The U-cal-peetus Tree or The Eucalyptus Tree?

I love to wallow in words. Some of my best childhood memories include words... Daddy teaching me to read, making up silly words, a song, "The U-cal-peetus Tree" sung by Rosemary Clooney, the word game in Reader’s Digest, books checked out every week from our Carnegie Library, laughing at the old time pronunciation of some common words. One of my favorite classes in high school, taught by the slow speaking Mrs. Adams, was American literature. I devoured the text book readings in one week and then had to suffer through the rest of the school year as we dissected the meaning and construction of each piece. The one college course I remember with clarity, that has been a continuous part of my life, was a course on T.S. Eliot and his poetry. That process of reading the poems one at a time, learning to appreciate the craft and art contained in the arrangement of the words, the deep feeling of connection to the poet, to the world, to myself and to God was a powerful experience that taught me a new way to read words.
Reading poetry taught me to read the layers of meaning contained in words. There could be many worlds contained in one poem, each one a different path with a new destination. Seminary courses taught me the history, culture and language of the Bible but my poetry class taught me how to really read the Bible.
That is why I love all the translations of the Bible. It is a word creation full of layers upon layers of meaning, word puzzles unending, a lifetime of treasure hunting contained in those ancient words. Every translation that has been created, whether in the language of a tribe in South America or in Russian or southern vernacular, contains some new way of hearing the Word. The power of the old story, re-told in many languages, is not constrained or contained in one "correct" translation. They all have beauty, meaning, new ways of seeing, a way to connect to the God of the past ( Greek and King James), the modern ( the Revised Standard Version), and the future (the Inclusive Version and some yet to be written).
As a child I was taught not to stack any other books on top of the Bible. It was a holy book, a power-full book, a book of mystery. We acknowledged that by treating this one book differently from all others because the Word made flesh was real for us. I miss that sense of awe and mystery, that respect accorded to the Bible. I know there are other holy books, other pathways to God but this in my book, my path and I can spend my life reading this one book, searching for meaning and instruction without ever completely understanding it. I will never be able to "rightly divide the Word of God" but I can keep on trying.
So this Sunday, I will carry my old Bible to church, beginning again to hold the written Word in my hands as I worship, honoring its importance in my life of the Spirit by keeping it close. I wonder what worship would be like if we just read from the Word and waited? Read different translations and heard them side by side? Read the Japanese version translated back into English to hear the cultural differences? Just sat and listened and like Mary, ponder these words in our heart? I wonder what we would hear if all we heard was the Word made flesh in many different languages? Would we hear the God who has been present in history, is present in all our world now and will be present in worlds to come? May it be so.

with every eye closed and every head bowed...

Lisa met me on her screen porch, asked me if I had heard... "Heard what?", I asked. "Jill died with an aneurysm last night". Jill was our therapist. She had a rare gift, the combination of self deprecating humor that included you in the joke, technical skills, a connection with her own roots that was echoed in her mountain accent (sometimes thicker than others) and the ability to listen with a third ear. Lisa and I had come to depend on her as she led us through the wilderness of ADD with neurofeedback and talk therapy. We sat in stunned silence and wept for her husband and family... and ourselves. The next few years I wandered in the fields of medicine and dietary supplements. Some made me crazier than normal. Some helped. None were without side effects. Now I am working with another therapist doing neurofeedback again. Last week for the first time since Jill died, I slept through the nights consistently without waking up, or circle thinking, or eight track thinking. I am told this is the one of the first signs of my brain getting the messages of neurofeedback. Sleep, blessed sleep...
Terry, my new therapist, tells me my brain is strange (not news for some of you). I am constantly working to control both my busy brain waves and my fuzzy brain waves, bouncing around constantly with jagged rhythm patterns in my breathing and heart rate as my brain struggles to find equilibrium. Even in my sleep my brain struggled to rest. Like mothers of young children, I had become accustomed to my sleep deprivation. It felt normal to have to take a nap, wake up feeling drugged, not be able to go to sleep easily at night. That is beginning to change.
This morning I woke up considering the parallels of sleep to the brain and prayer to the soul. With good sleep, the right kind of rest for my body and brain, I find an ease in my daily living that has been missing, a perspective that allows me to not get as caught up in the busy brain-fuzzy brain war. I still have ADD. I still have to work harder than most of you to get tasks completed. But I feel different... hopeful, centered, rested, in touch. And that is what prayer does for my soul... a neurofeedback for my spirit.
When I pray, my spiritual self settles. I do not need to engage the problem solving, task oriented, information gathering, controlling parts of my self. I simply settle, get still, get quiet in the body and spirit. That is very hard to do. Much like learning to work my brain waves, learning to work my praying self has been a matter of practice and learning. I have had some good teachers.
At our church revivals the evangelist would always ask us to close our eyes and bow our heads as we sang the invitation hymn (especially when no one had come forward to make a profession of faith or rededicate their life to Jesus). As I grew up in the faith, I judged that an unnecessary prayer practice. I’ve changed my mind. The act of closing my eyes shuts out the world around me and bowing my head is a physical way of recognizing I am not in charge. Other faith traditions have different physical responses that are used in the act of prayer... rocking back and forth while standing, palms turned upward, spinning dancing. The physical act is a signal to the brain to move to a different space, shut down the thinking, open to the Sacred Mystery that surrounds us, unseen and unheard until we stop and listen.
Another teacher in the art of prayer is my examined life. When I look back over 61 years of living, I can remember and feel the prayers that have sustained my soul. Some came in the middle of great pain and suffering, wrung from my soul in ugly gasps for release and rest. Other prayers have been joyful magnificats of ecstatic flight that soared in graceful arcs to the Holy One. Some corporate prayers in worship linger in my memory... Hugh McMullen praying before the Sunday offering... "The Lord loves a cheerful giver but He will take it from a grouch". The greatest number of them however have been small prayers in passing... as I drive and am quiet, as I sit and drink an afternoon cup of tea on the porch, as I read my Bible. An old phrase from my religious training floats to the surface of my mind. I have a "burden laid on my heart" and the only way to set it down is to pray. So I pray for Liz and David, their children, Margaret in the hospital, Tina going to dialysis, Mama visiting her sister for the first time in years... all the stuff of my daily living offered up to God in passing and then set down, left for the Grace of God to lift and carry. My soul’s breathing and heart rate evens out into rounded hills and valleys, no longer the jagged peaks that come with being disconnected from God. I am grateful in ways words cannot describe for the art of neurofeedback that teaches my brain how to settle and for the art of prayer... prayer that rests my soul, prayer that gives me a hiding place under the wings of the Almighty One, prayer that sustains and re-creates my life so that I may learn to pray without ceasing, a life of prayer. Thanks be to God.

not the 4h but the 3h...

I read an article about our hearts the other day that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Scientists and doctors are exploring the construction of our hearts and finding they are mini brains... wired, connected, not just a big muscle. Maybe heart transplant patients who report a change in their being after the surgery are right. There is more to our hearts than being pumps for blood.
The concordance in my Bible has a full page, in tiny type, listing references to the heart. The old ones’ wisdom may not have been based on scientific knowledge but it was a different kind of knowing that was equally accurate. I suspect the intuitive wisdom about the heart crosses all boundary lines of time, culture, religion and geography.
Since my reference point for understanding God is Jesus, I looked at what he had to say about the heart... "Blessed are the pure in heart; Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also; to the paralyzed man, ‘Take heart and walk’; Take heart, it is I; have no fear; Let not your heart be troubled." Now I know as a New Testament student who has been taught by Frank Stagg, that many of these statements are not actual quotes. That doesn’t bother me. The wisdom in the words is more important than the assurance of the accuracy of the words. One quote however stands out to me and I choose to take it literally. When questioned about the greatest commandment, Jesus replied, " The Lord our God is one ; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this; You shall love your neighbor as yourself". In two sentences all of the gospel that is necessary is summed up in order.
God is one... an affirmation echoed by our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters. Love God with all your heart comes first, not by accident but by design. Our hearts, wired for love, are the beginning source for all our yearning and reaching and searching for the One who first loved us. Our soul, the creation that carries our truest selves, is second in line with our minds and strength at the end of the list. As a child with an evangelical family tree, my Baptist mothers and fathers may have been right to have a healthy distrust for education that separated heart, soul and mind. My mind is necessary as I love God not because my mind can understand or imagine the fullness of God, but because using my mind can stretch my soul and deepen my love for God. An uninformed or unformed mind can be a hindrance to the heart, but it is no substitute for the heart and soul. And here is the problem.
We have elevated the mind and its way of knowing in our lives to first place. Our children must make A’s, go to the best colleges, have careers not jobs. We must know about environmental issues, racial divides, wars and rumors of wars so that we might act in accordance with God’s call to love our neighbors as ourselves. Knowledge is seen as the agent of change and the mind as the source for our strength. That is not true for me. My knowledge will always be imperfect and my mind will never equal the mind of God. For me, the starting place for all change, is in right relationship with God. All else in my life flows from this stream head. If I am praying, listening, waiting on God and my soul is resting in the assurance I am loved, my mind can be engaged, gain knowledge and act in strength that comes from my Source, a different way of knowing. I say this well aware of my own predisposition to intuition and feeling. The Meyers Briggs Type Indicator gives a clear picture of my preferred functioning style. I know my way of perceiving is not the only way and my way of finding God is not the only way. Nevertheless, the way of the heart, soul, mind and strength, all beginning in the Heart of God, all a seamless free play that connects us to each other, a way of knowing our hearts that lets us know the hearts of others, not either or but both and, an integrated whole soul, will set us all free... hearts hardwired to love, heads to learn and hands to serve...a Christian 3 H...Thanks be to God for my whole self.

if i could talk to the animals... and God

My daddy spoke cow and my mama spoke cat and dog. Hugh Lofting’s character, Doctor Doolittle, was one of my childhood heros. Growing up on a farm allowed me to spend hours with all sorts of animals. I can speak cow, cat and dog fairly well but chicken and pig were more difficult to master. I am surrounded by friends and family who speak animal. Lisa, my friend and neighbor, speaks dog fluently. She suspects she may have been in the wrong line when souls were being handed out. My daughter Alison speaks dog, cat, and rabbit. Our farm partner and friend, Tim, speaks toad, hornet and butterfly. My friend Elizabeth can communicate with all animals. In order to speak a language, any language, you must listen with your heart. Most of us just listen with our ears.
At my church I am also surrounded by many different languages. Some of us speak Baptist, others Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist. Some Church of God and other evangelical tongues blend with Congregational and Evangelical Reformed voices. All our voices have different accents, different emphases on a shared belief language. It can get pretty confusing and frustrating at times especially when we do not listen with our hearts. All of us have sound tracks that loop continuously as we listen to the voices of others. The trick to learning any language, even the language of the Holy, is to turn that loop off and listen not with our minds, not with our mouths set to respond, not with our ideas, but with our hearts.
I have been fascinated with the art of communication in spite of language lately. Celeste is driving Moldovan friends who do not speak English well to Charlotte for medical treatment. Their sharing is rich and vibrant heart to heart language that supercedes words. Emma Clair holds a horse’s head gently in her hands and they understand each other’s love. Tina tells me of her belief that she is being healed of her kidney disease because she believes the touch of evangelist Ernest Ainsley has special powers. Another friend, highly intuitive, has a special gift for feeling the feelings of others. Sometimes I wonder if speaking/talking/preaching/teaching gets in the way of our truly knowing one another.
What would worship be like if the preacher spoke heart language for five minutes, sat down and gave the congregation time to respond from their hearts? What would a visit to the doctor be like if the doctor, after giving the medical facts, spoke heart language and then listened for the patient’s response? How would our work change if we spoke heart language? How would we change if we spoke heart language?
Prayer is for me the heart language that I use to speak to God. I was always confused as a child by the notion the God knew what was in my heart already so why did I have to pray? Now I know why. God may know, but often I do not know what is in my heart until I offer my open heart to the Presence in prayer, the language God can speak with anyone. This kind of prayer is not limited by a belief system or proper language or special gifts or calling. It is one to one communing with the Love that called us into creation, that will sustain us if we but listen and speak with our hearts as we travel through our lives. This kind of communication with God and others brings the gifts of the Spirit..."But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control..." Galatians 6:22
Today I will speak heart language, be a praying animal, and pray for the fruits of the Spirit.