Pierce the Dark.

We stood in church, Christmas Eve, holding our candles up to the heavens, our voices raised in unison, an old familiar hymn chorusing off our lips. I love those candle-light services, where our worship illuminates the dark.

His little hand was wrapped in a big, strong one, worn with years and wrinkles. His three-year old body standing on the chair; his grandpa propping him up from behind. Together, their fingers linked around the same candle, generations uniting, lifting worship and light as one.

I watched from afar, their faces glowing from the candle near. I wished for a camera, something to capture the moment, to measure eclipse. The vision stayed in my mind, those little hands covered in the larger ones, together bringing light, a heritage in the present.

My inward monologe began. I watched their legacy pierce the dark, and wondered where mine began.

My light, too, was a candle held high. Was a aria in the night. But what about my life, what about that light? Where did my life pierce the dark? Or, and, does it at all?

And the instant response came: Teaching. Without a doubt, without hesitation, this is where I pierce the dark. This is were my light burns. Brims. Brings flares and radiates in the dark. This is where my Christ-light is a bursting array of reds and yellows, oranges, crimson hues. This is where students lean in, where they ask questions, where they ponder responses. This is where my light flickers and catches spark. Where it ignites others, and emits strength.

And so, I am, I was, encouraged. Knowing my lit candle was burning, unabashedly. Knowing it was spreading flame. Knowing it was piercing the dark.

I looked back at the little boy, the old man. I looked at the heritage of faith being held there, amidst their hands, a candle in the night. As their amber light lingered on their lashes, I was thankful. For them. For me. For light. For the Christ-light. For it, me, we, as we pierce the dark.

Remind Me Who I Am.

This song spoke such truth to the hearts of my friends and I, listening to his voice melody over us at Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb concert. The only Truth we wear is that pronounced to us by the Lord. For it is Who I Am.

On C.S. Lewis.

My hand raised in abrupt frustration, mouth pursed and tense, sitting rigid in my seat. "Um, are we ever going to read the Bible?! Isn't this "Bible" class?!" I gnawed at my lip, smoldering in my desk.

Eleventh grade. Bible class. Ethics. Mr. Hoekstra. His student-teacher. Blue-grey carpet with creamed walls, desk lined inside. Books and texts and backpacks and pens strewn about.

Thus began my aversion to everything C.S. Lewis.

Oh, how many times have I heard, "C.S. Lewis says..." or "Well, C.S. Lewis..." or "According to C.S. Lewis..." or "I was reading C.S. Lewis...." Oh to hear the tone of my voice and inclination in my jaded reprieve; even sarcasm lacks the growl that vents into my words.

Then, to add insult to misery, even Taylor University set up The Center of Study for C.S. Lewis the year I graduated.

It seems everyone is fascinated, mesmerized, captivated, and enthralled at this Master. Like he alone is Aslan. And they are mortal readers, bowed at his feet, sucking from him their very lifeblood.

But I, stand alone, hedged against this mortared piling of essays of poems of books of quotes of writers of readers of film, of everything labeled, or every known to be touched by the mystic power of C.S. Lewis.

Then along came Jonathan Keenan and his handing over of Sheldon VanAuken's words penned in love story form, A Severe Mercy (link to blogpost). Only in this book, did I find myself peeking and peering in to this legacy of man with respect and honor and admiration and interest for the first time. Only in reading VanAuken's words did I dare quiver to turn the page, find more of their letters exchanged, script induced with profound yet so-simple language that I sat back often, perplexed with understanding, to mire through the understated and grapple with its applications. It was their relationship that opened the door to a mellowing of my soul. I was fascinated by their intimacy -- shared in pen -- and the intellectual depth that gave breadth to faith.

This past month, I was handed a second book, my own copies of Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters still as dust gathered on the shelf. Rachel (Mark's mom) lent me Through the Shadowlands and I mauled through it in one transcontinental flight from Seattle. Though written in prose, in factual and biographical style, its intricacy of detail further propelled the quelling of my brooding ostracism.

"You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call him Lord and God." (p58)

I again stirred. Liar and Lunatic, or Lover and Lord. C.S. Lewis. Perhaps, this man, this human born of flesh, remained of flesh, is one to be modeled after, crafted towards. Perhaps he was a prophet of his own right, regarded as the twentieth century instigator of intellectual faith, by merely his simplicity in complexion.

I comb through the pages, struck and stunned by his words shared in letters, regarded in speeches, broadcast in radiowaves, printed in pamphlets, and languaged in rows on shelves. His way is of ease, his life quarantined to the closest few. His faith, though, a source of friendship for those ruminated with questions for conversation.

And so here I find myself. Sitting too with C.S. Lewis. Pondering the complicated and the elementary. Asking him fusions of my own thoughts, a synthesis of questions and statements, remarks and rhetoric.

And wondering, if all my perceptions were a misnomer. If perhaps the jarring I felt, the onslaught of contempt, the banishment of his print, the scorn tied to his name, is all derived from.... truth. If instead, this man, this C.S. Lewis, and I would find ourselves at The Eagle and Child stewing and sharing and writing together, and forge a friendship on such behalf. If perhaps, C.S. Lewis is more of a great orator than I lended. If perhaps, he was just a man, used by the God-Man, to make heaven a little more understood to earth, and earth a little more accessed to heaven.

~~~~

Footmark from Trish:

There was once a 9 year old boy who was afraid he loved Aslan more than he loved Jesus. Here is CS Lewis' response:

"Tell Laurence from me, with my love," Lewis wrote in a detailed letter, "[He] can't really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that's what he is doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before. I don't think he need be bothered at all. God knows all about the way a little boy's imagination works (He made it, after all)."

Automobile Angels.

Clunk, clunk, clunk. The churning slows and lurches at a sloth pace and I stare out the window, rain pelting against the shield and clouds dreary and casting over me. The solemn process plugs to a halt at the side of an off ramp and I sit back and sigh, sinking inside and slouching into the leather. Rain. A Sunday. "Christmas" day. A borrowed car. A gas-less engine.

Stupidity falls like shadows cast by clouds, as the brightened gage leaks orange at me. But I humph and decidedly shrug it off. Oh well. I'll figure it out, I tell myself, and slouch back a little more.

A beige Buick pulls up, speedily past me, nails the break, that backs into parallel-park position against me. He hops out and lets the rain dance around him as if natural unaffects him. I roll down my window to his fifty year old face, wrinkles and glasses not withholding optimism.

I laugh at myself, explain the situation, and with eagerness and apt energy, he says he'll be back in less than ten minutes, here's his card and number, and he has an extra gas tank in his trunk. Then, voila, as fast as he came, he disappeared into the Buick and into the rain.

Surely, ten minutes later he zooms past, yanks into park, and exits the car, mini red plastic gallon in hand. I offer to pay, for gas and his service, but he smiles. I ask if he's on his way to or from church, as he is dressed in navy slacks appears so, he responds "something like that" and refuses my second offer of cash. I ask if he simply looks to aid, working to help, remarking that he's an angel. He shrugs and says, "probably the ugliest angel you've ever seen" and finishes spilling the 3-odd dollars of petroleum into the tank. My dollars still protrude towards him from my hand. He says, "No, put it in the plate the next time you go to church. And if you don't go, then start." Then smiling and dutiful, he slips the cap on, rain dripping from the creases of his coat. I thank him overly again, and slip into the leather and let my thankful heart rise.

Roadside assistance. Some call insurance, some call family, some call their legs to walk to a station. But I call on angels. Automobile Angels.

I was sixteen. A late night scooping cones of Butter Pecan and Superman, and then driving "home" to Gun Lake, nearing 12:30 at night. Lights sped across the median, swishing side to side, approaching the cross street at with increased pace. Drunk, labeled, known. I lay on the breaks and wait for impact in the dark. He crushes the railing, bounces against my rear tire, and squeals to a stop fifty yards behind.

I'm trembling. Scared. Wondering. What will he do? I'm sixteen and alone. In the middle of fields. Under the cover of only night.

My fingers tremble at the keys, plugging numbers into the phone. "Mom, I just got hit. And I think he's drunk." The call no mother cares to hear.

I wait. Watching him beat his truck, kicking the tires and throw materials around. Darkness only protruded by our headlights. The stop sign still yards away. I wonder. Unmoved.

A Taurus, green and normal, pulls beside. She rolls down her window, a mom, perhaps. Nearing forty. She calls the cops. Says she'll stay until arrival, and for me not to get out of my car. I wait. Still watching the uproar behind.

He approaches my car. I squeak down the window an inch or two. Ask if he's drunk. Only six beers he says. I turn to steel and say nothing more.

My mom arrives, the cop arrives, my dad surveys the scene. My mother, in her robe, issues her anger "Don't you ever drink again!" while hugging my shoulder.

The cop makes him walk the line. He passes out on the side of the hood. My dad calls a wrecker.

I should have been dead. I should have been killed. Ten feet forward and he would have hit me face on, killed instantly. Ten feet back and he would have hit me front center again, bounced from the guardrail, killed dead. Done.

But I wasn't. Divine? But I looked for her, to thank her for her protection on this lone night. And she was gone. The mother in the Taurus. No where to be found. Seen by no one, but me. But she was there. Reigning protection over me.

I can't help but see angels. But wonder how they are near. But know their presence. But share their story, sought in me.

I-94. Connector of Chicago and Detroit. Five lanes of traffic, whizzing by. I join the race, like Fast Five, speed and swerving my companions. Pride my badge. Another wedding behind me. Then without warning, the thump, thump turns to thump, thump, thump, thump with fast, swirling motion speed. I know the sound. I recognize the beat of it in the car.

I find myself on a crowded five-lane highway, full with semis and traffic, void of off ramps or aid stations. Encompassed with field, brown stalks standing up, only cut by the slice of road I sit on. I get out, walk around, and see the damage. A flat. Sure enough. I refuse to learn to fix one. Even looking at it, I still do. Its a man's job. I am not a man. But I am a woman, alone on the side of the highway, with nothing to help in sight.

Hands on my hips, I lean back into my heels and wonder, peer around.

The cattails behind me shift. I turn to watch. From their overgrowth rises a man, full beard swallowing his mouth, eyes shining with cheerful anticipation. I let my perplextion go wayside and explain the dilemma. He grabs the spare from the trunk, and gets to work, jacking the little Cavalier up.

He works with sure hands, I chat at his side. We talk about church and faith and life and being believers. He tidies up the equipment and I shove a twenty toward him. He refuses. Says this is what believers do, and smiles. I try again, but find his confident, peaceful demeanor refuses my offering, blessing me instead.

I crawl back inside my car and start the engine. The man, I watch. He crawls back into the cattails and disappears, no other vehicle insight.

I shrug.

Wouldn't that just be God? Brining an automobile angel from the brush of cattails? Wouldn't that just be his protection, a woman waiting at midnight? Wouldn't that just be his mysterious way, sending a man in the rain?

I am awed by automobile angels. I am in wonder, in faith, in mystery. I am thankful, I am fulfilled, I am sharing, his provision over me.

The Friends I Keep.

The friends I keep leaves cars at houses. They give airport rides, they open their homes to me. They wake for 7:30 breakfast at Maries. The friends I keep clear calendars and mark moments. They bake muffins at morning. They crawl in bed for movies at night. The friends I keep text daily for love in Michigan living. They give big hugs at weddings, and gather with sisters even when they should eat. They share cars with hubbies, drive toggle-switch heaters, and work with refugees. The friends I keep discuss Jesus with art and work and the in-between. These are the friends I keep.

Thank you Laura, Jenny, Missy, Brandt, Don, Ryan, Bekah, Hannah, and Anne for being the friend I keep.

Death Doesn't Leave.

Morning begins with me sleeping in. With seeing eight o'clock on the stand next to my bed. Morning begins with a pot of decaf coffee, with Trader Joes pumpkin pancakes slathered with peanut butter and doused with suryp. Morning begins with me, thinking, lingering, hurting, wondering.

Mourning begins with the phone call. Mourning begins with the plans of that day. Mourning begins with the images of faces. Mourning begins with funeral plans to be made.

Mourning begins, but does it end?

A favorite author of mine, Ann Voskamp, writes oracles about life and grace and thanksgiving and love. But homily of her book prefaces her sisters death: a slow motion of events, years before the her stories take place, as if a way of setting the stage for all else she knows.

I hear the same prelude in my voice, beginning or finishing half my sentences with "before my mom died" as if all identity is locked in that one moment, that one defining phrase, that one clinching statement. As if life existed before, and then since. But something in the pattern of it, the knowing of it, changed during the hinge.

And I wonder, does mourning end? Morning turns to day, turns to night, turns to faithfulness renewed (Lamentations 3:22-24). But mourning lingers on like wanton toddler, dragging from its mothers cloak.

I feel it in my chest; I know it in my heart. It is in the depletion of energy, the quickness of anger, the rushed tears. Its the unidentified slump, the fog clouded brain, the pushing to perservere. My desire to embrace every day, to live like summer sun, collides with this strain and I cannot figure out how to make it go away. Death has become a part of me. It lingers on. it doesn't leave. I don't understand. I want to be the woman I once was. The energy I once knew. The advocate I once became.

But now, I feel those in glimpses, instead of patterns. The weight of mourning a sheeth over renewal. Desire gives way to apathy, and I look for a place to hide. I used to protest social justice, design programs to recycle, be excessive in class instruction, and advocate fair trade. But my heart nows gives way to survival, my endurance exasperated by the midpoint of day.

I wish I could be those things again. I wish I could see that power in me. But death and trial and teaching, has knocked it all out of me.

Morning turns to day. Winter turns to spring. Loss turned to living. But death's sting doesn't leave.