“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

That isn’t the whole of the story. Despite our dusty origins, we’re still longing for the water. For the hovering over, for the formed in the deep. We’re thirsty for it, wandering through the deserts of our lives in search of it. The Hebrew for soul, nephesh, always sounds slightly sloshy to me. Maybe it wasn’t so much breath that God gave us, but a wet kiss, giving our dry selves that slick sense of Him that haunts us to this day.

Lick your lips. Do you taste Him?

I though I’d just share a quick note to let my Anam Cara community know that we’ve moved house—sort of.

For the most part, you won’t see any change to the AnamCara.com website. It looks like the old digs. The carpet’s still a bit faded in places, and the sofas still have a few odd marks. The soft warmth of the walls still embrace you with joy. A place is still ready for you at the stained kitchen table for you to pull up a chair, nurse a cup of tea and share your heart.

But behind the scenes, there’ve been quite a few changes. Technically, I can’t really tell you what those are—I had people much more versed in code work on the warp and woof of the structures that support this place. Behind the scenes, the roof has been replaced, the furnace refurbished. Behind the scenes, we’ve moved from TypePad to WordPress, in order to have a structure that supports us now and into a growing, quietly growing future. The leaky windows have been replaced, so as to better keept the drafts from snaking under your shirtsleeves and chilling your soul.

With all of those changes, there are bound to be a few stray nails around the place. A faucet may not work on the first turn of the tap. A light switch that used to work reliably may have become temperamental. 

Here’s my invitation: This place it yours as well. Together, we call it home away from home. So, if you find one of those places, a pile of sawdust swept under the rug, a link gone wrong—let me know. Together, we’ll continue tweaking, making AnamCara.com a place where contemplative, attention, grace and hope are offered and enjoyed by all.

Taking a cue from mama:monk (who I deeply regret not meeting in person while I was in Michigan), I’m going to share with you some of my favorite quotes from the Festival of Faith & Writing that I attended last week in Grand Rapids. These are all from my notes, and I apologize in advance for any misquotes or misidentifications.

“Story makes us more humane, and more human.” – Gary Schmidt

“You will never love art well, until you love what she mirrors better.” – John Ruskin

There is no answer that should fail to provoke a question. – Judith Shulevitz

“Experience with belief encourages belief.” – Jonathan Safran Foer

“Expect to bury something.” – Ann Voskamp

“Even monks do not pray the Hours religiously.” – Paula Huston

“Everything that matters is an all-or-nothing endeavor.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

Grace under duress is the story of all of us. – Brian Doyle

“Those who could make us not love—that is what we are to fear.” – Marilynne Robinson

“A story is a country where you can both stand for a little while.” – Brian Doyle

There are so many cultures in crisis where people reach for poetry the way they reach for prayer. - Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

“I felt very much out of my elephant.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

“People are willing to be gracious to religion that is gracious to them.” – Marilynne Robinson

“Name the world in a way that allows us to make it personal.” – Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

“When you are emptiest, you are at the rightest, ripest place to write.” - Ann Voskamp

“The practice of art is the practice of compassion.” – Lan Samantha Chang

“If the struggle is not joyous, it’s the wrong struggle.” – Walter Wangerin, Jr.

“It is the small, daily habits that make the life and what we become. At some level, we know that our habits need to be changed.” – Paula Huston

“Stories should quicken us by shaking our souls.” - Gary Schmidt

“Life’s short, man. Be naked now.” - Brian Doyle

April 23, 2012

“There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly…. Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace.”

-Frederick Buechner, Now and Then

To my first grandson on the day of his birth:

Dearest Luke,

Welcome.

Welcome to this world, to your particular journey in it, to life and everything that means.

Welcome to my heart and to our family—unconventional though it is.

On this, your very first day of existence, I have some things that I’d like to share with you. Things I’ve learned, or haven’t. Things that I hope, maybe, will make your journey a little more joyous, a little more grounded in who you are and who you will become. Don’t listen to me just because I’m your grandma, your Mémé, but listen to me nonetheless.

First, make mistakes. Make as many mistakes as you possibly can, and make them boldly. Splash, crash, fall, fail, and flummox your way through life. Don’t be afraid to do the opposite of what you think you’re supposed to do. I was often afraid to do this, and for a time it made my life very small. Live big, dear Luke.

I encourage you to make your life one of great courage. This, my boy, goes hand in hand with making bold and beautiful mistakes. Take your heart in your hand and leap out into what you long to do, no matter how frightening it may feel or how little you think it is worth or what other people say.

Along with the courage and the mistakes, I encourage you to forgive as quickly and as flagrantly as you possibly can. This will be difficult. You will want to hold grudges and keep records and nurture resentments. You will want to, and that will be the easier path presented to you. Resist this. Be foolish in your forgiveness. Let go of each slight, each hurt as quickly as you can. Forgive so readily that people think you unwise. Forgive in a way that makes people wonder what you know—because in learning to forgive quickly and well, you will know a deep secret that I cannot even put into words. Please, too, forgive me the things I do to you—because I will hurt you, I know. I will never do it willingly, I promise you, but I will do it.

Don’t let your circumstances dictate the size of your dreams. You haven’t been born into great wealth or remarkable heritage or noticeable greatness. You won’t know this for some time, but when it begins to seep into your consciousness, notice and dismiss it. Dream grandly, even if it seems impossible. If you want to earn a million dollars or become an astronaut or write the great American novel, dream it and begin. Allowing the availability of your practical resources to determine the path of your life will only lead to frustration and regret. Whatever it is that you secretly dream of doing—go for it.

Hand in hand with that is this: don’t let yourself be defined by anything outside of yourself. You may hear one day that Monday’s child is fair of face, or that you’re a Taurus, or that St. George’s day was your birthday and you must follow in his footsteps, or that you were born in a time of great societal change. None of those things will tell you who you are. For a time they will seem like supports, rails that you can lay your hand on as you descend into the depths of knowing yourself, but they cannot teach you about that beautiful, secret place inside of you that contains your truest self. Explore that place alone, without aid of “should”s or exterior definitions. Trust the fact that you can begin the journey of knowing yourself from a place of vulnerability and openness.

Your family is both boring and completely unconventional. This is something else that you won’t be aware of for some time. Once you are, don’t be embarrassed. The fact that you have four sets of grandparents is only evidence that your family walked a difficult road and overcame the hardship. The petty differences and pains were all laid aside on the day of your birth, and we welcomed you with joy, tears, love and gratitude. We may not always be able to hold that openness, but we love you. Let the contours of your family teach you the expansiveness of love—that families and the belovedness that comes with them are tied not necessarily by biology but by belonging. You belong to us, and we to you. Let that shape you for generosity.

I’m sorry, but we’ll also mess you up. I know that of myself in particular. Today, I’m 35 years old—young to be a grandmother. When you are 35, you will be uncertain of many things. You will have journeyed, perhaps, through a few careers. You will have had your heart broken at least once, and you will wonder if you are truly a grown up. I write to you today not knowing if I am, but I have come to believe that I am on the right path, whether I will ever grow up or not. When you come to be aware of just how silly your young Mémé was in her ideas of passing along something important to you, think of me with fondness. I will try, am trying, have tried as best I can to love you well. Once you’ve worked through this in therapy, look on the family that screwed up several key elements of your development with grace—as we have learned to look on our families the same way.

I hope that I will love you well, but I do not promise that I can make that happen every moment of every day. You are my very first grandchild, and though we are bound not by blood but by law, your arrival in the world has changed me irrevocably. Today, I learned the urgency of prayer—I prayed for your arrival, and I prayed over you as I held you in my arms, not more than an hour into this world. I prayed for your protection and life, that you would know blessedness, that you would know God.

Speaking of God, I highly recommend that you get to know Him. Your parents and grandparents will teach you about Him, I have no doubt. You will learn songs about Him and stories and probably read the Bible a fair bit, or have it read to you. These are all very good things, important things. But I implore you, from the deepest parts of my soul and as strongly as I can say it: Get to know Him yourself. Ask questions. Be unafraid to poke holes in the basic assumptions that your family makes about who God is. Insist that people tell you the truth about their experiences of God, and then go out and invite those experiences yourself.

Here’s what I will tell you about Him, on this, the day of your birth: He is not safe, but he is good. There is an author, named C. S. Lewis, whose writings you may read one day, and he said that first. But I say it from my experience as well. The God that I have met in Jesus is beautiful, loving, generous and good. He is also confusing, frustrating, wild and at times disappointing. He slips away from easy answers and definitions of Himself and He is found in lots of places—only some of those are churches. You will find Him on mountaintops and in the small bean seed you plant in a paper cup to see something grow for the first time. You will find Him in the animals that are part of the loving family that surrounds you, and you will find Him, hauntingly, in the deaths and departures of those you love. You will find Him in beauty and art, and you will find Him, surprisingly, in places of deep barrenness and loneliness—places that tell you that you have been forgotten, abandoned. There you will find Him, also.

So, seek. Seek bravely and with a demand to know life to its fullness. The God that whispered you into existence in your mother’s womb may one day seem silly or fictional to you—you may reject Him altogether—but do not make the mistake of dismissing Him before you have sought Him. That is the mistake of prideful people who are doomed to a tower of their own arrogance. Be humble and look, even if you think you will never find answers. I believe that one day you will, and I have wagered my life on it. That may not be enough for you one day, but it was enough for me, and I am your Mémé.

Love. Like your mistakes and your forgiveness, offer your love easily and without reserve. Don’t censor what you love—whether that’s mountain biking or knitting or poetry or the way that the light falls on a summer evening, love it with all that is in you. Holding back love is not something that brings love to you—it pushes it away. Love even when you are not loved back, because to love is perhaps the greatest thing you will do in this world. Love regardless of risk or object or fear. Love because love is what will make you fully who you were meant to be.

There are many more things that I wish to tell you, things that I wish I had done differently or want to do more of. There are things I would like you to avoid, and ways that I wish you would go. But more important than that is for you to find your own way in the world—to live, to try, to fail. More important than that is for you to know that you are deeply loved, deeply treasured, by so many people.

Luke Howard Meston, you are loved. You are a deep gift, to me and to this world. You are a man marked for a purpose and you are needed, deeply, by all of us who love and cherish you—but those things are unimportant next to the truth of your belovedness. You are perfect just as you are, this day, and always. I will endeavor to tell you that as often as I can. You are, my grandson, a treasure beyond anything I could imagine, and I love you.

Love,

Your Mémé

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

- Matthew 6:33

by Madeleine L’Engle

Who is to comfort whom

in this time beyond comfort

this end of our time?

Can I, who already have one mother,

alive, oh, very alive, and not over-willing to share,

be another man’s mother’s son?

Perhaps if she coud hold me, as she so small a time ago held him,

knowing him dead with only a fragment of her knowing,

the rest of herself, her arms, heart, lips,

not understanding death—

but we will not touch. Not that way.

Can she, who has lost in such a manner her son,

be mother once again, past child-bearing, caring,

to a man full grown?

I love her son, ran from him, returned only for the end,

most miserable—I, not he‚

“Son.”

My lips move. “Mother.” though no sound comes.

She leaves the hill, the three crosses.

I follow. To her empty house.

She does not weep or wail as I had feared.

She does the little, homely things, prepares a meal, then

O God

washes my feet.

“An angel came,” she said,

“to tell me of his birth. And I obeyed.

No angel’s come to tell me of his death.”

This, I thought, was not an argument.

I held back tears, since she held hers, though foolishly.

We ate—somehow—she always listening.

I said, at last, “You do not mourn.”

She looked down at me gravely.

“No, my son. My second given son.

I obeyed then. Shall I do less today?”

from The Weather of the Heart, p. 72

My jaw spasmed, clenching tight. Pain rippled through me.

Maundy Thursday. My favorite day of the year. 

I had taken the driver’s seat on the way to service. We were late. I drove aggressively. Careless enough of the cares of others on the road that my jet-lagged husband mentioned it. I hate being late.

And so I speed walked my way to the chapel, trying to control the pace, refusing to reach out for my husband’s hand, he who I had been without for nearly two weeks, who I professed to missing more than anything in the world. I needed to be on time. I need to be in the right.

But we weren’t late. Not really. I had read the time wrong, and we were half an hour early, there for rehearsals, instead. It was then the first pain shot through my jaw. I rubbed at it absently and went to help fill the tubs for the foot washing with hot, hot water. Hot was we could stand. It would cool as the service progressed.

And then, sitting in the pews, early and woefully unrepentant for my control, my need to be perfect, my desire to save myself by being at the right places at the right times, and then she came and asked us:

When the time comes, will you help strip the altar?

She used our names. Bryan and Tara. Us, in particular. I hesitate even to add our names to the request, to make the sentence a reference to me, in the flesh.

Bryan and Tara, will you help betray Jesus?

Yes, we nodded. Of course we will help.

When she left, I turned wild-eyed to look at my husband, the muscle in my cheek clenching hard, harder.

Maundy Thursday is my favorite service, my favorite day, because of all that happens in it. After a flurry of activity in Jerusalem, temple-clearing and hosannas and watching a widow give her all, Jesus settles in with his beloveds to something he himself says that he has been “eagerly anticipating”. We don’t get that anywhere else—the idea that the Son of God is looking foward to something. And it’s us, in this moment. It’s washing our feet, gently, tenderly. It’s taking the bread and breaking it, offering the cup and blessing it. Take, eat, he says.

And I do. I receive.

My husband, who I had rejected only hours before in my need to prove my own righteousness, kneels down before me. The water is still hot, hotter than it’s ever been before, and I wince in surprise and sorrow. It has to be hot to wash my cold soul clean, to wake me to what is to come. He kneads my toes, my arch, my heel, and I remember Christ’s words about the serpent and the bruising. It’s been a long season of bruising, and suddenly the hands on my feet are Christ’s hands, rubbing the ache away. I look into Christ’s eyes, as he kneels before me. Oh, how often I betray you, I think.

Bare-footed, I return to my seat and in the silence, I watch our community knit together in humility. Newlyweds, whose first service together last year was this service, who married two months ago in this very church, approach the water. She washes him, and as he in turn serves her, I imagine his tears mingling with the water. He washes her clean, and they stand together, embracing.

A new father washes his infant daughter’s feet, dangling her above the basin as she is so often held above and away from the cares of this world. I know he would always hold her, if he could. Protecting, guarding, loving. Across from him, his wife kneels to wash the feet of a man without a home. Someone on whom the cares of the world weigh heavy and dark. Her mother heart tenderly embraces him.

Another mother’s eyes brim with tears as she watches her husband wash her son’s feet, strong hands serving a son grown strong in God. And then the son turns, and the tears spill as he washes his son’s feet, her grandson, who is scooped close in his arms, carried again as she once carried him, all of his questions held tight in the embrace of a father.

After this, I watch the arms of the priests and deacons—brown and white, male and female, bearing on themselves disease and desperation, forgiveness and fear, hope and hosanna—rise in worship. I sing with my whole heart, May I never lose the wonder, the wonder of the cross. May I see it as the first time, standing as a sinner lost. I remember hearing these words first sung in a cathedral in England, as I stood by my best friend, ourselves both once lost but now found. I remember the moment that He found me, and the tears spill again.

And again my jaw spasms. 

The pain dogs me up to the altar. The hands of the priest wrap warmly around mine, and his eyes smile as he hands me the broken bread. The body of Christ, he says. His joy repeats, I have eagerly anticipated this moment, I have eagerly anticipated serving you.

I bow my head. I can feel the weight of my coming betrayal. My jaw throbs. I open my mouth only wide enough to slip the bread in through the pain. The wine stings as it slides down my throat. My feet turn cold on the stone floor.

He knows I will betray him, and yet he loves, and loves me to the end.

The music swells as the Communion line thins.

Holy God, you are love.

Holy God, you are love.

Holy God, you are love.

It is normally a triumphant song, but the throb and beat is the throb and beat of the soliders coming to take him away. I can feel it beating in my own blood, knowing that I am the one that will strip him bare. I want to say no, to give back the shiny silver of service that I so eagerly received before this all began. But it has already begun, and he has promised to love me til the end. 

In the end, it’s the pain that propels me forward. I just want to get this over with.

The priest snuffs the candles with the palms of his hands, and imagine the dark marks on his palms as he hands me the candle sticks. I walk away quickly with the silver heavy enough to bruise my bare heels once again, my steps on the stone resounding as I retreat.

And then, the stoles, already red with blood. I am handed both and I think, I have stripped him. I have taken his glory for my own. I lay them down over the offering baskets, hidden away, as if I could offer it back to him.

Finally, the white over the altar, all innocence and silk. Crumpled, I receive it, and as I walk away I hear the crash that years before I have only watched—the altar tipped over, defiled. It vibrates through me, this sound, and I almost don’t want to return to see what was once a table of celebration knocked over with my help. 

I return, and watch from a place away, to the side. I want to cry out as the cross is covered in black. As I hear the hammer of stake on wood, my soul screams. But my jaw clenches tight again, the stabs of pain keeping me silent. I cannot open my mouth.

And then, it is over. The priest who so warmly embraced me runs, stripped, from the church, fleeing Gesthemane. We who have served and celebrated sidle away silently.

The muscles in my cheek spasm again as I reach for my husband’s hand. It’s different, I tell him. It’s different when it’s me stripping the altar, betraying him. On other nights like this, I have felt lost. Unsure of where they have taken this man who is everything to me. Unable to return home, we have wandered the city without purpose. Tonight, I feel my complicity. I am not lost. Instead, I want to trail after those who are, haunting them with a warning not to forget, not to fall asleep, not to leave him as I have.

My jaw spasms, and I stay silent.

This morning, I wake up, and the day is shrouded in fog. I ache all over, my body reflecting what my soul knows to be true. My knees feel pulled out of joint, my neck bearing a yoke of pain.

I stay inside, not wanting to be with the crowd. I know my spasming jaw will keep me silent when they yell out, Crucify Him!

But he has already been betrayed.

Instead, I take more ibuprofen than I should, to numb the pain. And I wait.

I wait because he has promised more, he has promised to love me to the end.

And it is not over yet.

Not yet.

Lent is, indeed, an awkward season. I’ll be writing more about that tomorrow, but for now I wanted to share a prayer from one of the books that has accompanied my fumbling, faulty steps in Lent. It’s a beautiful and compact book called The Awkward Season: Prayers for Lent. Although it’s a bit late to get into it this year, I recommend it highly for next (especially since Lent starts the day before Valentine’s in 2013).

Like an early bloom before last frost,

like impatient rain from still-blue sky,

so too, O God,

it is hard to wait for you.

I am too hurried to let dawn break,

to let shadows fall,

to let courage root

in the soil of my soul.

But I need to learn to let dawn be dawn

and dusk be dusk,

to let you alone be God,

the God of my life.

Amen

from The Awkward Season, p. 42

I've been challenging my spiritual director friends to write their life story in six words. But how about you? What would your story be in six words or less?

You know how sometimes you hear about someone that a friend thinks that you should meet? And then later, another person from a completely unrelated circle says something about the very same person? And then your good friend speaks highly about a person who has been influencial in their life, and you find out it's the same person?

That's happened to me. And it happened with the director that I'm honored to introduce you to today, Alan Fadling. Sadly, Alan and I have never met in person (although I hope to remedy that very soon). However, I know many people who have been deeply influenced by his love of God and others, people with whom he's journeyed God's road. Alan's writing challenges and uplifts me, and I'm looking forward to reading his upcoming book from IVP, Unhurried Time.

Introduce yourself to the Anam Cara readers. Who are you? Where do you live? What do you do other than spiritual direction?

My name is Alan Fadling. I’m graced to be the husband of Gem (27 years this May) and Dad to Sean (19), Bryan (16) and Chris (13). We live in Mission Viejo, CA. I like to think of myself first as a beloved son of my heavenly Father (even though I forget that primary identity sometimes). I am in recovery from my addiction to hurry.

As Associate Director of The Leadership Institute (tli.cc), I serve as Dean of Training for The Journey (a two-year spiritual formation and leadership development process we’ve offered for nearly twenty years now). I also do a lot of retreat leading and, more recently, serve as a consultant to ministries and churches in helping them develop spiritual transformation culture in their life and ministry together. I’m also graced with the opportunity to serve on the board of the Spiritual Formation Alliance based in Denver, CO. 

What brought you to the ministry of spiritual direction?

I remember reading Kenneth Leech’s book, Soul Friend in 1991 when I was a local church college pastor. I began to see my pastoral ministry through the lense of spiritual direction—individual and group. I came to believe that I had an opportunity to be a “pointer of the way” (in a John the Baptist sort of way) of students to Jesus.

Why do you think spiritual direction is valuable?

In spiritual direction, I have the opportunity to offer the ministry of listening to God while I listen to another. Most of those I serve in direction are vocational ministers, and they often have no one in their life who listens to them (apart from their ministry speaking roles). There is great power in being heard. I also have the opportunity to help Christian leaders continue to keep first things first in their lives and ministries.

What’s your favorite thing about being a spiritual director?

Watching God work in the life of a person over time. I’m there once a month over sometimes years, getting more of a birds-eye perspective on the journey someone is on. It’s encouraging to me (and to those I serve, I think) to be able to notice spiritual milestones along the way.

What question about spiritual direction do you get asked the most? (And/or what question do you wish you got asked?)

Usually, questions about direction are more details-oriented: definitions, procedures or purpose. I suppose I’d enjoy being asked more often about how direction might help one’s conversational and interactive relationship with God. 

You were just given a yacht. What would you name it?

Unhurried Time. (The idea’s on my mind a lot lately).

Give us your life story in 6 words. 

I’m not good at such summaries.

Okay, you can have more than 6 words. Share your full bio.

As I mentioned above, I serve as Associate Director of The Leadership Institute in Orange, CA, a ministry that trains Christian leaders to integrate spiritual formation and leadership development. I’m currently working on a book for InterVarsity Press on the theme of unhurried time (due out late 2012 or early 2013). Through my daily blog, “Notes From My Unhurried Journey” (unhurriedtime.com), I share insights from my ministry of spiritual direction, retreat leading and leadership training. I serve as a retreat curator, spiritual director, professor and ministry transformation consultant. I have a deep and abiding desire to help Christian leaders lead from spiritual overflow rather than soul scarcity.

Anything you’d like to add?

Thanks for opening this opportunity to be introduced to your network of friends. May the grace and peace of God bring eternal encouragement, holy energy and clear direction to you. 

Today has been a day of quiet fatigue. Like most Mondays, the day has been rimmed with email, phone calls and reading things that need to be read. I've sent out confirmation emails to my directees for the week, spent some time reflecting on what God might have in store for them and done a little schedule rearranging. I've reviewed the notes for the class on Sexuality & Spiritual Direction that I'll be teaching on Thursday night. And I've noticed, gently, that I'm tired.

The fatigue isn't particularly surprising to me. Last week was the Retreat in Daily Life. I organized and oversaw more than 120 spiritual direction appointments and spent 15-hour days on location. My personal rhythm of rest and engagement was thrown to the wind as I listened with nearly 30 dear souls in their journeys with God. While I (thankfully) didn't see all those retreatants myself (thank you, thank you to my team of directors), I did hold their stories in my heart and felt them in the depths of my soul.

Today, instead of my (way too) usual mode of pushing myself back into activity and engagement, I've allowed there to be space in my schedule and in my heart. I've breathed deeply. And I've paid attention to the simple things.

The titmice returning to the feeder once again.

The taste of jasmine tea brewed just right.

The way the shadows on the back fence move and merge as the day grows long.

I consider these simple acts of attention to be prayer. There is no heroic effort, no muscular wrestling myself into silence or lathering myself into intercessory prayer. I have to say, I'm not evening thinking much about God, although I'm still undone by the miraculous works He did in people all week long.

I'm just noticing the simple things. Letting that be enough. Releasing my need to be "seen" or "productive" or even "valuable."

Oh, what grace. Grace in the titmice and the tea and the shadows. Grace in the resting and the receiving. Grace in God praying in and through me, even when I'm not thinking about Him.

It's the simple things that restore on days like these.