The Beauty of Dying (November 25, 2011)

His eyes crinkled in the corners as he gazed across her face and looked up. The shadow of a wink passed with a twinkle, belying an ageless soul though he spoke of days more than sixty years back.

“We used to park out in the orchard,” he started, one gray bushy eyebrow barely raised with the saucy implication, “Back when we were dating”.  Her swat on his arm was fully expected but he continued, the softness of memory filling the aged cracks in his voice.

“She didn’t know, but I always turned the car so that the moonlight fell on her face”.  He looked at her, and she at him, the memory so vivid for them both that we who watched nearly saw the moon ourselves, beaming flashes of silver betwixt the golden rays of that late afternoon.  His weathered fingers reached for her arthritic ones, the years in between melting with that touch.  He sighed at the memory.  “It was a little slice of heaven.”

Nearly a year and a half ago she left him, bound for the heaven he saw slivers of in her face.  Last week, he joined her.   Tonight I look up at the silvery moon that kissed them both, hoping for a glimpse of the magic that bound them in their orchard and under every moonlit sky since.

Pop’s passing comes during the season that has long astonished me.  Autumn, for all intents and purposes, is the season of dying.  Trees, flowers, grass - every green and colored thing that once bloomed with freshness and promise in the rites of spring now struggles for breath, leaning into the brittleness of death.  The glorious sweeping boughs of summer now bend barren and bald in chilly November winds.

And yet, there is a loveliness to autumn that no other season possesses.  Showers of golden rain fall beneath those windswept branches, tawny leaves drip like honey down a sweet blue sky.   Other leaves blaze red and rust, carrot and tangerine; a thousand subtle shades span the gap between red and yellow, and the trees of autumn boast them all.  Their fire is quelled now and again by splashes of pine and evergreen, a contrast that only fills the graceful swan song of flaming foliage with greater poignancy.       

I admit that my eyes get hungry this time of year.  Whether the sun slants bold through fiery vistas or the gray of overcast drizzle forces browning leaves to loosen their ever more fragile grasp on trembling branches, I (too aware the coming white of winter), thirst for the sight of it.  It is a crisp elegance, an aching beauty, one that overtakes the senses, toasting the soul though cheeks and nose are reddened by frosty winds.  I am drawn to all manner of windows with a rabid sense of wonder.

Every gilded leaf yielding to its inevitable delicate dive, every breath laced with the scent of scuffled forest paths, the evolution of painted fields from green to blistered gold to earthy shades of emptiness hums the repeated refrain of autumn I cannot escape: even death is beautiful.

The admission of it grates at first on our understanding of life’s mechanisms.  We instinctively fight for life, grasping for even feeble breaths, venerating those who are robust and strong.  Though the doldrums of daily existence may dominate our hours, there beats beneath them a hunger to thrive, a desperate longing for the tangible taste of life, verdant and green, blooming with possibility and hope.  We are jealous of those who posses it and pity those who we suspect never will.  Life, after all, is LIFE and better than the alternative.

Yet, the God who drips gold on dying trees and covers the corpse of last season’s earth with blankets of startling white gives us no indication that any stage of our existence is wasted.  In fact, He speaks of death as a necessary path to life, a loosening of our fragile grasp on meaningless things, forcing the inevitable delicate dive from our trembling sense of self-sufficiency into His all too capable waiting arms.

“We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?  Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

If we have been united with Him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.  In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”Romans 6:2-11

It seems, then, that death is a gift.  How fitting that the Author of autumn should hide beauty even in the most feared of experiences.  Truly living is a voluntary dying, a continual turning from myself to Him, a steady replacing of my wandering feet into His footsteps.  Surrendered souls savor the flavor of tangible life and when I strike out on my own, I discover (again) that nothing else can taste as sweet.    

There are days I feel cords of selfishness and foolishness reaching around to bind me, thick strands of pride pulling me down and away from the verdant possibility of hope I know resides in the presence of my God.   Struggling against them is useless; I am weak and feeble on my own.  Although my ears are deafened and I grapple with a sense of being utterly alone, my mind holds tight to God's promises and I know what I cannot always hear - He calls me to Himself.  The challenge at that point is to reorient my soul, to point my heart resolutely in His direction, no matter how loudly the rest of me protests.  It is then I must remember that even death is beautiful – dying to my desires is a fiery process sometimes, but one that proves golden when I find myself breathless and alive again on the other side.

The rhythm of earth echoes the rhythm of life which, in truth, is simply the echo of our souls: the spring of new birth gives way to a summer of growth, culminating in the glorious dying harvest of autumn; the grave of winter melts again into a spring of rebirth.  My life is the continual incarnation of this rhythm, living, growing, reaping, dying, being resurrected from each struggle with temptation.  It is a crisp elegance, an aching beauty, the overtaking of my soul.    

God is the goodness and the strength calling me to Himself.  He reaches out as I strain against the cords of my sin, shattering the brittleness of death when I ask Him to bring me back to life.  It is His to be the life within me, continually making me new.  It is mine to not fear the most feared demise, to let go the trembling branches and die to self, turning with every ounce of spiritual might my soul back to Him.  When I do, His light shines on my face and I am bathed with a beauty not my own.  It’s a little slice of heaven.      

I Love a Man with Dishpan Hands... (February 5, 2010)

There’s something missing in my kitchen. A hundred years ago, no one would have noticed - fifty years back its presence would have been considered a luxury. Today, people’s eyes widen when I tell them, and they lower their voices with incredulity, “You don’t have a dishwasher?” 

It’s true. I don’t. Well, I take that back - I have two. I’m currently typing with them. They’re a little more chapped and chafed than they were in winters past - winters when the calm of evening was carried along by a soft background hum, the steady pulse of spinning water sterilizing my forks and knives and tableware. I washed dishes occasionally by hand in those days, too. The vestiges of good meals shared were rinsed away before the plates were cradled in their sauna, the ones unable to handle the heat delicately bathed and dried. If I numbered my moments spent elbow deep in suds, the hours could quite possibly stretch into years. 

Washing dishes, at first glance, is a menial task. What I wash today I will wash again tomorrow, and, if I continue eating, next week and the week after that. To alleviate the problem, I could buy paper plates (wasteful), learn to cook or eat without dishes (messy), or give up cooking all-together for restaurants and take-out (tempting).

I used to hate washing dishes. Lately, however, I’ve been coming to terms with my dishwashing demons. A chore I once loathed has now become slightly therapeutic - instead of hurriedly rinsing and tossing utensils into the hotbox, I settle into the task, knowing that a job done quickly will not be a job done well. Each dish, each glass, each mug is acknowledged, gently wiped if the damage is light, scrubbed if the offending scum is a bit more stubborn. Every soapy baptism yields a dish reborn as its sparkling self. It doesn’t matter that I have done this before; nor that in a day or two, I will do it again. The dish must be cleaned in order to be used, and because it is worthy of use, I wash it. Over and over again. And one more time. 

The steady repetition of washing dishes reminds me of so many other cycles in life. A task is completed and set aside, only to be picked up again the next day. And the next. As long as I continue to eat (and can’t afford a lifestyle of restaurant luxury), I will continue to wash dishes.

I often think I would prefer if tasks would stay completed. Almost a year ago I ran 42 kilometers in a marathon. Today my body struggles to run eight. Last week I ate a meal that was so good and so filling I could barely walk. This morning my stomach loudly grumbled its discontent at my pitiful lack of breakfast offerings. I spent all day yesterday drawing oxygen in and out of my lungs, and yet I find myself still breathing today.

The world I live in is prone to deterioration. Without regular maintenance, my car, my body, and my friendships will slide into rust and decay; my dishes will crust over and be useless. Both our vices and our virtues must be fed in order to survive. My relationship with God is no different.

The pages of Scripture are replete with the rhythm of holy maintenance; the Israelites wandering in the desert for forty years received only a daily dose of manna, the Law given through Moses drew them to the Temple for feasts and sacrifices that came around every season. Jeremiah reminds us that God’s mercies are new every morning; Jesus tells His disciples to ask for daily bread. Every Spring overthrows every Winter drawn from the frosted breath of every Autumn left in the wake of every Summer. The world turns, and turns again. Dawn breaks, evening falls. Dish soap is whipped into lather in the sink, moments pass and it dribbles feebly down the drain.

Christian theology teaches us that belief in Christ is what sweeps the eternal consequences of our sins into the depths of the sea, building for us a home in Heaven. The moment our faith emerges, a switch is thrown - the old is gone, the new has come. We become creatures of a new sort, brimming with new life, breathing with new hope. Love takes its place in our soul’s repertoire, as do joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We are the good soil these fruits thrive in, they bud and blossom through our hands and feet and the way we use our voices.

And while the task of our salvation is complete, we are tempted to leave beside it the articles of holy maintenance. We survey our circumstances and wish for a switch to be thrown. We want our lives to be fixed, and to never need fixing again. Looking back at the moments we felt most alive, when joy swept through us like a flood, when the light of freedom blazed through every corner of our souls; we now glance at dried up creek beds and crowds of shadows. Under the gaze of our paper plate vision, we reckon we should give up, toss it away and order take-out instead.

Just because joy does not now sing through my veins, does not mean I will not hear its song again. Just because peace eludes these current moments, does not mean it waits for me along heaven’s shores, determined to remain there until my body is laid down and my soul takes flight. I cannot warm my heart today with the fuel of last year’s fire. I must join the holy rhythm, coming back to my God for His daily bread (out of obedience, if nothing else) over and over again. And one more time.

Just a few feet from where I sit, priceless works of art are stacked in a heap. Fiercely lovely in their monochromatic glory, one buries the one beneath it, hundreds more cover them both in the span of a breath. Stunning in simplicity, unpretentious and unique, these icy drops of heaven are scattered two feet deep by a Creator who feels the beauty of a snowflake is important, even if He and the angels are the only ones privy to such intricacies. Great billowing drifts of suds wash over an earth that has been washed before; it will be washed again.

This is the God I return to, the One who sustains me, who feeds my soul, who sets beauty in places sometimes only He can see. He settles into the task, knowing that a job done quickly will not be a job done well. He gently wipes me clean when I am damaged; He scrubs away offending scum when I am stubborn. It doesn’t matter that He has done this before, or that He will do it again. He doesn’t toss me away like yesterday’s paper plate. He never gives up and orders take-out instead. It seems He finds me worth the effort and when I come to Him with my paltry offerings of obedience and praise, He baptizes me anew; I am reborn into my sparkling self. 

I am glad I’m not a task He has completed. Submitting myself to soul maintenance is not often easy; it is rarely fun. Many times I do wish He would fix my life and leave it fixed. If He did, however, I would not witness the steadiness of His love, the rhythm of His hands molding and shaping, cleansing and renewing me over and over again. And one more time. That is something I couldn’t bear missing.


“Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.  I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” -Jesus (John 15:4-5)

Purple Chicken (January 1, 2010)

I was trying to be impressive. That was my first mistake. The second was believing that possession of Julia Child’s cookbook and a habit of reading it in a heavy French accent (like thees) somehow bestowed the ability to cook with breezy French flair upon a girl who, let’s be honest, doesn’t know the difference between a cassoulet and a casserole. Julia Child, it turns out, I am not.

It began, as adventures in my life do, with those fateful little words: “How hard can it be?” I won’t take you down all the roads that phrase has led me to; this particular path was lain with cream puffs. Cream puffs! I mean, really - how hard can they be?

I thumbed through the cookbook. Found the puff pastry recipe. Found all the various cream recipes (being a French cookbook, and all). Decided, (quite brilliantly, I thought) to make the cream first so that it could chill while the pastries were made. I spread the book open wide on my counter and dove in.

I whipped the egg yolks, slowly beating in the sugar until it was light yellow and “formed the ribbon”. I added hot milk, drop by drop as per Julia’s instructions, and warmed it all in a saucepan till it was a glorious foam. I painstakingly strained the mounds of golden cream through a tiny tea sieve (it was the only one I had), added the vanilla and whipped it all again over a bowl filled with ice. I felt invincible! I felt impressive! I felt French!

I covered my Crème Anglaise, put it in the refrigerator to set, then collapsed on a kitchen chair, spent but satisfied. My cream puffs were on their way to being perfect. I pulled the book towards me to check in case I had forgotten anything, and casually turned the page. About half-way down, under the heading for the recipe “Crème Pâtissierè” lay some other fateful little words: “use as filling for cream puffs”. I quickly flipped the page back and scanned the recipe I had used. There was no mention of cream puffs. Instead, only words that alluded to runniness, like “pour over cakes and ice cream” and “use in place of cream” met my horrified gaze. The truth dawned like a Paris morning - I had used the wrong recipe. There were no cream puffs to be had that night.

Undaunted, I returned to Julia’s cookbook the next night. Cream puffs? No - they were so ‘yesterday’. Besides, I knew the problem, now. An impressive chef (like zee one in my head) would set their sights on greater, more legendary culinary challenges - like Coq Au Vin! Chicken in a wine sauce - how hard could it be?

I thumbed through the cookbook. Found the CORRECT recipe. Gathered the necessary ingredients, minus one (where do they sell cognac in America, anyway?). Decided, (quite brilliantly, I thought), that the flambé step was probably just for show, and spread the book open wide on my counter. I dove in.

I boiled the bits of bacon and then browned them lightly in butter. The chicken followed, then salt and pepper, the smell of a gently sautéing dream filling my kitchen. In the absence of cognac and an appreciative audience, I skipped the part where you set the chicken briefly on fire, and doused it instead with a nice burgundy, a cup or two of beef broth and some spices. I covered it, as instructed, and let it simmer for half an hour. I was again feeling invincible! Impressive! French! When I returned, the smell was heavenly. The chicken was purple.

It occurred to me then that the people who write down recipes and have them published do so because they know what they’re talking about. Julia Child knew that Crème Anglaise was a sorry substitute for Crème Pâtissierè if one intended to make non-soggy cream puffs, and that non-flambéd Coq Au Vin would likely turn an unappetizing purple. That’s why she made the recommendations she did. My less-than-impressive French cooking debut was the result of my mistakes, not her direction.

It also occurred to me that each of us makes our debut in the world, hoping that our lives will be happy and healthy. We want to belong somewhere, to someone; we wish to love and be loved. We desire lives that count for something, and long to greet each sunrise with enthusiasm, each sunset with satisfaction.

The problem is that most of us don’t. Our lives haven’t turned out quite the way we thought they would. Oh sure, there have been some delightful surprises along the way, but there have been just as many disappointments - sometimes more. We start each New Year with new resolutions, determined to make things different, but new days have a way of fading into old habits, and by February, most things haven’t changed at all.

Perhaps, the life you were hoping for isn’t the life you’ve got because you started off with Crème Anglaise instead of Creme Pâtissierè - the recipes have gotten mixed up. God’s recipe for living might have gotten a reputation for being harsh and a little bitter, so you decided to pick a different one. One you thought would be a little bit sweeter. The problem is that only one has real substance and any other just dribbles away - it won’t hold up under the demands of real life.

I’m sure Julia Child loved good cream puffs. She tested recipe after recipe and included the very best ones in her book so that those who followed her directions precisely would taste the sweet bliss she knew was possible. I missed that bliss because I followed a different recipe. God loves life - He designed our hearts and minds to love it too, and included the very best recipe for living in His Book so that those who follow His directions precisely would taste the sweet bliss of peace, joy and hope that He knows is possible. If we’ve missed that bliss, it is likely because we’ve followed a different recipe.

There’s a great verse in the Bible that says:

“Taste and see that the Lord is good.
Blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him” (Psalm 34:8)

I love that! God invites us in to check Him out. He does not command us to follow Him blindly, to follow rigorous rules of conduct on His whims. He does not hide in heaven and crack the whip because He’s bigger than we are. Instead, He leans in and offers us free samples of His goodness - the beauty of a crisp winter snow, the warmth of family and friends, the breathless moments of sunset. “Taste!” He says, “Taste and see!” He’s confident that once we see who He really is, we’ll come running back for more.

When we do realize the goodness of God and pick up His recipe for life, it’s important also to be aware that if you mess with the process you mess with the results. The reason my husband thought he was eating beef for dinner (purple chicken in disguise) is because I thought I knew more than the expert and skipped a step. Turns out, that step was more important than I thought. God doesn’t give us commands because He wants to waste our time or suck all the fun out of life - just the opposite! Each instruction He gives has purpose, each step is necessary if we want to arrive at the intended results. And we are not left to work it out on our own - not only does He give us all the ingredients we need, the recipe is not nearly as difficult as you think...

“This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome...” (1 John 5:3)

Finally, my first mistake was my biggest one - I was trying to be impressive. Food should be made to taste good, not to be impressive. My life should be lived according to God’s standards because it’s right, not because I think it will make me look good. Or impressive. Anything good I have ever known is laced with the flavor of God’s love; it has come from His hands, because HE is good, not because I am. I’ve tasted the sweet life because He showed me how, and now I follow His recipe because I’m addicted to living deliciously.

This New Year, as we look back on the highs and lows of 2009, and toward the great potential of 2010, I am reminded of the old phrase, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got[ten]”. There were priceless moments in 2009 that I know came as a result of following God’s recipe, and broken moments in 2009 that came when I followed my own. There are things that I’ve always done, but if I want something new in 2010, if I want to see real change in my life, I’ve got to adjust the recipe. Fortunately, I know a Chef with zee most impressive one around....