November 9

This may be a weird history teacher quirk, but I associate certain dates with countries near and dear to me. For example, on December 6, I think of Quito Day and the amazing gift God gave in the six months I got to live in Ecuador. On December 6, we crammed into open carriages and rode around the city blowing whistles and shouting “Viva Quito”; it was a hoot! Easter Sunday belongs to Austria in my heart as the way our church celebrated it with the best breakfast on God’s green earth made me salivate all of Holy Week. Of course I feel patriotic for the US on July 4th and pause for a moment every Chinese New Year to relive my year in Taiwan. Most of those memories stir happy thoughts and cozy feelings.

But Germany? To Germany belongs the troubled November 9. The only time this was a moment of celebration was in 1989. I was 8 and have a vivid memory of standing next to my Dad in front of the TV as we watched people dancing on the Berlin Wall before bulldozing it down. East Germans across Austria suddenly came out of hiding and rushed to the opening Iron Curtain border. But there was also that date in 1923 when an upstart politician with a mustache staged the Beer Hall Putsch and was consequently arrested and thrown in prison where he wrote the book that would launch his career and a world war. But to top them all, there was that one November 9 in 1938, the one that still makes me shudder slightly: The Night of Broken Glass. 

10 years ago today, I had the opportunity to attend the opening of an exhibit at the Lörrach museum, just 20 minutes down the road from Black Forest Academy. An archivist had discovered an undeveloped roll of film, and the pictures it contained shocked and brought Kristallnacht back to the surface in an uncomfortable way. The photographs truly moved me, and I wrote the following reflection back then, that I actually shared once before on this blog. It bears repeating if you’ll indulge and remember with me.

November 9

Today, of all days, I broke a glass. Before fate or fortune could stop it, it had slipped from my fingers and scattered into a hundred pieces, escaping even into the tiniest crevices of my floorboards. Of course I retaliated with the broom and dustbin, but there was that one shard, astoundingly wedged between floor and cupboard. The broom wasn’t enough; I had to use my hands to pry it loose. With a violent tug, the sparkling glass came free, but not before it had extracted the reddest trickle of blood from my index finger, the price of its sacrifice.

Today, of all days, I met you. I believed I was heightening my intellectuality by attending my first German lecture. Proudly was I ready to cast my critical eye over the newest museum display and talk mightily with my fellow colleagues about our superiority of compassion over people of the past. But I had barely made it past the door when you greeted me, standing there in your button-down wool coat, carpet slung over one arm and tote bag firmly clutched in the other. You floated motionless in the middle of the lively crowd, and your thoughts were a hundred miles away. No one was looking at you. Everyone was too busy staring at the guard who had just forced himself into the edge of the frame, finger outstretched, tonsils glaring at me from his open throat. Your father was scowling at him and your mother hanging on fearfully, her own bag pressed against her chest. Kids who should have been in school were congested up almost to your legs, and neighbors hung with their big bosoms over their balcony rails to watch the spectacle. You just stood there in front of the transport truck, unfazed, your smooth facial features emotionless and your lips pursed in a straight line. Yet the injustice of what was happening simmered beneath the surface. You could feel it in the pulse of your fingertips and your fiery eyes as you stared off into a distant land where no price would ever be demanded of your blood.

Today, of all days, I walked the same streets you once called home. The glass has been cleaned up along with your carpet and other possessions that were pried from your fingers seventy-two Novembers ago. Then, the people praised themselves for their purity and rational-mindedness; now, we praise ourselves for our tolerance and open-heartedness. Yet how does any of it compare to the simplicity of a young woman whose life splintered into thousands of shards in the blink of an eye? Who was asked to pay an ultimate price? And only one forgotten photographer noticed as she slipped into oblivion.

Today, of all days, I will remember your scar as I finger my own.

One of the other pictures from that roll of film, credit: Dreiläendermuseum Lörrach

https://worldventure.com/

Mountains & Valleys or a New Analogy

It was too perfect how all the details of the day fell together that Sunday - the timed meetings with four friends and the conversations that were life-giving and full of dreams for the future. And yet, I fell into bed stuck in a spiral of exhausted thoughts because I didn’t think I’d have the energy to do it all again on Monday.

I could hear the frustration in my colleague’s voice as people with more authority than we have proposed changes we couldn’t understand, and I felt bad that my sympathy only reached so far because I was still excited about my new role in it all.

The house was full of balloons for the 7-year-old who would be home in an hour, and I stood in the kitchen frosting cupcakes when the text came through with two simple words that disturbed my work and my heart: “It’s cancer.”

I’m sure we’re all familiar with scenarios like these, in which life tastes bitter and sweet at the same time. We feel caught between the emotions, the ones we want to feel, those thrust upon us, and the whole gamut in between. Whichever emotion we choose to lean into, we feel guilty or possibly even offend someone for not being fully engaged in the other emotion as well. Can you relate? Or is it just me? It has felt especially exaggerated in this political climate as I’m frequently asked for the European/German/TCK perspective and know I’ll never do either side justice with my limited observations and experience; I dread this coming week when half of my friends will be jubilant and the other half devastated. And a single election can’t begin to compare to all of life with its numerous highs and lows. I’ve found myself asking the question: how can I be both in the valley and on a mountain top at the same time? Is that possible? Healthy? Can I both love being with people and just want to sleep? How in the world do I celebrate a much-anticipated birthday well yet lament my friend’s cancer at the same time?

A wise woman recently challenged my analogy of the mountains and valleys. She offered the following alternative: Instead of a hiker constantly going up or down, imagine you’re a train on its two tracks. One track is more of what we’d call the pleasant stuff like new jobs and time with friends and birthday cupcakes, which of course makes the other one the disappointments in life, rather like fatigue, frustration, and disease. At times our train may go around corners, and we’ll lean more toward one track over the other, but in general life is made up of both the gentle and the rough, the rose and the thorn, the smile and the tear. To pretend only one is true is to ignore half of the journey God has us on because there are surely lessons to be learned in being aware of both.

I’m not saying it’s easy. I rather think I must be a clumsy little steam engine at times, trying to know which emotion to focus on at any given moment, but I do like the idea that I don’t need to dread when a current high will come to an end and suddenly be a valley again. The good and the bad, they’re both present in my life. And the slats connecting the two train tracks, holding it all together and making forward motion possible? That’s Jesus.

the old Kandern steam train in Germany

https://worldventure.com/

Is Gentleness Possible?

I had a pretty stark reputation as a 3-year-old: one of strong will and defiant acts of bullying, to be exact. Stories abound of how I'd take toys from other children who were too afraid to say "no" to my insistence or my attempts to take every single book off the pastor's shelf or the day I plucked all the flower heads (just the heads) that lined the meticulous Austrian driveway. The word you'd certainly never hear me described as was "gentle."

As I got older, I did develop a more compassionate heart though I wouldn’t say my roughness disappeared. I just learned to channel it into a heated debate or to plaster over it with kind smiles. I wasn’t mean-spirited, but I certainly wasn’t timid if I was passionate about something. Add to that being raised in an era when girls were being told to break the mold and be anything but soft or gentle, and you end up with a Christian woman trying to walk that line of confident boldness that came naturally to her and yet seeing in Scripture a call to gentleness. How could I possibly be both?

I’ll be honest: I spent years passing over references to “adorn myself with a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3) or the “blessings of inheritance for the meek” (Matthew 5), thinking those were calls for a different time and place. It became a little harder to ignore when the person being described as "gentle" was God himself. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Jesus?! The same guy who drove merchants from the temple with a whip? What exactly does he mean by “gentle” then?

While in quarantine, I came across a word study of that very word and had my mind slightly blown. The source* said, “gentleness is that temper of spirit in which we accept God’s dealings with us as good and therefore without disputing or resisting. It’s about those who rely on God rather than their own strength to defend them against injustice. … The gentle person is at peace because he is not occupied with self at all.” They make the case that the call to be gentle is less a character trait and more about relinquishing control, about turning aside from self-interest because you can be fully confident that someone greater is actually working on your behalf. 

For the first time I can see a melding of two sides of me I’ve struggled with. Trusting God more and abdicating control (when I rarely have it anyway) is indeed a sanctifying process that he leads me in - a fruit of the Spirit, if you will (Galatians 5). It also affirms that being wild, confident, and a bit on the severe side by nature doesn’t have to be a fault I need to rid myself of. I rarely have a problem standing up for myself and want to strive to work on behalf of others and for what’s right, as Jesus did, even as I keep asking the Lord to adorn me with a gentle, meek spirit, as Jesus had.

*Navpress 1 Peter study, citing Wolfgang Bauder in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume 2

a gentle sunrise over Turtle Lake, Minnesota

Leaves and Death

"Tree is dying!" the young boy remarks as he, his mother, and I explore the woods behind their house. The leaves are mostly crisp, a hunt of crunch beneath our feet after the rain that just fell.

“No, honey” his mother replies gently, “the tree is just losing its leaves. That’s supposed to happen. It’s fall. The leaves turn yellow and red and fall down.”

“Oh. That tree not dying.” The young boy seems content with the answer and quickly runs off in search of the perfect stick.

I smile at the teachable moment my friend has seized upon and ponder anew the symbolism of a tree losing all its leaves in order to prepare itself for winter, and how it can look dead but not be. And then for the first time, I see the leaves. The tree may not be dying, but the leaves sure are.

It may be that I attended a funeral yesterday - the reason that death is on the mind. I didn’t know Lee well, but she was a constant presence when I came back to Grace Church and joined the Women’s Missionary Stewardship group. Having faithfully served in the Philippines for multiple decades, we developed a bond; she knew what it was like as a mom to send your children off to boarding school and entrust them to teachers like me. Her funeral was marked by the gospel message from start to finish! It became evident quickly her final wish was that her death might bring life to those family members who didn’t know Jesus. She had prayed her death would bring about life, that she might be a leaf.

An image floats into my mind of the tree of life. And perhaps I’m taking the analogy too far at this point, but just as a tree’s survival of winter means its leaves have to die, my survival depended on the death of a certain Savior of the world. He is the tree of life, but he is also the leaf that died. He allowed himself to be cut off from the source of true life so that he could die my death and I could survive winter. 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” In a way, I was promoted from being a leaf to a branch. I get to rest, being made a more permanent part of the tree as long as I abide, clinging to the trunk with its roots deeply sunk into the earth.

Have I mentioned how much I love fall? And crunchy leaves and apple crisp and cozy wrap-around sweaters? (I am a stereotypical girl, am I not?) I love my Savior more than all of those things, and I’m grateful for the daily reminders he literally drops in my path.

P.S. Here's a song called Mercy's Tree I just discovered and love.

a hike along Lake Superior last week

Pilgrimaging into His Presence

(I wrote these thoughts for a BFA newsletter last fall, but I'm reflecting on them again in my new surroundings. Enjoy.)

Psalm 84:1-2, 5

“How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.”

If you know me semi-well, you know I"m obsessed with pilgrimages. In the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to go on pilgrimage with a BFA colleague. The trail across northern Spain, the Camino to Santiago de Compostela, is a 800-km (500-mile) medieval path with historical and spiritual significance, even for a Protestant like me who doesn’t believe in the necessity of relics or indulgences. I’ll spare you the stories of blistered feet and mountain highs; instead I want to focus on two words I learned on the very first day of walking: ultreia and suseia.

Immediately when you start walking the Camino, people greet you with the standard “Buen Camino” everywhere you turn. However, back in the 1200’s, when Latin was still wide-spread as the language of the Church, the more common greeting was “Ultreia,” which translates to “onward” or “further” or “beyond.” When said to a pilgrim, it was meant as an encouragement to not give up, but to keep pushing on until one reached the desired destination, whether Santiago or some other goal. Upon hearing this cheerful greeting, the pilgrim response was to answer with “et Suseia,” which means “and upward.” Put together, the greeting becomes “onward and upward,” or - if you prefer the version of Farsight the Eagle, Jewel the Unicorn, and Reepicheep the Mouse - “further up and further in!” (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle). It was a much richer, deeper encouragement over “Buen Camino,” not the least of which in that it was a call-response; it requires both parties to engage in the greeting.

What Ultreia and Suseia call to mind is that while a pilgrimage may be an external, physical journey, its ultimate purpose is one of internal, spiritual growth. I may have ended my month-long Camino in the city of Santiago, but the true mark of a pilgrim is to end up in the courts of the Lord, God’s dwelling place, as the Psalmist reminds us. According to Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, the author of Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, a pilgrimage should result in the deeper sense of being a stranger on this planet, a sojourner merely passing through.

Now I grant that it isn’t possible for us to daily leave our desks, classrooms, or dorms and walk pilgrimages. And yet, since finishing one, I’ve become more mindful of the connection that does exist between physically setting myself up well and sitting in God’s presence regularly. My ultreia might be the trek to Ikea to purchase a TV tray so that my Bible, candle, and coffee coaster are within easier reach of my favorite gray chair every morning. Ultreia could be the mindful journey from my office to the classroom knowing I will encounter 15 8th graders who all bear the image of God. Ultreia is evident when someone goes out of his or her way to speak about Jesus to a fellow pilgrim so as to encourage both hearts upward. What is your “further in” so that you will be more prone to look “further up” as well?

The last thing I want to do is promote legalism or a works-based theology, saying we need to do anything to earn access into God’s presence. Never! But if I took away anything from my Camino, it’s that setting physical reminders to draw my attention heavenward and to remind me that I’m always in God’s presence … works. The yearning of my soul for the living God, whether I stop to recognize that’s what it is or not, finds its fulfillment in suseia, in recalling that with him is my home. He is the goal of our earthly pilgrimage, and in his graciousness, he gives us abundantly of himself even now. No wonder the psalmist calls the pilgrim blessed.

Matt Gilman has a song based on Psalms 42 and 84. Click here to hear it.

First Day of School

The sun comes up on this momentous morning in golden pink rays over the Rockies, and the Spirit whispers in my ear, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” I swallow the lump in my throat and thank him.

Because a second ago I’d been staring at those same Rocky Mountains, thinking how they represented another layer of geographical barriers separating me from where I want to be. Over there. Across an ocean. And in a classroom with a herd of Middle Schoolers as today is the first day of school at BFA.

And I know I’m where I should be as I grab my journal and head into Day 3 of my Debrief Retreat. It’s been good to tell stories and reflect on questions of the heart; I trust the voices of these counselors who have known me for nearly 20 years. I can lay out all the options I’m considering for my future: sunrises in the Forest, birds in flight over the Steppe, or cohorts of school leaders eager to grow. In those places, this too is the day the Lord has made.

I’m grateful that the one who holds the mountains and oceans and rivers in between also holds my placement and timing as well. Pray for me as I make decisions about what is ahead. :-)

Thick Skins, Soft Hearts

I absolutely love a good storm. I’m talking constant lighting, loud thunder, and rain so hard on the roof that all conversation has to cease. I’m sitting in one of those right this very minute. As I watch the sky darken and think about how grateful I am I did not go on my planned 5-mile walk an hour ago, it strikes me how both disruptive and non-disruptive such a storm can be.

You can’t ignore it. People are closing garage doors and kids are summoned, told to grab bikes and skateboards on the way in. Laundry is torn off the lines as quickly as possible, and everyone comments on the storm, from little Sam’s “It raining hard” to my own “Oooh, did you see that lightning bolt!?”

And yet, as twin sister Georgia says, “We come inside. We safe” in her adorable 3-year-old accent, it’s just as true that we can shelter ourselves pretty well from the impact of most kinds of deluge these days. This particular storm can’t touch us, not really. Unless hail damages the borrowed car, the threat will eventually pass, and no one will think of it again.

Insulation from the happenings of “out there” can actually be fairly healthy. If we were to be constantly exposed and vulnerable to every harmful event that came to our lives, we’d collapse from exhaustion pretty quickly. And yet (you knew this was coming), I can’t help but question the extent to which our insulation turns into isolation and we no longer let any chaos in.

There’s a whole gamut between everything and nothing. I’m struggling to learn how to talk wisely and to be informed about injustice in my country. An old friend lost her roof in the Iowa storms this week. I’ve watched with tears the aftermath of the explosion in Beirut where two little girls, who once frolicked around my house, live. The stories just beginning to pour out of Belarus fill me with a sense of foreboding dread. There are nights (like Tuesday) where my mind just won’t stay quiet. And there’s good in that, too. Don't get me wrong; nobody likes sleepless nights. But while I don’t want to get into the habit of justifying all my decisions, declaring what I keep out and what I let in to be the right choices, I do want to be mindful to never veer too far to one side. I strive not to be easily shaken by the disruptions of this world while also acknowledging them as potential life-altering events. Just because it’s not my life doesn’t make it insignificant. Thick skins and soft hearts - that’s a plea I often make to my Middle School students and sometimes need to preach back to myself.

It’s starting to get lighter outside, and the cul-de-sac is filled with puddles that I’m thinking of inviting Thorsen and Eva to go splash in with me. Time to turn off the news for this day and relinquish all the stories - even mine - to God.

an after-rain walk