The Secret Power of Prayer

The one lonely desperate thing that was left for me to do – and it wasn’t pointing a gun and pulling the trigger, as many these days interpret as the only thing left to do – either at themselves or another person – but that’s a different topic for a different story… But,  I digress… I did that one desperate thing from the bottomest rock bottom of my hopeless heart.

I prayed.

I know.  It sounds so revolutionary.

Some would say, Big deal. People pray all the time.

Which is true. They do.

There are all kinds of prayers and all kinds of people.

But this is not a study on prayer or study of people, just an account of one single prayer and the effect it had on one single people that is me.  

It’s more like a story about an acorn and how it became a tree than anything else.

But, again I digress…

This is what I said to God that day:

God, You who created this world out of NOTHING, make me a gardener.

Looking back, I could have prayed a slew of other things… But at that moment of hopelessness, it boiled down to…

Who God is and what God does. 

Namely, omnipotent Creator God doing the impossible.

And then, the inexplicable,

Make me a gardener!

What was I thinking???

Most honestly, I don’t know.

I don’t know why I prayed that. I had no gardening aspirations whatsoever. I am a city girl not a farmer. A writer not a dirt-digger.

But, maybe somewhere deep down, beyond the threshold of conscious understanding, I knew that it would take a radical change of identity to change my dire dismal yard/neighbor situation.

Maybe I knew beyond logical explanation that it would take a different person than me to accomplish what I wanted to see in my garden. With my current resources and the current persons at hand (namely me and our two highly destructive toddlers) the only way a change could happen would be if I was willing to change my identity.

And with this prayer, I was saying an unequivocal O.K. to God to do the impossible and change me. 

I think only absolutely completely totally desperate people are truly willing to become the change they want to see in the world. 

The Secret Power of Despair

Most of my life, I lived on the 5^th floor of an unattractive apartment building on the outskirts of Belgrade.  My mom was a plant fanatic and we had greenery growing in every corner of our tiny apartment, crowding the balcony and climbing the walls on both sides of our front door.

I neither inherited nor shared my mom’s enthusiasm for horticulture.

On rare occasions when she left her precious plants into my care, they suffered greatly. Seeing their wilted dying state, she would invariably ask me the same question,

Don’t you have any soul???

I never understood how watering soulless vegetation had anything to do with possessing a soul.

When we got married, I moved from the 5^th floor of aforementioned apartment building into a 4 bedroom house with a front and a back yard.  It took us less than a year to kill just about everything green that grew in our yard without even trying.  

The concepts like ‘lawn’, ‘mowing’ and ‘irrigation’ were completely foreign to me.  In fact, they were so foreign that I didn’t even notice the slow and steady demise of our once well-manicured green property, compliments of the previous owner.   That is, I didn’t notice it until our next door neighbor Bob, who shared the same fanatic gene with my mom, started dropping hints. 

Helpful suggestions. 

Discount coupons on blow-out specials in our local home and garden center.

They all fell on death ears.

Over time, the hints and suggestions deteriorated into silent treatment (apparently I was deaf already, so why bother saying anything at all) dirty looks and formal HOA complaints about our crappy yard (his words!).

That got my attention.

OMG, our neighbor must HATE us!

This was so contrary to my Christian beliefs and it broke my heart. I knew it wasn't Bob's fault. We were the ones who were not good neighbors.... 

...But over a stupid grass??? I tried to rationalize. 

Irrational as it seemed to me, we've become those neighbors with a trashy yard everyone dreads to have.

There are no words to describe the depths of despair I felt. 

You see, this wasn't a matter of trying harder. I'd already tried as hard as I could.

This was a matter of identity. I knew who I was.  I was a city girl who grew up on cement and asphalt, loving it! I was the hater of all things creeping and crawling. I was a serial killer of all things green.

I was a writer, for God's sake, not a gardener!

We were doomed. 

There was only one thing left.  One lone last-ditch thing I could do and I did it from the rock-bottom of my heart.

The Secret Power of Tranformation

I've been going through a box of old photos, scanning some for use in a secret Shutterfly photo book project (I guess it's not so secret any more :-)).  In this both exhilarating and tedious process I came across the above photo of my parents helping us build a garden edging.

It stopped me in my tracks.

In addition to the three treasured people, pausing briefly from what they were doing for me to snap the shot, each holding a tool in their hand - a circular saw, a post digger and a shovel, the photograph captures in embarrassing detail the landscaping condition of our back yard at the time.

I was stunned.

We forget so easily. I forget so easily! Our memories inevitably fade with time - not necessarily a bad thing, since we are to live in the present and not in some idealized (or demonized) form of our past or idealized (or demonized) form of future.

But it was good for me to see this photo, and be reminded of the humble beginnings of what now looks like this:

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. At least!

But, as I reflect on both these photos, one taken years ago, and the other just yesterday, I can't help but think that in a certain sense, no picture and no word can give true justice to the full story I know exists behind this dramatic transformation.

The story that can be captured neither by a crafter of words and sentences nor by the lens of the point-and-shoot camera.

The story of transformation that only the all-seeing God knows, quietly unfolding day in day out, under the sometimes sunny other times stormy skies, on this tiny plot of land, without audience except for the squirrels and hawks, blue jays and cardinals...

The easily-ignored miracle unfolding slowly and unpretentiously, undetected by the noisy world attracted to flashy appearances, demanding easy fixes and instant miracles.

The Secret Power of Suffering

In the curious ways of God’s providence, this is the second time we’ve encountered two major crises running parallel in the world around us and inside our own home. 

In 2001 my husband had a major cancer surgery just few short weeks after we became parents for the first time which took place just few short weeks before 9/11. The world on the outside and the world on the inside were crumbling and mingling together as we watched the news and leaned into the stories of survivors, first respondents and families who lost their loved ones.  Even though we were not in New York nor did we know personally any of the victims, somehow, but the virtue of our shared vulnerability, by the stabbing pangs of suffering, we connected with the grieving.

We grasped for words. We let our tears roll. We gasped for courage in the face of surreal. We were one with complete strangers by the common thread of frailty of life.

The waves of heartbreak and pain of those days – the sheer volume of lives affected and the depth and breadth of loss – framed our own little journey of pain and fear.

It somehow put our personal journey in the larger context. In some sense it amplified it. We thought we already had our hands full, in fact, more than we could handle and then we were swept by this tidal wave of story after story after story of heart-wrenching accounts of grief and death.

In another sense, their grief somehow diminished our own.

We were not the only people enduring suffering. 

Fast-forward fifteen years to Orlando, Florida. What many consider the Happiest Place on Earth. Our City Beautiful. This time it was my turn to be recovering from the surgery when the news hit of the deadly shooting in the gay night club Pulse.

Forty-nine young lives cut short in the largest mass shooting in the U.S. history, in our own back yard!

As the entire city reeled from the initial shock, we were again side swept by our own personal journey of reckoning with the brevity of life and uncertainty of the future.  And once again as we’ve leaned into the heartbreak, pain and courage of the past two weeks we find the larger story framing our own little journey.

Both augmenting and subduing the trauma. Making our story of pain smaller and bigger. 

There is something incredibly humbling and even noble about being so utterly incapacitated, so powerless, so out of control, so dependent.  We know in the depth of our being, that this is way out of our league. That we are desperately in need for Someone stronger who will walk with us - who can carry us - through the unthinkable, who will help us endure the unendurable.  Someone able to assure our storm-tossed hearts and minds...

You are not alone. I see you... I know you... I love you...,You are not alone... You... are... not... alone...

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; 

And through the rivers, they will not overflow you... Isaiah 43:2a

The Map and the Guide

I found the treasure map the same week my doctor called and while I was sitting on the bedroom floor leaning against the frame of the bed, she said,

You have cancer.

S&#t, I thought, then repeated it several times.  The doctor has already hung up and I was still holding the phone in my hand. 

I just found I have cancer and I am all alone here. I couldn’t even cry. 

Immediately after that, I remembered the map. The treasure map and the narrow treasure hunting path that starts with a shipwreck. It certainly was a shipwreck of sort, for sure an end of one journey – the life as I knew it pre-cancer – and the beginning of another.  There was no going back and staying on the wreckage-ridden shore wasn’t really an option.

The narrow path leading away was an obstacle course of one challenge after another.  Jumping over Niagara Falls…. Swimming across lake with the Loch Ness…  Treasure or no treasure at the end of the path, it became abundantly clear that I don’t have what it takes to brave this journey.

I am not strong enough.

I am not courageous enough.

And the map, that was supposed to give me ‘heads up’ and encouragement along the way proved to be a handicap and a hazard.  It was overwhelming.  

Just as life, at times, is beyond words overwhelming.

I can’t follow this path that takes me through the ambivalent landscape of poisonous healing, across the rickety bridges of toothless hope and besides sleeping monsters of despair.  I don’t know if I have it in me to make the next step much less to complete the journey.

In some other world, at some other hour, I would analyze and theorize and sermonize, dissecting words like dead laboratory animals, splicing the meaning from the shreds of some second-hand experience.  But, today I couldn’t do it.  I just couldn’t do it.

Today, I realized that more than a map with a clearly laid out path before me, what I really needed was a guide.  I needed a reliable, experienced guide who knows the treacherous terrain first-hand. I need a guide whose authenticity, whose most desirable qualifications are verified not by his knowledge, or education or eloquence, but by his scars.

On this journey, it was slowly dawning on me, I have no use for a guide without a scar.  

The Shipwreck

If we were willing to admit it, most of us feel a bit uneasy, a little squirmish about life as it really is. 

We want something more. We want something better.

Everyone wishes they had something they don’t .

The grass is always greener on my friends’ Facebook pages.

Each of us wishes we didn’t have something we do. 

We want to change, but when push comes to shove, change is difficult. Sometimes, it seems almost impossible.

I used to say that the only way people would change is when the pain of status quo becomes greater than the pain of change.

I still believe that this is largely true in most cases, but there is a bit more to our lives’ stories than the physiological truth of greater-pain-pushing-out-lesser-pain.

But I digress…

Squeezed between desirable not-havings and unwanted havings,  we think a chest-full of treasure would magically solve most if not all of our current problems.

We all have our own vision of a relatively easy escape from our current predicament. 

A sail-boat ride across the smooth seas, with favorable winds in our back, interesting company and ample entertainment to help time pass by until we happily reach our desired destination, strong, healthy and well-rested, buoyed by our new acquired sense of accomplishment, feeling successful for getting through without a scratch or scrape.

Some people have exceptionally vivid imaginations...

The question remains, What happens....

What if the boat which is meant to take me to the answer-all chest, a glass of Cabernet in one hand and the selfie-stick in the other, suddenly runs aground, it’s innards spilling into the raging seas?

What if I find myself awash some god-forsaken island in the middle of the sea-monster infested ocean, looking like a drowned rat, the pieces of the wreckage all around me along with the shards of the empty goblet?

What would I do then?

  

This is why the Map I found the other day caught me completely off guard.

Because on this map, unlike any other, the real quest for hidden treasure doesn’t really begin in the port as I board the ship.  The real treasure hunt doesn’t truly start until AFTER the shipwreck!

The Compass

In the bottom left corner, the Map has a compass rose, showing directions.

North.

South.

East.

West.

Now, on any ordinary, calm, clear day, when you know exactly where you are and where you are going, one may wonder why would you take up any space at all for something seemingly as useless as a compass? I don't take a compass when I go to the supermarket!

But, every treasure hunter who’s been around long enough would testify about the absolute necessity of an accurate compass.  

If you’ve never been lost or disoriented - in the woods, in a storm, in an unfamiliar city, in the dark  – you would be foolish to rely solely on your own experience, knowledge and senses (useful and important in their limited ability as they may be)  to show you the way.

The seasoned travelers who have journeyed far and wide know very well how easily you can lose your bearings and get turned around. I’ve gotten hopelessly lost in broad daylight by taking just one little wrong turn in my own city. 

In the context of space travel, being even a half a degree off here would parachute you onto a wrong planet or galaxy! Imagine shooting for the Moon, and missing the Milky Way?!!!

Many a captain would testify how difficult at times it can be to determine what’s up and what’s down, what’s right and what’s… left… They know they must rely on their navigational instruments which sometimes go against their own sense of orientation and direction.

This is very difficult to comprehend and even more difficult to follow, when your whole being is screaming, “This way!” and the Compass says, “No, hon, East is THIS way! Trust me and just follow my directions.”

But the maker of our Map is clearly familiar with the vagaries of treasure hunting escapades and  has given a prominent place to the compass rose showing us the direction of the True North.

Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father but through Me.  John 14:6

The Treasure Hunter

Today on my walk to school I found a Treasure Map!

It was beautiful, I would say even fancy – a laminated card-stock artistic portrayal of a mysterious island, ready to endure the best and the worst of a toddler’s love and rage. But the Maps's attractive appearance was just a part of it.  In addition to being illustrated the Map also had a list of specific steps to guide you, the Treasure Hunter, to the secret hidden treasure.

Being a bit slow, it dawned on me that some of us need all of the above – the laminate protection, the illustrations AND clearly articulated steps if we stand any chance of ever finding the coveted riches.

When I got home, I pulled the Map out of my backpack and begun to examine it more carefully, like anyone would if they were to learn what they need to do to acquire the buried chest.

The list was clear and simple.  I give it to you here in its entirety.

SECRETS TO FINDING HIDDEN TREASURE

1. Jump across the waterfall.
2. Tiptoe past the sleeping spider.      
3. Run across the wooden bridge.     
4. Hop through the base of the volcano.  
5. Snatch the key from the statue’s mouth.     
6. Swim through the Sea Monster’s lake.     
7.  Leap into the ocean.    
8. Paddle across the raging seas to the island.    
9. Dig for the treasure!

That’s it! Easy-peasy. Peace of cake.

I verified the Map's instructions' authenticity, tracking the steps along the clearly marked path, and sure enough - there was a waterfall, a sleeping spider, a rickety bridge, a volcano, a statue with a gaping mouth, a lake with a Sea Monster in it, a raging ocean and another tiny island with a treasure chest on it. 

Immediately I knew the Map was authentic.

The Margin

Last winter, while my parents were with us for several months, my Dad was the primary caretaker of our garden. He pruned the trees and bushes. He watered and weeded.  He did all the regular garden maintenance and some.  

The ‘some’ category encompasses all the things we don’t get around doing under the burden of ‘just keeping up’ with life. Being retired and unburdened by the distractions of the life governed by the rhythm and rules utterly foreign to him, he got to do amazing things like fixing the fence! Or, replacing the leaky garden hose. Or, re-setting the sagging gate. 

Or edging.

The last grabbed my attention today.

Back in February, somewhere between reading Anna Karenina and Brothers Karamazov, my dad went around the entire circumference of our garden and dug up a twenty-inch wide ribbon of dirt, an empty space between the lawn and the garden part. This margin made my garden look as if we pay for professional lawn and garden service! It made everything look neat, well taken care of and even peaceful.

Something prompted my dad to go around, dig deep, and with his own hand, one stab of a trowel at a time, create this boundary.  The border that says, “yes” to some things, and “no” to others.  The breathing space between ‘this’ and ‘that’.  The line of delineation where something ends and something else begins.

We all agree that having margin is of vital importance to the health and sanity of our lives. Still most of us in greater or lesser degree struggle both to create and maintain it.  

I noticed today how the empty space created by my dad is being filled with weeds and grass, even rogue seedlings of cilantro, Thai basil and our pink vinkas whose blooms seem to have gone on steroids.  The remnants of my old ‘brown thumb’ me hesitate to uproot anything that resembles a flower or desirable plant even if its crowding out what I am trying to grow during this season.  

Somewhere deep inside, I think it’s a badge of gardening honor to have more stuff growing in my backyard jungle – as if it gives me a bragging right - Look at all the things I’ve learned to grow! 

But, today I begin to realize that less indeed might more, and a wide margin with extra space may be as enjoyable and inviting (or perhaps more!) than a crowded Home and Garden Show.

Knowing my wise and perceptive dad, he was onto something. He saw what I was too busy to see for myself and decided that of all things he could have done for me, I needed his help with creating the margin the most. 

H#ppy B==thd3y WhQ9it??!!

Recently I received the most peculiar birthday card ever.  It wasn’t actually an old fashioned card-stock card but one of those nifty e-cards. I get them every year on my birthday (different cards, of course) from the same senders. Wonderful, thoughtful people who over the years have wished me many a beautiful wish and prayer on my special day. I love those cards. Besides the frosting and the presents, it’s one of my favorite things I get to enjoy each birthday.

This year, however, what I got was, for lack of better word, plain gibberish. 

I stare at my screen filled with utterly meaningless, random string of nonsense. Try as hard as I may, I can’t detect a single meaningful word, much less a word of encouragement or the customary wishes for many blessings in life under God’s gracious wing.  If I didn’t know the senders and a thing or two about electronic communication including a smidgen about coding, I would have been stunned.

I find the coincidence too good to pass.

See, sometimes God’s messages of love arrive in my life IN-box looking just like that - a bizarre mess of gibberish.  I can’t make out any sense of what he is saying.  Because the 'love' message appears too difficult to decode, and I don’t have the right decoding software, I am tempted to hit ‘delete’.

Pain.

Delete.

Delay?

Delete.

Disappointment?

Delete.

Loss?

Delete. Delete. Delete.

In my little world, there just isn’t enough space for both love and pain, love and disappointment, love and loss.  So when one is present, I tend to ditch the other.

It’s rather immature, I know. Or simply human response.

I want to insulate my heart and my life from all the pain, loss, disappointment and heartbreak. My brain says pain and love can’t coexist side by side.

This is why I need the Cross of Christ every day. It is the key decoding software for God’s apparently jumbled love messages to me and you. It’s the place – perhaps the only place – where perfect love and utter heartbreak are inseparably mingled together. 

It’s also the gateway to a richer and deeper communion with Him.

And the birthday message? Well, with a click or two I found the ‘translation’ of the code  – words, graphics, music, the whole nine yards.

It’s message is true for you as much as it is for me.  So I pass it on as my birthday wish to you today.

On the day you were born

God celebrated your arrival.

He covered you with His grace

and filled you with His love.

He promised His presence and

His provision on your journey.

Today I join in celebrating you.

May His grace and love continue

to flow through you to touch

every one you encounter, to reflect

God’s presence in your life to all of creation.

In the year and years to come may wisdom,

kindness and faithfulness be hallmark

of your life as you live out the good works

He has prepared for you.

May grace and love follow you

all the days of your life.

BTW, It's Good Friday

Today is Good Friday. No, really.  It feels awkward to even write these words when everyone around me has pretty much forgotten all about Easter.  In our fast paced world, it appears as if it was a century ago.

In my fast paced world it feels like it was a century ago!

Nevertheless, the Orthodox believers, and even some who don’t believe in anything yet but happen to belong to the eastern hemisphere, are remembering the death of Christ.  

A single event that altered human history forever.

A single event that has power and potential to alter a life trajectory of each and every individual that ever lived on this earth. To radically change how you and I see ourselves, God, and others this very moment, this very day.

This makes me scratch my head a little. 

I heard long time ago,

 If you were the only person on Earth, Christ would still both want and need to die for you.

I want to object.

How’s it possible that both Mother Theresa and Hitler need a savior??!! How can it be that both Ghandi and you and I are equally desperate for Somebody to get us out of the mess we are in? Both judge and the defendant. The referee and the returner. POTUS and Putin as much as the Pope and your pastor?

Each of us has a fatal flaw.  You know what it is. And so do I. But, we hide it. We make sure nobody sees it. It can be cleverly disguised as strength.  It can be a whitewashed weakness. Try as hard as we may, we can’t make up for it with money, looks, education, reputation, mission trips, church retreats, endless religious activities, busyness. It doesn’t matter where you were born, or when, nor where do you live, whether you are poor or rich, smart or stupid.  All our credentials, our resumes, the applause we received and the accolades, all of it and more falls like chaff before crucified Christ.

This thought is tremendously humbling and tremendously liberating.

I can never be enough – good enough, smart enough, hard-working enough, fill-in-the-blankety- blank enough… Nor can you.  

 

None of us are! Not one.       

So, I don’t have to pretend, put on a show, act like I have it all together. And neither do you. 

I need this reminder, even if the rest of the world has gone off on their merry busy way.

It rolls a huge burden off my shoulder.  And I hope it does the same for you too. 

The Good-looking Duds

While the western world has long moved onto other things, Orthodox Christians are entering into the final week before Easter.  This year the two dates separating the same holiday are more than a month apart! One was back in March the other is coming in May!!

The western world has already ‘been there done that’. Those Lenten sacrifices, insights and resolutions for most of us are long forgotten. Chocolate’s back in, deprivation’s out!  Life settled again where it had been, the resurrection along with the colored eggs and Easter bunny a faded memory buried under the real life burdens and pressures.

Perhaps it’s supposed to be that way, similar to a flower that falls off a fruit tree. 

This reminds me of something which caught my attention on this Easter rerun. Something which, being a city girl now living in suburbia who picks apples and grapes off the Publix produce shelf and not off a tree or a vine, I don’t often think about.

Just days before the betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection, there’s a curious incident that took place on the way to the place of worship. The main protagonists, Jesus and a fig tree.

This tree apparently had everything going for it. It looked good. It was in great location. It was nice and green and seemingly quite healthy. Lots of leaves on it.

But when Jesus came looking for fruit, there was none!

I know that there could be a number of reasons why a tree doesn't produce. A worthy study for some other occasion.

But, what struck me this year was how much this tree is like some of us, self-proclaimed Christ-followers.

A lot of talk, good talk. But, nothing solid to support it.

A lot of words, sometimes even excellent words but no content.  

A bunch of great, healthy-sounding, green verbiage, but no substance. No nutritional value. No real life transformation.

Sometimes we may look so good on the outside, that we mistake the leaves for the fruit!

Ouch!

This is rather convicting, and humbling, and yes, inspiring also.  Because, I know that you and I don’t want to be good-looking duds. When all is said and done, we don’t want to be, like Spanish proverbs says, Mucho ruido y pocas nueces.

And sometimes, that’s the first and the biggest step towards some delicious, juicy, yummy fruit-bearing that nourishes the hungry souls.

How Are You?

How are you?

She looks away,

shying away

From the

I don’t know…

I remember this ‘you’

Like last year’s snow.

She is running, running,

Her PR’s good… she says,

But I wasn’t asking about ‘her’,

I press,

I was asking about YOU.

I’m running too.

Running and hiding,

From this ‘you’ you’re asking

About…

I don’t know if the ‘you’ is still here,

I must have lost it in the atmosphere.

It must be buried in the atmosphere.

I don’t know who and how I really am,

But now I’m running every a.m.

But, I was asking not

What do you do?

But simple question,

How are you?

Oh please let me go,

I want to run,

I want to run with a crowd for fun,

I want to be a part of the race

A race where I get to lose my face

In the crowd,

For fun,

I want to run.

‘Til I am a blur

Against the setting sun.

Please don’t ask me

Again

‘How are you?”

Never again

About that you!

Please…

Don’t stop…

Asking…

Even though I’m running

Even though I’m hiding…

Never stop

Asking…

How are you?

The Unexpected Journey

I’d picked up the desk from the curbside mall years ago. It was discarded most likely for its obvious imperfections. 

A wobbly back leg. 

A bleached out stain that marred its beautiful mahogany.  

Still, at least as far as I am concerned, it was a love at first sight.

The corner of our living room became its permanent home. When we originally brought it into the house, I thoroughly (or so I thought) cleaned it from top to bottom, including its carved legs and all its nooks and crannies.  Since then, I’ve walked by it several times every day. Every month or so, not to appear overzealous, I remove the knick-knacks that sit on its top and dust its surface.

With years, I’ve come to know every curve and all its imperfections, and I love it all the more not in spite but because of them.

I thought I knew this desk as well as one could know an inanimate object.

Perhaps that was my downfall.

Somewhere between all this knowledge and the resulting familiarity, unbeknownst to me, grew a contempt of sort.

Just as we were about to officially announce that the egg hunt was completed, our son walked over to the desk and with a mindless gesture pulled at its decorative bottom.

Suddenly a large drawer – the size of its entire surface - slid from the desk’s underbelly!

Where did that drawer come from?!!?? 

Mom, it’s been there all along. That’s where I keep my wireless keyboard and mouse, see?

I stare at the desk, its mouth still wide open, for something like eternity.

It preaches a sermon I may not want but I need to hear.

So many times in life I think I know.

Just as I think I know my desk, I think I know myself, my family, my friends, and what life is all about. I am so thoroughly familiar with the details of the Easter story I can predict its ending!  I think I know the mind of God?!?!!! 

And somewhere between this nook of knowledge and the cranny of familiarity, I grow contemptuous.

I become jaded.

I get smug.

Been there. Done that. Yada, yada, yada. Same old. Same old.

Until God, in His infinite mercy and kindness, pulls out an entire drawer from under the desk of life.

Surprise!

And with my eyes and my mouth open wide, I squeeze out from that tight place where love withers and contempt grows and become a Bilbo Baggins of sort,  back once again on quite an unexpected journey of life.

Never Give Up

I grumble as I stuff the pastel plastic with gummy bears, sour worms and jelly beans. No Dove chocolate this time around!

This is ridiculous! They are far too old for egg hunt. They’ve outgrown it. Tell me, which teenager’s parent is doing THIS – I point at the pile of plastic eggs and opened bags of candy, my mouth filled with sour worms – on the night when we should be thinking of Jesus and all He’s done for us???

This is not the first – or the last - time I find my parenting colliding with my spirituality.

My husband looks at me over the newspaper. Then returns to his reading.

You know, you have to make it extra hard for them to find the eggs this year, I frown.

The man of the house is the designated egg hider.  

No more easy raking of all that teeth-rotting candy, I continue. In fact, no egg should be visible. None at all. If they want the hunt, they’ll get THE HUNT. Make them WORK for the eggs.

Sunday morning, desperate for the resurrection, we greet each other with,

He is risen!

He is risen indeed, even as I wait for the second cup of java to kick in and make effectual the ‘rising from the dead’ inside my foggy brain.

The egg hunt commences without pomp. They already know what they are supposed to do.

Within minutes our house is turned upside-down in search for the hidden eggs.  They climb on top of counters, chairs and tables. Every couch and cushion moved. Every cabinet door and every drawer opened. Stove and dishwasher. Toaster oven and microwave and…

We didn’t hide any in the freezer! I shout.

They dig the eggs out of some rather difficult, creative spots. Others, which seem pretty obvious to me, they overlook again and again.

This is HARD! They moan.

This is FUN! I gloat. Are you ready to give up yet?

NOOOOO! Again they are united, so who am I to object.

The search continues on with only few more eggs left to be ferreted out.

But I don't know yet that the biggest surprise has been reserved for ... me!

The Hunt is On

For the past ten years or so, each Easter morning, we’ve had a family Easter Egg hunt. We didn’t intend to turn it into a tradition or anything remotely of that sort. I feel like already there are enough rabbit trails and distractions surrounding this unprecedented day in history. Already too much frivolity as if to sugar-coat the violence and cruelty of that day and today. No need to add our clutter to the collective clatter.

But, the kids were so adorable... they were having so much fun looking for eggs, and we were having so much fun watching them have fun that we kept doing it year after year.

Now that the adorables have overnight morphed into teenagers, the hunt feels a bit antiquated. 

They are too old for it. 

WE are too old!

On Saturday night, the eve of the big day, just to be sure, I slip in a rather self-evident statement, making it as casual as the yoga pants I am wearing.

You guys don’t want to do the Easter Egg hunt this year, right?

Nooooo!!! They cry out in unison. We WANT the Easter egg hunt!

 

The fact that they agree on anything at all during the season in life when just about everything can be turned into a WWIII-worthy argument, instantly grabs my attention.

You are way too old for Easter Egg hunt! We are too old! It’s too much hassle and you don’t even care.

We do care. We want the hunt!

Thus the decision was made and it was final.  The hunt was on.

The Useless Donkey Enters History

He would still be wallowing in the ocean of self-pity if one day, completely out of blue, he didn’t overhear a conversation between his human master and a stranger speaking with unmistakable Galilean accent.

He was so used to the big world and all its important people and events -  the real life – passing him by that he almost missed it.

The Lord has a need of him…. The stranger insisted.

The beast lifted its drowsy head, wondering what the fuss is all about.

The Lord… what??...  

The fleeting thought was so preposterous he immediately dismissed it.  This donkey has learned the lesson that life is not about him, perhaps all too well. 

Still his long donkey ears and his fluttering donkey heart couldn't rest. 

But... but... what if...?

Just then the door to his pen opened, the master walked in, untied his rope and led him out into the blinding sunlight. 

C’mon donkey.  You won’t believe it, but this is your lucky day. Out of all the useful beasts under the good heaven, the Lord says He needs you!

The Lord…?!!!

Has a need…???? 

How can the living Lord of everything have a need??? 

And that need is … 

...him?!??!!??

I remember that year as the year when the donkey - the useless, worthless donkey - entered timeless history according to the predetermined plan of His Lord. 

This same beast of burden became the unlikely courier of my personal Easter message that year.

 I’ve never looked at another donkey quite the same ever since. 

The Useless Donkey

It’s usually a good beginning. Or so I think. 

I jump-start my week with the cheering Palm Sunday crowd, the grand parade welcoming Jesus as He enters Jerusalem riding on the strangely anti-climatic beast - a donkey!

One year this is as far as I got.  It was as if the donkey slammed on his hoof-brakes, mid-parade and spoke to me, as donkeys sometimes do - although this was the first - and only time so far - a donkey spoke to me.

If you heard this donkey’s story, you couldn’t help but feel a lot of kinship towards the lowly beast of burden. 

His was an intensly sad tale of a creature who wanted so badly to be of service, to be not useless but useful. Still he remained tied inside his donkey pen day after day, chewing his hey, bypassed, ignored, marginalized and flat-out denied as his life flitted away.  

All other donkeys got to feel good about themselves and how wonderfully helpful they were to their masters.  

But not this donkey. 

Every other beast of burden could flood their Facebook wall with pictures of all the wonderful projects they’ve been a part of and all the amazing people they got to meet, important and famous people who even patted their backs in gratitude for their much-appreciated service.  

But not this donkey.

This donkey fought his valiant battles stuck inside the smelly stable, swishing flies with his matted tail.

The gargantuan battles against the onslaught of doubts.

Does the Creator even remember him? Will he die here, useless worthless donkey?

The hoof-wrestling matches with envy, and discouragement, and hoof-stomping rage, and hopelessness and utter loss of purpose.

Why does every other donkey get to live a meaningful donkey life, even FUN donkey life???... Every other stinky donkey except for him???

Alas, all the poor depressed donkey received for all his torment and all his suffering was... silence.

The Holy Week Unraveling

Every year starting with Palm Sunday I determine to re-trace His steps as I follow along through Jesus’ last week. This is the culmination of Lental season. The fulfillment of not only so many prophecies but also ageless hopes and dreams of humanity riddled with questions like, 

Where is God when it hurts? 

How can good God allow so much evil in His world? 

I feel like I’ve been sharpening my focus for several weeks now. I am as ready as I ever can be to join the writers of the four gospels who have meticulously recorded the words and events surrounding the Lord’s final moments. 

Earlier in March I even got a jpeg of the Holy Week graph - all I need to do is read through the scripture references that fit inside a given day of the week.

How difficult can it be??

Well, this year I finally figured it out.  It’s not just difficult. 

 It’s impossible!

If you’ve never tried, you wouldn’t understand.

See, there is so much compressed in this one short week.  So much love. And so much hate. There is a ton of hype. Misunderstanding. Cruelty. Intensity. Insanity. Scheming. Betrayal. Denial. More love. More betrayal. I know of no human language which can adequately express the motion, the emotion of this unprecedented week in human history.

Over the years, I learned the harder I try to wrap my mind and heart around it the more the Holy Week seems to unravel.

Stunned silence might be the most appropriate response to what unfolds before our eyes.

Broken and Beautiful

One would never know when entering the quiet unpretentious neighborhood with large trees casting giant shadows over narrow streets the magic that takes place inside a steamy garage of 905 Littlewolf Lane.

My friend Valerie lives inside the house with the garage – steamy-hot not only during the sweltering Florida summers but also during the shortened winter days when all true Floridians don their musty ski jackets to compliment their flip flops worn over mismatched ‘cold weather’ socks.

It was Valerie who first introduced me to Kintsugi, the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with precious metals, like gold, silver or platinum.  She explained to me that in this ancient art rather than trying to effect the repair in such a way in order to minimize the visibility of the breaks, the artist actually accentuates them, considering the vessel all the more beautiful not despite of its brokenness but because of it.

The brokenness and the repair process thus become a part of its history, its beauty and the testimony to its continued usefulness despite the damage.

Such artistic approach as well as the philosophy of life is quite contrary to the imaginary standard of flawless perfection often espoused in our world.

I admit I am the first one to ditch the dinged, broken, old or simply out of style things. I’ve gotten to a place where I  simply don’t have time, energy or motivation to work on repairing anything.

It’s just not worth the trouble, I explain.

It’s cheaper to get it new, start fresh, I argue.  

Perhaps this is why the old Japanese tradition became so fascinating to me. 

I can't help but marvel who in this fast-paced, hi-tech, perfect-is-good-enough world of ours has time for such a thing??

Who possesses the patience, the thoughtfulness, the attentiveness, skill, wisdom and LOVE for such tedious, laborious, honesty wasteful process?

What kind of person do you have to be to find joy and satisfaction in the repairing what others deem unrepairable? 

Mending what most dismiss as the unmendable?

The Repair Shop of the Soul

I am rather overwhelmed by the extent of the brokenness of this place, this Nemours Medical Center for the soul. Everywhere I turn, something is broken!

Broken jars, promises and hearts.

Shattered plates, dreams and worlds and memories.

Twisted ankles, loves, desires and perspectives.  

Displaced, dislocated people.

Neither quite at home here.

Nor at home there anymore.

Sure, there is room for all of this, for all of us in this magnificent mansion of the Person, but aren’t we missing something? Haven’t you missed something, Lord? Is there not something more… something better than life – yes, it’s a very spacious, roomy, expansive life - but life condemned to perpetual brokenness – both on the inside, as on the outside…?

The questions linger in the air like partially deflated helium balloons…

It takes something like eternity to pick out amidst all this the rubble the steady rumble of the words of hope…

Not only that...

No, this is not all. There is more. Much much more... than simple spacious coexistence of all this brokenness...

Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. Colossians 1:19-20

 

There we are!

All the broken is here!

All the dislocated, displaced are welcome here!

Not carelessly overlooked.

Not forgotten.

Not left hanging unnoticed.

Not ignored as trivial and unimportant.  

Not banned, barred, frowned upon, walled out.                    

Not tossed on the garbage heap of the world worthless, useless, because they are ....broken... because they are different, because they just don't fit in.

To the contrary!