Mopping on the Sabbath

When I came home two nights ago, I found several neighbors from my hall in the hallway mopping up water.  The neighbor directly across the hall from me explained that the "water column" through which the sewage waters flow for his side of the building was blocked and thus flooding into his apartment.  Because it was midnight on a Friday night, no one knew how to get in touch with the building syndicate or a plumber.  So they were trying to cut off the water flow to stop the flooding.

The next morning, they rang my doorbell and explained that they hadn't been able to keep the water from reaching my apartment.  I looked down, and sure enough...there was crap water seeping into my entry way.  My welcome mat was ruined...but that's a small thing compared to what my neighbor was dealing with.  He said his bathroom floor is black from the crap.  And the syndicate was trying to find a cheaper plumber than the one who was willing to come right away.

That's my glorious Parisian life for you.

As I went down the hall, I saw other apartments flooded.  I went into the elevator (which also had water) down to the ground floor...which was also flooded.  There are many Jews who live in my building, and all of this was on a Saturday...Sabbath... and so they were having to work on the day they're forbidden to do so.  Since the stairwell was completely flooded, I held the elevator open for a Jewish woman and her daughter.  I told her I would push the button for her (that's work) and she shook her head no.  She stood there, stuck... ride the elevator (forbidden) or walk through toilet crap water in the stairwell.  I suppose she took the stairs.

It made me think of the Lord of the Sabbath, grace giver.  He healed on the Sabbath.  He gives grace in abundance.  On days when we're cleaning up crap--He gives grace and is our rest.  On days when we're stuck and can't figure out the right choice--He gives grace and is our rest.  On days when nothing about our lives seem to reflect the glorious abundant life He promised--He gives grace and is our rest.

I'm looking forward to getting out of dodge Paris tomorrow for a few days retreat in the Middle East. Looking forward to some Sabbath-resting with the Lord of the Sabbath.

Gilgal

Gilgal=literally-circle, rolling. Symbollically-a place of spiritual return, coming back to the place of covenant.

Ours is a God of completion.
He does not start what He will not finish.
Even in the change of season
The Alpha to the Omega is accomplished.

He offered a promise
He spoke a word
To be our God
Our very great reward

Conditioned on obedience
In which faith is evidenced
In following Him to the places unknown
Our character is strengthened and grown

Desert wanderings
Mistakes made
Instead of the Jordan banks
In the Arabian sands we wade

Lessons are offered, lessons are taught
Back around to the beginning we are brought
To renew and be and do
What in the first stance we ought
to have received and been and done.

The God of Gilgal
The God of second chance
Life rolls in full circle
An opportunity in faith's circumstance

To return
to the place of promise
to the covenant cutting
to the reward of relationship

Will we be and do
In the second time through
What we ought have
When the first chance was new?

Abraham, the man of faith
The friend of God
Twice presented Sarah his wife
Not trusting his Friend to protect his life

Twice it was the desert wanderers crossed raging water
Not knowing the waves would gather
Stepping in faith into the mud and tide
Not once, but twice showed they could believe and abide

Twelve men spied the land of milk, honey, and grapes
Ten chose to believe that being grasshoppers was their fate
The two who believed, a second chance received
To spy out and believe at Jericho's gate

Back at Gilgal the covenant was renewed
The Passover observed and flesh torn away
Stones of rememberance gathered and up stood
In the realms of the promise they were ready to stay

The God of Gilgal
The God of second chance
Life rolls in full circle
An opportunity in faith's circumstance

When to Gilgal we are brought back around
We find that in this journey grace abounds
He never abandons and never quits
Until His purpose for us is accomplished

Whether it takes two visits to Gilgal or ten
He brings life's lesson full circle to completion.
Every dead of winter blooms into new life of spring.
Every Omega spirals towards an Alpha to bring.

Lazarus

Lazarus has been on my mind for the past six weeks or so.  My spiritual story is a reflection of his.  Dead in my sins, buried and tucked away in a dark tomb...Jesus called me by name to life, to come out, to greater glories.  Like Lazarus, I exited the tomb still wrapped in the grave clothes of my death.  Unlike Lazarus...it took more than a few moments for the community to remove them for me, and so I stumbled around for years like a mummy bound by what had previous enslaved me before my resurrection and rebirth.

Those cloths seem to have a life of their own.  Even after my community had removed them, for many years, the cloths would slink back towards me, enchanting me to put them on again.  Lying, they would promise warmth and comfort when wrapped around me anew.  Several years ago I called them out as the shackles that they are, declaring they had no right to be in my life any longer.  I thought I'd burned those grave clothes that day and for many years I didn't see even the smallest evidence of them in my life.

But six weeks ago on Good Friday, a day I've labeled "the dark day," I was astonished to look down and see myself fully wrapped in them again!  Somehow, over the past year, those cloths had snuck back in, slithered up to me, and convinced me to put them back on.  I've been walking around like a mummy for the past year and didn't even fully realize it.

I could tell I was struggling.  I couldn't fully move.  I didn't recognize myself.  I even tried to tell the community that I felt wrapped up and bound in this one thing and I wanted to be free to fully live as the resurrected reborn woman I knew was still inside.  The Enemy snuck out of the grave, slithered up to me, and whispered that the community liked the mummy, but mummies don't talk.  So be quiet.  Keep wearing the grave clothes, keep stumbling along bound and shackled so tightly.  But don't say a word.

On the dark day, some of the community, like so many that day outside of Lazarus' tomb, covered their noses and made it clear they didn't like the stench.  They let it be clear that I'd put my grave clothes back on and it was unpleasant.  They didn't pray with me.  They didn't unbind me.  Just pointed out the rot and sent me away.  Alone over Easter weekend, I looked in the mirror of my soul...wondering how, as one who hears the Voice of the Shepherd who calls us out of the grave...how had I come to a point where I'd wrapped myself back up?

Just at that moment, someone from the community showed up.  He saw past the grave clothes, saw the resurrected reborn, said he even saw blossoms.  Everyone else saw the mummy, yet he somehow saw me as well as the little buds trying to push forth into new growth.  Jesus used him, perhaps unbeknownst to him, to prune away those old grave clothes and allow me to begin walking freely again.

The dark day had happened while I was in my home-away-from-home in the ME.  Right before I'd left to go there, I have a plant in my garden that had fully blossomed with the joy of spring.  I was astonished at how fully and happy it looked.  I went away for two weeks to the ME, and upon my return was equally astonished to find it withered and dead.  Drooped and dried up.  It had lived through so much!  Snow.  Downpours. High winds. Birds. Lack of water.  Lack of sun.  Plenty of water.  Plenty of sun.  So sad to see it at least dying, at worst dead, I did what I could.  I watered it.  I prayed for it.  I spoke life to it.  Nothing.

I left for another trip telling myself that upon return, I'd dig up the dead plant to bury it.  But upon this return, my little plant-that-could had the smallest little buds of new life!  I baptized it the Lazarus plant.  New gardener that I am, I nervously decided to cut away.  Just as Lazarus needed his grave clothes removed, this little Lazarus plant needed some grave branches clipped.

After I pruned the Lazarus plant, new life pushed its way through.  New leaves, new growth.  While he might not be the fullest plant in my garden, nor the most colorful, he is my favorite.  I stare at him in wonder.  Sometimes everything in us has to shrivel up and die. Sometimes there is much pruning needed, sometimes only a little. But our Gardener God is one who resurrects, who rebirths, who prunes, who brings new growth.

Tradition says that Lazarus never smiled again after his resurrection, except once when he saw someone stealing a clay pot.  I've pondered that thought for weeks.  On one hand, Lazarus had seen glory, and so upon returning to this fallen, broken world...I can imagine that he looked around and saw nothing to smile about. He knew this place was not home and surely he longed to return to glory rather than be here.  Maybe, like me and my return to my-home-away-from-home, he just saw the shriveled up and the dead all around him.  From that view...why smile?

But...he knew Jesus.  He had been resurrected, and then he knew Jesus had been too.  After the day of Pentecost (which, by the way, is today), every disciple of Jesus had His Holy Spirit in them and they went forth with joy.  They spoke.  They saw the potential for life.  Surely Lazarus, who had come out of the tomb went forth towards Jesus with joy.  Those who know Him can't help but know joy.  His disciples were a joyful people...we are a joyful people... and I have to assume Lazarus was too.  Joyful people smile.  Joyful people speak.

My Lazarus plant had been droopy and dismal but now stands renewed and dare I say--rejoicing.  His leaves are lifted up in worship of his Gardener God.  He speaks in the only way he can: by continuing to grow, unhindered by the grave leaves that once shackled him.  He joyfully grows.

My prayer on this day of Pentecost is that so would I.  My friend who saw past the grave clothes to the resurrected plant inside urged me to use my words. Joyfully growing, I garden, I prune, I blossom.

I write.

Some From Which

Right at the moment when I was weak
In need of restoration
A fire blazed
Part of me crumbled and fell to destruction

All of me could have burned
Everything could have tumbled
But You spoke and I was saved
You sang and I was graced
Knowing now what could have been--I'm humbled

Humbled to know all from which I have been saved
A glimpse at a parallel life
Filled with pain, abuse, neglect, and strife
Before I was even born, You plucked me from the flames

You chose
You loved
You lavished
You abode

A broken woman once fell at your feet
Washing them with her tears and perfume so sweet
Never a love or grace so great did she meet
Once so broken by sin now whole and complete

I often likened myself to the critic without much sin
Not like her, overwhelmed by all she'd been forgiven
My sins, like his, have been very few
From extravagant love displayed I, too, recoiled and withdrew

But then a fire blazed and roared
You allowed me to see what could have been in store
Beauty could have crashed to the floor
Instead You rescued me before I was ever born

You chose
You loved
You lavished
You abode

Now I know that I am she
Joyfully gratefully falling at Your feet
Now I know some from which I have been saved
Worshipping with tears that I was plucked from the flames

You choose
You love
You lavish
You abide

I weep
I wipe
I pour
In abiding
I am restored

In the span of one small little month--

• a fire tore through the roof of my beloved place
• I experienced a spiritual attack stronger than I'd seen in many years
• a great disappointment came out of nowhere and left me bewildered at what had just happened
• a piece of my past shockingly appeared asking to be a piece of my present

I sat on the banks of the Seine across from Notre Dame and just stared at her.  Imagined what that space would look like had she succumbed to the flames.  Overwhelmed with gratitude that only her roof fell, I began to understand that I can only grasp how great is my salvation when I know that from which I have been saved.  The month of May changed me from Simon to the remembered woman who has been forgiven and saved from so much...my own sins but also the sin of others.  Notre Dame stands as a representation of all that's going on in me right now.  I am grateful.

Notre Dame is being restored...and so am I.  

Lingering in the Ifs

A leper’s hope

A leper’s faith

Spoke and said, “If you are willing…”

Granted the affectionate touch before the requested miracle to be made clean

A father’s hope

With little faith and much desperation

Spoke and said, “If you can…”

Gentle rebuke of the unbelief

Strong rebuke of the lying thief

Hope no longer disappointed now fulfilled

Broken-spirited child now whole and healed

Two sisters’ hope

With much faith and perhaps some desperation

Faith longed for a healing instead 

            found a beloved brother now lying dead

            …faith now disappointed…

Both spoke and said, “If only…”

If only you’d been here

If only you’d come

To heal the friend you’d once called dear

You’d needed only speak and the miracle would’ve been done

But you lingered.

You remained.

You stayed.

You made us wait and now… it’s too late

If only…

The Creator need not hope

He knows the greater glory to come

The Resurrection and the Life

Spoke and said—

            Dead man come out!

            Come out of the tomb.

            Remove the grave clothes that bind.

            Live afresh, anew, alive.

We hold the Ifs in our hearts

Limited imaginations, we know not all the parts

Of His will, His ability, His glory, His plan

When He lingers, our faith dwindles, failing to understand

We fear our faith, our hope, will be disappointed

But fear and faith do not go hand in hand

The One who willingly touched the leper in compassion

Fulfills all our Ifs beyond anything we can imagine

He was able to rebuke the spirit and stand the child to his feet

He lovingly lingered to call out death’s defeat

He who lingered, remained, stayed behind,

Calls us to the same when He says abide.

Linger with Me in your “If you are willings…”

Remain with Me in your “If you cans…”

Stay here with Me in your “If onlys…”

They said, “If you are willing, if you can, if only you’d been here.”

In abiding we discover, He is.

            …willing…

            …able…

            …here…

He is.

Abide.

Presence

Two weeks ago I was in my home-away-from-home in the ME, and I got a text that said, "Notre Dame is on fire."  Like the rest of the world, I watched live-stream as our fair lady burned.  As the spire fell.  As the roof collapsed.  Waited and prayed that the wood in the towers that hold the bells wouldn't catch fire, causing the bells to fall...and possibly the towers to tumble.

I tried telling myself that night, "It's just a building."

But it's not.  For me, and so many others, it's so much more.  I've been trying to figure that out since that night.

I first saw ND on Christmas Eve 1999.  Plenty of people have seen her at Christmas...but that year was special because "the storm of the century" was brewing overhead.  The winds from that storm knocked some of her gargoyles off.  But I didn't notice any of that.  I woke up on Christmas morning in a 400 year old apartment a stone's throw away from Notre Dame and heard her bells ringing and went with the crowds to listen to the Good News proclaimed there in that special place and knew that I loved her.  I took a picture of her that showed this dark cloud just resting heavy over her.

I moved to Paris on December 30th, 2006.  The first Sunday of every month, museums and various monuments are free, and so on my very first free Sunday I headed straight over to Notre Dame to climb the bell towers and see those gargoyles up close and personal.  I was reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the time, and doing those two things together within my first month of living in Paris had a direct impact on my heart.  I was smitten.  I didn't realize that I loved Paris then.  Looking back now, I know that I did love this city, that it was the place to where Father had brought me.

What many people don't know about Notre Dame is that there is a marker on the ground just in front of her called Point Zero.  Everything in France measures out from that spot.  It is the very center, the heart, of France.  Notre Dame is more than a building to these people.  The spot where she stands is where they became a city, a country, a people.  That spot has been the center for 2000 years.  They built a house of worship there, and it has remained standing through revolutions, wars, storms, and fires.  It has seen timeless moments of kings, emperors, popes, saints, and gospel seekers.  It's not just a building.

Many years ago, I experienced a terrible moment in my life.  I was living in Eastern France at the time, and I'd come to Paris for a few days to see the cherry blossoms and meet with someone I greatly respected.  He, along with two others, said some of the most hurtful and damaging things that my heart has ever had to hear.  After that painful meeting, I went to Notre Dame and sat on a bench underneath the cherry blossoms.  Numb.  Broken.  Extremely hurting and feeling very alone.

I sat there and cried very quietly.  Prayed and cried.  Cried and prayed.  An elderly woman came and sat on the bench, and after some time of just sitting there, she reached over and gently took my hand. She just held my hand from across the bench.  Eventually she got up and left.  The Presence of the Lord held me that day, on that bench, under the cherry blossoms, in the gardens of Notre Dame.  I was not alone.  He was with me.

And so, through the years, Notre Dame has become my center, my Point Zero.  Any guest who comes to see me, it's the first place I take them.  Any beautiful day, it's where I go first to begin my wandering around the city.  Every Christmas, I go there.  Every spring I anxiously await the cherry blossoms.  When she chimes her bells on Easter morning, I hear the thrill of the resurrection.  Any time I need a quiet moment, I find myself sitting on one of her benches.  And after the fire, as soon as I returned to Paris from the ME, I headed straight there.  I needed to see her.  Sit with her for a moment.  Knowing that she is still standing through her present suffering...the Lord reminded me that I am too.

"...what you are experiencing is truly part of God's grace for you.  Stand firm in this grace."  (1 Peter 5:12b)

I've been looking for and meditating on passages in Scripture about the Presence of the Lord.  He is always with us.  God with us.  It began in a garden.  It moved to a tent where cloud hovered in the day and fire by night.  Then a temple.  Then a Person.  Now His Spirit in us.  And we know a City is coming.

Our Creator God knows us.  He knows we have so little faith (Matthew 14:31) and so we need to see.  He gave the cloud and the fire because of their need.  He gave places to experience His presence because of our need.  Perhaps He gave Notre Dame because of the French people's need.  And me... He gave me a cloud over her in 1999 and fire rising up from her in 2019 to give me a place to experience His presence.

The day after the fire, I read in Romans 13:14, "Instead...clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ."  Notre Dame is more than just a building.  And as special as she is to me...she is just a place.  I don't have to go there to experience His Presence.  It is in me and I can clothe myself in it so it is all around me.  Surrounded.  Grace that is so much bigger than a place.

In 1999, I wrote in my Bible:
Cloud by day
Fire by night
With these I shall stay
Stay and not take flight
Where these are is where I'll be
When they move, then only then, will I leave

I've wrestled and squirmed and sat uncomfortably with the idea of Place for twenty years now, from when I saw that hovering cloud until two weeks ago when I saw the flames.  Can I gather up just enough faith to believe it's not about a place, and I can forever stay right here...not in Paris, not at Notre Dame, but in His presence?  Clothed in His Presence to go where He goes, do as He does, be as He is?

Fully known.  Fully loved.
Jesus is my Point Zero.