Grace in the snowfence

The day begins perfect, a last ski trip for the season. And we are excited.The lift beckons us up into glory, and the sun's warm caress promises a good day. The icy crust increases our speed, but I am too novice to be very concerned. I will just keep it where I can handle it. Nerves will quiet once the snow softens and I find my groove. This is just the beginning of the day. And that's when it falls apart. Too novice to know how to manage the crusty speed, I can't catch an edge turning on the traverse, and barrel over the mountain's side.

In the time it takes to say "Oh no!" I careen over the edge into the snowfence, where my skis tangle, and the rest of me hangs upside down on the steep decline. My right forearm flung in a bionic angle, and my first thought pierces through the pain, "Oh God! I can't work!"

Minutes float weightless, yet time seems to stall; and I'm caught in this sphere of spasmed sensation. I cry, and call for help, but know I will not be heard. Crusty snow is too loud and the hill too empty. And shock arrives and takes control. I have to climb up to find help. I coach myself aloud, and whimper in my pathetic state. Flop injured arm across body. Cry out pain. Pull foot out of boot. Insert stocking foot into crusted snow. Crawl under mangled snowfence. Pinch bindings to free other foot from the ski. Climb up to the ledge.

A thousand thoughts swirl into my mind, but find no resting place. Pain glazes every landing surface like a shellac, and locks my mind's attention on the throbbing issue at hand. And shock is a gift. 

I hear boarders whiz by, reverberating loud on the icy surface. I call for help and keep climbing up. One boarder stops, and comes back to help me. I crawl to the traverse edge, and sit crumpled in the snow, amazed at how pain can be so numbing, worried for all the borrowed equipment still down the precipice. He gathers the items, and I see my boyfriend skiing up the traverse towards me. My delayed arrival at the lift told him something was wrong, so he came back to find me. And I will be okay.

Ski patrol arrives, and I wish to pass out and be relieved from the pain. The toboggan ride down, the wait for the ambulance to arrive, while waves of embarrassment, shock, and gratitude wash over me. My mind reels ahead, to all the work calls I will have to make, to all the questions about how long before I can work again. But I am here, and can only deal with what happens here and now. And grace is enough for NOW.

So I ride in ambulance and inhale laughing gas. And I wait as throbbing turns to locked spasm. And I gasp pain to rotate my arm for X-rays. And the diagnosis "dislocation" sets my mind happy. It could have been so much worse.

And there's nothing to do but wait: for morphine to kick in, then to run its course out of my system, for the doctor to set the elbow, for the sedative to wear off, for me to stop shaking, for our friends to pick us up.

And I'm never alone. In this weakness and truncated state, I'm surrounded with love and mercy. And there's nothing to do but rest in it. 

And the gifts begin to flow: more than I can number. People stationed perfectly, who go out of their way to care for me, clients understanding and wishing me well while they wait for me to recover, filling in for the secretary at the office. Ah yes, and work is a gift, and time off is a gift. Several days to finally cross off lingering projects on the backburner list, and happiness to know life now has room for change.

It's a forced Sabbath; the best gift I could have asked for. I didn't know how much I needed it till it was given to me, wrapped in pain and a snowfence.

And I'm still counting the endless gits of this grace . . . .

A walk to remember

I set out to discover, to find a walk for my soul, a way to remember. It’s a journey within a journey: and isn’t this how life spins us? 

Mist rises from pond’s mouth, living air sighing happy at the sight of sun, and my soul rises to breathe it. 

First lines of the day’s new song penetrate the world in shimmering rays. It’s an ancient melody, an aching ballad, a groaning hope. The aged earth sings it fresh to its Creator in this autumn, the first time for this day, the same as each day since her inception. And doesn’t the habit of mercy meet us new, and old, each day?

Dependence on fresh graces can stagnate into assumption and dullness, unless we receive eyes to see. It humbles us, making us a forever student, one who always needs more than they know. But it makes us alive, hunger beckoning us on, because we have tasted this goodness. And doesn’t grace upon grace spiral up like this, where we come around again and again to the same beauties, always new? 

Guidance and boundaries dot the walkway, and grace isn’t so much a tight rope to be nervously balanced as it is a fenced enclosure, in which to dance. And how often do I listen for the invitation to celebrate? 

Walnuts scatter across the path, seeds fulfilling their destiny, many of them disintegrating into fertilizer, never to realize their potential. And how many of us rot away? And how can we help it, unless we are rescued and planted? One road leads to ultimate death, the other to fruitful life. And how many lives pass through time’s ebb, never living the glory of resurrection? How many victims never get the chance to even breathe this air? How many lives snuffed out so soon, so needlessly . . . and the world can be cruel. 

The path winds upward, and it has to. We have to know there is something above, something more, something to dream for. It requires more energy to climb, and round the bends; and often the dullness of resignation calls louder than the pain of hope.  And don’t we have to know that there is something good ahead? The breeze tells us, the sun invites us, the path beckons us on. And isn’t the path itself a mercy? 

I find the long road. I turn right and follow it to the end.  It’s a raised embankment, with deep ravines on either side. And isn’t grace a highway between two ditches? 

The road ends sudden, cleared and built for a purpose fulfilled, and that is all. And it is enough. Some journeys end abrupt, and we cannot retain sight or use of all the paths we walk. Each leads on to another road, and if we stopped and built cities, the journey’s wonder would die. And how often do I settle for the safety of apathy, of a life so protected from pain that I lose a reason to die, and a reason to live?

I turn and retrace my steps, remembering, following back, so I can walk again, and travel further. And in remembering, we are re-made. The pieces fall into place, the melody played backwards teaches us what we could not know while questing ahead. 

And the paradox of grace tells us what we could not hear in the clamour, in the deafening pain, and the anguished silence:

“Yet I will still hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.

Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning.

I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him.’

The Lord is good to those who depend on Him, to those who search for Him.

So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.” 

When You Stumble Over Yourself

Maybe it’s the start-of-summer slump. Maybe it’s the letdown from busy weeks preceding. Maybe it’s the dread of mounting lists and deadlines, and all the items I could, and really should add to them.

Maybe it’s just me, the only one who feels this way. And I shouldn’t feel this way, and that makes me feel worse.

And I know I must fight feeling with feeling, but the scales are out of balance, the tank is empty.

I keep checking it, wondering where the leak is, but I can’t get perspective to see around and within. And the sad truth haunts me: even if I found the problem, I can’t fix it.

I’m stuck.

And His word comes: “And the grace of our Lord is exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.”

It stings, because I’m not living in that sphere, I’m wallowing in the fumes of my impotent efforts.

It smarts, because God is rich, and I, His child, am stuck in soul-poverty, and it’s my own fault.

It strains, because it stretches my neck up, around, beyond my slough, to the One Who’s with me, above me, victorious.

And in this moment, I must decide: do I reject Him, because I’m so ticked that He can walk in this mire without stumbling, or do I extend pathetic arms to touch His outstretched hands?

To accept Him acknowledges that I’m wrong, and weak, and foolish. I am a beggar. And He is good.

To refuse Him denies His power and my weakness, and sinks me into folly, utterly.

So what’s a soul to do? Surely, the most sensible thing is to struggle out of the slough on the arm of Christ.

Joy is a fight . . . and a celebration. We who belong to Jesus must grip this conundrum, balance the reality of foolish humanity and merciful Providence. We can analyze, scrutinize, test it, but at the end of the day, we must hold it, this amazing grace.

“My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.” Psalm 25:15

Photos courtesy of Lauren Carswell

Elusive Treasure

Elusive Treasure 13 July 2010

Space, time to enjoy, this notion of savouring life, haunts and taunts the mind; its mysterious nature bids us subside our activity, while it simultaneously whisks the prize out of our reach, making us rouse and chase it once again.

Flitting, floating, darting in graceful swoops, it flutters in and out of our periphery. Pursuing, calculating, manoeuvring, we try to outwit, anticipate, and capture the treasure. Gasping and desperate, we tumble headlong, tripping over our weary feet. Sprawled and pretzled, our winded gaze skyward, the refocusing eye catches glimpses of moving colour. The quested object lands on our nose, smiling down at us.

Or perhaps we do not stumble. Perhaps precision and endurance gain us advantage, and we capture the fluttering trophy. But what do we do now? It tickles our clasped palms, then stops moving. Have we suffocated it? Cracking cupped hands open, light rays reveal the reward, placid and peaceful. No signs of exerted breathing, no damage incurred from the chase. Palms unlocked, sun shining, the world stops for a moment, and we try to understand what we have attained. Then the prize walks decidedly to the end of a finger, and flies comfortably away. And we are none the wiser.

The elusive dream delights and crushes. In all the activity and projects and deadlines and needs, my heart is haunted with the prize. I suppose it’s like someone running a race, who can’t just stop once they cross the finish line. They must stagger and sway and lose rhythm and flay arms while the heart slows and adrenaline tapers. Desires actually accomplished leave me feeling, what next, what now?

And in the silence of the moment, the horrible indeterminate pause where we inhale, exhale, and wait, the prize comes, but in a form we never expected.

And so it was today. I lit candles, I dabbled on the piano. I ran errands. I did research. I boggled my mind and overwhelmed my heart with all the new to-do lists and all the possibilities of an unborn tomorrow. I tried to calm, tried to trust, tried to preach truth to myself. I tried not to do what I can’t help myself from doing: worry. Circumstances seem too simple to warrant worry, but too unknown to navigate without it. I want to be busier, but yet, can’t find the time for the things I really might like to do.

And in the music, and the moment, it comes. It washes over me, engulfing me in a moment. Rest.

“And He said to them, ’Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’“ Mark 6:31

The place is deserted and quiet. I have been brought aside. My heart must now come aside. I cannot come, or rest, or stay a while; I can do nothing without Him.

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the treasure after all. Maybe it’s not even in holding the prize of rest. Maybe it’s knowing that He is holding me.