February

In 48 hours, I’ll be back in one of my favorite little nooks, tucked behind one of our dilapidated black flats that I love so much, giving cues to actors and passing out props before they head out onto the stage. The goal? To entertain. The means? Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. I was wholly unfamiliar with this story, I’ll admit, but it has made me laugh many times.

One of the plot twists happens to the main character, Frederic. (Spoiler!) He had been indentured to a band of pirates, but at midnight on his 21st birthday, he immediately left them behind and started to fight against them. However, his old pirate master shows up to inform Frederic that his birthday is February 29th, and thus he’s really only 5 and a ¼ years old and has to go back into servitude.

February gets a bad rap in this musical. I believe the exact words in the song are “such a beastly month as February.” People are more than ready for Winter to be over, and here is just one more month standing in their way of spring. Now, I’ve heard that as a rule, we tend to feel somewhat partial toward our birthday months, so I fully admit that this is at play here. But I do believe this month has an undeserved reputation of being dismal and blah. 

February speaks to me of promise and hope. There are “teaser” days that hint to us that perhaps spring is coming. Some people call it “false hope,” and having spent 9 winters in Minnesota, I get that. True Spring doesn’t arrive until April, at the earliest, and that feels a long way from February, but to me those random warm February days aren’t false at all. They are the certainty of Spring that has never failed to show up yet, and those early foreshadowings stand as messengers. They’re the early inhales of nature waking up, remembering to stretch out roots, testing and proving that it’s going to be safe to bloom again soon. In the grand narrative where Autumn represents the death of Good Friday and Spring is the resurrection of Easter Sunday, February is those early hours of 2 - 5 am on Sunday. The day is here. Resurrection is assured. Just look at that sunset inching past the 6pm mark, feel those golden rays on your face (even if just for a day), hear that lone birdsong as you brush your teeth in the morning. February is anticipation.

Much as I will stand in the wings in 48 hours and fist-bump the cast and crew over a job well done, I stand watching the first rays of hope stretch across these 28 days we call February. And I dare to call it good.

Getting ready!

An Ideal Saturday

The automatic doors swung open, and I couldn’t help the smile on my face as we walked in. Kelly looked around, “So what makes this place so special?” I pointed up and down to the 7 floors that we could see via the open atrium in the middle, then swung my arm around to all the books that lined every open wall space and pillar. “Look! It’s heaven on earth!” And I took a hard right into the newest release section.

The colors were vibrant here, modern images leaping off hardback covers. Titles ranged from absurdly long (The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed out of a Window and Disappeared) to a single word (Swashbuckler and Faces). Most names belonged to authors I’ve never heard of and will never master, but every now and then I recognized someone. “Ooh, the cute historian from Netflix has written a novel,” I elbowed Karen and grabbed a copy off the shelf.

Once I had a stack of books up to my chin, I made my way up to the 5th floor Cafe where I found a single table in the corner that was still free and dumped off my books. After a quick trip to the counter for a pot of tea and a cream scone, I settled into my customary routine at Foyle’s Bookstore: read the first chapter of each book and make a “never” pile, a “maybe” pile, and a “definitely” pile. This is my favorite part. I completely submerge into all kinds of stories and writing styles and allow myself to just react. Do I like it? If not, no need to analyze; just move on to the next one. No agenda or pressure, merely reading interrupted by sips of tea and a bite of scone. It’s my ideal Saturday.

Sadly, time passed. The tea got cold and eventually the stack of books was down to one. Karen and Kelly returned from their adventures outside the shop, and I moved toward the check-out counter. Of course that meant being forced to peruse my way through the gift section through the Lord of the Rings bookbags, Sherlock Holmes pencil cases, and a Jane Austen puzzle that somehow found its way into my arms. We exited through the automatic doors, my backpack distinctly fuller than when I had come in, and began to make our way home where I promptly plopped into my overstuffed chair and continued reading Cloud Cuckoo Land.

my new puzzle purchase

Grace to Listeners

I stopped wiping the tears from my eyes. It was pointless as every time a new person grabbed the microphone, fresh tears replaced the ones I had just removed. The focus of the attention was on the couple sitting just in front of me, retirees who had given the last 44 years of their lives to gospel-advancing work in this part of the world: my parents.

The praise was gushing - kind praise upon kind praise - but it was obvious that underneath the simple words were layers of lived-out stories, full of heart and hard. I only knew a glimpse of them: children failing out of their schools, police interrogations, men chasing vans with machetes, medical flight emergencies, entire schools being evacuated, car accidents, sickness, mistreatment, war, and one airport bombing. The presence and prayers that my parents provided over the years had been invaluable to many in the room, and as I heard praise after praise, my heart was filled up.

And I had to wonder about that. Why was it that merely witnessing words intended for someone else could fill me up? A quick cursory google search implies that hearing others be praised tends to fill us with jealousy and hatred. Was the night different only because the focus was my Mom and Dad? That didn’t seem to be it because several people came up to me afterwards and commented on how special that time had just been for them. Was it meaningful because I too had been on the receiving end of some of that Custer love? The more I’ve reflected on that beautiful night, the more convinced I am that the answer lies deeper. I’ve come to believe that hearing someone else’s thanks is designed to give life to anyone listening. It’s a building-up, a truth-speaking, an acknowledgement that a life wasn’t lived in isolation and shouldn't be. To be a witness to someone else’s praise is to be reminded that kind, helpful choices can lead to another’s good. It’s grace.

Ephesians 4:29 says, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear." That's what I experienced: the reality that unmerited good came to us because of what Jesus did on the cross. My parents lived it out for 44 years, and people's recognize of the good they saw out loud passed on that unmerited good to all who heard. If that doesn't fill me up, then what will?

Time with the Parents a few days before that special night

Equality with Man

The flame was dancing on the table in the early morning light. Our plates were pushed back with nothing on them but pumpkin muffin crumbs, courtesy of Paige, and maybe a greasy stained napkin from the bacon Ellen had brought. It was the time of our weekly Prayer Breakfast when Bibles were opened and we moved toward the goal of our gathering.

Harrison was praying from Philippians 2. And do you know that feeling when you’re listening to someone speak and they start down a familiar phrase, so your brain already tunes in to what you expect to hear? But then the person changes it? I was primed and ready to hear “Thank you that you didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped,” and instead what Harrison said was, “Thank you that you didn’t consider equality with man something to be avoided.”

My brain stopped. It’s the same thing but totally different, right?

There’s still the acknowledgment that Jesus sacrificed a lot for the incarnation, but the new wording forces my brain to shift view points. There is so much about being human that Jesus probably wanted to avoid: the physical limitation, the imperfection of our bodies, the relational messiness, the pointless political squabbles, the family dramas, the let-downs of close friends, the lack of generosity around resources, the racism and corrupt justice systems, and a broken spirit - to name just a few. If anyone had perfection at his fingertips and could look at humanity from an outside perspective, would he willingly choose it?

Jesus did. What a humbling, magnificent thought this Christmas. His rescue plan involved a level of sacrifice I will never understand until I can see with my own eyes just what he gave up, but I can know a tiny fraction, across time and culture, of what he entered into. And I’m grateful he did.

a mini reenactment of that incarnation moment in MS Chapel last week

Jesus the Shame-Remover

I flung off the poncho and heard one student gasp audibly as all the “sins” I’d been covering suddenly became visible on my black vest. I was pleased that I had actually managed to walk around the last half hour of school with papers pinned all over me and no one knew. But then the funniest thing happened: even though I had been building up my Chapel talk to this moment, talking about my personal struggle with perfection and the need to hide my sins from the world, and even though I knew what was coming next, I suddenly felt that familiar shame. The kids could read all these sins all over me, and they would associate them with me. I had to resist the urge to reach up my hands and cover the vest. Just stick to the script, I told myself.

Forcing myself to read slowly and not rush, I shared the story from Zechariah 3, about Joshua the high priest who also stood before the Lord with filthy clothes. It had been a meaningful discovery in Scripture to me back in college and had become so again this fall as I saw similarities to the story of Edmund in our play (see previous posts). Excitedly, I got to the part where the angel removes Zechariah’s dirty garments and gives him clean, pure ones instead. I unzipped my black vest covered in sins and removed it before pulling out my white one with a single piece of paper pinned to it that read “Jesus.” When I actually put on the Jesus vest, two students clapped, and I laughed. I truthfully felt more free than I had just a moment before.

Then I introduced the idea of diffraction glasses. According to Galatians 3:27, I had actually “put on” Christ and was wearing him as clothes now, and the main idea I wanted my students to take away was that God now sees Jesus when he looks at me. Talk about no longer needing to live in that shame! Just as diffraction glasses are imprinted with some kind of image that then lets you then see that image everywhere you look, so God looks at me with Jesus-imprinted glasses. I am now fully IN Christ. One girl’s forehead actually wrinkled. So there was nothing to do but let them try it out for themselves.

My colleagues helped pass out the glasses, and students looked up at the ceiling where twinkle lights had been hung in preparation for the Christmas banquet. “Whoa, I see hearts everywhere!” a student exclaimed. 

I only hope that when the glasses are long broken and in the trash, the truth of Scripture writes itself deeply on the hearts of these kids whom I love - that to trade garments with Christ not only brings ultimate release from the perfection struggle, but that they can live fully “in Christ,” clean and pure and shining with a Jesus-shaped ring around them.

Diffraction glasses and my Christmas tree

An Offering on the Stage

 The craziness in the room was almost deafening. 36 nervous Middle Schoolers were scattered, some playing patty-cake, some yelling lines at each other, some taking selfies on their phones, and others floating from corner to corner, unable to sit still. The director and I eyed each other across the mayhem, our silent cries for help audible only to each other. The show was supposed to open in 25 minutes, and there was no way we could send the cast backstage in this state.

Fortunately, that very morning I had re-read my favorite scene from the book, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and had thrown it into my bag along with my book of liturgies that happened to have a "Prayer before Taking the Stage." It didn't seem like this was really the ideal moment, but I decided to give it a try. Pulling up the high stool, I set myself on it and began to help those nearest to me quiet down. Eventually the calm rippled all the way to the corners, and I had a captive audience that I knew would likely last only 3 minutes. I set up the scene quickly and launched into the chapter where we see the Witch demand the blood that is rightfully hers, and Aslan offer himself in Edmund's place.

"Guys," I said, "we get to tell a really powerful story tonight - THE most powerful story. It's Jesus' story, and I'm so grateful for the hours you've poured in already. Let's lay this production on the stage like an offering to him." And with that I knew my 3 minutes were coming to an end. "Before I pray this liturgical prayer, I just want to open it up to 2-3 of you to pray. You can thank Jesus for what he's done and how far we've made it, or pray for all of us as we tell his story. I'll close us out."

We had barely closed our eyes before the first kid launched into his prayer, heartfelt and sweet, overflowing in gratitude. His "amen" was instantly followed by a second voice, asking Jesus to be pleased by our performance. She paused to take a breath and was cut off by a third student, begging God that everyone would remember lines and cues. That "amen" was picked up by a fourth and then a fifth. Prayer after prayer flowed from the hearts of these Middle Schoolers. Everyone could feel the Spirit was moving; it was a holy moment. The rocks had no need to cry out this night as the children did. Somewhere around the 15th student, I made eye contact with the director again, although this time through somewhat blurry eyes. We smiled but then both checked our watches. It felt wrong to cut them short, but we were supposed to be backstage in 5 minutes at this point. I took a deep breath and prayed the "Prayer before Taking the Stage," meaning every syllable.

And then we did. We took the stage and left an offering. 

And God is still moving.

Just today, an 8th grader launched a Bible study for his class, something he felt compelled to do after the play ended. He wanted to see more of Jesus' story in community with his classmates. Another mom came up to share about how they were singing a worship song on Sunday that said "the king of love had given up his life - the darkest day in history," when her children leaned over and said "Like Aslan?" What a gift to be invited into THE greatest story of all time.

Pic Credits: Yearbook Class

Purposeful Storms

The lightning flashed and was instantly followed by the thunder, confirming what we already knew: that the storm was directly above our heads. The sides of the tent flapped harshly, and suddenly we all gasped as the projector screen tipped in slow motion toward Debbie’s head. By the grace of God, she took a step forward in that moment, and it missed her completely. Still, we decided it was time to take a break. With squeals like little children, half of our group sprinted across the sopping grass toward the safety of the house while the rest of us tiptoed around the tent, unplugging extension cords and trying to lift things away from the ground. It was a comical scene.

Once we were all tightly squeezed into the living room and everyone had found a chair (one doesn’t sit on the floor in Africa if it can be avoided), we passed around towels to dry off heads and feet. “No Internet,” someone sighed, and one by one, everyone put away our phones. Cathy brought in hot water for tea since the temperature had plummeted (by African standards). While Brian restarted routers and plugged his computer into the television for our 3:00 zoom appointment with our boss two continents away, the conversation level in the room steadily grew. At first we were all laughing at the storm’s force and timing, but then we were comparing notes and speaking about all the challenges our program was facing in our countries.

The Internet returned just in time, and Gavin’s picture was surprisingly crisp. He spoke of what it means to be an innovator and maintain the vision of our high calling in our minds. He encouraged hearts and spoke of a future in which children from many nations would transform their worlds because they had received a solid education, and we couldn’t help but nod along with hope.

We ended the call simultaneously with the rain. The sun returned, and people unfolded themselves from their chairs, returned mugs to the kitchen, and meandered back outside. Brian wrapped up the cable from his computer to the television and smiled. “That was such a clear and strong connection! I was worried it wouldn’t work.” Mikki nodded. “It helped that we were inside and everyone was off their devices.” From the other side of the room, Debbie laughed. “Just like God to send a storm right when we needed it.”

Grace and I laughing as we huddle in the middle of the tent,
chairs blown over in the background!