I need to do.

I felt myself on cloud nine the rest of the night, as you might imagine. Such peace pervaded my heart, soul, and mind. I took communion with a Ritz cracker and sip of Pepsi in a eucharistic goblet Kirk had packed in my bag before I left. And in that moment of eucharist, I asked God to consecrate my hands, my lips, my eyes, my ears, and my feet and for him to be with me as I went forward from that place so that I would return home changed.

Stay tuned for the last installment of this retreat series and what happened with the image of the woods . . .