12-12-12

I used to believe that if you looked hard enough you would find something wonderful lying in the grass or the gutter...a treasure to sustain you and make true words tumble from your lips.  I would spend hours in downtown Cincinnati after a night of hard living, scanning the curb for something usable.

I was young then and the very wind could stir up my heart with fire and ice to make the true words slip past my tongue and out into the world where I had been dropped - abandoned.  I could smell the fresh baked smell of morning in the dewy air that gowned me.  And it was so easy to be led by a growling stomach while weary step after weary step would lead me back to the pool hall where I had last seen my car - to find out if this morning I was still engaged to the boy I had met the night before.  He was desperate for a ride.

One handed I would play the game on the green felt and try to rescue the poor guy, God knew his brothers were no help - I had told my dad that capiltalism did not answer all questions, and this was my attempt to prove it.

That it would cost my life was not the problem as I saw it...I had so much Time. It was  a magazine with great illustrations and ideas on how to profit with your investments. Sounds slick even now, does it not? It wouls cost me my life but my daughters would eventually wind up paying the bill.  Because that poor guy was their wiley rabbit of a daddy and they were committed to loving him, too. Or at least trying to communicate with him. As I said, God knew no one else would help.

The wind blew lovely words from our lips, words interesting enough to keep him coming home for dinner. And we all rode to church on the back of a rider mower that long, hot summer. My youngest daughter put it all music - and o how she sang. Castle on a Cloud with her roller blades strapped to her busy feet...she was trying to find a way out of the basement where she practised and out onto the stage of life.

What dreamers we all were back then.  We all believed the treasure was right under our very noses if only we could see more clearly. 

I  brushed the honey- colored hair from her questioning violet eyes and spoke reassuringly to her. For I would not abandon my daughter - my Shining Truth who could detect my weaknesses and hide out in the trunk of my car to show me how to be honest.  She tried so hard.  I will not leave you or forsake you I whispered - and the true words tumbled from the page and were drunk in by her hungry thirsty ears.

She kissed me good-bye all to often...and struggled to make her daddy believe in her the way he believed in the hidden treasures.

I have learned some things down here under the stars.  I have learned you cannot walk back home. You have to wait for your ride.  And He is weaving his way here -  through all that heavenly traffic and my atrocious typing.  He is spinning a carpet of care to whisk us safely home.

Even so - come Lord, Jesus.

Hope this finds you waiting for your ride too - we could share the fare perhaps...find a treasure or two falling from our truthful lips.

That is my poetic goal what I heard today as I drove yet another car down the road to home.

Listen with your heart for the beat, beat, beat of this song.

Christmas Monologue

Abigail's Christmas Story

-                Good evening- I am Abigail and I thank you for inviting me to your Christmas gathering.  I greet you with the wonderful words found in Jeremiah 29:11:

-                 

" For I know the thought that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." 

Yes - God has a plan and a future and a hope for each of us - as well as for us corporately…as a group of believers in a local congregation!

-                I look around your beautiful church and sense the history of this place - the people that built and founded this work for God in your area so many years ago.  You can feel the sweet spirit of devotion and awe and peace in this place…

I know - I am good at sensing the aura of a place…I always have been.  Maybe it comes from years of running our inn in Bethlehem.  My husband and I, that is…spent our lives reading people and situations and applying ourselves to turn them into pleasantness and profit for all concerned.

I know what to expect in certain places with certain people.

You know what I mean, don't you?

In the market place I know that old friends become wary hagglers over the price of fish and the measure of a bolt of weave from Syria.  I know the smells of the place - hot with needs and hurrying bodies…the noise and laughter and scurrying.

I know what to expect in the market place.

I know what the stable holds for me when I go out to tend the animals - get some eggs or milk or feed the little beasties.  The warm, earthy smell - pungent with life and holding peeks of furry cuteness. 

I have long been drawn to the holiness, awe and inspiration of a trip to the Temple - whether in the women’s court of the great Temple in Jerusalem on our yearly journey to Passover - or gathered around our local Rabbi at home in Bethlehem…I know what I will sense - what I will find when I get there.  The people at their best outwardly - their clothes pressed and frocked out - the sense of history and mystery in the presence of the One God…I know what to expect there. The crying out in repentance of the sinner rebuked by the elders - the sing song of the holy Word of God spoken by the priests - the incense and majesty and hope and glory of worship by the chosen people for their Sovereign Lord and King.  Yaweh - King of the Universe…

I have long known what to expect in our home with my husband, Levi and the children bustling about my feet - growing up with their heartaches and joys and temper tantrums and the love.  O the love that a good man brings to his family…the joy of children and grandchildren - beautiful babies laid in the arms of doting mothers and proud papas…I know what will happen when I walk down the steps and across the hall into our business - our inn (called the Wanderers' Rest by Levi's fathers father).  The inn we have kept these 27 years.  I know to expect a variety of weary travelers, visiting relatives, and tradesmen.  And some coming from, who knows where - going to, they know not where.  The rowdy regulars for a hot meal and some mulled wine.  The shepherds - my husband’s unruly brothers and cousins from the country - messing up my clean floors and shouting and laughing and singing late into the night…

I have learned how to handle them all - all the people - all the ever-changing scenes and situations…to flow from the daily nitty-gritty, to the give and take of barter, to the quiet meditation of things eternal. And back again.

Down through the years, with my share of hopes and dreams all laid before my God with thanks. Accepting from His hand, the ordinariness of the days He gives me to live out before Him.

But

I did not know what to make of that one starry night - so long ago

and yet it is seems but yesterday.

You know the night I speak of - you are gathered here to celebrate it,

same as me!

But you know the whole story - you know Jesus' legend from beginning to end…the way He turned everything upside down with His practice and teaching of the Right Side Up Kingdom - the Kingdom of God, His Father.

But back then - we knew nothing.

O - the prophesies we knew.  And thought the Lord had been silent - so terribly silent - for hundreds of years then…we recounted the promises to each other.  The priests did - sure - it was their job - and pompous and proud they were to tell it in their fancy robes and tall miters on their heads…parading around with tales of the coming of the great king who would one day lead Israel out of the hand of the Romans and into the Day of their own glory…

But also kowtowing to those very Romans - in their private conversations…making their compromises of peace so they could retain some semblance of their own earthly power.

But we - the plain folk – recited those prophecies over and over to ourselves:  the prophesies that were our promises. There was not a baby boy born to a local ruler, prominent tradesman or rabbi that the midwife did not hold the child up and ask - could this be the One? Could this be our Messiah?

And we in Bethlehem - little sweet Bethlehem - the city of the House of God…we have our local holy ones. There was old Simeon – who was told by God's Holy Spirit that he would not taste of death until he saw with his own eyes the “Consolation of Israel” - the Lord's Christ. 

And our dear Anna - widowed when still a young thing - now in her nineties - serving in the Temple night and day with prayers and fasting…she was there to behold the little One who was given on that precious night.

But though we rehearsed the promise

and though we had those among us who were waiting patiently for His coming,

still how could we understand the way of it when He appeared there in our midst?

I was not at the door when Joseph stepped in and asked my husband for a room. He was desperate to bring his beloved Mary in out of the weather, after his long journey with her from Nazareth.  But we were flowing over already! We had some paying just to sleep at the tables when our other guests had gone up to their rooms. Whole families had traveled to their hometown of Bethlehem for the census that Rome required of Israel for tax purposes.  As though they had not squeezed the life out of us before that!

There was no room for them - you know that…

but my Levi is a wise and compassionate man.  Instead of sending the very pregnant Mary back into the streets to search for a place to lay down…he took Joseph and helped him make a place in our stable - carved out of the rock in the side of the hill behind our Inn. 

Levi told me in passing that there was a man & his wife staying out in the stable - and had me send some of our serving girls out with a bit of bread and cheese - some clean water to slake their thirst and wash a bit of the road away.

But it was not until Sharon came running in breathless – asking for clean cloths and more water and her eyes wide with wonder that I understood that a babe had come into the world on that busy night. 

I finished with the last of the cleaning up - handing out blankets to those slumped over the tables. I took myself out into the yard for a stretch and to visit the new parents and see that there were enough sticks of wood to keep them warm for the night…

But I was not prepared for what I found out there in the dark.

First off

it wasn't all that dark…

up over my head sparkled the most extraordinary sight I had seen - a star so bright and golden that it seemed it would fall down on my head and end us all!  It looked as though it was almost day - and outshone the moon!!!

As I stood with my mouth hung open, I was stirred to action by the running and jumping about of men near the door to the stable.  They appeared to be shepherds by their clothing

and by their smell, if you will excuse me…

but their manner was not at all what I knew to expect from shepherds, young or old.  They were jabbering on and on about miracles and angels and singing - of God and man and peace on earth…

they were either laying out full on their faces there before our little cave - or wringing their hands and jumping about  - running back out into the streets and shouting things about the Messiah having come to Israel at long last.

What were they saying?  I saw my husband walk past me as though in a dream - our serving girls pulling him forward - pushing him into the soft glow that came from the manger.

I seemed to glide forward - not of my own will - but as though I was pulled along like a child on a cart.  And what was this that I was sensing? What was this atmosphere that smote my heart and mind and eyes as I drew near and focused on the scene inside our stable?

The father - this Joseph - stood gazing down on the child - but not as a new father. You know: proud and nervous and hopeful and scared…that is what I should have seen on his face.  But it was not.

What I beheld was the look I had seen when a slave had paid off his debt - and the ring was taken from his ear - and some coins were put into his hand.  And his once-master proclaimed him a free man!  Yes - it was just like that look.  Amazed - joyous - Free!

And the little Mary…as I saw her above the backs of the prostrate shepherds and my now-kneeling husband and maids.  I saw her - not as a new mother appears (had I not seen hundreds in my time?): not weary and smiling and doting in motherly love…that was there a bit - but overshadowed by a look I have only witnessed in those lost in meditation and prayer and praise.

Yes!  That was it!

There in the stable, surrounding that humble manger - was the aura of the Shekinah glory of God witnessed only at high and holy days in Jerusalem.  What we have recorded in our holy book when God would come down and sit between the cherubim on the holy of holies…

That is what I witnessed that long ago night in Bethlehem, as I gazed down for the first time at Jesus.

And though I followed years later, the news of his doings in Nazareth and Jerusalem and all of Galilee…Yes - I heard of his acts - his followers leaving all, his miracles and healings and the teaching - as though He wrote the very Words He quoted from the scriptures. And His death. How could it be?

His resurrection – with what wonder did we greet that news? The truth of His coming again – we held it to our hearts.  Though I heard all of that, yet I was never able to shake the feeling that was born in my heart that wonderful, mysterious night. 

The feeling that now I was whole - that now life had truly begun - that questions I didn't know I was asking were all answered.  A sense of peace so deep there is no words for it.  And a thankfulness that has caused me to come - like all people down through the centuries have come - like you yourself have come tonight - and bow before the Christ child and stretch out empty hands and full hearts - and offer him the only gift He has ever desired.

May God unite us all tonight and enable us to give to Jesus freely what His precious heart desires.

At the End of the Street

At the End of the Street

By Susan Whitlock

Up the street she walked: summer, winter, autumn, spring.  Over the mound of weedy grass that led from the white curb to the first swaying trees.  The trail led through some brush and down a path on a tree-dotted hill.  Then there was a wide, pan-shaped meadow of dirt and grass and little tree-lings that held out hopping, chirping, buzzing, golden days.

            Alone or with friends she would go; drawn by some magical string that connected her navel to “the woods”.  She loved the smells and sights and touch of those fifty-odd acres of freedom.  Loved her little, suburban wilderness.  They were as close as she could get, on a regular basis before she could drive, to the forests and glens and rivers of her dreams and daydreams.

            Along the paths to the right or the left – or straight-ahead, down the slope to the little stream – she would plunge.  Was it a stream?  Or was it a creek?  Certainly not a river – though she could pretend if a river was needed. 

            More like a combination of natural creek and housing development drainage for who knows what!  It didn’t always smell nice.  Sometimes in the hot, too hot, of summer there was a definite sewage edge to the whole adventure.  But that could be ignored.

            In winter she would plow through the cold and snow, with friend Janet in tow, and spend an afternoon with Big Bertha - a large, smooth branch made into a staff (a thing they transformed into a spear or icebreaker as the mood took them).  And somehow they found Big John, a just-right flat stone for smashing things in the creek or for carrying over to a little camp fire for a sit.

            They would break the ice and ooh and ahh over the beauty of crystals and water and stones and little creatures that should not have been alive in a place so cold.  They would build a fire on a stony portion of the creek bed – and smoke cigarettes and eat little snacky things pulled from their pockets. And laugh.

            There was so much laughter ringing through those woods of her childhood.  So many times alone in the golden sun, experimenting with another kind of grass before Jesus led her away from Hippiville.  Long hours spent wondering or writing great books in her mind, she would stroll over the soft dust of the paths – unaware of time or place or person. 

            So many friends came there with her.  In her mind and by her side! 

Boys that were like brothers – one of whom she fell in and out of love with for the best five of her teen years.  Friendly boys, who took the place of her only, older brother who had packed off to college in Lawrence, and finally moved away to California.  The woods sealed these adopted brothers in her heart forever.  They guarded her during her wild flings outside the woods. 

            Remember the Hole?  Of course you don’t! Let me explain.

            At the top of the woods, right behind two of the boy’s home, there was a hole.  And, with pick and shovel and boards and nails and tin and whatnot – they expanded the hole and covered it with a roof.  It was like a basement with no house; a clubhouse that housed a club of giddy children - on the verge of being unchildren.  Here again with the smoking of pot and the bumming of cigarettes and the telling of ridiculous jokes and gigantic dreams; scheming, teenage girls and swaggering, sweaty teenage boys.

            The woods at the end of the street sheltered them all.  And she ran there to find herself when she knew she was lost.  She ran in the hope that life was not as dull as it appeared during school and while watching TV. 

            Sometimes she would sit in a nest of clover or leaves and be so silent that others would not notice her as they trekked through the woods on their way to growing up themselves.  Maybe it would be some of her boy/brothers – or a couple holding hands and looking for a place that would hold more, much more.  Or just another single soul – out for a walk and a fantasy before doing homework or going to batting practice.  And she would wonder what they were talking or thinking about.  She would wonder if they felt the magic of these trees as she did.  Did they come here by choice, or were they, too, pulled up by the roots of their belly and reeled into the grove for reasons beyond human reasoning? 

            It was a good place to grow up.  For that is what she did there.  So much more than in her bedroom, or arguing with her parents in the kitchen or humming along with her friends to the noisy music of puberty.  Here she decided to be extravagant.  Here she grew in the micro-increments of the soul, not in school where you were graded on a curve.  Here she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she would serve Love like a slave…no, like a bondservant of an older time– for she was willing.  More than willing, eager – for this service is why she lived.  Here she knew that she would make it.  Here she decided – on purpose – to never give up on high ideals and her dreamiest dreams.

            The woods at the end of the street held her secrets.  Not all of them – but the best ones.  The woods lifted her prayers to a God she would not know until she was ready to climb out of that tree-place and walk away for good.  The woods heard her cry.  Knew her tears and why they fell.  The little creek took those salty splashes in and moved them along to the place where their message would be heard.  Heard and responded to by White Light and Hope.  By Salvation – though she could never have named Him then.

            At the end of the street, in the little, yellow woods, she wept the torrent of grief and fear and longing that took over when they told her that her dad had cancer.

            They told her that he had cancer in his esophagus and that they were going to cut it out and then there would be “treatments” and then he would be well.  OK – how about some pizza?  Did she want to drive the lusty, red convertible down to the Pizza Hut and pick it up and bring it back for the three of them to chew on like cardboard or leather while the agony backed up in their throats and made breathing a real effort?  Sure!  Into the smooth, white interior she slid and turned on the key to hear that purr she loved to hear.  Down the street she drove – turned right onto Cooper Road – and right into the back end of a car belonging to some nice, middle-aged guy on his way to wherever.  And he walks back to the snazzy, red Grand Sport and asks the little blond girl if she is OK… and gets a deluge.  Poor guy!  Standing in the middle of a Friday night there on Cooper Road as this youngster sobs that she is sorry, but her dad has cancer…

*                          *                 *                                 *                     *                               *

            She doesn’t remember who delivered dinner or if the pizza was ever retrieved…but she knows where her steps led when dad drove the bumped car back into the driveway and gave her a hug and said – it will be all right, my little Suzie.  Her steps said – I will be back in a few – just going for a little walk…need a little smoke - O God! did she say that to her daddy who had cancer?  Her steps blurred into a jog, into a run, into the woods at the top of the street.  Down through the bush, down on the path, down the bank to her favorite smooth tree that grew sideways out of the cliff and over the water.  And there she wept.  For hours and hours she wept.  Alone and not alone at all.  And she grew up just a fraction more.

            Up she grew and the woods watched with sweet understanding as she fought through the next wild and frightening years.  She and the woods - two lovers who were desperately trying to hold onto each other: but death loosed their grip - one finger at a time… and misplaced her.   They misplaced her – but they never lost her.  And for everyone looking on she seemed mighty self-centered and hardheaded and crazy and insensitive to her dad and to her grieving mom.  But the woods understood.  Understood that she was dying too – a version of her was dying, just as he was dying.  A girl who was sheltered by her dad passed away.

            And after those last two years – she stood up and walked out of the woods.  Out of the woods after his funeral.  Out of the woods after the lecture that she was to stand by her mom.  Out of the woods into a new world of faith and healing and love.   Out of the woods she marched – straight into her life.  Marched up the aisle and into Rex’s heart.  Marched away with the boy who became the man who aged along with her.  And the woods gave the bride away.  At last – they gave her away.

            O, the places we find in the world to hold us as we live…as we expand…as we find and nurture and exalt and fall and rise again.  They are all around us – a gift from God.  They are in our own back yard.  They are not far away.  They are there when we need them.

            Those lovely, wistful places we are drawn to - right at the end of the street.