After the Storm

In Back to the Future, Doc Brown and Marty McFly are about to witness something amazing, something stunning.  Doc has created a time machine out of Delorean and he has tapped his dog, Einstein, to be the first time traveler.  As Marty films the event, the Delorean, remote controlled by Doc, and with Einstein behind the wheel, reaches 88 mph and disappears.

Doc is ecstatic.  Marty thinks his friend has just incinerated his dog and car.  But a minute later, the unthinkable happens, the car and Einstein reappear.  Doc Brown had sent Einstein a minute into the future, a minute that passed with Doc leaping for joy and Marty freaking out, a minute that seemed like no time at all for Einstein.  For Einstein his trip was instantaneous.

There was no minute.  He had simply travelled forward in time.

I was wondering today how that would feel—to time travel, to leap forward in time, but not be aware of what was happening.  Could even a dog feel that something was off, that he was missing something, a minute of his life when the world turned and people did what people do, but a minute that he had missed and would never get back?

Today when I walked out of church, the weather was so perfect I decided instead of racing everyone out of the parking lot, I would walk the labyrinth.  I had energy for that and couldn’t resist, but I had barely started the path when I felt overwhelmed and almost sat down right there in the grass and sobbed.

I didn’t—because the grass was wet (perhaps a lot of people have been crying on the labyrinth lately) and because the church was full and I didn’t want anyone to wonder who the crazy lady was out crying behind the church. 

But I walked the labyrinth today filled with tears, tears because it was so beautiful out and just yesterday and the day before (thanks to Hurricane Sandy) it had been so gray, and cloudy and windy and my condo had been filled with the strange noises of a hurricane, the pelting of rain and the creaks of the doors and windows from the wind, and now, today it was the most beautiful day I could imagine, blue skies and cool air and a light breeze.

And I thought, how recently in my life, I’ve not had very many beautiful days.

Pastor Debbie mentioned during the service today what our Advent study would be this year and I was hit with a surreal moment, a moment that contributed to those tears aching to be released out in the labyrinth.

Where had the year gone?

It was like I had gone to sleep last October, 2011 and woken up today October, 2012.

I felt like I had lost a year, like Einstein lost his minute in the Delorean.  I lost a year to my health, a year of not knowing if I would be well enough to get in the shower, to drive, to make lunch and dinner, to take care of the cat, to see friends, to go to church, to shop, to laugh, to cry, to do all the things that we take for granted.

For more than a year, my health even kept me from making it to the hairdresser.

This past Tuesday, I finally went for that haircut and had thirteen inches cut in one large chunk followed by another two inches or so as she trimmed me up.

I feel like a new person.  Lorraine told me cutting my hair was a lifting of a burden in both a literal and figurative sense.  How I love washing my hair now.  I love playing with it.  I love that even in a breeze, I don’t feel like it’s trying to strangle me; I just tuck it behind my ear and move on.

A lost year.

One of the first things Pastor Debbie ever told me was that there are no wasted years.  I had been frustrated when I first found Hope Church because it had taken 17 years of looking in order to find it and I had felt those years wasted.

But Pastor Debbie said no.  No wasted years.

And despite all my health problems this past year, it was not a lost year either.  It was a year in which I wrote and published two books, a year that I took another step in learning to take care of myself, a year in which the many paths that God has set before me began to coalesce.  It was a year I learned to depend on others, to ask for help.  It was a year when people fed me, both my stomach and my wallet and my spirit.

It was year that showed me I still have a ways to go, but that there is always peace after the storm.

It doesn’t mean that other storms won’t come.

And for those of you waiting for Hurricane Sandy, keep safe, but remember that when it is over, the skies will be blue again and the air will be crisp.

Winter is coming.

Christmas is coming.

After the storm, there is always salvation.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

The other day I downloaded the “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2012” game for my ipad.  I don’t play golf in the real world, only with swoops of my finger across the ipad screen.  And what I love best about this game is the help you get in reading the greens.

Not only does the game tell you how much of a break there is and fast the green is rolling, but before you even putt, you can tap a button that will show you the line from where you are to where you aimed and if you’re too far left or right, you can adjust before making the putt.

I wish I had this feature in my real life. 

I was talking to Pastor Debbie the other day about how sometimes I know exactly what God wants me to do in the far future, but I have no idea how to get there.

And sometimes I can’t see the future at all; I can only see the first step and—it’s a doozy.

Sometimes, Pastor Debbie said, all you can do is pray to God minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day to show you where to go.

Even the Tiger Woods game has it limits.  Sometimes you’re on the green, but so far away from the hole, the game tells you it has no tip to give you.  You’re on your own.  You make the putt and hope you get it close enough to the hole, that when you go to make your next putt, you’ll be close enough for some advice.

Think of all the technology we have that promises us to make us better golfers, better spellers, better drivers and yet every single one of those technologies has its limits.

How many times in Word has your spelling been so far off, the computer has no idea what word you’re trying to spell, it only knows that you’re WRONG?  So you keep playing with the letters until you get it close enough to something the computer recognizes.

How many times has the GPS sent you through houses and construction barriers?

All these things we have in life to point us in the right direction and yet we still wind up lost or so far off the green we’re now “out of bounds.”

There is no prayer button in the Tiger Woods game.

There is no prayer button in Word.

My GPS talks to me, but it doesn’t listen.

Only God can direct us, if we ask and if we listen and if we remember that God often speaks in such still small voices it’s a wonder we can hear Him at all.

The other day, I had a hearing test where they lock you up in what looks like a good old-fashioned 20 questions booth with headphones to block out all noise and it was only then that I realized that I have a ringing in my ears.  Most of the time I don’t notice because we live in such a noisy world, but locked in that booth with those headphones, I could hear that small ringing and I worried for a moment that I wouldn’t be able to hear the tones that were about to come over the headphones.

As it turned out, my hearing was just fine, despite the ringing.

But never had I listened so hard in all my life.  I listened like my life depended on it, partly because I’m super-competitive and partly because I knew if they found hearing loss it would indicate a cause of my vertigo that would necessitate some unpleasant testing.  So I listened and tried not to get worried when there appeared to be long gaps of silence.  I listened.

Perhaps I should ask for the booth and headphones again, and this time, tell them to just let me sit there for a while and pray.  Maybe then I would hear God and maybe then I would know what it is He wants me to do next.

Where is it that He wants me to go?

Good News

There are many things in my life that I wish were simple.  I wish I had a better filing system other than piles of do this now, do this later, forget about this but don't panic when you suddenly remember and trash.

I wish my health were simpler as in not having to remember all the medicines I'm taking, not having to go to the pharmacy every other day because I can't have a life where my medicines are due for refill at the same time, having an accurate diagnosis that fills me with confidence that things will get better.

The only thing I can do right now is simplify my blogs.  So, in that respect, I have decided to reopen "New to Hope" as a blog, because after health issues keeping me away from church and church activities and time with God for so long, I once again feel new to Hope, especially when I walk into church and see people I've never seen before.

Especially when I walk into church and find that my seat has been usurped.

I've deleted several other blogs and added one more that I will use to talk about reading and writing only.  The name of that blog?  "All things Write and Readable."  You'll find it at:  www.kendralacy.blogspot.com 

Can't get much simpler.

So stayed tuned to both blogs.  First item of business is to update kendralacy.blogspot.com with news on my latest book, Sunburner.

And periodically, as the spirit moves me, I will update "New to Hope" and hope the spirit moves soon.

No Longer New

This morning I was sitting in church listening to Pastor Debbie’s sermon and thinking how bright it was inside the sanctuary.  Hope is blessed with floor to ceiling windows on two sides of the church and between those windows and the overhead lights, it was almost too bright.

In either the second or third Kid’s Talk I gave I told the kids how I was afraid of the dark, how I keep an abundance of flashlights nearby just in case the power goes out.  Light is so important to me, especially natural light.  I almost didn’t buy the condo I’m currently living in because it faced north and didn’t give me the lighting that I needed.

When I think of all the reasons I stayed at Hope, I sometimes wonder if subconsciously I stayed because of the light.  Every other Episcopal church I’ve been to has been dark and cave-like.  At those churches I tend to feel hemmed in and sad.  But at Hope, the light was a beacon calling me home.

In a little over two months, I will be celebrating my second anniversary at Hope.  I can’t believe it’s been two years.  I can’t believe how long and short that seems.  My life has changed in so many wonderful ways, ways I began cataloguing in this blog in May, 2010.

I called my blog New to Hope, meaning that both in a literal and figurative way.

Two weeks ago, I sat in the Diocesan Convention and heard Bishop-Elect Greg Brewer give his first address.  He quoted Vaclav Havel in regards to hope and much like Pastor Debbie, whenever I hear that word these days, I immediately perk up.

I like just about everything Havel says about hope, but this particular line sticks with me.  Havel says: “[Hope] is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

That is the hope I have been given, the certainty that everything in life has meaning, has purpose, and that God will use everything great or small, good or bad, in furtherance of His will and His will is always glorious and wonderful and beautiful.

Hope, Havel says, “is an orientation of the spirit.”  Hope does not reside within us.  Instead, we live inside hope.

This blog has chronicled my journey to hope.  And I am both pleased and saddened to say this part of the journey is over.  I am no longer new to hope.  I’ve been living it.  And so, after much prayer, I’ve decided it’s time to end this blog.

When I was in fourth grade, I wrote my first poem and all through fifth and sixth grade, I wrote poems like a mad woman.  Ironically, poetry kept me sane when the world around me began to crumble, when the death of a friend and the illness of a parent threatened to pull me far, far away from hope.

Eventually, I healed and the flow of poetry slowed.  But I never stopped writing.  I turned to playwriting next and then more poetry in college and then novel writing as a young adult and blogging most recently.  Whenever I stopped writing one thing, something else was waiting to take its place.  Interestingly enough, I think my photography has taken the place of my poetry.  Whatever I felt writing poetry, I feel now when I snap a good picture.

Regardless, what I’m trying to say is that even as I bring this blog to a close, I will not stop writing.  I may even start another blog.  And if and when I do, you’ll be the first one to know.  In the meantime, God has called me to write other things.  And as I’ve discovered with my call to the priesthood, when God calls us to do something, we can only ignore Him for so long.

I thank each and every one of you who has read this blog.  As a character in the movie Shadowlands said, “We read to know we’re not alone.”

You are not alone.

And thanks to you, neither am I.

God Bless.

See you soon.

Power Windows

When I was a teenager, my mom had a car with a horn that would randomly go off sometimes while we were cruising down the highway and sometimes while it was sitting in the driveway in the middle of the night.  I’m not sure which was more embarrassing, waving to people on the highway and giving them a quick shrug of the shoulders as an apology or waking up at two in the morning to this distant whine, like a drone of a mosquito that can’t be swatted away, and realizing it’s not a mosquito at all, but the car, some Stephen King she-devil.

My own car these days is picking up some quirks.  It’s the power windows most recently.  A month ago, I rolled down the driver side window to drop a letter in the mailbox and then couldn’t get the window back up.  I was sitting at a stoplight, pushing the up button with one hand and physically manhandling the window with the other.  Finally, it came up.  But since I never know when the window’s going to work, most recently, I’ve not used it at all.  It’s a pain.  Who knew I rolled down the window so much?

This morning I woke up with vertigo, my first bout of it in more than three years.  It was depressing and I was angry and it was a horrible way to start the morning.  Though the spinning only lasts as long as I have my head in a certain position (in this case lying down on my left side), I’m left feeling woozy for hours after.  I had every excuse to not move from my condo today.  I had every excuse to sit in this darkened cave and feel sorry for myself.  And I actually did that for about an hour or so.

But then, motivated by an article in the newspaper, I headed out to the Viera Wetlands (yes, I was well enough to drive, no worries) to take pictures of the birds that had migrated there for the winter.  I had been to the Viera Wetlands before, but it had been awhile and I had a new camera to try out.

As I drove around the park, sometimes I stopped and got out and snapped a few pictures, but sometimes, I was just too tired to get out.  And so I took a risk, and rolled down the window, smiling as it came down smoothly and holding my breath each time it stuttered and struggled to come back up again.

But it was a risk worth taking.  God let me capture some of the most beautiful photos I have ever taken including the eyes and nostrils of an alligator sitting just above the surface of the water as concentric circles expand out and around and then later, the body and head of the same gator as he moved through weeds.  A great blue heron actually flew to me and posed twenty feet from the car.  Another bird—I’m not sure what type, I haven’t looked it up yet—stood in the sunlight in such a way the light seemed create a halo around its head.  And I wondered if angels sometimes appear as birds.

Life is so short.  This is the lesson I have learned over the past few months.  It is so short.  And even on the days when I wake up with vertigo, even on the days following the nasty fevers that have plagued me for the past two years, even when I wake up in pain, I know I am blessed.  If I can get up out of bed, if I can walk, if I can drive my car out into nature to take photos, then I know I am blessed.

I am blessed with life.

Today Gabby Giffords resigned from Congress.  A year after a gunman’s bullet nearly took her life, she is still recovering.  She still needs help to walk.  She still hasn’t regained her ability to speak with any of the fluency she once was capable of.  But she gets up out of bed every morning and she strives for something.  She strives to be strong.  She strives to hope.  She strives to live.

And I’m sure she would agree that she is blessed.

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring us.  We don’t know if that power window will come back up once we have rolled it down, but we take the risk anyway.

We get up.

We walk out into the world.

And we live.

Silence

When I was in college my choice of major became a running joke between my dentist and me.  Every six months he would try and make conversation and ask me about my major and seemingly every six months, I would have changed my major to something else.

I started out majoring in Social Studies Education, followed then by Linguistics, then Journalism, before finally settling on a double major of Creative Writing and Literature.  The outlier among these majors would seem to be Social Studies Education, but in truth it fits perfectly with what I love.  I wanted to be a social studies teacher because I loved history.  I loved telling the stories of what happened to us in the past.

I love stories.  It’s as simple as that.  Perhaps I could even take it down to another level and say simply that I love words.

I love language.  I love the beauty of the words.  I love how rich and wonderful words can be.  I love how words make me feel, how they warm my heart, or excite my soul.  I love how sometimes when I read, I get so moved I have to close the book or turn off the Kindle and take a breath.

One of my favorite episodes of Friends has Joey revealing that when he read The Shining, he was so scared he had to hide the book in the freezer.  When he and Rachel trade books—he gives her The Shining and she gives him Little Women, he is so moved by Little Women that too winds up in the freezer. 

In Journalism class, we learned how to weight a sentence.  Especially in journalism, when writing a news story, you want the most important facts to appear in the beginning of the sentence.  So for example, you wouldn’t want to reveal the murderer’s name at the end of the sentence or the end of the paragraph or the end of the story.  It's called burying the lead (or lede).

But even outside journalism, how we weight words is very important.

I was reminded of this when I was reading today’s psalm in church.  Psalm 62:5 reads in the NRSV: “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.”  It is a beautiful line, in and of itself, and far be it from me to criticize word placement, but I think (and I’ve blogged about this before) that the meaning, the impact, of this sentence changes if you flip three words.

“My soul waits in silence.”

As it is written, “my soul” is given the most weight, followed by “waits,” and ended with “in silence.”

The fact that we are waiting is given primary importance here.

But what if we flip some words?

What if we said: my soul in silence waits.

Now the importance shifts from the waiting to how we wait.

Such a minor thing, but do you see the difference?

We wait for God … in silence.  The silent part is very important and easily forgotten when slipped in at the end there.

How do we wait?  In silence.

We wait for Him at rest, calm like the sea on a windless day. 

We wait for Him—in silence—in stillness, not wanting even to breathe and remembering 1 Kings 19:12: “And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”

“A still small voice.”

The reason we wait in silence is so that we might hear that still small voice.

Two words—in silence.  Pay them close attention.  They may be all that stands between you and God.

All Natural

The Bible is filled with human beings.

That’s stating the obvious right?

But how often do we look at the humanness of the people in the Bible?  How often do we focus on their sainthood instead?  We put Old Testament heroes like Moses and Joshua and Solomon and New Testament heroes like Paul and Peter on pedestals and we think how can we ever achieve a fraction of what they achieved?  How can we ever experience the closeness and richness of their relationship to God? 

When we think like that we create a barrier between ourselves and them.  They cease being people and become characters and legends.  They are simply people who have lived so long ago they might as well not have lived at all.  They become stories.

Which is why I found two of today’s readings so refreshing because of the humanness of Samuel’s response to God and because of the perfectly natural response of Nathanael’s when told the savior had been found.

In 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Samuel is lying down minding his own business when he hears someone call his name.  Thinking it is Eli, Samuel rushes to him only to be told that no, Eli had not called him.  Samuel lays down again and again hears someone call his name.  Again he rushes to Eli and again is told that Eli did not call him.  But Eli guesses that maybe it’s God calling to Samuel and tells Samuel to go back and address the voice should it speak to him again.

A third time, someone calls Samuel’s name and Samuel responds, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

And God speaks.

And Samuel’s time as prophet begins.

But for a while there, Samuel was just like us.  Someone was calling his name and he couldn’t figure out who was calling him or why.  Have you ever woken up to a strange sound in the middle of the night?  Have you ever gotten up to investigate that sound and then, having found nothing, gone back to bed only to be woken up again by the same noise?

For me, that’s usually the smoke alarm battery going, but for Samuel, that noise was the voice of God and for more than a few minutes, I’m sure Samuel was irritated and frustrated at not being able to recognize the voice.

We are all like Samuel and just like Pastor Debbie said in her Kid’s Talk today, God doesn’t always speak to us audibly, but He does speak.  He stirs something within us, something that cannot be ignored no matter how hard we try.  Something that will not go away until we address it.

It was exactly how I feel with my calling to the priesthood.

Today’s Gospel reading was from John 1:43-51.  Jesus goes to Galilee and is in the process of calling his disciples to him.  As always when Jesus calls, in this case, Phillip, Phillip drops everything and follows him.

Phillip’s blind faith to a man he’s never seen before is a hard thing for any of us to live up to.  How can we possibly do as Phillip did and just go, just leave everything behind and follow?  The amount of faith that takes seems extreme.

But then in the same passage we are given Nathanael.  Nathanael represents all of us.  When Phillip comes to him excited and thrilled to have found Jesus, all Nathanael can do is say, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

And here I thought cynicism and sarcasm were creations of my generation, Generation X.

Nathanael is a skeptic.  And it is Nathanael we should most identify with because the reality is that we are more like Nathanael than we are Phillip and that’s okay because Nathanael doesn’t walk away.  He doesn’t brush Jesus aside.

Like Samuel, Nathanael doesn’t know who’s calling him, but he’s curious and so he sticks around and listens.  And like Samuel, Nathanael meets his Lord when he decides to listen.

So forget about the heroes of the Bible for a minute and focus on the little guys, like Nathanael.  Focus on Samuel, who actually turned out to be one of the big guys of the Bible, but for a moment was just as confused as any of us. 

And learn from them.