"I am sick at heart...

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And is heard no more. It is a tale

told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

Signifying nothing."

MacBeth, (Act V, Scene V)

The True Vine (and the peace it brings)

Sorry that most of my posts have been sappy and angsty, but maybe that's okay for a season.

I'll begin this one with an excerpt from scripture. 


“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
   ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
   ⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other. --John 15:1-17


I have been planted in the Vine, no matter if I like that or not.What I mean by that is, something inside of me compels me to believe in this thing called God. I don't know why. That's just the way it is and the way it's always been. Something is written on my heart to follow after this God. I am rooted in this Vine, no matter what my head says or my heart feels. No matter what I do to talk myself out of it or analyze it down to what it always seems like it might be--a delusion--the rightness and truth of the gospel message (and more so, the peace it brings) always outweigh my doubts.
How is it that simply remaining in the Vine, even if all it is is picking up my bible and reading a few scriptures, or praying a prayer void of anything eloquent but a few mumbles of pain or thankfulness from the heart, causes a warmth to arise in my soul that brings about a peace that passes all understanding, that trumps my worries, fears, anxieties and analysis and I'm left somehow knowing in my heart that God is holding me in the palm of his hand, not pushing me forward or sending me backward, just holding me there, safely and securely? A simple act of frustrated communion with my God --this great God that I will never understand or grasp no matter the length of my reaching or analyzation of my mind--brings about relief that I don't deserve or even necessarily expect?

Who is this God?

He has apparently chosen me and I apparently have favor in His sight. He's apparently patient with me beyond earthly measure. He apparently loves me and I have no idea why. He apparently fashioned me into the great Vine that He is, as a branch that is entirely dependent on Him for life, vibrancy, joy and peace. To many it may sound crazy, and many may blame the peace in my heart that I'm describing as influence of tradition or influence of American culture and family environment, as I have grown up around this my entire life. I often wonder that myself. But there is nothing on earth I will attest to more that wipes away every pinch of dread and every tear of hopelessness, or sets my head in the right direction or heals the wounds of my heart more than God himself--this vast, vague, all encompassing and sometimes ever silent being. Is that something to rationalize away? Or is it something to wonder at? Don't choose the easy one. And God, help me not to either.

"Rush Is Never Right"

In Richard Foster's book The Celebration Of Discipline, he begins one of the chapters regarding meditation with a quote from Carl Jung that says, "Hurry is not of the devil; it is the devil."  That quote struck me when I first opened the book years ago. But as with most books, I left The Celebration Of Discipline half finished. I picked it up again recently only to be struck by that quote once again. But I think things hit you differently in different seasons.  In this season, where I'm more rooted in my 'work' than I've probably ever been, I realized how much I've developed an attitude of rushing in every area of my life. I've become incredibly goal-oriented. Whether that's finishing the last drop of my coffee or mobilizing a certain number of missionaries onto the field. Being goal-oriented is good, but if you leave out the value of the process, so many things are devalued and lost. Rushing and hurrying and keeping my eyes on the goal has caused me to put blinders on and disregard everyone and everything but my goal, whether that's washing the dishes or sitting down to tea with a friend, checking my watch or allowing my mind to race with everything I have to do. How awful! And I wonder how much it shows, when all someone wants is my time, that I'm thinking about how much time is being wasted in that moment. Ugh. It makes me feel a little sick. I've started asking myself what my life might look like if I began to adopt the mentality that I have all the time in the world. Imagine what could actually get done, relationally! Slow, steady conversations, true listening, true relating. Slowness is the foundation of so many meaningful and beautiful things. Relating this back to Jesus, my thought process was this: if Jesus walked--loving, healing, relating--then everything Satan would want from us would be sprinting--eyes focused on the end goal, disregarding and shoving aside everything along the way with the delusion "it's all about God". God is outside of time. Why would he rush? To what end? He is, by nature, process.

I was raised up believing
I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes
Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking
I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station
Oh just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night
That would do such injustice to you

Or bow down and be grateful
And say "Sure take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls
And determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing
It's that every thing that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable
Often I barely can speak

Yeah I'm tongue tied and dizzy
And I can't keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues?
Why should I wait for anyone else?

And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf
I'll come back to you someday soon myself

If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm raw
If i had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

And you would wait tables
And soon run the store

Gold hair in the sunlight
My light in the dawn
If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

Someday I'll be
Like the man on the screen

-Helplessness Blues, Fleet Foxes