FaithTrip Hail

...to show forth the praises...

Surveying the damage

Eggplant

Hail

Kale

Kepler

Green Onions

Trying to stay the water from flooding the tomato house

Ice-packed spinach

Cherry Tomatoes

Big tree downed in front yard missing the Seedhouse

What a week it's been for Oklahoma! 

We thought we missed the worst of it after the tragedy in Moore. 

But then the sky turned black this morning. 

Radar coloured deep red. 

After 45mins in the shelter we emerged...to this. 

A friend stops by to collect his order. 

Words of encouragement pours from his lips. 

"You are privileged to be entrusted with this." 

And so BetterTogether has received a low blow. 

Ya,  I'll admit there's a lot of questions rolling around in my head...but I know this: FaithTrips only become more glorious as we learn to trust our Creator with EVERYTHING and give thanks. 

Notes on Gifts

[I wanted to write this earlier...but the words weren’t there. Well, now they’ve come] 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She was so frail.

Somehow I still remember so vividly. (small wonder) 

Family members gathered around. 

Waiting. 

What could I say? Words can seem so empty. 

I faced the keys. Often I had played them - many Sabbath afternoons. 

Friendships had developed on those keys. Hearts opened and bound together. 

Music does that. 

So what now? What did I want her to hear one last time? What promise did I want her to grasp, hold, live, and die on? 

Flipping through my book, I chose deliberately. 

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, 

Just to take Him at His word. 

Just to rest upon His promise, 

Just to know ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ 

Fingers caressed the black and white ever so gingerly. 

The last notes faded into the air, seemingly dying in the silence. 

That was the last time I saw her. 

A couple weeks later I stood beside the box of death suspended over the gaping earth. 

I want to go to heaven 

And pick a never fading flower...

Amazing grace

How sweet the sound! 

Singing doesn’t come easy to a throat aching with tears. It’s not natural. 

The preacher prayed. 

The small group paid their respects and dispersed. 

Then he came up to me. Her husband - bent over with his own grief, holding the leash of their dog...his dog now. 

“Aubrey, those last few moments Fran asked something. It was her dying wish. She wants you to take her piano. She always loved hearing you play and wants you to keep playing for others” 

I stood stunned. 

The fountain of tears that had brimmed close whilst I sang burst their seams. 

Why is it we can never give more than we receive - that gifts come back in greater fold? 

It’s been several years now. 

The piano just recently moved residents - now a part of the Seiler family. 

Every time I touch the keys, I remember the gift, the grace...I remember Fran. 

I remember gifts must stay gifts.

Fransi Ann - the piano

So God Made a Farmer

“And on the 8th day, God looked down on His planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God made a farmer. -Paul Harvey

God made farmers then...and He’s making farmers now. 

Because there’s something about people that live close to the earth...

He sits there - mostly every morning. His lanky form hunched over his Bible, squinting at the print under the glow of the fluorescent lights from the grow shelves in our dining room now-turned-plant-nursery. 

Where has time gone? 

Wasn’t it just yesterday we were both kids arguing over Legos and building Indian forts in the woods? 

Wasn’t it just yesterday we were grumbling over math problems and stuck with our noses to history books? 

Wasn’t it just yesterday we traveled about the country with the parents and grandparents camping, exploring? 

Wasn’t it just yesterday we lived in Mexico, days full of Spanish and music? 

And then the blur happened. I moved to California and he to Tennessee. Places and people that have forever changed our lives. 

Time seemingly brought us full circle. Back in the house of our childhood antics, childhood grievances, childhood joys and dreams. 

But this time...he’s a farmer. He’s a boy-man pushing out of his teens into the world beyond. 

He’s a boy-man wrestling with nature and God. 

I watch him tear the ground, water the ground, prepare, plant, cultivate, harvest the ground. 

I hear him at night talking with friends, praying with friends, fighting side by side for the grace and the glory and the character of God. 

Not only does the farmer grow the ground - the ground grows the farmer. Right here. Right now. 

Today...19 years into the making. 

And I smile and I’m thankful and I'm humbled. 

So God made a farmer...Happy Birthday Alan. 

Patrick

Wrote this post when we visited Alan in October. Intentions were to publish it then, but somehow it got passed up. I came across it tonight. What a timely reminder for me...I hope it will be for you as well. 

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Our car purrs along the backroads. 

Another morning on the farm awaits. Falls colors explode above us. The day seemingly rejoices in its birth. 

Then we spot him. He’s limping alongside the asphalt trail. Dad slows the car. I know he’s going to offer a ride. 

He turns toward us. I freeze. Blood forms a river dry from his eye. I cringe. 

Dirty hand clutches chest in pain. 

“Do you need a ride?” 

He nods with effort and collapses shot gun. 

“What happened?”

“Wrecked my truck,” he rasps. “Hit a tree.” 

“Can we take you to a doctor?”

“No, my wife will take me. Just drop me at the house.” 

He is in shock. Leaning back into the seat, eyes roll back in his head. He’s hurting. 

“Thank you so much for picking me up. You have no idea how many people have driven by me this morning without even slowing down.” 

Suddenly I see in him more than a broken Tennessee boy. It’s as if we’re reenacting a story of long ago...

“A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell...” 

You know the story, right? You can see the fanciful drawings from the Bible Story books you read as a kid. You can see the pretentious priest and the hoity-toity Levite gathering their robes luxurious stepping around the wounded man noses plugged to the heavens. 

Then comes the Samaritan, hero of the telling. Compassion lines his face as he slides from his donkey and bends over the broken and the bleeding. 

We pull into the driveway. Mom walks with him to the door. 

He’s Patrick: nobleman 

He’s hurting. Aren’t so many? Of noble and not such...each broken in their own ways. 

His face is burned into memory. I see the blood as I plant artichokes, as I haul worm castings, as I scrape away the dead remains of summer. 

Muscles burn under strain, but the heart burns more.

“You have no idea how many people past me...” 

I think of the priest and the Levite. Maybe it wasn’t just their status, their rich robes. 

No...perhaps it was more than that. 

Maybe they were busy. Too busy to stop...to see. How easily observance is lost. Busy kicks us into high gear and blinds us. 

(Ever stuck your head out a window of a car speeding down the highway and tried to keep your eyes open? Don’t try that while driving.)

Maybe the priest and Levite had the greatest of intentions, but time did not permit the stopping to help the hurting. *ouch*

“You have no idea how many people past me...” 

How many times do I fly past the Patricks not seeing them for the busyness? How often passing over the broken and the bleeding in the scramble to “do good”?  

“To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke...” 

More Than Those

We sat there, perched a little over 9,000 ft - waiting. 

Our group had hiked up the evening before. It was the first time I’d climbed that high. My prairie-raised lungs and legs staunchly protested the abusing, but it had been worth it. Each turn brought stunning views causing frequent self-pinching.

It’s been over a year now...time’s pace never ceases to amazes me. I was a newcomer to the diverse state of California, a tyro to the “wilderness” of the Sierra’s (some more intrepidly inclined might laugh at the wilderness-ness of it).

Supper was had on a nook above the rocky steep. The 80 stroked its way on valley floor below twinkling Christmas-lit by headlights. An elegant sunset tucked us in, fully dressed snuggling sleeping bags, under cleft. Starry panorama dazzled us dreamland-ward. 

We greeted the morning before dawn. Absolutely nothing compares to waking up on top of the world (talk about the right side of bed:) Scrambling upward, wind whistled through hair and sweaters bringing us to instant alertness. Lake Tahoe, a muted jewel at early hours, slumbered pastel on the horizon. 

Sitting, shivering on craggy outcrop, we waited.

Sky eastward continued to change color. 

We waited. 

Waited eagerly for the golden ball, fire rising. 

We waited. 

Checking time on phone, counting seconds. 

We waited. 

And then...yellow warmth licking faces, eyes sparkling. It leaped, dancing across surrounding peaks, showering the world in sunlight.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

And in His word I do hope.

My soul waits for the Lord

More than those who watch for the morning—

Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. 

-Psalm 130: 5,6

Are we willing to wait for Him like that? 

Thanks for letting me use the picture, Adam:)

Insane Pilots, Heros, and Grace

The pilot rushes out of the cockpit screaming. Intercom crackles, "Restrain him!" You rip your seatbelt off and lunge. With the help of a few others, he's pinned to the floor until the plane lands. 

Grace. Can’t it be obvious sometimes? And other times, doesn’t it seem missing in action?

What of times when airplanes don’t land safely, or when mad men shoot through little kids, or when thousands die every day simply because they don’t have enough to eat? Where is grace then? 

Why is it, when grace is given, we feel we don’t deserve it? 

And why do we feel we’re owed something in its absence? 

How do we appreciate grace when it becomes the humdrum of everyday life? And how do we continue to see it when pain rips it from view? 

Not everyday will you tackle insane pilots, feel the pulse of heroism pump through veins, but everyday you can conquer insane thoughts - thoughts that kill grace, destroy it. Fear-producing, pride-inducing, sin-seducing thoughts that not only trap you, but others around you. The only way to overpower these nutty notions is to give thanks for the grace around you, regardless of how insignificant it may seem. 

Simple, you say? Well, grace might be harder to recognize than you think. These insane membranes have been on the rampage a long time.

You choose to remain in your seat and let them wreak havoc or lunge at them and pull them down - pull them down with gratitude. The choice is yours. Will you be a hero today? 

*a piece written for a writing course I'm attending in Austin, Tx. The subject line was given to me and I had to make it fit with my thought: grace. Many of the questions I ask - honestly, I don't have answers. "Sometimes the only way to understand is to fall on your knees and say you don't." That's where I am. Perhaps only by going lower, deeper can answers truly be found. 

9-Year Old's Eye Salve

I kneel among stacks of ornaments cutting ribbon for the tree. It has been a long day...a long week (and it’s only Tuesday). My friend kneels beside, helping me. His little body coursing with Advent adrenaline. We’re transforming the evergreen. 

“This is the first year we’ve ever designed our tree!” he exclaims. I smile. 

The doctor walks in from a late day at the office. He reads of exhaustion, lines of weariness and illness mark his face. 

“Daddy, what do you think of the tree?” bubbles the boy. 

“It’s nice,” comes the worn response. 

“What do you mean it’s nice, Daddy? Isn’t it beautiful?” 

I sit there, back turned to the doctor, staring at my scissors. There’s a long pause.

“Yes, it’s beautiful.” 

The tone of his response melts me inside. This man - busy, stressed, overburdened, sick, doctor, as well as president of a college - he sees it. He enters into the moment. It’s as if the world pauses and all that matters is the tree, the beauty of it. 

But it’s my little friend who captures my attention. His curly head bounces with glee, his eyes sparkle with wonder, glitter sprinkled across his nose and cheeks glistens with the reflections from the lights. He’s reflecting the beauty because he sees it, he revels in it. 

And I ask myself: 

When was last time I saw through the eyes of a child? 

When did I stop being a child? 

Why is it that small things of beauty no longer impress? Why does it take the precipice of the Grand Canyon, or the snow-topped Alps, or the translucent waters of Lake Tahoe to make me gape in awe? 

What if I could be stripped of my “adult” lenses and look at the world through the eyes of my friend? 

How would that change how I view life and how I view God? 

Could I reflect beauty because I see it, I’m willing to enter in? 

Hmm - and so I’ve pondered these thoughts all week. 

“Daddy, isn’t it beautiful?” 

Perhaps it’s time we pause the world, enter into the beauty of small things, and become small things of beauty.