Glimpsing God

Uncle Andrew and his study vanished instantly. Then, for a moment, everything became muddled. The next thing Digory knew was that there was a soft green light coming down on him from above, and darkness below. He didn’t seem to be standing on anything, or sitting, or lying. Nothing appeared to be touching him. “I believe I’m in water,” said Digory. “Or under water.” This frightened him for a second, but almost at once he could feel that he was rushing upward. Then his head suddenly came out into the air and he found himself scrambling ashore, out on to smooth grassy ground at the edge of a pool.

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool — not more than ten feet from side to side — in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others — a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drink the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. When he tried to describe it afterward Digory always said, “It was a rich place: as rich as plumcake.” — Excerpt from The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

These are the opening paragraphs of the third chapter of the first book of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia . This is the place where the adventure really begins as Digory finds himself slipping from his own world into the Wood Between the Worlds, as the chapter is titled. It is the first of many times in the series that we pass, almost by accident, into another world.

As a child, I loved this series because it made me believe there might be other worlds just around the corner. The idea that I might stumble over some threshold at any moment and find myself in the midst of some grand adventure was exhilarating. As an adult, this notion has never quite left me.

The part of me that believes whole heartedly in mystery finds that I do indeed slip into these other worlds from time to time. Most often it is when I become lost in the creative process and — as with Narnia — time ceases to exist for a while. At other times it is a walk in the woods, or an act of worship, or the witnessing in someone else an occasion where heaven and earth meet in an ebenezer of a moment. And I believe that these are the moments when I stumble over the threshold and encounter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Imagine my surprise, a few months ago, when my head came out into the air and I found myself scrambling ashore on to smooth grassy ground at the edge of a . . . laundromat? The twenty-year-old washing machine that was in our house when we bought it had finally quit, and there were no twenty-year-old replacement parts to be found anywhere on the interwebs. Not only that, but a new washing machine was most definitely not in the budget. So, harboring much crankiness in my heart and wishing that I were independently wealthy, I hoofed it down the street to my local Wash World with four baskets overflowing with laundry.

It should be said that to call laundry my least favorite chore would be an understatement. In fact, I was flipping through an old journal the other day and found a poem I wrote several years ago, which I titled, God Damn the Laundry. So, I was not happy to be there, but I got my eight loads started none-the-less and settled into a chair to wait with a book.

It was quiet there, with the hum of washers and dryers lulling away my grump. The air smelled of laundry detergent and fabric softener, while the florescent lights gleamed off of the clean, white tile floor. An avid people watcher, I soon found myself putting down my book to study those around me. I watched as a young, Latino man lovingly took a red jersey from a yellow, mesh hamper where his soccer ball and cleats were nestled. Wearing a Buchari Kippah, another man carried a large bag into the laundromat for his wife who walked beside him. To my right a woman wearing army fatigues unloaded her duffle bag into the washer. Across the room, a father and his college-aged son folded laundry, an old man read the newspaper, and a little boy wearing football pads fidgeted and doodled on a piece of paper. The woman in front of me was wearing a hijab and loading her freshly laundered clothes neatly into a basket. A handsome, black man about my age, with thick, long dreadlocks pulled back by a straining rubber band, sat beside me tapping his foot to music that filtered softly, sounding almost like running water, from his ear buds.

It was peaceful there as I watched all those people with their diverse backgrounds working together side by side. You could almost feel the trees drink the water up with their roots. It was a rich place: as rich as plum cake. It was a glimpse, I think, of the Kingdom.

He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. Matthew 13: 31-32

Do you ever have those days when the things around you seem to weirdly coalesce into a theme? The more mystic among us might call it Ruach, or breath of God in Hebrew (A grammatically feminine word, by the way.) Today was one of those days, and being a tad into that kind of mysticism myself, I decided to sit up and take notice.

It started this morning as I was drinking coffee and perusing Twitter. Right before 3-year-old Sophia came padding into the bedroom looking all slumpy and groggy and bed-heady, I came across this article: The 12-Year-Old Slut Meme and Facebook’s Misogyny Problem. (*Warning it contains violent and offensive language due to the nature of the topic, but I think it is powerful, truthful, and worth the read.)

I read through the article as I snuggled sleepy Sophia, picturing her round, little face on the faces of each of the women described in the article, knowing that each of them had once been — or still are — somebody’s little girl. Each of them possessing God-given gifts and talents. Each of them, women of worth with an identity and a story. I started to feel that internal fire deep down in my belly that makes me want to stand in a very high place, yelling out, “World! This is unacceptable, and I utterly reject these words, images, and ideas as any woman’s identity.” As if my words might have the power to lave misogyny in all its forms from the earth, and wrap the women of the world in a blanket of self-worth.

After dropping Sophia off at school, I came home still feeling fiery and unsettled. So, I decided to read for a while. Last week, in the mail, I received an Advance Reader’s Copy of Rachel Held Evans’s new book, A YEAR OF BIBLICAL WOMANHOOD, which hits the shelves on October 30. I started to read, and the Ruach just kept coming. Here’s an excerpt that I shared on Facebook.

We recall with ease the narratives of Scripture that include a triumphant climax — a battle won, a giant slain, chariots swallowed by the sea. But for all of its glory and grandeur, the Bible contains a darkness you will only notice if you pay attention, for it is hidden in the details, whispered in the stories of women.

She goes on to describe a ceremony that she and her friend, Kristine, came up with to honor the victims of biblical misogyny saying…

Finally, we remembered the Tamar of the Davidic narrative, whose rape in the king’s house left her desolate and without a future. A heartbreaking poem from Nicola Slee pulled each of the stories together and connected them to the silent victims of misogyny from around the world. We resolved as Slee to “listen, however painful the hearing . . . until there is not one last woman remaining who is a victim of violence.” We lit a white pillar candle and said together, “We remember Tamar.”

Rachel Held Evans concludes this section of her book saying,

Those who seek to glorify biblical womanhood have forgotten the dark stories. They have forgotten the concubine of Bethlehem, the raped princess of David’s house, the daughter of Jephthah, and the countless unnamed women who lived and died between the lines of Scripture exploited, neglected, ravaged, and crushed at the hand of patriarchy are as much a part of our shared narrative as Deborah, Esther, Rebekah, and Ruth. We may not have a ceremony through which to grieve them, but it is our responsibility as women of faith to guard the dark stories for our own daughters, and when they are old enough, to hold their faces between our hands and make them promise to remember.

My great love of the Bible actually comes from its dark stories, because I believe that stories are often validating in a holy way. Each one of us can find our own story written there between the lines of scripture. Even the ugly stories, even the horrible stories. There they are made sacred, and that sacredness wipes away shame, transforming us into Ruach-filled beings.

So, as I sit here typing, I glance out the window to where Sophia can be seen in the backyard hosting a tea-party for a couple of dolls and a sock monkey, and I grieve for a world that has treated its daughters as though they were disposable. Someday I will hold my daughter’s face between my hands and I will tell her to remember the dark stories. Then in the words of Nora Ephron, I will say, “I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.”

Reblogged from September 11, 2011

I had just begun my junior year of college and was walking down the oak shaded sidewalk of our campus’s grassy front plaza with my roommate Kelly.  We were on our way to the auditorium where our school faculty would process down the isles, led by bagpipes, and dressed in full academic regalia.  We would hear a message from our college president.  We would start the school year and go on about our day. Only, that was the day that everything changed. That was the day we crossed a horrible dividing line in history. I hope it was the last time I will cross such a line.

A friend came running up to tell us that a plane had just flown into one of the  twin towers in New York City, a world away.  I was mildly distressed. Those poor people, I thought.

“What happened?” I asked. “Was it an accident?” Surely it was.

“No,” she said. “They think it is a terrorist attack.”

We filed into the auditorium where our opening convocation commenced.  When the president stood up to address us, he announced that a second plane had flown into the Twin Towers.  We were under attack.

Immediately following convocation, Kelly and I rushed back to our dorm room and turned on the television. We sat side by side on our futon and watched in horror as the buildings fell.  We were afraid. No one knew what was happening. The Pentagon had been hit. Where else were we under attack? We stayed glued to our television all day, and all the next day.  It was hard to go to class. Some of our professors even canceled class. We were consumed by fear and grief. We called loved ones just to hear their voices, just to reach out and touch them, to know that they were still tangible unlike so many other people’s loved ones. I think we knew then, that our lives had changed; we were entering a more fearful age.  An age where we would trust each other a little less.

I can’t remember if it was the night of September 11, 2001, or if it was a few nights later after we’d absorbed what was happening – our campus held a prayer vigil on the same grassy plaza where I first heard the news of the attacks. It was night time, and most of the student body had come out to surround the plaza in one giant circle. We stood there quietly, with no plan, no program, no leader. Some stood quietly, while others cried.

After a while, I began to feel something nagging at me – a word of hope. I longed for someone to say, “This is not it. This is not the end. This is not all there is.” So, I went up to my room, which was nearby and grabbed a big, white pillar candle and a lighter. I went back out onto the plaza and placed that candle – small in the darkness – in the center of that big circle of grief and fear. Then I lit it, and as loudly as I could without yelling, I said my favorite verse from scripture which is John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overcome it.” 

I felt like a fool.  What did I know? I probably should have left people to their silence, but I just needed to light that candle and see it prick the darkness. I needed to hear that triumphant and defiant phrase – the darkness has never overcome it – even if it was only my own voice saying it.

Today, ten years later, I went to church, and like many churches our church was having a service of remembrance.  I was sitting by myself in the back when a woman that I didn’t know came in and sat down beside me. Part way through the service I realized that she was crying, I could feel her shaking our pew with silent sobs. So I reached over and touched her on the shoulder. She grabbed my hand, and we two strangers sat holding hands on our pew while the Old Testament Lesson was read, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.  Psalm 46: 1-3

After a few minutes, a teenage girl, a member of the youth group, came over to our pew from across the isle where she had been sitting. She handed the woman a tissue and gave her a hug. Then she started to cry, too – a glimpse of community, a glimpse of the church uncluttered by arguments, a glimpse of life, a glimpse of light, a glimpse of God. A moment to be still, as Psalm 46 says, and know that I am God, present through tears, clasped hands, and perfect strangers who realize they are not so strange to one another.

I remember that after 9/11,  this was how we all got through it, we leaned on each other.  We were gentle with each other. We reached out to perfect strangers like we never had before.  For a few days and weeks after September 11, 2001 our country felt so united, so supportive of one another, so tender towards one another. Tragedy brought out the best in us.  It brought out the light in us.

Destruction is such an easy thing. It takes only moments and, often, not much planning as with the pulling of a trigger or the lighting of a fire. It’s the work of a moment. Mindless. It’s rebuilding and healing that are so difficult. Those things take strength, intentionality, and time. We’ve done that. We’re doing that. We are stronger than hate, fear, and destruction.  We are more than hate, fear, and destruction. One little pin prick of candle light is stronger than all the darkness around it. We know we have that in us, we’ve seen it.  We all have our September 11 stories, our memories of all the heroes, and all the generosity that poured out of our nation at that time. Perhaps that is a memory and a light we should take with us into this present age of darkness, uncertainty, and fear – whatever part of human history it is that we are walking into.

Today in church, our pastor ended the sermon with those words from John – The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overcome it - and I think I was right to light that candle on a dark, grassy plaza 10 years ago. Let’s keep lighting candles even if the earth should change, and the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, and even if the waters roar and foam.  Let’s keep holding hands with perfect strangers, wiping away tears, and standing in giant circles together, because if we can do this, we’re going to heal, we’re going to be whole, and darkness will never overcome us.

Hi Friends,

I’ve been putting all of my time and energy into my book manuscript over the past few weeks. The good news is, I’ve finished it, which feels wonderful! Although, I’m learning that in the craft of writing, the word finished is relative. The next step in the process is that my manuscript goes to my critique partner, followed by revisions. After that it goes out to some beta readers for their input, followed by more revisions. Then I begin querying agents, followed by rejection letters. At the end of the whole process, this thing I have toiled on for two and a half years (so far) may never even be published. When trying to explain to Dave the compulsion I have to write this story I said, “It’s like this thing that I need to give birth to, and if I don’t, I’ll go crazy.”

Now, I have given birth to this story and feel a sense of peace. It is far from perfect, and it may be far from being any good, but at least I know the complete story I have been struggling to tell. It’s not a profound work about faith. Nope, it’s just a ghost story, because I like ghost stories and wanted to write one. The main character is seventeen-year-old Ruby McGlowin, who, after her father’s murder, is placed with a guardian in the fictional town of Laurel Mountain, North Carolina where her father’s killer is still at large. As her eighteenth birthday approaches, she discovers a family tree written out in her father’s handwriting, showing that every woman born into the McGlowin family dies on her eighteenth birthday. The secret behind her father’s murder and her own impending doom lies in an old Scottish ballad and a mysterious object called the harp of bone.

So anyway, thanks friends and readers for all of the support and affirmation you’ve given this struggling, novice writer. I don’t take any of it for granted. I’ll be back to blogging next week with a lovely guest post from my friend, Reverend Camille Labron Powell, who is recently back from a trip to the Isle of Iona in the Scottish Hebrides.

Grace and Peace,

Neely

This is Monsta. I made him/her/it? yesterday, just for the fun of it. Move over Mona Lisa, there’s a new masterpiece in town.
Medium: Play-dough and colored toothpicks.

*Now this creative power I think is the Holy Ghost. My theology may not be very accurate but that is how I think of it. I know that William Blake called this creative power the Imagination and he said it was God. He, if anyone, ought to know, for he was one of the greatest poets and artists that ever lived. Blake thought this creative power should be kept alive in all people for all of their lives. And so do I. Why? Because it is life itself. It is the Spirit. In fact it is the only important thing about us. The rest of us is legs and stomach, materialistic cravings and fears. How could we keep it alive? By using it, by letting it out, by giving some time to it. ~ Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write; A Book about Art, Independence, and Spirit

*Creativity, which is the expression of our originality, helps us stay mindful that what we bring to the world is completely original and cannot be compared. And, without comparison, concepts like ahead or behind or best or worst lose their meaning. ~Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection