Milka & Jesus

 I was standing in the food aisle of World Market with a childish grin on my face, I’m sure. In front of me were two shelves of Milka bars in various flavors and sizes. I had to resist the urge to reach out and caress each one while I decided if the price (three times that of back home) was worth it (which it was) and which ones to choose. After another several minutes, I finally made my selection and lovingly placed five bars in my basket, only to turn and find a short, masked lady watching me.

“Those must be really good,” she said with a chuckle. 

Embarrassed at the realization that I’d been blocking the aisle, I quickly moved aside, laughing nervously in response. “They remind me of home,” I explained. “In fact, the place I work is only 20 minutes from one of the Milka factories.”

“So, they are good?” She stepped forward and reached for my favorite flavor, the Noisette.

“Yes,” I said adamantly. 

“Thanks!” she placed three bars into her basket, and we parted ways, both eager to savor the lovely soft chocolate.

The encounter stuck with me though. Someone had seen me staring with joy at a product and had been intrigued enough to want to purchase the same item and try it out. And of course I believe she won’t be disappointed. In last week’s sermon, we were challenged to be the kind of believers who would live in such a way that those who don’t yet know Jesus would grow so curious at our obsession and our joy that they would want to come a step closer and find out for themselves what makes him so great. We are walking advertisements, in a way.

So I have to ask myself the question: Do I stare at Jesus as intently and lovingly as at a Milka bar from my home country? He's definitely more beautiful and more important. It’s something to strive for.

My obsession started a young age!

When Good Things will give way for the Best Thing

I read in a devotional that when we get to heaven, all "hurting, hoping, and helping will cease." I was on board through the word hurting - that is a rather well-known promise of heaven we all cling to, isn't it? But hoping and helping both took me by surprise. Aren't they good things? Isn't heaven full of good things?

It didn't take too long (just a conversation with Amanda) before I could see how hoping would cease. If heaven truly is full of every good thing, then all our dreams and hopes will be met. If they aren't, then those hopes probably weren't good for us, and being in the presence of Jesus will dissipate them. What we will be left with is an abundance of fulfilled satisfaction and an end to any lack; there will be nothing left to hope for.

It took me a bit longer to unpack the "helping will cease" part. I'm a 2 on the Enneagram, but you don't have to necessarily know what that means if you know me. I like helping people. In fact, I would even say I live to help people. Little else fills me with the contentment of a job well done or a purpose lived out than when people need me and I'm able to show up for them. I need to help people. It's a part of my identity, which I suppose gets to the not-so-good side of helping rather quickly.

Anything that consumes my identity other than Jesus will have to cease when I reach heaven. Even those things that are good here on earth (though I'd argue almost everything can be twisted and become a mixed bag), they will all pale in comparison to the best thing. Whether a spirit of helpfulness or a daring leadership quality or a contemplative shyness, the very best of ourselves will reach the end of the page, be rolled up, and set as a jewel in the crown of our King who will impart perfection onto us. Not so say any of the qualities I mentioned are pointless in the mean time, but I'm challenged by the realization that even the good things I hang my identity on will fade in the mist around the throne of God. I can't wait!

Looking toward that future glory with my nephew. :-)

Sideways Sunrays

I'm grateful to be with my folks in Colorado, but I'm simultaneously missing my home in Germany these days. (It's a fun TCK perk to be home and homesick at the same time.) So here's a musing I wrote in April on a solo hike during one of the many 2020 quarantines. 

A shot from this day

Sideways Sunrays

Psalm 16:6

 

Perched on a bench far above Kandern, I dangle my feet and overlook the Hexenplatz. Legends abound about this place, cantering in all corners of the Black Forest. Before me lies a circle of stone, numbers etched on its octagonal sides. Next to me a memorial marks the spot of a plane crash and death of a high-profile politician. But none of the whispered myth, mystery, or murder occupies my mind right now.

I’m entranced by the dance happening straight out in front of me. Seams of light filtering through fir boughs bounce off golden flecks whipping around in the wind, a glitter parade over the Platz. In an intricate interplay of light, shadow, and color, like Fasching* confetti, the pollen falls to wash the woods clean – which of course it can’t. At home it coats cars and gutters, marring recently washed windows. And yet here in the forest, it’s a merry kind of fairy tale magic.

For a moment of atonement, in this thin place that holds horror for some and hatred for others, redemption refracts off pollen in the sideways sunrays. I look up, higher than the hills where my help fails to come from. Gilded light leaks from heaven’s throne room itself, redeeming even this place and this moment. Heaven and earth meet, marrying pleasant lines around my beautiful inheritance.

*Fasching is the German world's version of Carnival, the party before Lent starts.

"You, Katrina, follow me"

It hasn’t been what I expected - living in the same house as a cancer patient. Truth be told, I’m not sure what I expected. More nausea and not quite so many banana loaves. I’ve been impressed with Amanda’s fortitude as well as with the generosity of her neighbors and circle of friends. Within 24 hours of going live, her meal/flower train was filled up through February. People have dropped off blankets, knitted hats, pitched in to finish the kids’ fort, and even donated a limo ride to look at Christmas lights. It has been amazing! I’ve tried to help out where I can, mostly it’s been the unpopular task of making sure the kids log in to their remote classes on time and the slightly more popular one of picking up library books when they become available.

But I find myself praying a lot to God for her healing and asking why it had to be this generous young mother of two young kids. Of course there’s no “right” person to be the recipient of cancer and no good time. Still, I argue and pretend I could make a decent case for why it shouldn’t be my friend. 

That’s when, a few weeks ago, I arrived at the end of my study of the book of John, specifically the last chapter. Peter has just finished a heart-wrenching and restorative conversation with Jesus who ended it with the call to yet again “Follow me.” Instantly, Peter turns and sees his fellow disciple, John, and says “What about him?” Jesus answers, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”

I see myself in Peter here, wondering about others and if Jesus will write fair stories for all of us. Regardless of whether my concern is selfish (as in: I didn’t envision my home assignment year like this) or more selfless (as in: I wish I could trade places and take your cancer for you), I’m convicted here that I spend too much time trying to patch together other people’s stories. As Aslan says it best in The Horse and His Boy, “No one is told any story but their own.” My main calling is still as simple as Peter’s. “You, Katrina, follow me without concern of the story I’m writing for Amanda.”

I also see myself in John. (And this is the part that hurts more than convicts.) He’s watching Jesus tell his friend and long-time fishing partner - the guy who was by his side on Resurrection morning - that he will die an early death, that John might not, and that Peter isn’t to worry about it. History tells us John did outlive all the other disciples by quite a bit, and if I’m honest, I fear that story a little bit. I’d rather depart first and not have to watch friends suffer through diseases and then die to leave behind a wake of sorrow. I’m not making light of the ministry I do have or the people I’ve loved well, but it’s not like I’m irreplaceable. There are other teachers and missionaries in the world. Mothers are not! That’s exactly when I sense Jesus turn from Peter/Amanda to John/Katrina and say, “If it is my will that you remain while others pass on before you, what is that to you? You follow me!”

No one is told any story but their own.

Looking at lights with Amanda and her daughter Eva

Living in Liminal Space

my homemade Advent wreath

This summer, I was introduced to the phrase “liminal space.” It refers to the in-between transition place, when you have started to leave the old but are not yet fully in the new. Your feet straddle the threshold (limen in Latin) with your heart in one room and your gaze in the other. Liminal space describes my world well, a boarding school for TCK’s, whose heart homes are across international borders and passport countries even farther away. We have learned to inhabit the tension of feeling ourselves a part of multiple worlds.

Jesus likely knew something about that, too. The Son of God and simultaneous Son of Man, creator of the universe without a place to lay his head, spent his life here living in liminal space. He, who was fully God, became fully human by spending nine months in the womb of a Jewish girl. He grew up obeying the laws of Moses and yet had come precisely to introduce a new covenant, a better one. At the culmination of his ministry, he hung suspended between heaven and earth, life and death, justice and grace. His choice to live in the in-between saved us.

2020 has felt akin to a liminal space. Somewhere between multiple quarantines, facemasks, and remote everything, it is good to remember this is temporary living. Because Jesus left heaven to wear human skin and eventually die for us, our true home has shifted to being with him. May this Advent season invite you to become comfortable living in the juxtaposition of already/not yet, whatever your liminal space looks like.

"Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

*First written for WorldVenture's 2020 Christmas Advent readings.

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

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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

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