That’s the long and the short of it.

The blog withers, the blog post fades…in the morning.

Just prior to college graduation, I went to an initiation ceremony for an honor society and who should I run into but that guy from the public speaking class! He offered to walk me home and on the way inquired about spiritual things. I told him that I was reading a book about the Holy Spirit written by Billy Graham. He knew I wasn’t a Christian, so this raised his eyebrows a bit. We chatted for awhile and he got my phone number. Evangelism, right? He called and invited me to a Navigator dinner on campus (the Navigators were a college Christian discipleship group). He was participating in some sort of summer Navigator training experience and they were encouraged to invite the pagans on over. That’s not what he said to me, of course, but I was pretty sure that part of the proceedings would be some sort of gospel-sharing. I didn’t want to be pressured and was tempted to say no, but he was handsome and had a cute dimple, so I said yes.

After the dinner, the leader of the group asked people if they wanted to share anything about their experiences during the week. One girl timidly raised her hand and proceeded to tell us all about how she was in a laundromat with a stranger and after praying for courage, she struck up a conversation with this person and was even able to share some sort of testimony of faith with him/her. The most astonishing thing about this story for me was that fact that she’d actually been afraid to do it. What? There went the stereotype of the pushy in-your-face Christian. Afterward in a private conversation, I confronted my handsome dimpled friend about the audacity of Christian missions. “How dare you go into another culture and tell them that their god isn’t the right god?!” We had a lively discussion during which he had the wisdom not to quote Scriptures at me and didn’t claim to have all the answers. I had to respect that. As with the Easter experience, I wasn’t a Christian when I went back home, but I had gotten rid of some important baggage and came back a little lighter in heart for the experience.

God was working changes in me – slow and subtle changes. I began recognizing that I couldn’t control my life, and more than that, that I needed to relinquish that incessant desire to control my life over to Him. I started to see circumstances differently, as part of His plan. To know that He was present in some way was comforting. He was checking my selfish impulses and giving me the ability to be more patient with others. Things that I used to consider harmless fun I was seeing in a different light. I was reading the Bible more and copying verses that I liked, especially verses that had to do with hope. My understanding of who God is was starting to be informed by what I read in the Bible, rather than by my own flawed imaginings.

But weirdly, I was still schizophrenic about God versus Jesus Christ. I couldn’t reconcile what I considered to be the strange and cultish behaviors of certain Christians. I was stuck in an awful middle ground and complained to God, “You are too much a part of my life for me to reject You, but I cannot accept You wholly either.” In my mind, I had an image of me twisting and turning to get away from an iron hand grip. Sometimes I thought it was me trying to get away from God, sometimes I thought it was me in the middle with Satan and God both pulling my arms in opposite directions. I was beginning to have a theology of Satan and I cried out to God. “He exploits every weakness and tempts every temptation. He is full of cunning as he beckons me with that damn all-knowing wicked smile. Why do You let him win so often? Everything he says makes sense to me until I have fallen and tasted the bitterness of his logic. So why do you let him triumph in my weakness?” I felt very much in the midst of a spiritual battle.

I went up north with friends and began reading a book that someone gave me called “Hinds Feet on High Places.” It was a fictionalized representation of spiritual growth that had my name written all over it. The main character’s name was “Much-Afraid,” and I knew her all too well. It was not the Bible, but gave me a different paradigm with which to think about Jesus as the Shepherd. Jesus, the elusive and uncomfortable Jesus, became more real to me as I read it. I had become acquainted with my sin, but still dug my heels into the ground at the idea that I needed a savior. “Why is it that faith in Jesus Christ and commitment to Him comes so easily to others and not to me? Every step I have taken in His direction has been as difficult as if my feet were made of lead. I stumble, I halt, I turn to run and finally fall, unable to move at all. Believe in Him, screams my heart. I can’t because I don’t want to look foolish, says my mind. Where is the proof? I demand childishly. It’s a no-win argument and I stalemate myself.” So went another rant in my journal.

You are no doubt frustrated with reading this constant dithering and dragging of my feet, but not nearly as frustrated as I was living through it. I could certainly make this a shorter story and cut to the chase. I could, but I will not. The way the Lord wooed me in spite of my doubts and vacillations, the way He patiently pursued me when I was afraid, the way He allowed me to think wrong things about Him on my way to learning right things about Him, the slow and steady way He brought correction, how He loved my silly feet of clay – you can’t see all of that unless I tell it all. He’s the hero of this story, surely you must know that by now. If not, I’m telling this badly.

Sometimes I think I might delete this in the morning and other times I’m just resistant to the idea.

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 2
My Story Part 3
My Story Part 4
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 7
My Story Part 8
My Story Part 10

First of all, I must vindicate my mother of all blame for my inability to turn out a good pie crust. She very patiently instructed me in the craft many years ago. I used to try it now and again, but usually fell back on buying those nasty frozen pie crusts that came in their own aluminum pan. To me, the crust is the least interesting part of the pie – it’s the innards that count, right? Still, being able to make a good pie crust is the mark of a good baker, so someone once told me. At some point I invested in a plastic rolling pin which you could fill with ice water and a plastic sheet upon which to roll pie crust that had a template printed on it to make the perfect size. These nifty gadgets did not work any miracles for me.

Mid-way into my home cooking career I decided to ask a couple of older women at our church how they tackled the pie crust problem. Virginia said she had a fool-proof easy way to make it and proceeded to give a thorough exegesis on the subject that included rolling it out between two sheets of wax paper. It sounded very doable and I couldn’t wait to try it. I turned to Donna for her pie crust secrets and she said her recipe was even easier. She told me of the availability of rolled pie crusts in boxes in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. What is this wondrous product that had hitherto been unknown to me? Virginia’s recipe crumbled to dust before my eyes and Donna’s recipe had a shining aura around it. Sold!

I have used Donna’s “recipe” for many years now, but last week when I went to the grocery store to buy a couple for our pumpkin pies, I was dismayed to see how much the price had gone up. I really couldn’t justify buying pie crusts when I had all the ingredients at home to make them. Sigh…time to return to the basics.

I’ve learned that there are no shortcuts to making a good pie crust. It’s a craft that can only be perfected with practice. The recipe could not be simpler: flour, salt, water and shortening. But there are so many nuances: how much you work the dough, how much water to put in, how cold the water is, how much flour to roll it in, how to roll it without the dough catching on your rolling pin, how to avoid all the tearing and splitting, how to pick it up without ruining it, how to flute the edges, etc.

My pumpkin chiffon pies turned out well in spite of the fact that the crust didn’t look very professional. Sadly, I neglected to get a photo of them after filling them. There’s a surprise ending to this story, however, a real plot twist! I made two pies and kept them both out in the garage with a cover over them. We polished off the first one easily with our guests and had gotten a small start on the second one. When my husband brought in the second pie from the garage a couple days later, we were all set to plate them and cover them with whipping cream when I noticed tiny little marks on the pie surface. Little marks that looked like they could be tiny prints. Then we noticed that the pie crust on the edge had been eaten away. Some horrible little varmint had pushed its way under the cover and defiled our pie! No doubt this was a happier ending for our waistlines.

I’ll probably dump this post in the wastebasket in the morning, where it will join the rest of that pumpkin pie. *shudder*

What’s been calling your name, lately? I have a feeling that tomorrow, the great Thanksgiving feast day, there will be a positive din of wonderful foodstuffs saying, “Lynn…Lynn…Lynn…”

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, that I will.

I’ve gotta tell you, the word “sinner” always really stuck in my craw. It made me bristle with indignation. It’s just religious guilt-mongering, I thought to myself. On top of that, I was a nice person – not perfect, mind you, but a very decent human being. So one day I threw the gauntlet down to God in a prayer that was so filled with hubris, I’m surprised I wasn’t struck down on the spot. “If I’m a sinner, God, you’re going to have to show it to me because I just don’t see it.” This was probably one of the most swiftly-answered prayers of my life. The scales were removed from my eyes and over the next 24 hours I saw what He saw: a deceiver of people, a manipulator of emotions, an out-and-out liar, an irresponsible and selfish creep. I had been on a binge which could be titled “The immediate gratification of all my whims and desires.” There’s no need here to go into detail of all the sins that paraded before me; suffice it to say that a very stiff wind had just blown through and whisked away all my pretensions. I had been corrected, educated, rebuked and humbled. I was (and am) a sinner.

Wouldn’t you think that was the end of the story? Don’t underestimate my double-mindedness, my desire to be counted as wise in the world’s eyes. And still struggling with compulsive binging and overeating, I was also bargaining with God: “You fix this problem and I’ll love you.” In fact, I really wanted Him to use that area of my life to prove Himself to me. I wrote: “I need something concrete to hang on to, or I find it impossible to justify all this madness. But how could it be madness? Am I saying that half of the world is insane? No, I’m saying that I am insane.”

And so it went: back and forth, back and forth. I chided myself to “Let go and let God!” Sometimes it seemed like me and God were really connecting. But I knew I was holding back. I copied Matthew 17:20 in my journal: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” I wrote underneath it: “Lord, I am the mountain. Move me.”

Reading more of the Bible, I came across Isaiah 40:31 and also copied it into my journal: “They who wait for the Lord shall RENEW their strength, they shall MOUNT UP like EAGLES, they shall RUN and NOT be weary; they shall WALK AND NOT FAINT.” (Yes, I capitalized all those words) and underneath it, another poem:

I followed a slow sidewalk
Like an angry windswept story
Scurrying with dried-up leaves
Til everything was still
And I could clearly hear my anguish.

I’m tired of trying to love you
When I fail either with or without
Your hand in mine.
I can be stubborn, too
And stare into the evening eyes
With defiance and with longing
And with desperation.

No one answered
And still I waited, trying
To be one of them who
WAITS FOR THE LORD.
For a long time now
I’ve been waiting
But not without stamping feet
And curses of a child.

Do you still love
A spoiled child…
Even on the worst days?

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 2
My Story Part 3
My Story Part 4
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 7
My Story Part 9
My Story Part 10

This blog post will be swept away by a very stiff wind in the morning.

If you want to consult an expert on classical music, it wouldn’t be me. But over the years I’ve learned a thing or two. When I was in college, somebody introduced me to “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber. I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times over the years and it has never failed to grab hold of my heart and bring me to tears. Tears for what? I don’t know, but Mr. Barber summons them forth as reliably as the the Lord summons forth the sun each day for its carousel ride over the horizon. Whatever there is within you that aches, grieves, or feels any strong emotion, expect it to rise up along with the violin crescendo. Here’s what I want you to do: find “Adagio for Strings” on your favorite music streaming app, set aside your petty distractions and have a listen. Close your eyes if necessary. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about what happens next. But don’t turn it off before the end. The furnace of emotion that Barber stokes up, he also takes gentle care to extinguish, saying “peace, peace…” to your soul. You dare not miss that part, or you will be stuck in the State of Verklempt without an exit.

I might dip another toe into the Classical world on this blog sometime, thus adding to its eclectic nature. Why not, right?

I’ll probably delete this while listening to Adagio for Strings unless I get too weepy to see the keys.

The Smiths and the Joneses lived next door to each other on Maple Avenue in the small town of Anywhere. These two families had been neighbors for many years and their lives seemed very similar. They each had three children, two dogs and one hamster. If the truth be known, their hamsters were related, the Smiths having purchased one fat hamster that suddenly got thinner and had a baby to raise. After the celebration was over and Junior was deemed old enough to go it on his own, the Joneses did their part and took him. So, to all appearances, the houses of Smith and Jones were like mirror images on Maple Avenue.

But then something odd began to happen. It was so subtle at first, no one else on Maple Avenue really noticed. But one day, Mrs. Peterson from across the street said to her husband, “Bud, take a look at the Smith and Jones houses. Do you see anything different?” Bud, a newly retired man in his 60’s, stood at the window looking carefully as directed. Mrs. P. was known to be very observant and discerning, so he took it seriously when she picked up a nuance missed by others. After some reflection, he ventured to say, “Well, it kind of looks like the Smiths are starting to add something onto their home -can’t really tell what at this point, but there’s something there. The only thing different about the Jones house seems to be a couple pieces of siding missing. I wonder what happened?” They stood together in silence pondering this mystery, but it seemed too inconsequential to waste much of the gray matter on it.

A week later, Bud was out mowing the lawn, always a happy labor for him. He stopped for a moment to wipe the sweat off of his brow and as he stood there, both Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Jones came out of their houses. They greeted one another and then Mrs. Smith began working industriously on some sort of brick construction in the front of the house. He was curious enough to walk over and ask her what she was doing. “I had this idea of building a small enclosed front porch area for our house,” she told him enthusiastically. “Mr. Smith is busy with work and the kids are in school, so this seemed like a perfect time to do it.” As they were chatting, they heard some loud wrenching sounds and looked over to see Mrs. Jones tearing siding pieces away from their house with her own hands. “What’s with that?” Bud enquired, seeing now that in a week’s time, many more pieces of siding had come down. “I’m not sure,” Mrs. Smith answered, “but it makes me sad to see it.”

Over time, the difference between the two houses became more and more stark. Mrs. Smith continued to build until one day the front porch on the Smith house was completed, a graceful and beautiful addition not only to their home, but an adornment to the neighborhood as well. Mr. Smith was bursting with pride at the accomplishments of his good and wise wife.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Jones had continued the odd work of demolition that she’d begun. By now, she had finished taking the siding off of their house and had knocked out the front windows for good measure, making their house an awful eyesore. And if that weren’t enough, the foolish woman had figured out how to start removing the foundation stones of their house. Mr. Jones came home one day to find his house toppled to the ground, and great was his grief.

Proverbs 14:1 A wise woman builds her house, but the foolish pulls it down with her hands.

Ah, now ‘tis time for the proverb about the one who contemplates deleting her own post.

The snow fell
And so did the world
Of someone I love.
And sorrow piled in drifts,
Sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow.

We lift up our eyes to the hills;
From whence comes our help?

The Man of sorrows,
Of grief upon grief upon grief;
That Man knows.
And He has come
To make all things new,
Always and forevermore
Our only hope.

I’ll probably…yes, I might just do that.

Several years ago, I did a short series on my Instagram account – just my usual little sketches with a few words thrown in. I’m going to start sharing some of those on this blog, maybe a Wednesday thing.

Did you know that there’s a low this weekend of six degrees? Yikes! As it happens, one of my first features in the series had to do with a six-degree day.

That’s how we do it in Minnesota.

I’ll probably need the whole winter battle regalia to delete this post in the morning. Brrr!

In my journal, I was more brutally honest about my questions. “Am I a Christian or aren’t I? Do I want to be? Do I have a choice? Why is it so desirable and so repulsive at the same time? Why does admitting I am a sinner seem so dramatic and zealous? What are my sins – not being perfect? Why is this such a struggle? Where is this pressure coming from? Why do I keep meeting Christians who want to persuade me? Who can I ask all these questions?”

Who, indeed? I wanted to talk to someone who was completely out of the context of my life, but with whom I’d feel comfortable. Then I remembered Reverend Ramstad. Good old Reverend Ramstad! I had heard that he’d taken a call to a Methodist church up in Duluth. I found the phone number, screwed up my courage and called him. I preferred a face-to-face conversation, so I made an appointment with him, just saying that I had some questions about faith. This was a secret mission – I told no one that I was going.

When the day came, I was nervous. What was I doing here? I sat across from his desk in his office and poured out all my questions, my doubts, my struggles, my fears. He listened carefully and when I was done, he told me I was never going to find the answers to who Christ was by standing on the outside of the relationship. I needed to be willing to enter in. To that end, he gave me a couple books – one was a workbook of sorts with scripture readings and a place to answer questions. The other was a small paperback called “Speak, Lord, Your Servant is Listening.” The title was based on the episode in the prophet Samuel’s life in which he kept hearing his name called in the night and upon waking, he’d go to the old priest Eli asking if he’d called him. After this happened two times, Eli figured out what was going on and told him that the next time it happened, Samuel should answer the voice saying, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” The book was very simple – just one verse or one short passage of Scripture each day to read, adopting the attitude of listening to the Lord. I don’t remember anything else about our conversation, but I bet he prayed for me before I left.

I took my “assignments” very seriously. I worked my way through the workbook and did a reading out of the other book every day. And thus began my double life. My outward life was just as usual. There was no one that I rubbed shoulders with regularly who took all this stuff seriously, so I kept it on the down-low. Part of me was interested in what the Bible had to say, the other part of me was horrified at this interest. It would be a betrayal of everything I knew to follow this path. I kept telling myself that even if I became a Christian, I didn’t have to be one of “those” kinds of Christians – the obnoxious Moral Majority types. Or the ones who were constantly pestering you on campus, standing around holding out tracts saying, “Are you saved?” I used to take the tracts and throw them away right in front of the giver, just to show my disdain. But I was also sporadically (and secretly) visiting churches and writing poems like this one:

Alleluia
Every church choir
Eyes glistening
Chins, noses, mouths, each angled upward
Like such physical prayer.
Voices tremor with excitement,
Waiting, watching, straining, groping…
For what?
What am I not glimpsing?
My eyes follow theirs
To see only
Cobwebs
On the ceiling.

I confided to a friend at my job the kinds of things I’d been thinking about concerning Christianity. “Just be careful, Lynn,” she cautioned soberly. “You don’t want to get involved in some kind of cult.” Yes! Was this just some sort of cult? Be careful, Lynn, be very careful. I wrote in my journal: “So many people who are not Christians are perfectly happy. Why am I drawn to this? O God, Thou art my God, my soul thirsts for Thee.”

In short, I was conflicted.

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 2
My Story Part 3
My Story Part 4
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 8
My Story Part 9
My Story Part 10

Will I delete this or won’t I? Do I want to? Do I have a choice?

I’ve recently experienced that important coming of age moment when the old Beatles song applies: “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64.” Age is what you make of it, so I’m making the most of this new milestone. There are lots of reasons that one might complain about aging, but why bother? You still have the aches and pains and the inability to remember stuff, but the complaints just increase the burden. There’s an old hymn with the line “Our cross and trials do but press the heavier for our bitterness.” Nope, the way forward is to continue cheerfully on the path of the trusting in the Lord. That same hymn also says, “Who trusts in God’s unchanging love builds on the Rock that naught can move,” and “God never yet forsook at need the soul that trusted Him indeed.” You must remind me of these things when I need to hear them.

As for the day itself, I grew up with the tradition of noting and celebrating birthdays. I haven’t yet reached the age when I want to let the day just pass by in obscurity – a day just like any other day. I love hearing from friends and family and spending time with the same. I had the delightful experience of going to a tea shop in the morning with my two sisters. For those of you whose lives circulate around coffee, this is no doubt a jarring thought, that there are a few places that cater to the tea drinking crowd. On the way home, I stopped to visit a friend who had a card and gift for me – very sweet! When I got home, my thoughtful husband had prepared a treasure hunt for me with clues leading me from one gift to another. I used to love making those kinds of treasure hunts for him and our children and it occurred to him that I might enjoy to be on the other side of that. He was right. The clues were excellent – cleverly written with just enough information to make me ponder them for awhile trying to ferret out the meaning. This was the first one:

I once was useful, even helpful
Full of information, sometimes colorful,
But now I am a liability, a thin reflection of my former self.
And now I lie in the dark, awaiting the final judgment,
Only fit to burn.

I’ll let you think on that and the answer to the location will be at the end of this post. If I forget, just remind me (see the above thing about problems with remembering stuff). There were cards and gifts to open, short conversations with some of our kids, text and Facebook messages from friends and family, a FaceTime call with my mother. What pleasanter way could there be to celebrate a birthday? We topped it off with watching all six hours of the BBC production of “Pride and Prejudice,” a particular favorite for both of us. Instead of a cake, I had decided to make a DIY version of Buster Bars. They turned out pretty well, but if I make them again, there will be modifications.

A good friend of mine sent me a “badge” to wear just for this special day. How fun is that?

Onward and upward.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning after looking in the shredded paper bin for the next clue.