Sat 9/24/22 - Let's jump right back in to my sabbatical journey, this post from journal entries on my 2nd full day of a personal retreat in a cabin on a mountain in western North Carolina.
6/30/22 - 10:30a - My bright yellow bird is back this morning and not disappointed this time.
Because I finally put food in the feeder the day before.
11:00a - Rushing stream, calling birds, chirping birds, "Hunger Games" birds, buzzing bees moving from flower to flower (clover, mountain laurel), breeze enough to move the leaves if not rustle them, the sun it's warm counterpoint. Shirtless on the front steps in jeans and flip flops, I think I may stay in today - we'll see - light lunch, cooked the frozen pizza for dinner, collect a few more blackberries - WOW! Was this peach cobbler good last night, especially with the added berries as a garnish!! - Plenty of coffee, cranberry juice, and Diet Coke. Guitar, read my books, fashion a way to stretch out on one of these [a little too short for me] porch swings.
Before I move on to the next portion of this day's journal entry, let me tell you a little more about Kenya, a trip I took with my church, June 9-21 just prior to the start of my sabbatical, to work with our ministry partner there, Mission of Hope International(MOHI), and join their ongoing work to be and bring the light of Christ to the children and families living in the slums and other impoverished communities in and around Nairobi. The poverty and conditions in the slums are like nothing we know here in the States. Their work empowers, educates, restores, and redeems; and our team of students and adults got to see and be a part of that. We learned so muchof the joy and freedom in Christ from the staff, teachers, students, and social workers of MOHI. My whole family had the opportunity to make this trip together and our lives are forever changed. Now, here on this mountain, 9 days since our return, life has slowed and I'm finally beginning to process the scope of that trip and its impact.
One more thing that's important for you to know for the sake of context, At this point in my sabbatical I've just begun reading a book by Henri JM Nouwen (one of my favorite authors, by the way. My introduction to his writings came by way of a little book of his on leadership I was assigned in Divinity School called, In the Name of Jesus). This book, Flying Falling Catching, completed posthumously from Nouwen's extensive notes by friend and colleague Carolyn Whitney-Brown, captures his very personal, powerful, and deeply spiritual experience at a circus, particularly the trapeze act by The Flying Rodleighs and the ensuing friendship Nouwen developed with them. So, as I'm mulling my own deeply powerful and spiritual experience in Kenya, I read these words from Nouwen.
That question, "What did Kenya do to me?", Nouwen captured it this way in Flying Falling Catching when relating a powerful experience he had at the circus and the days that followed:
"...we didn't speak much about [the circus] anymore. Other events and other people asked our attention, and the human inclination to return to the familiar reduced the circus experience to a pleasant distraction. (21)
For me, for Kelly, Davis, Sophie, all of us, I pray that the things which ask our attention these days would not reduce Kenya...
the way we saw God move - Alive! Present! Real! Felt. Seen. Heard. - the way we knew and were convinced again of an actual Jesus, God's one and only Son incarnated on earth and, yes, over and over in our friends in Kenya...and in us too!, for in Jesus we LIVE and MOVE and have our BEING -
...would not reduce Kenya to a pleasant distraction, one we keep wrapped in our blankets [gifts each of us received from MOHI], trapped in our trinkets, gone when our Kenyan-purchased coffee beans run out. Keep us, O God. Keep us in Your Word. Keep us in You, Word. As the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, so your Spirit of resurrection and comfort and teaching and wisdom and presence and intercession and help and advocacy lives in us so that over and over, through us Your church, Jesus continues to become real and move into neighborhoods and into the world. Amen.
3:15p [and @4hours later] - I just finished reading The Poppy War by RF Kuang. I described it to a friend at first, after the first several chapters, as Karate Kid meets Harry Potter. That's too innocent! Yes, it certainly starts with themes of bullying and being an outcast and martial arts training within a boarding school context of different "houses" or disciplines wherein students find purpose and meaning and belonging. But the supporting currents of racism and drug use, let alone the graphic portrayal of warfare - which I later learned were based on true accounts from Chinese and Japanese wartime history - keep the tone real and heavy throughout. [Spoilers follow] And Rin, the main character, her fraught path, both internally and externally, makes for a somber and frustrating, for me, read. The book didn't end how I wanted it to with right and good winning in the end. It's far messier than that. I like stories of redemption and am still hopeful for books 2 and 3 in that regard. Don't get me wrong. There's love and sacrifice and friendship in this book, but vengeance is such an overwhelming motivator for Rin and [the male lead] Altan that it sticks to everything. I am thankful for Jiang (Rin's Master), Kitay (Rin's first and constant friend), and "the Woman" who attempt to steer Rin right and push back against her poorer choices. The book made me think of the Holocaust and the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the lasting, generational reach and consequences of war and violence. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a Son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulders. And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father. And of his rule there shall be no end. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
4:05p - I had just put down my pen, noticed it had started raining outside - I was in the living room sitting on the end of the couch by a lamp near the open windows, so I heard the rain first - and went out to enjoy the rain on the porch. And when I walked out, y'all!, there was a turkey in the yard eating the food I put out yesterday!!! [The heavier rain has now forced him back into the trees.] And he just came back now that the rain has slacked off a bit. I'm guessing it's a female because of the coloring? Very drab and unornamented. She's alone. I wonder where her friends are. Seems like when I've seen turkeys in the past - even last night down in a field as I was driving back to the cabin - there have always been at least 2 or 3 together. They are skittish birds. I'm surprised I was able to get back inside, find my phone, and get back out to take some pics. I stood up just now to see where she'd gone just down the driveway and that startled her - Margaret I name her - back into the tree line. And Marge is back already unless this turkey here now is another. It didn't come from the treeline but up the driveway. There's a place just down the driveway where Marge enjoys a dust bath it seems.
5:40p - I awoke this morning to evidence of a mouse. I could tell where it had been on the counter with my - thoroughly rinsed, mind you - dishes. I had planned to use them today as they were but now needed to wash them. So I did. Anyway, as I'm in the kitchen prepping and heating my pizza for dinner I saw the mouse as it was tearing around the corner from behind the oven and into the wood bin by the kitchen fireplace. I believe if mice were cleaner and more considerate of your food stores and other things, then they wouldn't be so bad. As it is, they poop all over everything and chew into whatever they want.
So, the lesson here, friends? Don't be a mouse.
Lord, forgive us when, without thought...or maybe even with forethought...we chew into relationships, creating holes and a mess of everything. We take what we want (spotlight, credit, affection, pleasure, trust) without care for the leavings of burned bridges and brokenness in our wake. We horde grudges and gossip and make a nest of our own brokenness and bitterness, content with the false treasure and idols we've gathered around us to uphold us. There's no true rest in this. There's no sanctuary, safety, or strength. There's nothing that sustains. There's only hiding and darkness and darting behind one mask or another. Spirit come. May we walk in the light as you are in the light and find healing and wholeness as you shape our lives after Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross! O Lord, in our relationships with one another, may we have this same mindset as Christ Jesus. By Your Spirit alive in us, would you work in us tenderness, compassion, community, and a humility that values others above ourselves, one that looks not to our own interests but to other's. In Jesus Name. Amen.
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