Gifts Wrapped in a Sling

It's been six weeks since I careened over the mountain edge, spent a whole day lying in the hospital, waiting to be put back together. 

And in that wait they gave me oxygen, so I wouldn't hyperventilate; laughing gas, to relieve my brain in the throbbing onslaught; then morphine to dull everything except its own set of reaction pains. And finally, a sedative, clawing up my wrist till it blackened my cognizance—all these inhaled, injected, dripped into my circulating body. And they are gifts. 

Joint re-hinged, they put swollen limb in a fabric sling, just for a day or so. Elbow turns into water balloon, and sleep comes light as I try to hold still. My landlady, who doubles as spiritual grandmother, pins my hair back in the morning (bobby pins do NOT work with one hand). And it is a gift.

 Beau stays with me all day in hospital, then takes the next day off to help me buy groceries and fill anti-inflammatory prescription. Not a coincidence that we're shopping the first Tuesday of the month, and save 15%. 

 

My office landlord extends grace, and chooses gratitude for the timing of it all. It's no coincidence that the secretary goes on holidays and he needs a fill-in right when I'm unable to work my job. And I'm humbled, and fairly cry when he tells me he won't charge me rent this month. And he'll pay me more than we bargained on. And telling the happy news helps me share the gift, and the joy. 

And the . . . pain of healing, the humiliating time it takes. Is this too, a gift? Sharp knife telling me when I've pushed too far; protective spasm and scar tissue needing released; the exercises and grimaces and tears. The wondering if I will ever regain movement, or if I will always have a gimped wing; looking with longing at people who can tuck hair behind ear, brush teeth, carry babies with their arm . . . do they have any idea of the GIFT they carry in a functional limb? And the thought that mine could heal, is designed to heal, that I have this hope of recovery. Some people don’t. 

The perpetually truant ambulance bill, making me wonder if I would receive one at all. And it’s no coincidence that I’m back to work for three weeks and finish a massive contract job before the invoice arrives in my mailbox. And it is a gift. 

Clients who wait for me to return, welcome me back, cheer me on, even when they wince under my renewing strength: these are presents from my loving God. Longstanding projects scratched forever off my to-do list in the few days I have completely off leave me feeling light. 

And this wait of hope, this is a gift. I think of the tastes of resurrection power I can feast on, in these appetizers of God’s grace, these morsels of tender love, these party favour GIFTS of mercy. And I wonder how the giving of thanks, instead of the begrudging of obvious, humiliating need, is in itself, a gift.

And I thank the Giver, Who wraps treasures in elbow slings. 

Some photos from Google images

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.” 

Treasures of Wait

We embark, she and I, on this journey planned months ago; now suddenly
revealed as perfect in timing. How is it that a spur-of-the moment
idea, an uncanny seasonal ticket sale, and a haphazard, crazed
schedule culminate in this gift?

The first flight ascends seamless, descends perfect; and we wait for
our second plane, enjoying the several hours allotted to us. We walk,
we muse, we get smoothies. And we look for our flight information,
noticeably absent from the board. Changed gates lead us wandering
around our terminal appendage, just relaxing.

The second pilot is sick, the gate attendant announces, and the
soonest replacement sits five hours away, so we must wait. We wander
back to food courts and eat an overpriced dinner. Conversation spills
out in the gifted stillness of this prolonged moment. We explore our
souls; we speak life; we catch vision for the week ahead of us at the
International House of Prayer.

We read and wander, and enjoy each other, thanking God for the
unlimited text plans purchased on the way to the border. We are not
alone, and it is good.

Delayed again, this time without reason, and we stand around with
tired passengers. But we are happy; this trip is in Another's hands.
And it is for us to enjoy.

Cancelled, nearly six hours after the originally slated departure
time. People rush mad to service counters, only to wait long and
pensive for the rearrangements. We chat together: about rental cars,
chartered buses, and the business we travel for. Hours pass in this
way, looking for the shortest line, watching people sit and wait and

 talk And what more can we do? Our fate is not our own.

Batteries run low, so we charge phones, as one by one friends and
family quiet into the silence of slumber. "That was going to be our
joy," I muse. "Jesus is our Joy," she replies; and I see that in the
silence our delight can only come from the One Who gives us breath,
not from the breath of another person.

Last ones in line (still don't know how that happened), a little women
takes us to kiosk and looks up flights, geographic and calendar radius
varies as she explores the eroded options. She lends us her phone, and
we can talk to our waiting ride. All we can do in this moment is wait,
and praise. Worry melted long ago . . . I can't know just why, except
that we settle in the love and reality of the One Who charted this
course for us, the only One Who can get us through. And sometimes, the
journey doesn't take you anywhere. You wait, and sit, and grow on the
inside, so you will have strength to walk the next leg.

Supervisors come to check progress. He finds a flight for the next
morning. He upgrades us to first class and puts us on it. I scream and
dance for joy, not caring that I look ridiculous. We give the
attendants chocolate, and carry our familiar bags to the curb, to wait
for the hotel shuttle bus.

We stand in the cold, make small talk, muse happy for the bed and
shower and breakfast waiting for us. We watch bus after van pull along
the curb, but none of them belong to our hotel. We wander along the
road, stopping by a bench where a pair of glasses sit forgotten,
intertwined in the rails. And how often, in the wait, do we lose
perspective? How often do we forget that there is good for us, because
God is good?  

How often do we live a lie, as though we are victims and
demi-gods and the world must revolve around us? Finally, we call,
grateful for the travelling American who uses her minutes for us. We
must wait again: 45 minutes till another shuttle comes.

We go inside to thaw and wait. I try to journal, but thoughts jumble
incoherent, so I just rest. And the shuttle comes. And we drive warm
and safe to our hotel. And we shower and sleep four hours and have
breakfast. We drive back early, proceed to the front of the line as
first class passengers, and wait.

Another delay. We go for coffee, spend our vouchers on gifts for
friends, and sit with the Word, our true meal. We are happy, even if
we can't know why. Eventually, we sit at the gate, we board the plane,
we gate check our bags. We settle, and smile, and everything seems
more wonderful than we could have imagined. Because we waited for it.

And sometimes, God lets us wait for Him, so that we can know He is
good, and we can enjoy Him more . . . in the journey, collecting the
treasures of wait.

On slow change

13 September 2012

Sometimes, it is good that things percolate and brew. There’s a flavor transition, a texture change, a metamorphosis—so that one scarcely recognizes the thing finished from the thing began.

And people morph in progress; if we are not changed by the journey, we are not likely moving, not living at all. People must change. It is the nature we were given. Even when change is imperceptible externally, or torrential internally, or catastrophic contextually; it simply is our state of being: becoming.

Childhood’s emblems pass thick and dense with threads of imagination, all the worlds created from thin air, the first whispers of wishes for life, a prelude to the symphony. Perhaps the first pinings of “artistic temperament”, or just the utterly basic nature of man: to long, to hunger, to ache with happy angst for our true destiny, our ultimate relationship.

But dreams disappoint, especially when the dreamer is ignorant and scared—pseudo-safety constructed from gossamer whims. These disintegrate, swept away in reality’s cold winds, sometimes to liberation, sometimes to despair. And love of dreams wanes as actual strength to forge in reality what the heart sees in clarity fails, because the heart is humiliatingly weak, and the soul crushingly frail.

And yet, in all the smashing and sifting and blowing away, an indomitable, severe and sweet mercy pervades, because, after all, we are created ones, and we have a Maker Who cares for our souls. And perhaps the winds blow to teach us that we are not our own, that we cannot possess control.

Maybe the frost is really our friend, warning us to seek the protection we need from the winter storm.

Could it be that the darkness and cloud come as kindreds, beckoning us into the light and warmth of our Maker’s embrace?

What would happen if we welcomed the winds instead of resisting them? If we listened to the whispers and shouts instead of covering our ears? If we accepted the season of confusion, darkness, and quiet? What might we learn of ourselves? What might we come to know of the One Who made us? And what might change in how we look at the pilgrims walking near us?

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations.

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - These are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” C.S. Lewis

Waiting: folly and triumph

Afternoon sun caresses golden all the way down the long, south-bound road. I love this highway, and would rather drive south to the small Montana airport, than north to the crazed hub of central Alberta.

Police pull over speeders, and I remember back to when a limit was finally fixed for drivers in this state. I stop to fill my tank with American-priced gas, and wipe translucent insect remains from my windshield. Road is quiet, traffic is fast, and open spaces bid the heart dance in their security.

I arrive late, and rush to the restroom, fearing an awkward moment of recognition, reunion, followed by a rude interruption from Mother Nature.

I stand at the baggage claim, searching faces, scanning heads and shapes of bodies. Maybe she too is attending her needs, or coming from the upper story.

A purple-blotch faced Grandpa glides down escalator. A dutchess-carriaged woman walks to the conveyer with glassy stride. A motorized wheelchair puts in front of me. Families cluster around baggage carts. Couples wait for missing items. Friends embrace and joke. All around me pleasant bluster swishes, but I wait, apart from the celebrations, stoic and poised.

Another flight comes in. More people, more faces, more expressions, more amusing travel outfits. But she is not there.

And I wonder if I am waiting in vain. I recall the flight time and day. I am supposed to be here, now. I don’t have her itinerary, and am too embarrassed to ask at the counter about a friend whose departure and connecting airports are unknown, and whose flight number is a mystery. I chide myself mentally.

I guess I just assumed everything would be fine. But it’s not.

One more flight, then four hours till the next arrival. Surely I won’t have to wait that long!

Finally, I turn on cell phone, accepting the fact that I’ll be charged for roam in a foreign country, and call home. She’s been delayed, and can’t come now till tomorrow night.

All this way for a delay. But I’m not going to stay 27 hours in a strange city, with nothing to do, and no need to binge a whole day at cheaper American stores. So I purchase a smoothie, buy some clothing articles for my siblings, and head home.

The next day, she calls from her plane seat. She got on a standby flight. I leave immediately, heading down the three-hour road. And joy meets me on the way.

A worship CD sets my heart delighting, and I have to remind myself not to close my eyes in praise while driving. I pull up to the border stop, and the same guard from yesterday greets me, and we laugh and balk together over this predicament.

I arrive again, the airport is quiet today. I walk up the stairs, and she is there, more beautiful than I remember, my dear friend, in the flesh.

Today, we embrace, and laugh, and talk purposeful and deep. After all, we’re operating on a day less than we planned.

And in the end, waiting wasn’t so hard, because I knew what was coming, and it was worth the wait.

“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in His word I do hope.

My soul waits for the LORD more than those who watch for the morning—yes, more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the LORD; for with the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” Psalm 130: 5-7