The Sea and the Teacher with a Dixie Cup

I have asked to be

Where no storms come,

Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,

And out of the swing of the sea.

-Gerard Manly Hopkins

My hair is in my eyes, my feet are numb with cold, and the tide won’t stay still. In and out, in and out. I’ve always wanted to catch a wave, to make it stop its rhythm.

A new wave’s icy waters spill over my feet—too much! I run back. My toes are cold now. I bury my hands in my pockets and shut my eyes to the world. What can I see through this windy hair anyway?

Every beach is an alter to the sea. But I'm a wimp. I don't want to be on that alter. I complain about the smallness I feel and how wet I am. This year I actually put down The Little Princess after two pages because I knew what would happen. I couldn't stand it. I knew her dad would leave. I knew Ms. Minchin would turn into a ice-hearted White Witch. And that was only a child's story! Obviously, I have a problem with tension in stories and in my own life.

I remember looking at the same stars Abraham saw and asking, “Why God?! Why!” I was staring His promises right in the face and all I could feel was overwhelmed by His bigness and how much I didn't like the way the story was going. I was as face-to-face as I could get with God's goodness and I doubted it: "What about her pain? What about their trial? You gave these things - why? Why do You let this happen." The starry sky starred me down.

Little children leave their sand castles as a sacrifice for Poseidon and he eats them, slowly but surely, sometimes swallowing all at once. This bothers me, but not the children at the beach. They forget about their laborious creations and instead, delight in chasing the waves, trying to touch and then not be touched by the devouring sea god.

When we were younger, my sisters and cousins loved to chase the waves, but I did not like the cold water. I normally stayed behind to keep the waves away from the fortress. It was an important job. “Stay away!” I would say, waving my plastic cup, “Or else…I’ll pour you back into the ocean!” And somehow I believed my methods worked.

* * * 

 

We've practiced our hallway behavior quite a bit – the only choices are to sit crisscross applesauce or stand straight and tall in line order. But that would be a calm sea. That's not how God works. Wait for it. Wait for the waves to come.

Today in the hall, instead of zen-meditating, crisscross-sitting little boys, I found two floppy forms sprawled out on the hall floor like Peter Pan's shadow. Not really what I expected to see when I turned the corner. Hey, buckaroo. You know better. Hello? Haven't I trained you to a certain standard? Don't you know my expectations?

This fall, the sprinklers had to get blown out at recess - that was God's story. “Stay away from the sprinklers.” To some boys that meant, “Stay a few inches away and feel free to put your hand in the sprinkler.” I waited and watched. One of them got to sit out a bit, but I was sure the rest would get the point after this example. I watched and waited. One of the boys was watching and waiting too. Until he had my eye contact. As soon as our gaze met, he inched nearer and nearer the spraying sprinklers, eyes still locked on me. “Watch me. Just. Watch. Me.”

We practiced obedience. We've run through the consequences. Why isn't that enough? Why don't all these rules and all this practice fix the problem? Why won't you – boy, girl, child - just obey. Like Paul said, “the law entered that the offense might abound,” (Rom. 5:20). The law does not save. The rules do not save. The teacher, does not save.

One particular day after school, I went to the bathroom and closed the stall door behind me, wanting, hoping I could just weep. A dozen names on the board - a pain deeper than I had know even for my own sin. Here was the sting, here was the pain – the sin of others. It is a dagger that cuts and twists with the turning of the hilt. I never had so strong a sensation of the grief of sin, or as Paul calls it, “the sting of death.”

How the Father must have felt bitter anguish over each of His children's sins, and how Jesus tasted the venom and swallowed the serpent whole, I cannot fathom. Here was my taste of the poison. I was pained, weary from their sin toward each other. I closed the door - I closed out the children, the problems, and the confusion. I wanted to crouch into a ball on the cold stone floor and weep, I wanted to enter God's throne room and show Him my tears. “Listen to me, Dad! Abba, I need You to hear this! Hear my supplications - see me! See me.”

I could not weep. Not a tear. Not a sound. Nothing.

For all I had closed out, I had not counted on what I had closed inside. Myself. There I was, and there I was because I couldn't do it. And my Maker left me there without a hearing, without a word on my mouth because I would not see the log in my own eye. I was pruning down their selfishness, but unwilling to cut down my own. I expected God to change these little people, but through me, according to my standard, and in my time. Right now, actually.

There was my dixie cup and the sea, yet I could not see the impossibility, stupidity - blaspheme - of my solution: I could not save these children, I could not control them, I could not be rid of my anguish until I realized it was not up to me. At all.

After all, wasn't it He who bore the cross and carried our anguish to the grave? Was it not He who conquered death with life. There is a better Teacher and a higher law - Grace. “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,” (Romans 8:3).

I am completely inadequate. Like a child on the beach fighting the waves. Like the disciples with weary eyelids, hungry bellies, no food, and a starving multitude on their hands, I am inadequate. But He says, “My grace is sufficient for you. How many loaves do you have?”

I will count the loaves and give them to my Father. He will break them. He will feed the multitude.

* * *

I sit here, where the land meets the sea, battered by the waves, but still trying to catch them. Not because I can, but because He put me here near the wind and the waves. I'm trying to be like Noah and like Sarah, I'm trying to be in the “swing of the sea.”

Often, I do not see the haven or the heavens. I only see the swell of the tide as it encroaches on everything I seem to have under control. I see impossibility, defeat, and the wind whipping my hair over my eyes. But still, I stay here because I can do nothing without Him and He has called me here to become a child again by training children to see Him.

I will learn to love the repeating rhythm to and from the edge of something great and terrible, something much bigger than myself. I will frolic in the icy waters and chase the fingers of the sea, laughing and falling and laughing. I will play without a care, and forget that my toes are cold. Laughter will teach me to face the spit and spray of the seas with joy, for that is what I am here to do. I am here to be a child and laugh with Jesus at the wind and the waves.

Grace's as Relentless as Wind

Grace's as relentless as wind.

Grace is wind: 

Blows away chaff with darts of breath,

Beats me with torrential rushes,

Shakes my soul with whirlwinds,

Topples my Tower of Babel.

Bellows in my ear drums,

Messes my hair.

Grace's as insufficient as five loaves and two fish.

Grace is five loaves and two fish:

Meager means feeds five thousand.

Take, bless, brake, give:

Baskets full of leftovers.

Grace's as awe-full as a miracle.

Grace is a miracle:

I never reached for His garment, nor called His name;

My hand struck Him, my breath damned Him.

His body broken;

Mine, healed.

Grace's as cleansing as rain.

Grace is rain:

Breaking clouds above umbrella-ed heads,

Swell into garden and gutter,

Gush, splash, puddle

Beneath laughing children's feet.

Tailor-made

Why does the rusty robin
yank at the elastic worm while he wears
his ostentatious plumage?

I don't wear my ball gown
when I garden.

Where are his work clothes?

Painting With God

The World-whirler
made me this way.
he made me to throw words
like he does.

Why do I smear colors onto a white page
without art lessons?
Why do I pretend
I am capturing the ocean?

A slice of tree and sharpened led make
letters on a page.
Here's a drip for you:

Ocean.

I said wave, splash, blue, foam -
don't you see it?

I look like Phaeton
invited to drive the god's chariot.
Language is too powerful
for mortals
but he puts the thunderbolts
in our hands
anyway.

Some afternoons I practice throwing thunderbolts
with him.
Words whirl
from our lips.
He covers the sky with clouds; I
cover my paper with letters.

My father is an artist and I want to be just like him.
He drew the Mona Lisa, but I don't understand
why He made her look so serious.

I just graduated from Kindergarten
and my father is very proud of me.
I drew my mother's face with pink and purple crayons and he put the picture
over the Mona Lisa.

He said I draw like a first grader now.

God's Wife

She sat on top of the hill on the trunk of three splitting trees—the best place to survey the kingdom of Playground.

“Ms. Miller!” Ava called out, “I’m pretending to be God’s wife!” 

God’s wife: a short female tyrant sitting on a tree trunk and wearing a plaid uniform jumper. How fitting. This was the girl who trumped her classmates’ ideas for playtime with her bossy imagination, who took off her jumper during class to get attention, and who quoted mom-talk to her friend: “I said no. That means no.” What Ava said, she wanted done, and what she did, she wanted everyone to see. Her imagination reflected her heart well.

The situation presented a conversation about control that I had anticipated. When I told her God did not have a wife though, she merely giggled. She said she knew God did not have a wife—she was only pretending. Still, I hoped that the conversation would penetrate her little soul and sow seeds of humility. Most of all, I hoped that she would see the silly character she was practicing to become. She could not be God’s wife, she could not live a life of control.

Ava changed the importance of that seat: it was now a place of power, control, and Kindergarten admiration. At recess, the first girl to sit on “the throne” was queen. She was surrounded by stoic soldiers, guarded captives, ladies in waiting, and dancing courtiers who played below the throne hoping for the queen’s attention.

On the second day, I heard shrieks and cries coming from the tree. Two winded wide-eyed girls ran up, eager to justly settle the terrible fracas between their two friends: “She won’t give it to her….but she was there first…and now she won’t give it to her!” I could hear the screams and cries: the queen was unwilling to share her throne. The lust for power mounted into a squabble of cries and tears and pushing and shoving: the overflow of the heart was ugly.

Now there was not just one Kindergartener with a grabby heart, but two. Their tears were for themselves, not for their friend. A tree had become more important than a friendship, and both girls desperately needed to look away from themselves. Both needed to look to the only tree that ever mattered, and to the man who hung on that tree to make enemies His friends. They needed to see their helplessness and their need for Him.

But it was not until later that I saw what I needed to learn from Ava’s imagination. That is when the whole situation shocked me: this child showed me myself. Here I was, given a job I always thought was out of reach, and I certainly did not get it because of any fancy accomplishments on my part, and yet I wanted to move on. I snapped my fingers: “That was all nice, God, but I want something else, something more. Please prepare the way for me as I chose what I will do next.” I surveyed my kingdom and ordered my subjects around - like Ava, I was pretending to be God’s wife.

When stripped of excuses and performed in the role-playing of a child, my sin was ugly and ridiculous. A Kindergartener sitting on a tree trunk may be cute, but a woman in her twenties who pretends to be God’s wife is anything but adorable. My plans and prayers were frustrated as I threw a tantrum at the gates of heaven. I could not hear my Father’s instructions, nor did I want to hear Him. How could I when my hands were beating against His will? So He showed me myself in the play of a little child. This little child, this student, was the lesson plan.

I would never have said I was pretending to be God’s wife, that I wanted my way and would pout if I did not get it. She, on the other hand, was unashamed of her imaginative play. She was not afraid to admit what she was pretending, so He wrote the truth I denied into her script. I wanted to be the teacher, the one in control, but God knew better: “This time your teachers are your students. See yourself in their little hands and little faces. Learn it again: you are the child.”  

Life is God’s sacred lesson plan in which each person and event is a deeper revelation of His unending mercy. We are students in a world written with the energy of a passionate and playful teacher. We are buffered by His love–learning, tasting, seeing it all around us. His mercy and our neediness is the resounding lesson. Praise God He mounted the tree and took our sinful selves to the cross. We are the ones who falter and need our Father’s love. We are always children, and we ought not even dare to sit upon the throne until He remakes our grabby hearts.

Seeing His Face

I am all for celebrating holidays according to the Church calendar, but I am not one to systematically begin and end the celebration. I like my Christmas tree up early, and some years I never mentally take it down. This is one of those years. I am still not done thinking about Advent and Christmas, so here is my only apology for writing this post: those holidays are all about the coming of the Light, and since the Light just keeps getting brighter as the calendar year continues, why should I make any further excuses for dwelling here a little longer?

Obviously, this causes some disorder in my celebration: the essence of Advent is longing, but I don’t like to wait. I listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving and I compulsively drive down the blocks with the brightest houses. In fact, if it were not for my string of twinkle lights, the somber darkness would eat away at my cheery spirit.

I am thankful that this electric age allows me to cheat the darkness, but I still know I am waiting for Christmas day, that day when all the lights were turned on. We live in the age of instant light, but we still wait for the baby blazing with glory, the morning star who brings the eternal sunrise from on high; we wait for the One who made all light switches possible.

Light is a sign of God’s favor. When He blesses His people, His face shines on them: Moses saw Yahweh on the mountain and thus became a bearer of God’s glory, the Psalmist prayed for a blessing in the form of God’s shining face, and the priests were anointed with oil to visually show God’s favor toward His people. These were signs of God’s love and presence, but also visions of the future Emmanuel –God with us.

In Emmanuel, God Himself came as the blessing. He came with a face like ours, and He did not mask that face. He did not hide His face, not from shame or from spitting (Isa 50:6). He came to shine on our hearts that we might see ourselves and flee to Him. He came that we might receive a heart like His and a face to reflects that heart.

Diane Ackerman says that the face is the expression of the heart. Perhaps that is what was so terrifying about Moses’ shining face: the people of Israel saw God’s face in the radiance of Moses. They could not bear to see him without a veil, and perhaps that was partially because their own faces were far less radiant—their hearts were dark and dim. Yet, though this world is full of the deformities of sin and death, God’s face is full of love and favor. God touched the darkness of this earth to transform it; we no longer need to fear the light.

The babe in the manger brings real change. He brings light that does not merely shatter all our darkness, but pierces our souls. He brings the light of salvation, as well as the brightness of a light bulb in a dark room.

The light shined brighter and brighter at Christ’s coming. The angel Gabriel appeared before Mary, a star lit up the heavens, and the angelic choirs joined in a heavenly bonfire before the shepherds. All that to announce the real light show: the face of a baby in an animal’s food trough.

The King of glory was laid out for the world like food for animals in a stable. He came in blood and filth, and not just the blood and filth of a baby born in a 20th century hospital, though that is gritty enough. He came in the grime and filth of a stable with hay and (yes, really!) pooping animals. Hymns may say that the little town was still and sweet, but His birth was no sentimental moment. Jesus was not a haloed cooing baby. He was the baby born to die for our sins, the baby given gifts for His burial when He was only one.

Here is the glory of God: a baby crying in the slums of Bethlehem.

On Christmas Eve, I attended a service where the minister said this baby was not historical. No, He was not really seen by shepherds or His mother. He was not seen at all. Baby Jesus was a character in a story with true meaning, but He was not real.

The minister proceeded to preach peace and comfort amidst the massacre of innocent children and a warmongering world; and why? Because of an untrue story that tells the truth. What a load of crap. This man who claimed to be a minister of God, spoke lies and hopeless darkness on a night brilliant with truth.

No sweet story can soothe a soul’s bitter anguish. If Jesus did not take human flesh and die, our sins are not covered and our warfare is not over. There is no comfort; no comfort for me or anyone else who sat in the illuminated cathedral listening to that minister. If Jesus is not real then there is no hope, only darkness and death.

The fools of this age may rage, but only my Savior’s face can comfort me. God descended to take on human flesh, and no man can take that truth from me.

These are the facts: God came, and as if that was not enough to make us look to Bethlehem, angels leapt through the heavens to wake earth from her slumbers. The skies shook with trumpeting angel voices and the dark exploded with the most terrifying fireworks display ever seen. In the midst of darkness, God paraded out light incarnate.

This baby’s blazing face is our only hope. Yet, how easily we, like the minister, forget that God’s face shone upon us and that Emanuel is with us. We lose sight of the manger, and darkness and doubt creep in to cloud our senses. Yet, just as the sun does not shine without changing our night to day, God does not descend without profound and piercing change.

Lest we forget that He has come, we need only see the angelic choir around us. The heavens descended that night and pronounced the anthem: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” These are the words sung to God in heaven, and at Jesus’ birth the antiphonal choir descended and sang to men. They did not come to sing to another angelic choir, but to lowly shepherds. When the angels sing their antiphon, the shepherds picked it up and sang: “They made it widely known the saying which was told them,” (Luke 2:17). They became the angel choir.

We too are those humble shepherds swept up into the antiphonal choir to sing His praises. Here is our Truth and our Life and our Light: “We have found a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” Christ is born in Bethlehem.

Strike up the tune and sing the fire-angel song. See God in human faces—see Light shine out of the darkness of human hearts. Tear off every mask and expose every falsehood that dims His glory; the Sun has come and brightness is all His rising. Forget the electric bill: plug in the twinkle lights, flip on every light switch, light the candles, burn the bonfire, and stare at the blazing spheres overhead. Together we all declare, “Glory to God in the highest. Emmanuel is here.”