Compassion: desire to relieve the distress of another

We are in the deep freezer again, with quite a few days of frigid temperatures predicted. Like I mentioned before, I am grateful for every piping hot drink, for my coat with omni-heat technology in the lining, for the radiating warmth in the leather seats in our vehicle, for the down comforter on the bed instead of a sleeping bag on the concrete. After googling “how to live in your car” out of curiosity, I scrolled through the tips with rather horrified fascination.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, I just read a book by John Grisham titled The Street Lawyer. The story follows the ruthless climb of a brilliant young lawyer, Michael Brock, who has lost touch with his conscience in the pursuit of money and partnership in his firm. He is rudely jolted to reality in a violent encounter with a homeless man who had been evicted without notice by the firm’s real estate division. Mr. Brock starts to research homelessness, volunteering time at soup kitchens and shelters. In a short time he decides to ditch the high-power job to be a voice for the homeless community in Washington, D.C. His work gives him the satisfaction of seeing a shred of dignity restored to the least of the people. This book has less intrigue and more heart than any of the other legal thrillers I have read by Grisham. I can’t shake the story.

I think about my life, about the two sets of parents, the seven siblings or in-laws who would open their homes to stand between us and destitution, the whole community at church who would share with us until there was nothing left. It seems so far removed from us, like it could never happen. It seems so unfair; I can’t not care.

Without a Net is the personal story of Michelle Kennedy, raised in a middle class home, college educated, who finds herself where she never thought she would be: without a home, living in a car with three little children. When I read this a few years ago, the impossible suddenly seemed plausible. Homelessness is not just for junkies in the cities. It happens on all levels. I don’t know why these stories grip me so strongly. I wish I could just feel pity and forget about them.

What, you may ask, are you suggesting that we do? For starters, I am calling us all to gratitude. True thankfulness demands a response, a sharing with others in any way we can instead of merely pitying them. Long ago crowds of people asked John the Baptist what they should do to live rightly. The first thing he said was, “If anyone has more than one coat, he should give the extra away.” I think the point is sacrifice of stuff, time, money, effort.

Today the ladies at our church got together to make colorful comforters out of fabric scraps. I stayed home to school my crew, but I have confidence that those blankets will keep shivering people warm, and that it counts just as if they were Jesus. Pity would say, “I am sorry your teeth are chattering and your nose is running.” Compassion hands over a blanket and says, “Here, come in out of the cold. You can have my handkerchief.”

Years ago a group from our church went to Pittsburg for street ministry. One of the men met Homeless John and offered him a place to live. The rest of us thought he was a bit crazy. To our utter disbelief, John rode along home with us, out to the country where everything was strange and scary. As far as I recall, he was honest and respectful, happy for a chance to have a roof over his head. I am sure that the man who took him under his wing will have rewards in heaven the same as if he had sheltered Jesus.

Most times when we see someone with a sign asking for help, it is only change they expect. What if we put in the 20 dollars of grocery money that would have bought cheese and ice cream? What if we didn’t look away in embarrassment from the eyes that are already downcast and the lives already downtrodden, but instead asked them sincerely how they are doing and what they need? What if we actually saw them as deserving so much more than shame and condescension?

I just heard about a condition called “compassion fatigue”. Apparently it affects those who work constantly with victims of tragedy. I do believe that the vast majority of us are more likely to have compassion deficit. Maybe if we are aware, if we read their stories, if we see through the eyes of a most Compassionate Savior, then when the opportunity comes to change the space someone lives in we will do it instead of simply feeling pity and walking on.

A Place to Stake it All in the New Year

I am really happy about a new year coming up, all unsullied, fresh. I used to think, “Wow, I wonder what all will happen this year? I want to make a difference, be all I should be, reach around to the people who need me and make everybody feel happy and celebrated, etc. etc. I want it to be a good year!” Now it is more like, “Wow, I wonder what all will happen this year? One thing is sure, I am not going to do everything right and very likely there will be really yucky stuff mixed in with all the celebrations.”

This is not the inevitable downer of a weary lady who has lost the sparkle of life. It is just my deeply realistic take on seasons… You want fruitfulness and summertime? Well, you may need bleak midwinter first, with yuck and boredom and mud. The thing is, I have more hope now than I did when I wanted everything to be exciting. I have seen the goodness of God, first hand, in the middle of chaos and I am not afraid. That is the marvel of it, because life can be downright terrifying. Like Peter, when I look at the waves, I sink. I am embarrassed sometimes at the things that have made me sink. “Jesus, save me! There is clutter everywhere and I am so weary of keeping house and doing the same old, same old stuff and the children have terrible attitudes about their chores and I just tripped over the doll stroller for the hundredth time and my hormones are all out of whack. I am sinking here!” If I were Jesus, I would probably think that was a pretty silly thing to be going under about, like you are standing in only two feet of water, lady. But He doesn’t, and I feel His hand pulling me up to walk beside Him again. That is why I am not afraid. If He has been redeeming my soul from destruction all these years, He will continue to do it in the coming year.

I am learning that what makes life sweet is not me, because I am flawed and incapable of making cakes out of mud. Jesus is the One who does that. Instead of a list of resolutions, I am asking Him simply to give me grace to hold up the ingredients of life in the coming year and let Him make them, by some miracle of sheer grace, into a celebration.

Last January I resolved to read the Bible in chronological order this year. It was good discipline for me, having used my babies as an excuse for a long time to just skim for encouragement. The plan got a set back when our iPad with the app I was using was stolen, but I found a similar plan online and kept on. I started this week only 13 days behind, and having gotten so close, I determined to finish. My concluding assignment for today is the book of Revelation. I like this method, linking events in the Scriptures in the order they happened. It builds trust to see the theme of faithfulness all throughout the written record. If God says it, it will happen. I am staking everything on that.

Heb. 6:17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever …

December, as it Happens

This month I have been a pen out of ink. I scratched a few paragraphs now and then, deleted the whole works, or left them to moulder in the drafts folder. Even the annual Christmas letter was a chore. I like pens that glide along smoothly without sputters and skips. Anything else is insufferable! So I can only thank the Lord that blogging is for writing when you enjoy it and that I have never imposed deadlines on myself.

All this time I was out of Earl Grey, folks. Two weeks in a row I forgot to go to the tea aisle in the grocery store. I drank coffee, which is a satisfying experience all its own, but sometimes a girl wants. just. tea! I have a whole shelf of boxes of other teas. My husband likes variety, and so does Gregory, my little tea drinking buddy. On Monday morning I was reading in the quiet when I heard Greg stirring around in the kitchen. To my surprise he brought me the steaming mug he had been concocting according to his Greg Standard of Perfect Tea. It was so liberally adorned with cream and sugar as to hardly be recognizable as tea. Later I saw that he had served me detox tea, which struck me as extremely funny, taking into consideration all the “bad stuff” he dumped into it. I walked over to my grocery list and I wrote it down nice and bold: EARL GREY. This week I bought a ginormous box, inhaled deeply the intoxicating scent of Bergamot oil, and was happy.

It is such a joyful season, yet I found myself praying, yearning with my heart in my throat for days as I followed the story of a family who was keeping vigil around a gunshot victim in the hospital. Yesterday he died. As I was wrapping a few small gifts, I kept thinking about what a sad, sad Christmas this will be for that family and for his friends. It took me back five Decembers when a beloved friend of mine, the wife of my cousin, lay on life support in a hospital. Her transport to glory left me with the anguished question, “Why? There are six little children here, Lord! Couldn’t you see that?” I have never faced a more severe attack on my faith. As the questions poured out, I received the beautiful assurance of the solid fact that Jesus is Emmanuel: God with us. Here in our mess and our hurt and our confusion, He is Prince of Peace. He came to give life, if we can only see that the passing of His friends is the ultimate giving of LIFE. I have seen the triumph of those who embrace this truth, who refuse to let it go in the midst of the most painful times imaginable.

He is with us! “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) That is all we need to know, really. There is a sturdy quality to such faith that confounds even the staunchest unbelievers. I hear my little girl singing her version of a children’s song: “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy… down in the guts of my heart!” Her siblings say, “Depths, not guts!” but she is sticking to her version. It reminds me that faith touches us in the visceral regions where logic and reason are no comfort at all. I see the impossible joy and peace blanket the soul and I say,

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

“Earth’s Crammed with Heaven…”

My posts on dreams kept veering off in a different direction than I wanted them to go. I am unhappy with that, and I remember now why I scrapped writing about it earlier. The subject is too vast, our lives are so varied… And what if we are just plain lazy, so our dreams stay only in a nebulous section of our lives titled “Impossible”? The more I thought about all these qualifiers, the worse it got, until I was too muddled to remember where I actually wanted to go in the first place. Maybe it was because I wrote in third person. You can blame E.B.White for that. He said it is bad style for writers to constantly refer to themselves. “To air one’s views gratuitously is to imply that the demand for them is brisk…” What would he say to bloggers?

But I have thought about it, and I have come back again to what I really wanted to say. Assuming we are talking about children of God here, those who earnestly wish to please him with their lives, especially those who want to change the world, make a difference, share the Gospel…there is much heartfelt desire behind all the cliches. Most times the grand dreams spring up when we are young, inexperienced, but feeling at our core that we should do something. Many of my friends and I did just enough travel, short term missions, volunteer work, that we could never just comfortably sit and claim blissful ignorance about all the things that need to be done. This is a good thing. We have been richer all our lives for the interaction with other cultures and countries. We cannot live a casual American dream without being pricked in our conscience. We understand better the urgency of living counter-culture in an incredibly selfish society. And almost all of us still live right here in America. What is up with that?

This is where I ran into trouble, comparing the ordinariness of my life (sorry, E.B. White, but here we go again) with what I thought would be a better way/place to live it. I had two little boys when I went through this joyless tunnel. “I just feel so stuck, so unproductive,” I would sob to my husband, as I peered down the vista of years of diapers and interruptions and needy, needy people. It was a little difficult for him to understand why I felt like I wasn’t “doing anything.” (This begs the question, what was I thinking it would be like in an orphanage? Had I so soon forgotten the neediness of my school students?)

Quietly, kindly, God showed me a flaw in my youthful dreams, a streak of self-aggrandizement that was going to produce only ugliness. He showed me that I loved projects, neatly finished up and displayed with a happy, “I made this.” My children were not projects, they were people: real, needy, little people. This life, this very place where I was living was His Best for me, and all He was asking of me was faithfulness, the same as if I lived in Mongolia or Malawi. I learned to offer up each task, no matter how menial, to Jesus. It started to sink in, the amazing truth that no offering is too small to please Him, no place too quiet or hidden for Him to see. I learned to simply “do the next thing” in Elisabeth Elliot’s words, but I also found, to my astonishment, that nothing is wasted.

Guess what, the joy was back in life, the sun was shining again! The people were still needing diaper changes and clean clothes and food and endless training and every. day. dying. to. self. I was living my dream, not the way I had imagined, but the way God planned.

That teen- age ideal of living like Hudson Taylor, waiting on God to supply our needs? Well, three years of back-to-school for the family bread winner may have qualified for that one. It was very, very good for us. The dream of going to college for writing and English classes? I don’t know whether that will ever happen, but technology has brought us the blog and such nice readers like you. 🙂 Learning to read Greek/Latin? Not going to happen. Ever. I am not going to tell you the rest of my dreams. You might laugh. 😛

I am not very old, but I have enough years under my belt to see the unmistakable traces of God, directing my way. In the words of one of my favorite poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

“Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God,

And only he who sees takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”

Ordinary, Infused with Everlasting

So when she was single, the girl didn’t dream much about ordinary things. The thing about dreams is that they are wonderful. In them, she was the heroine. She was visible. She was on top, making a difference, feeling fulfilled. She didn’t think so much of dirty, gritty details like insufficient toilet facilities and sickness in missionary families far from good medical care. She didn’t dream of difficulties; she dreamed of adventure and achievement. Of course, she reserved a very private place where she dreamed of the love of a good man and the security of marriage. To her amazement, she really did get that love and marriage (and the babies, and the baby carriage)! Wow. Things settled into a somewhat frantic routine of not neglecting the thing that was right in front of her. There really was not a lot of time for a head in the clouds.

She was sort of a hard learner, and it took a while for her to “get it” that as a married woman, there would be glory in the meld of her dreams with her husband’s dreams. Her role was cast by God as a supporting role, a helper without whom her husband would be a bit disabled. 🙂 With the years and a good bit of trial and error, she came to understand that it was a wonderful place, a privilege to stand behind her man, to help him achieve his dreams. I am not suggesting that she was on such an exalted plane that she never whined, “But, what about Me?”

Here is what she wishes she had known all along. The happy woman keeps her dreams portable. There is only frustration and unloveliness in doggedly trying to make things happen the way she thinks they should happen.

Life is seasons. There may come a time for some of the obscure dreams to become reality. But for now, she is free to revel in the everyday, sometimes camouflaged goodness that is given. I have learned something from that girl. (Work with me here. Pretend you don’t see through that third person thing. 🙂 ) Just because living is lots of sameness and hard work doesn’t mean it is not valuable. The things which endure grow out of the ordinary.

(for wallpaper dot com)

…. I am not done yet…

Girls With Dreams

(forwallpaper dot com)

Sometimes the oddest things bring up a blog post. This morning’s trigger was when I sent my man out the door, early, with coffee and an Advanced Trauma Life Support textbook for a class at the Altoona Trauma Center. Suddenly I remembered a post I struggled and struggled to write, and finally ditched this spring. Here it is again, trying to get out, so I will give it another shot.

“Do you married women dream?” a sweet young lady asked me after a discussion on life choices/destiny. “Of course,” I said, although I can only speak for myself and the few friends I cornered for my unofficial survey. Consensus: Our husbands dream. We go along for the ride. 🙂 If you think that is impossibly restricting, stay with me. I am not done yet.

Not so very long ago, the larger percentage of the female population dreamed of marriage, homes, children. There were very few respectable options available, unless they wanted to be governesses. A hundred years later the world is wide open for women to travel without chaperones, pursue degrees, buy their own homes, etc. The modern barrage of choices can be downright bewildering, especially considering that it is inappropriate for a girl to initiate the fulfillment of the dream for a husband. (Yup, I am that old fashioned.)

Women in the Congo dream about owning a sewing machine so they can get out of a life of prostitution. Haitian women dream of having enough food so they don’t have to give their babies away. Young girls in Afghanistan dream of becoming teachers so that they can teach other young girls in the remoter villages where there are no female teachers. I am afraid a lot of American girls dream about being thin super star actors. Our dreams are as varied as our lives.

I am going to have to zoom way, way in to one aspect. Let’s bring this subject down just to girls who want to honor God, who have noble aspirations. How should they dream, when should they pursue their dreams, and what about if they get sidetracked? I am sorry, I don’t know all those things.

But I do know a girl who was absolutely sure she was going to be a missionary (or a missionary’s wife… how romantic…). Her cherished dream was to work in an orphanage, to rescue and love children who were scrapped by everybody else (how fulfilling). She also hoped to continue her education (what fun). She traveled enough to see how vast the world is, how unending the needs. Then she proceeded to foster one little baby, teach school to well-adjusted, secure little church children, and she fell in love with her co-teacher and married him (how predictable 😛 ). She had babies, she stayed home with the babies, and she kept house. Hey, what are you looking at? Oh, you think you recognize her? Well, maybe you do.

Sometimes after she had spent a day of nurturing babies and preparing good food for her husband, she would think about her orphanage dream and wonder where it had come from. Where had it gone? And when her life felt narrow and restricted she would wonder for a few fleeting seconds if she had chosen the wrong path? Oh, she loved her husband and her children fanatically, but it felt so… ordinary?

…to be continued…

Essentials for Parents

When I was expecting our first baby, I got a free subscription to a couple of those baby/parent magazines. Nearly every issue had lists of essentials: Things to Buy Before Baby Comes. They included the obvious, like diapers and wipes, but there were also lists of gear, the best gear for the job. There were clothing lists: 10 onesies, 7 pairs of socks, 14 bibs, 5 blankets, etc.

By the time my fifth child was imminent, I just chucked the magazines into the trash can as soon as they came in the mail. It wasn’t all pish-posh, but most of the advice and current parenting trends just didn’t seem relevant at all to the lady who already had 14 bibs and rarely used them. I didn’t need pacifier sanitizing wash or enormous exercise saucers that would fill all the space in my living room where we usually walk. Please, don’t even get me started on the advice for parents when the child is angry/pitching a fit/making needs known. And those gorgeous pictures of model babies wearing designer clothes…hello! Who spends 70 dollars on a jumper for a 10 month old?

If I were to make a list for the baby mag, it would look more like this:

Sense of Humor. You will need it every single day. Just last week, my 2 year old dropped a small deposit out of her undies onto the floor of the library. She is supposed to be potty trained, but still in that stage where squatting down to look at shelves of books tends to complicate things. You simply cannot make up the stuff that happens with small children around. You might as well laugh. I often feel like I live in The Family Circus. Hey, it is funny!

Grace for the times that aren’t funny. When I feel like shaking and scolding, it is good to remember how graciously I have been dealt with in my failures and idiosyncrasies. Instead of saying, “You LOST YOUR SHOES AGAIN?” I might remember how often the whole crew looks for my lost cell phone. “Okay, sonny, they can’t walk off by themselves. Where did you last wear them?” Did you know grace doesn’t roll eyes at her children, either?
Persistence. Parenting is another word for repeating. You know the verses in Isaiah 28:10 where he is talking about teaching knowledge, “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little.” It really is that way. Sometimes it feels like the things I am trying to teach my children are dotted lines, and the children are not connecting the dots. They just never are going to get it. But they do! They grow, they learn, and eventually they get it! It just blesses my soul when my child takes the smaller piece of cake and lets a sibling have the one with more icing surface area.
A pen and paper. This comes in really handy when you are having one of those dotted line struggles where you feel like you will never connect. Keep a private journal of the joys as well as of the issues you are facing. One day you will be heartened when you look back at what you wrote and realize that you have indeed passed that milepost. My mom kept a baby book for each of us, even though she also had a cow to milk and hens to feed and innumerable duties on the farm, not to mention raising 4 kids born in 5 years. We always cherished those books, laughing about our first words, comparing our records to see who walked first, and who hated eating peas, etc. Pen and paper doesn’t have to be fancy, but it has an amazing way of making a child feel celebrated. “Mom noticed me!” A friend of mine makes quick notes on her calendar when something noteworthy happens with the children. You might think you will never forget that hilarious thing the 3 year old said, but it could be gone by supper time if you don’t jot it down.
Flexibility, sometimes a complete U-turn. Also known as humility, this is an essential that is sometimes so hard to come by. You can get so invested in winning every battle, being the authority, having the answers, that you forget all about the little person you are dealing with. We have always had a strict bedtime policy. Once you are in bed, you don’t get out unless you are about to wet the bed, or maybe if the house is on fire. 🙂 It took a bit of training for the toddlers, but they caught on. This last toddler, however, still has not gotten the memo, even though we have been working on this since spring. She comes crying, wanting a drink, a vitamin, a different blanket, a story. It is too dark, too light, she fell out of her toddler bed. For the first few months, we steadfastly clung to our usual training routine, and much as I dislike saying this, it didn’t work. It didn’t work ten times a night. I began praying for enlightenment. Finally we decided that she simply wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep at the usual bedtime, so we let her stay up an extra hour or two. She sits on the couch and looks at books, then we have a little cuddle and off she goes! The little offspring of the bedtime absolutists has taught them a bit about flexibility. I would like to assure you earnest young parents out there that needing to change your mind on an issue is not a sign of weakness. We all need to grow, not just the children.
Wisdom. Pray for it. God has promised to give it…liberally! Don’t knuckle under when the problems seem too daunting. I think back to a contrary streak one of my sons went through. To be honest, there were days when I just wanted to give him away, let someone else raise him for a while. I felt so totally unprepared for this task. One day I was dumping out my questions to God, and He clearly showed me that I needed to first get rid of my own bad attitude. “This is your job. You were given this child because you are supposed to be his parent. Embrace it, even when it is hard. I will give you the wisdom you need.” Things went quite a bit better when I got my own sinful attitude cleansed. Wisdom, I might add, is not a fail proof system that you use to ensure good outcomes. Wisdom is a relationship with the One who knows all the facts and guides the person who seeks to walk His ways.

While not essential in the strictest sense, this list is Frivolous Things Every Parent May Need.

Chocolate. Really good chocolate, hidden for quiet moments alone in the bedroom. Just don’t hide it so hard that you can’t remember where you put it when you really need it!
Lysol wipes. Children is another word for messes. It is supposed to be that way. The wipes just make a lot of cleanup so much easier. And they smell nice.
Audiobooks. Books are gateways out of our little worlds and worries. They help us to soar serenely above the mundane. 🙂 Any parent knows that after you read The Curious Little Kitten, The Biggest Bear, and Fox in Socks for the 40th time, you don’t have an abundance of time to read your own level. (Unless, of course, you barricade yourself in the bathroom and ignore all sounds of disaster outside the door.) This is where audiobooks are so helpful. You can listen to them while you cook, while you drive to the dentist, while you fold laundry. Bonus points go to the audios that capture your children’s attention, too. We are currently on the umpteenth listening of God’s Smuggler.
Band aids. Lots of them. They make everything better.
Friends. It is nice if some of your friends also have drool on their shoulders and cheerios on the floor of their mini vans. I have been so blessed with beautiful friends who have my back. We do not walk alone, thank God!

I am sure I missed some essentials, especially frivolous essentials. I would love to hear what yours are.

Edit: how in the world did friends get put on the frivolous list? Just so you know, it is in the wrong place up there.