Blurred Lines

Four intersecting lines – two horizontal and two vertical now define my house – a simple rectangle, really just a box, a container.  The horizon cuts through the length of the house, beyond its walls, beyond the page, from one infinite end to the other infinite end.

I look at those intersecting lines, reflecting what they might represent…

Date of birth?

Time of death?

My departures?

My returns?

Natural gifts, abilities, flaws?

I sense there is more to this house than these four lines. 

The seemingly empty space surrounding them and the space filling their insides pushes on both sides of these lines.

The external forces of culture - the time and the place I 'randomly' occupy at any given moment? Its history? Its daily buzz-feed?

The internal forces of family of origin? Family by grace? Friends, enemies, frenemies? 

The unrepeatable mixture of nature and nurture that creates the unrepeatable one-of-a-kind you and me.

Where the black lines intersect is where I sense the lines being blurred the most...

Compassion and caution…

Grace and truth…

Mercy and justice…

I feel thoroughly inadequate to sustain such structure, deeply aware of the finite capacity of my life to embody any one of those. I sense that forces of life in and around me constantly blurring these lines. 

My reality tugging against the imagined ideal.

I know that in and of my unaided self, I am destined to fail. My house to crumble. My ideals to crash and burn.

I need something outside this structure to anchor its walls and roof, its windows and doors.  

A foundation that runs deeper than the bottom line, much deeper than even the bottom of my page. 

How to Draw a Line

In the world where words - even the best ones - have become so threadbare from overuse and misuse, art has a way of bypassing our natural cynicism and defenses, touching us in places few preachers can reach.

I am practically glued to YouTube, watching an instructional video on single-point perspective.  I must have worn out the digital replay button, by hitting it so many times.  I virtually memorized the whole darn thing!

What makes the video so mesmerizing is that they make it look so easy. So simple.  I can’t help but think,

I can DO this! Piece of cake!

One day, after everybody left for school and work and whatnot,  I finally decide it’s time to move from endless consumption to actual creation. 

I get a piece of paper and pencil - AND eraser - feeling jittery before I take my first plunge into the creative unknown.

My laptop is cued to the beginning of the video, the paper in front of me, the pencil in my hand, and …

I draw my first line! 

A long horizontal line stretching across the length of the paper representing horizon. 

It's beautiful! 

Even though it’s a bit slanted, and a little jagged, I feel pretty accomplished. Like a proud parent cradling a wrinkled, squinty-eyed newborn. 

We are off to a great start.

The next line is the real deal.  This is where my house actually starts.

Suddenly I am not so sure anymore. In a moment of panic I hit the 'pause' button.

I realize,

I don’t know where to start.

I don’t know when to end.

Who knew that drawing a line can be so hard!

After few moments of deliberation, I decide to pick a random spot to start and equally random spot to end. I mean it’s not rocket science.  What difference does it make…?  I can’t get bogged down with such inconsequential details!

Regardless of how you might feel about Aristotle, there is something to be said about art mimicking life.

It may not be what we like, it may not be what we want, but it's a truth we need to see. 

In the Name of L'Amoure

By now, everyone knows. It happened in Paris.

I guess that makes all the difference.

Not because citizens of Paris are any better or more worthy than the rest of us. Or people who live in any other place on Earth plagued by terrorism are less valuable. Or the death-deifying act less abhorrent.

Whenever civilian blood is shed in violence – in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Nigeria, New York City, Beirut – no man is an island. Every loss of human life diminishes me and you. Every life matters. Ask a parent who lost a child.  A wife who lost her husband and father of her children.

Most of us react to news of a terrorist attack with shock and disbelief. A natural reaction to violence is fear, anger and desire for revenge. 

But there is something about Paris, about what the City of Light unambiguously stands for, that fuels a different response. That makes me want to defy this stupid death rampage with life.

Defy this blindness and darkness with light.

Defy hate with love.

Because sometimes it takes tremendous amount of courage to get out of bed the next morning and embrace life.

To get up even as the silence envelopes the mourners like French flag and dare to eat a croissant in the name of love.

To share a glass of blood-red Bordeaux in the name of life.

To plant a garden, make love, say a prayer for all devastated by the tragedy (which one of us is not, in some way, some measure?), do whatever it is that in our small piece of Paris inside our heart affirms life.  

Which also makes me think of something else. 

Something I can do to stop taking my own life and people in it for granted. 

Something I can do to banish the forces of death, subtle as they may be, in my own life. Bring the Kingdom of Life and Light nearer.

Right here. 

Right now.

I don’t wan to wait until tomorrow.

I. 

Just. 

Want.

To DO.

Something.

In the name.

Of

L’amour.

In the name of

La Ville Lumiere.

In the name of

Life.

Because that's what the God who came to live among us stands for. Love. Light. Life.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21

How to Overcome Your Fear of Just About Anything

Everyone who knows me would say that there is an undeniable artistic vein in me, but not everyone knows that I suck at drawing. I can draw a stick figure and even that not very well.

And that’s about it.

It’s rather embarrassing.

My sister is a successful architect who runs her own business. My niece has Masters Degree in Fine Arts. Both my kids surpassed me in their artistic abilities when they entered second grade.

Truly they left me in the chalk dust.

I am not comparing but it’s plain humiliating.

Surprisingly enough, living my artistically challenged life while surrounded with prodigies hasn’t been enough to get me to overcome my fear of blank sheet of paper inside a drawing pad.

In fact, I think it only pushed me deeper into a hidey hole.

I admit, I have remarkable capacity to bury my fears deep down where nobody can see them.  And then pretend that I don’t even care.

That was then.

I can’t  quite put my finger exactly on what pushed me over the edge this time.

Maybe it's a midlife crisis.  I am too old not to know how to draw like a fourth or a fifth grader!

Perhaps it’s been a cumulative effect of tiny victories in overcoming my fear of baking, fear of knitting and crocheting, fear of Spanish and French. Fear of painting wood cabinets. Fear of experts.  Fear of amatures. Fear of…

Now you must think… Wow, that’s a lot of fears! And since curious minds want to know, you probably wonder,

How in the world did you overcome all those fears?

As much as I may want to say, I just prayed and Jesus took all those fears away, which, of course, is 100% true, the answer goes even deeper than that.

It’s called YouTube.

The Alien Invasion

It’s confirmed.  The date is set. It’s been a very long time – a forever of kind - since the last visit, but now all the details leading up to this eagerly awaited return are fully set in motion.

I guess it’s safe to announce, barring God’s miraculous intervention that my dad is coming! And my mom, too!!

I am so excited .  And I am terrified.

There is a huge difference between looking forward to some day in a distant future, and knowing the actual date just few weeks away.

Amidst cleaning and pruning, I find myself examining my life with their presence in view all the time. 

Their values.  

Their priorities. 

This is quite a challenge, because I’ve gotten somewhat comfortable in my northern American routine. I had to figure out a way to make it work for me and for my family.

But, now, that they are coming, I sense a force beyond my control, pulling me back.  Pulling me out. 

See, for all practical purposes, my parents could be landing in Florida from a completely different planet.  When they get here, they’ll be like extraterrestrials.   They don’t speak English.   They don’t own a car, a smart phone or computer.  I don’t even know if they ever heard of Facebook or Twitter or even a blog!

They are not going to ask me questions like, How’s you blog doing? Does your son have any followers on his YouTube channel? How many Facebook friends do you have?

It’s not because they don’t care about what we do.  It’s because they care  A LOT more about the real me. My husband. Our son and our daughter. Our real life neighbors and friends. 

Are we healthy?

Do kids listen to us?

Am I too busy? Is my life too hectic, too stressed out to enjoy it?

Do I take time to breathe?

I go through my day, with my dad’s quite presence sifting the steady flow of moments – minutes and hours as the seep through my fingers.

 Would he be pleased by what he sees?  Would his heart swell up with pride and joy? Would he look in and around – and be satisfied with how my life has turned out? With who I am becoming – unashamed of my heritage, yet still adjusted to the world to which, by the strange ways of God,  I now belong?  

Or would he be grieved? Not as a reproof or punishment, but because somehow in the chase after little things that seem so big on this crazy planet I now inhabit, I completely missed something really important. Something that he knows can not be traded for all the trinkets this world may offer….

The Grocery Line Prophet

I wasn’t eavesdropping. I promise. I just couldn’t help but overhear the conversation. Of course, I landed somewhere in half-way through the story, amidst a cart full of boxes of breakfast cereal, frozen pizzas, and cases of bottled water. 

But, I guess that's how most of us land in all the stories, including our own - smack in the middle of the reel.

I used to think, she says in a loud voice, clearly not caring whether anybody overhears her or not, I used to think “Who the heck are those people? What’s WRONG with them??” And now, I look at my family and I am thinking, “OMG, WE are ‘those people”!”

Her friend – I assume it’s her friend and not some random shopper – shakes her head in silent agreement.

I don’t know whether these women know that they are quoting the Scriptures or not, but I don’t remember when the last time was that I heard such succinct summary of the first three chapters of the Letter to Romans.  Or, the first six chapters of the Book of Isaiah.

The progression in self-awareness, I call it.

It starts out with that scathing commentary of morally devoid society around us.

THOSE people.

The ugly, mean, rotten people who well DESERVE their ugly, mean, rotten end.

Yea, we agree fully disgusted.  How can they do such things??? Those politicians.  Those leaders.  Those pastors. Those you-fill-in-the-blank.  Greedy liars and shameless cheats. Cowards and puppets.

Sadly, some of us never go beyond this point.  We spend our entire life always finding fault with somebody else - over there. 

But life doesn’t stop here. The progression keeps going on, towards all of us finger-pointing  know-it-alls, especially of the religious brand.

Butwho do YOU think YOU are? Don’t you realize that every time you point your accusing finger, three fingers are pointing back at you? When you judge others you by default judge yourself?

But, it’s so easy to see the speck in somebody else’s eye, and miss the boulder in my own.

Ooops.

And then comes the dawn of the day of enlightement, to quote again the grocery line philosopher:

OMG! WE are THOSE people!

Or, in the words of the prophet Isaiah,

Woe is me. We are all screwed!

I don’t know how this progression unfolds in a person’s soul.

It truly is a mystery.

I don’t know what kind of seismic shift it takes to move us from ‘those’ people to a ‘it’s us… ALL of us’. 

To ‘woe is me’. 

From demand for justice to plea for mercy... even as the world is swallowed up by a downward moral spiral? 

But, this shift somehow somewhere took place in the life of the woman in the supermarket.  

I don't know if she sees everything clearly yet, but I know that she doesn’t see people like trees anymore. And that’s a good first step – a very good step towards the Kingdom of God. 

The Lens of the World

Surprisingly enough, those who admit they haven’t arrived,  that they are not quite there yet, could be a lot closer to their desired destination than those who don’t.

For all of us half-blind fools, still groping, still seeing life, people, circumstances like crashing trees, Jesus reserves His second touch.

It’s like an eagerly awaited sequel following a nail-biting cliff hanger, the jagged story line suspended in mid-air.

A Part Two of sorts, of this half-baked miracle of our lives.

And He laid His hands again the second time… and the man looked intently…

The man looked up and stared.  

It may take some staring.  It will take some waiting and uncertainty.

Is He going to leave me hanging here, suspended in mid-air forever? Can I trust Him? Does He really love me? Does He even care?

And he stared some more until before his staring eyes the world finally started getting into focus.

… and his sight was restored to him and he saw everything clearly.

Our blind man got to see his own full-blown, HD miracle unfold before his eyes in all its unobtrusive divine glory.  

As it unfolded, the very first thing the blind man saw clearly was the human face of the Son of God.

His eyes. 

The eyes of the lamb soon to be led to the slaughtering block. 

His forehead,

Not yet

crowned

with thorns.

His lips, 

not yet 

parched with, 

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani.

And this Face became a lens through which the blind man begun to view the world.  

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. I  John 3:2,3

Emancipation Proclamation

Isn’t it ironic that sometimes it takes a blind person to help us see our own distorted vision?

Do you see anything?, Jesus asks.

Weeeellll, yea… kind of… says the man.  Actually, to be honest with you, Jesus, we might have a little problem here.... Because... I do see people… except they don’t look like people at all.  They look more like the Ents…It's freaky.

Good job, Jesus…, mutters the blind man's friend sounding a lot like my fourteen year old. How’s this for an epic fail miracle?

I knew it was a bad idea all along, groans the other, I-told-you-so friend. You should have listened to me…

There is an unpalatable mixture of disappointment, pressure and the now-WHAT?

But the blind man seems to be delightfully oblivious, completely unconcerned about Jesus’ miracle working reputation.  

He has nothing to lose, no reputation to guard – his own or Jesus’.

So, he gets to be disarmingly honest.

Like that kid from the story Emperor’s New Clothes.  Everybody else was too preoccupied protecting the Emperor’s, and by proxy their own exposed behind. Everybody but the little boy – or a little girl, for it could have been a girl, for that matter – had something to lose, something to guard.

Ah the strange idiosyncrasies of adult world!

But, our blind man, perhaps because of his very blindness, was stripped off of all commonly engaged playacting, free to speak the simple truth as he saw it.

His honest statement became an emancipation proclamation of sort for all the still half-blind folks, like you and me.  

His statement forever liberating us from the tyranny of pretense, freeing us to admit that we are not there yet.

We are not as far along as we so desperately want you to believe...

We don't have it as together as we work so hard to appear... 

We haven’t arrived.

I See People Like Trees

Some people who know me may argue to the contrary, but even though I’ve been wearing glasses most of my life, I never considered myself blind.

At least not until I heard Dick Lucas speak forth out of this odd ‘butchered miracle’ story recorded for us in the Gospel of Mark. 

I don’t know whether it was Dick Lucas or Saint Mark, but I do know that one moment I was safely cocooned in my blissful ‘seeing’ ignorance – clearly this blind person’s story has absolutely no relevance to my own life.

And the next - I was catapulted out.

The catapult came in the form of a simple question tagged onto the verse 24, spoken with the preacher’s unmistakable British accent.

I see men, for I see them like trees, walking about….  

Suppressed chuckles intersperse the audience.  Us, visual types, imagining the scene not much different from the one in the Two Towers, where the longsuffering Ents unleash their fury on Isengard.

There is a pause before he continues, as if each word must be carefully weighed on some invisible scale one more time before it is gently released: 

Do you…

…ever…

…see people like…

…trees…?

Now his words are cascading like a rolling waterfall,

Perhaps, like logs? A roadblock or an obstacle… in your way… keeping you from doing what you want to do? From getting where you want to be?

The question lingers in the air well beyond the last syllable was spoken. It lingers until a holy hush settles on the room.

I don't remember much of what was said after.

All I know is that I was catapulted out of my comfortable ignorant blindness and forever welded to the blind man who saw people like trees. 

The way this servant of God unfolded it out before me, I realized... I see people like logs all the time. 

Second Cup of Coffee

Happy International Coffee Day!  It’s a wonderful wide-eyed day when all coffee drinkers all around the world – tall and short, black and white, purists and add-on-ists unite over their common affection, attraction and, let’s be honest, addiction to the java juice. 

We know who we are and are proud of it. 

Since my blog is called Second Cup of Coffee, it occurred to me that this might be a good day to reflect a bit on the origin of the blog’s name. 

In order to do that, we have to do some detective work. 

There is an interesting story in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 8:22-26) which describes Jesus healing a blind man. 

They came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored Him to touch him. Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.” Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly. 

I don’t know about you, but I find this a rather unusual miracle.

Not only Jesus seems to go through a lot of trouble with this guy, implementing some unorthodox healing techniques, but the healing itself actually takes place in two installments!

For years I wrecked my brain over this ‘botched’ miracle.  I am not an eye specialist, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether this man was just a bit too much for Jesus to handle?  A particularly difficult case that required extra effort even for the Son of God?

But in other places we see Jesus saying a word – or even without a word – doing these amazing faith-feats, not just with blind, sick, deaf, mute, demon-possessed and crazy people but also with DEAD people.

So, why did He ‘fail’ to deliver a flawless miracle in one fell swoop this time around? 

Why did this man require the second touch of Jesus?

The Game of Mau

The house is so quiet, it’s hard to imagine there are a half a dozen teenagers sprawled all over our living room furniture. I can hear the buzzing of the air-conditioner outside. The long swish-swashes of my paint brush following along the wood grain of the kitchen cabinet. Our guinea pig nibbling his hay.

A silent game of Mau is in progress.  Cards have been passed around, seemingly simple rules -  twos go on twos, fives on fives, reds on reds, matching numbers, matching colors. How difficult can it be??

Then, somebody clears his throat.

Slap! The fist hits the coffee table, with the extra card sliding off the edge.

Penalty for coughing!

What?

Penalty for talking!

Another slap, another card flies across the table.

But…!

Penalty for protesting!!

Yet another card flies accompanied with another slap of the fist on the table.

Everyone bursts into laughter.

Cards fly across the table.

Penalty for laughing. Penalty for laughing…. And penalty for laughing.

The grim-faced Enforcer doles out the penalty cards to everyone, and silence settles again on the room.

I don’t know who invented this game. Mau. 

At the beginning of the game, the only person who knows all the rules is the king Mau. 

It’s a tremendously powerful position to occupy. The king Mau is the ultimate insider. There are few experienced others but king Mau possesses all the key knowledge and sole power to execute punishment. The king Mau is the one (perhaps the only one) having fun.

The rest of the players have to learn the rules by either being penalized for unknowingly breaking them or careful observation of other people’s moves and them being penalized for violating the rules.

Match the number. No talking. Match the color. No coughing. No laughing. No protesting.  Am I allowed to breathe? Is it O.K. to shift my weight, my leg is getting numb?

I marvel at who would invent such a preposterous, even cruel game. And, even more baffling,  

why it is being played at all?!!!  Except, perhaps, that these wild teenagers under my roof must be gluttons for punishment.

My husband says that the game has probably originated from someone who lived in a cross-cultural setting, because that’s how it feels to be an outsider. A misfit. A forever out-of-step newbie speaking with an extraterrestrial accent.

Even if you are fluent in language, you are bound do break some of the billion unspoken rules. Every day. Forced to learn them by being penalized for breaking them. Perhaps not slapped with a penalty card or a fist... but words sting as much, as do the looks.

It takes some time for his comment to sink in. But, slowly, ever so slowly, the game of Mau is beginning to make more sense.  A lot more sense.

Just then there is an uproar in the living room as Collin shoves the coffee table, cards cascading all over the floor.

I quit! I don’t care anymore! This is insane…

The rest of the group burst into laughter, perhaps relieved that the torture is finally over, but I can't help but feel for the boy. Can’t blame him at all. For, once you’ve been a player, you finally begin to understand why some people are tempted to rage-quit a game like that.

The Supervisor

The brilliant idea works better than I expected.  I start out tentatively,

Well, thanks - I sure can use some help.  How about if you supervise this project? You can be my supervisor…

His eyes grow big and his entire face lights up at the sound of the word. The silly title appears to have a magical power over him.

Suddenly, he is important. 

Suddenly, he is significant.

He has discovered his mission in life!

You can sit here, I swing a barstool around the counter, and watch me do all the work. When I mess up, you just point it out. That, in essence, is what supervisors do – sit around doing nothing but watching other people do all the work and then pointing out their mistakes. Would you like to be my supervisor?

He walks to the barstool as if in trance, I don’t think he really hears me.  He is on Cloud Nine of his new-found purpose and I know I won’t have to worry about him for a while as long as he remains seated.

...

I read somewhere that the Greek word for baptism is related to the process of dyeing a garment.  The process where the garment is changed, truly transformed, from one into another by frequent dipping into the new color. It’s a painstaking process that requires tenacity and patience. 

Painting the kitchen cabinets makes me appreciate the process.  

I realize that there is more to baptism than being dunked once and you are done. Voila! Instant Christlikeness!

 

I am ‘baptizing’ my kitchen one brushstroke at a time. Each brushstroke reminds me that the transformation is slow, painstaking process. One steady brushstroke after brushstroke after brushstroke at a time. I have to keep them light and feathery, careful not to slather too much too soon, or I make even bigger mess.  

This project is bigger than it can be accomplished in a day.  I have to wait between layers, learn to live with a mess, live with incompleteness, learn to rest even in the midst of all the chaos.  

For somebody who likes closure and order, that is very very hard.

The Junior Helper

Help?

I am up to my eyeballs in paint, it takes me a few seconds to process what he just said.

I pause and look around, our entire kitchen a proper disaster area. 

All the doors are off their hinges, strewn randomly over the entire surface of the kitchen floor.  All the shelves are uncovered, exposing their messy mismatched contents to anyone who cares to examine them.  There are drop cloths and brushes, rollers and Phillips screwdrivers of various sizes, open paint cans and plastic containers of different shapes to fit every painting need.  I am wearing an old pair of pants and a T-shirt with smears and splatters covering the fabric and the exposed parts of the rest of my body.

It is an indescribable creative mess apparently screaming for help from every corner. 

But, despite the reign of seemingly unbridled chaos, there is a careful methodology behind my creative madness.

He is waiting, patiently for a fourteen year old, his eyes resting on me.

As much as I could use some help, and as much as I want to make him feel useful, even wanted and needed, I know this particular job exceeds his capacities.

I know that. He doesn’t.

I wreck my brain to think of ways to keep him occupied and feeling useful while limiting the damage incurred in the process. Our shared history works against him. At this moment I feel an acute sense that I have no margin left for additional remediation of avoidable man-made disasters.

Should I just chalk off the rest of the day as wasted and announce with a smile,

Thanks for your offer, dear, but I am all done for today. Great timing, though. Now we can all sit down and have ice-cream to celebrate. We can wash the brushes later?

If I wanted to be brutally honest, I would say something like,  

 I appreciate the offer but your help isn’t helpfull.

I don’t mean this in an unkind way. Still, the weight of the words could forever crush him and sabotage any future initiative, misguided and misinformed as it may be. Only a fool would want such millstone of responsibility tied around her neck.

Of course,  there is always my personal favorite,

The best way you can help me right now is …

This gives me a great idea.  A perfect idea that just might work…

The Misfit

When he comes to our house, he doesn’t stay long with the rest of the kids. 

They tried.  They all tried to make space for him, to fit him in. He tried to fit in too. Mostly he would sit and watch them play, sometimes he would ask to join in.

But it just isn’t working.

Mom, we want to include him but, when he is with us, we ALL die! 

I guess I am supposed to empathize with the drama of these virtual deaths.  They add,  

Or he rage-quits on us.  The burden of a misfit’s outburst, of course, lies solely with him. They all are just a bunch of innocent angels. 

But, I can't really fault them either. I know it's not easy - for him or for them.  

The games the rest of the kids play these days have become too sophisticated for him to keep up with. He is a liability of every team, a doomsday boy that nobody wants around.

In his own way, he understands it.

Still, he comes, relentlessly comes, and after a few minutes of watching them have fun, he turns away and joins me in the kitchen.

It really doesn't matter what time of day it is.  For him, it's always food time. He likes spicy Japanese noodles so I get a box from the pantry. He’s been here often enough to cook them himself. When the noodles are done, he opens the refrigerator door, reaches in and gets a jug of milk.  He already knows where the glasses are, grabs one and carefully pours out some, making sure he doesn’t spill.  Then he sits down, eats and drinks. When he is done, he throws away the empty container, sits back down with his elbows propped against the counter and watches me work.

Can I help? 

Melodic Massacre or Masterpiece?

I plop down into the chair next to her, the first rehearsal of the new season already well on the way. She is studying the Orchestra Handbook, slowly turning page after page.  I am trying to catch up on my morning pages even though it’s late afternoon.

The screeching cacophony grating my ears makes it hard to focus. I shake my head in futile attempt to shake off the noise.

Good grief, they sound horrible!, escapes me louder than I wanted.

The look on her face indicates that she must be unaccustomed to hearing the ugly un-sanitized truth from the mouth of complete strangers.

We are new here…  She forces a smile, but it is obvious that there is more to this unfinished sentence left hanging in mid-air between us.

Oh! That’s wonderful! I am genuinely happy to meet a new face. Welcome to MAYS.  We are so glad you are here!

But I get a sense that the same sentiment isn’t quite reciprocated.  It’s more like,

Oh, my goodness!  What have we gotten ourselves into?!!!

I lean back in my chair, breathe in and breathe out.

Don’t worry about it. It’s always like this on the first day.  They sound like a bunch of riff-raffs dragging a horse tail over some rusty wires attached to a hollow wooden box.  But they will get better. In fact, by the time the concert comes around, you won’t even recognize them, they’ll be so good. It's like turning a musical massacre into a masterpiece. 

Her eyes pop wide open,

Really?!!!

A mixture of disbelief, hope and relief light up her face like Forth-of-July fireworks.

Now, it’s my turn to feel out-of-place. For I am rarely the one to instill hope into a seemingly hopeless situation.  

Hope is an ill-fitting coat rarely worn by this glass-half-empty grouch. 

A four-letter word rarely escaping the lips of this seasoned cynic. 

But, this time, it burst out, almost against my will, like a geyser of living water.

For I know what I’ve seen and heard.

Absolutely! I have no idea how Mrs. M does it, but she does it every time. I’ve watched her do her magic with these kids year after year after year. They start a total mess, each doing their own thing, but by the time the concert rolls around they are transformed… this screeching noise becomes soul-stirring music even Mozart would be proud of.  You’ll see it for yourself…

We try to go back - she to her Handbook and I to my notebook, but we both sense the tickles of a tiny seed germinating inside which pulls our attention towards those riff-raffs of our kids with their eyes glued on Mrs. M.

For some reason their intolerable grinding doesn’t sound half as bad after all… 

It's almost borderline decent!

That is, for the first day of the new season.

Perhaps there is hope after all.

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6

Decipher This!

Soooo…. how did you like your Happy Birthday card?, I ask the profound existential question, trying hard to sound casual.

It was O.K.

O.K.? Just O.K.?!!!! The fire-breathing dragon is rearing her head about to roar:

What do you mean, ‘O.K.’??? Do you realize how long it took me, first of all to find that particular card? Do you know how many ‘obnoxious stinky teenager’ so-called ‘humorous’ cards I passed over? And all the sappy bad poetry dear-son-flower-rainbow-bunny cards? And all the corn-syrup dripping religious cards I put back on the shelf until I came across THIS particular one?!!!

Do you have any idea???

But, that wasn’t all!

After I came home and you guys were in bed and I cleared out the dishes and fed the piggy and cleaned his cage, I mustered all the effort of my exhausted distracted middle-aged-mom-fraying brain and actually PERSONALIZED it. I didn’t just sign my name. I sat down and thought about you and what I want to tell you and how much I love you. And I carefully chose all those beautiful words because I meant them and spelled them out one by one in my own handwriting!

And you tell me that the card was ‘just O.K.’????

The fire-breathing dragon wants to roar all that, but the only thing that actually comes out is,

Oh. Hmmm…. Did you read it?

I scanned it.

The fire-breathing dragon raises her head again, ready to consume all in her way.  But, instead, she just raises her eyebrow:

Scanned it? You didn’t actually read it? You just scanned it.

I tried. I honestly did. No offense, Mom, but your handwriting is atrocious.  I have really hard time deciphering it.

The fire-breathing dragon lowers her head sheepishly.

I am sorry. You are right.  My handwriting IS atrocious. Would you like me to read it to you?

Sure...

I breathe out, emotionally spent and physically exhausted. I clear the wrapping paper, empty cellophane bags and piles of LEGO pieces to make room for my rear end and scooch next to him.

The card is open in my hand and I hear my voice articulating those chicken-scratch scribbles on the cardstock, making each syllable real as their sound reaches our ears.  

I stumble in several spots – even I have hard time deciphering my own handwriting! I know for a fact that the words are finding their way into his heart – he is squirming a little, like we all do when we are confronted with the enormity of this real-life, I-see-you-I-really-see-YOU day-in-day-out unchangeable love.

I pause there, thinking of my own life and how often God’s message of unconditional love in Christ doesn't seem to be getting through. 

I don’t know whether His handwriting is atrocious or not, but this frequently preached and talked about message seems rather unintelligible, far removed from my daily reality. So I shrug my shoulders and dismiss it, deeming it too hard to decipher.  

He may not be an easily-offended fire-breathing dragon like me, but He’s certainly equally, if not more dogged! 

He doesn’t give up on me and you.  

He wants to make sure we get His personalized message, that we hear His carefully hand-picked words of love. He clears our clutter and makes room for Himself until His word becomes real to the point of making us squirm, making us fidget like a teenage boy, because it’s just a bit too much love and care and affection to take in.

Who Needs a Teacher?

We just got back from our summer trip, the next MAYS season's audition looming only three weeks away.  The violin is dusted off and tuned up. The music is on the stand. The YouTube channels scoured for Concerto Grosso in C-moll and Wohlfahrt’s Etude #57.

By now, we all know very well how both pieces are supposed to sound. We got that by listening to the pros. In fact, the entire family has memorized the beautiful melodies that have begun to haunt us in our sleep.

But, listening and dreaming about the music isn’t going to cut it.  Even memorizing and humming the entire opus will be of no help on the day of audition.

Important as these might be, they don't make a musician. And, all of them are relatively easy. No particular skill or talent is required to do them.

Actually playing, however, is hard. Really hard.

The sole musician in our musically disinclined family is at his wits end.  

Working harder isn’t helping. 

"Helpful" tips from his concerned parent aren't helpful at all. 

At this point, all this only generates more frustration.

We can’t do this on our own. We need help!  We need somebody who will break down this monster into bite-size pieces we can chew and digest and put them back together into a soulful melody that stirs the hearts of everyone who listens. 

We need our teacher back!

I find myself in that ‘wits-end’ place in life a lot.  I can listen to the best preaching. I can read and even memorize Sermon on the Mount or I Corinthians 13 and recite them in my sleep.

But actually living those words?!!?

It’s hard.  In fact, on my own, absolutely impossible.

I need my Teacher back! 

For He and He alone can break down those lofty soliloquies into bite-size pieces in a way that helps me make sense of them in my wits-ends moments and my fraying-ends days.  

And He alone knows how to put it all together so my life isn’t an irritating series of screeching noises that gets on everyone’s nerves but a soul-stirring echo of a grander symphony played by the Great Composer Himself.

Back from the Dead

I always thought that resurrection from the dead comes with a boom and a bang, something like 4^th of July fireworks followed by a loud applause of the thrilled masses watching grand finale unfold before their eyes. 

Or, perhaps accompanied by a rock-splitting earthquake, or at least a clap of thunder and a flash of lightening as such momentous occasion requires.

But for me, this rising from the Duolingo dead was nothing like that.

Not at all.

For me, it was slow and achy all over, more like waking up after a major surgery, still under anesthesia, groggy and rather out-of-it, a dose of unreality enveloping the entire experience.

Did it really happen? Or was it just a dream? What do I do now?!?!!

More like the way I imagine Lazarus stumbling out of the grave, all sticky and wrapped in bandages, squinty-eyed and wobbly on his legs rather than like Jesus decked out from head to toe in his super-powered, new and improved celestial body with its snazzy high-tech features.

As I get more and more awake, an awareness forms in my mind that from now on I have to go through my life with a limb missing, and I am not really sure I can do that.

In fact I know I don’t. 

It takes me ridiculously long to muster enough courage to turn on my computer and log into my Duolingo account. The bitter stab of the crushing loss still pokes me in the ribs when I see that big fat zero. As if it’s the definitive sum total of the value of my entire existence.

But then slowly, very slowly I begin to notice that outside of my streak, nothing else has changed on my home page.  Nothing else was lost. All my skill levels are still there.  All my checkpoints still passed. Even my lingots balance remained the same! Not that it mattered.

I do a practice run of Conjugations just for fun, and although I might be a little creaky, I am still doing pretty well.

Back inside my 97 day old stomping ground, I begin to remember why I started learning Spanish in the first place.

I remember Margaret...

And something like shame mingled with something like love bubbles up from deep within …  and I realize that it wasn’t so much that I became blind, 

but 

somehow, 

somewhere along the way 

I became 

so focused on 

this one thing  

that I couldn’t see anything else anymore.