The gift of nature.

New Mexico open road ~ 2006Apparently I'm on a Donald Miller kick lately...now I'm reading Through Painted Deserts (originally titled Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance), an older book about his cross-country road-trip from Texas to Oregon with his friend Paul in an old Volkswagen van.  Each page absolutely teems with description of this beautiful land in which we live, a land I so desire to cross one day in my own van or RV, like the Happy Janssens.  I guess I become a little more hippie everyday.

It's timely that I'm reading this now, as Donald and Paul are at the Grand Canyon, about to make a descent all the way to its cavernous bottom on Easter Sunday.  As our own Easter approaches with all the symbols of spring and new life and potential it brings, I feel the anticipation of being right there with them, wishing I could see the myriad of stars they are going to see camping at the bottom of that magnificent place, and remembering the first wondrous time I saw the Grand Canyon myself in 2001 and how it made me fall in love with the west.

Paul is an interesting companion for Donald, who grew up in the big, blaring, concrete city of Houston, where I, too, lived for three scorching summers.  I am right alongside Donald as he describes the sheer vastness of a city where you can no longer see the stars, and everything is the color tan because it's too hot to use blacktop.

Donald's friend Paul, on the other hand, grew up in Oregon amidst rivers and mirrored lakes and dense forests of pine.  He seems to have a supernatural disconnnect from the commercialized world, and a special connection with nature.  Donald says about Paul,

"And maybe this is why he seems so different to me, because he has become a human who no longer believes the commercials are true, which, perhaps is what a human was designed to be." (p. 76)

As the two vagabond friends are passing through the town of Flagstaff, Arizona on their way to the Grand Canyon, there's this incredible narrative...

"We stood out in the desert this morning, and the chemicals in my brain poured soothingly through the gray matter, as if to massage with fingers the most tender part of my mind, as if to say, this is what a human is supposed to feel.   This is what we were made for, to watch the beauty of light fill up the earth's canvas, to make dirt come alive; like fairy dust, making trees and cacti and humans from the magic of its propulsion.  It makes me wonder, now, how easily the brain can be tricked out of what it was supposed to feel, how easily the brain can be tricked by somebody who has a used car to sell, a new perfume, whatever.  You will feel what you were made to feel if you buy this thing I am selling.  But could the thing you and I were supposed to feel, the thing you and I were supposed to be, cost nothing?" (p. 77)

When I read this, my heart said, Yes!  This is what I have wanted my writings on this blog to be about, and this is what I have wanted my life to be about.  This is why I love being in nature because it forces me to come back to this focus; it shows me how much of my everyday life is propelling me further into the current of the status quo rather than pushing against it.

"And maybe when a person doesn't buy the lies anymore, when a human stops long enough to realize the stuff people say to get us to part with our money often isn't true, we can finally see the sunrise, smell the wetness in a Gulf breeze, stand in awe at a downpour no less magnificent than a twenty-thousand-foot waterfall, ten square miles wide, wonder at the physics of a duck paddling itself across the surface of a pond, enjoy the reflection of the sun on the face of the moon, and know, This is what I was made to do.  This is who I was made to be, that life is being given to me as a gift, that light is a metaphor, and God is doing these things to dazzle us." (p. 77)

And then my mind jumps to a question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

When I'm in nature, I see how that's so much easier to do. When I am without distraction, a timeline or schedule or too much "stuff" weighing me down, I can see God's purpose in surrounding us with so much beauty - simply to enjoy it.

I have definitely felt it...

• sitting on a rock in a stream in New Mexico
• dangling my legs over the edge of the Grand Canyon
• inhaling the mountain air from a train window in Colorado
• burying sandy toes into the California coastline
• digging my fingers in the dirt of my own back yard

We can still enjoy God in cities or in the middle of suburbia.  But I don't know - for me, there still has to be some natural beauty.  It's why people create container gardens on urban patios and why they flock to Central Park's Sheep Meadow on a warm spring day in New York City.  The natural world shows us something we cannot see otherwise.  

"I pull a bit of pine needle off a tree and roll it in my palms and smell the mint-like scent of creation as I let the green shards spill from my palms to the path along the rim.  And I think to myself...

(Through Painted Deserts, p. 91)

"Comparison is the thief of joy."

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about comparison, and how we do it all the time, perhaps without even noticing.  Maybe it’s more apparent now when my body is literally changing everyday.  Admittedly, about once a week, I will Google however many weeks pregnant I am, click the images tab on the results page, and then view photos of other women who are as far along as me – to see how my belly size compares.  Somehow, 15 minutes online clicking through photos of anonymous women’s bellies makes me feel better.  Isn't it ridiculous?  In my heart, I know it’s best not to worry, that all I need to do is take care of my body, stay active, eat fresh, real food, and hope and pray for a healthy baby.  But I have to admit there is that ever fearful, sinful part of me that is still overconsumed with my own appearance, so much that I can’t help but realize I’m getting frighteningly close to my highest weight ever. “Am I getting too big?   What if I never lose the weight or fit into my old clothes again?  What will people think of me then?”

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

I’ve just finished reading Donald Miller’s book, Searching for God Knows What, which I picked up on a rainy weeknight at the massive Half Price Books on Northwest Highway.  I was actually there searching for his new book, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years, along with an older one about his cross-country road trip - Through Painted Deserts - but found neither.  At Half Price Books, somehow I always end up getting other books that aren’t on my list and none that actually are, so I found Searching for God Knows What and tucked it tentatively under my arm along with Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott.  And there I was in the "Memoirs" aisle when I suddenly began feeling this intense heat that seemed to rise from my core all the way up my neck, flushing my face. Is this what a pregnancy hot flash feels like?  I’ve gotta get outta here…RIGHT NOW, I thought.  Without really deciding whether I wanted the Donald Miller book, I headed straight for the register with it, checked out, and burst out the doors into the cool rainy air.

I’m so glad this book found its way to me.  The first four chapters weren’t that great.  Honestly they were difficult to comprehend and a bit hard to follow.  But then, it started to get underline-half-the-page good.  Take the chapter, Adam, Eve, and the Alien.  Donald is wondering what it would be like if an alien came to check out life on earth, spending time in our daily lives, researching the things humans care about and how we spend our time.  What would they think of us and how we operate?  What would they think of our society centered around commercialism, accumulating more and more stuff, glorifying celebrities and sports teams for the whole useless point of comparison?   Donald imagines that upon returning to its planet, the alien would report to its friends,

“The thing that defines human personalities is that they are constantly comparing themselves to one another…it is as though something that helped them function and live well has gone missing, and they are pining for that missing thing in all sorts of odd methods, none of which are working.”

Now, we don't know for sure if aliens really exist, but can anyone deny this observation is true?  Whether or not you believe in God or sin or the fall of man, or that there is something missing here on earth that we'll never see again until heaven...you have to admit that this constant searching and discontentment is real.  If there’s a single female – a single human – who hasn’t struggled at some point with comparison to others, I haven’t met him or her yet.

"They were naked and unshamed." ~Genesis 2:25

At this point in the chapter, Donald referred back to the book of Genesis in a way that really made the Bible come alive to me in a new way.  In the beginning of Genesis, it says that once Adam and Eve committed the first sin by eating of the forbidden fruit, it was then and only then that "the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." (Genesis 3:7).  Right here, we have the first recorded history of clothes. 

And God said, “Who told you you were naked?” ~Genesis 3:11

This is the first time I ever pondered the sadness and disappointment that God must have felt at this moment.  He had lovingly knit together these two beings - flawless in His eyes - and now here they were, ashamed of the very bodies He had created for them.  That moment, a separation was created, a line was drawn in the sand.  Doubt and insecurity were born. And so it has been since that moment.

If Adam and Eve really were the only two people who existed then, they were not only hiding from God but also covering themselves from each other.  I guess this is also the moment that intimacy between a man and woman was thwarted for the first time. 

Before that first act of disobedience to God that changed everything, Adam and Eve didn’t even have the capacity to understand what it meant to be unsatisfied with themselves.  They didn't need to decorate their naked bodies.  Eve didn’t notice the size of her hips or the texture of her hair.  Adam didn't wonder if his quads were ripped enough.  Now, we walk around with clothes of all textures and colors to hide our nakedness and even seek out clothing that drapes our bodies in such a way as to make them appear more flattering.  I'm certainly not suggesting the opposite - that we all live on nudist colonies - but really, how far have we gone to the opposite extreme?

I think of one of my favorite sections of Anne Lamott's book, Traveling Mercies.  Anne is in a department store dressing room trying on a fitted dress. She's with her best friend, Pammy, who also happens to be in a wheelchair, dying of stage 4 breast cancer.  Annie comes out of the dressing room and asks, "Pammy, do you think this dress makes my hips look big?"  Pammy replies, "Oh Annie, you really don't have that kind of time."

And we don't.  One day, this is all going to look really silly.  We will see what was really important, all the while we were too busy being occupied with body size, status, appearance.

* * *

So what now?  Over the last several years, I've learned that I can rarely change things without having a plan for how to actually do it.  Don't worry, my plan isn't to practice walking around naked in public.  My plan isn't to start ridiculing Hollywood and sports celebrities either, although I no longer have the desire to read People or US Magazine or even In Style.  My plan starts with step one: stop scrutinizing pictures of other women’s bellies.  And continue to make steps towards not scrutinizing myself, especially now when the changes in my body are more noticeable than ever.  Now, I try to look at myself and my bulging belly (and hips!) in the mirror and smile.  And tell myself, "It is what God has given me.  And it is just right." 

Happy list.

"S p r i n g t i m e  is the land awakening..."

blackberries in the yard last summer

What better day to make a happy list than today...68 degrees and sunny and murmuring of spring?  Thank you, Tara, for the lovely idea!

• Envisioning my flower beds bursting with wildflowers in just a few short months.  I've got 5 or 6 packets ready to plant...
• ...and juicy, tart blackberries ripening on the white trellis in the back yard.
• Driving really fast with the sunroof open, windows down, and Margaritaville on a radio, as it was when I took a quick trip to the post office earlier...
• The little book/music/tea exchange program Jenni and I have going on.  I can't wait to borrow her copy of Peace Like A River by Leif Enger, and I sent her my Rosie Thomas When We Were Small CD, an all-time favorite. 
• Tazo Passion unsweetened iced tea - the only drink I'll get at Starbucks.  Now I'm craving it...
• How my hubby looks in his grey workout jacket from Lululemon.  Yowza.
• Thinking about future fun 4th of July birthday pool parties for our little girl.  Fresh-baked berry pies and that wonderful feeling of eating lunch in the sun while still wet from swimming all morning.
• Amy Butler fabric - there's not a single pattern I don't like.  Also, have you seen her rugs? There aren't words.
• In anticipation of Shauna Niequist's new book, Bittersweet, releasing later this year, reading this beautiful excerpt and savoring this line, "I believe that suffering is a part of the narrative, and that nothing really good gets built when everything’s easy."
• 2010.  It's been a year of restoration, redemption so far.

What are your happies right now?

My 2010 reading list...

Two books down in 2010 - so far, so good...

Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculée Ilibagiza

What broke my heart the most about this book is that the Rwandan genocide happened in 1994 when I was a junior in high school, and I knew nothing about it at the time.  Across the world, in modern times, innocent people were being slaughtered with machetes, and half of an entire country was murdered.  It sounds like something barbaric that happened in Medieval times, not in our lifetime.  Immaculée's story will break your heart, make you smile, make you cry, and help you believe that there is redemption in even the vilest of circumstances.  This book physically made me ill at times, but I couldn't stop turning the pages.

A Mother's Heart: A Look at Values, Vision, and Character for the Christian Mother by Jean Fleming I'm so glad I read this before I actually had any children. It has encouraged me so much in the role I'm about to step into - its importance and beauty and the inevitable struggles that await me. But Jean Fleming does SUCH a wonderful job citing Scriptures and applying them to motherhood and gives great examples from raising her own children. My favorite chapter was "Roots and Wings" when she describes lots of creative ideas you can use with your own children to inspire them at home...more

I'm so glad I read this before I actually had any children. It has encouraged me greatly in my soon-to-be role as mother - its importance and beauty and the inevitable struggles that will come.  My favorite chapter was "Roots and Wings" where the author describes lots of creative ideas you can use with your own children to inspire them at home and then encourage them to go out and contribute positively to the world.

Here are more books on my 2010 reading list..

. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road  by Donald Miller

The House on Nauset Marsh: A Cape Cod Memoir, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition by Wyman Richardson

I'm about halfway through this from my first attempt last year.  It's so different that any other book I've read - it's a man's account of his days living in a cabin in Cape Cod.  Very slow-moving but that's also what's great about it...I need more slow-moving in my life.

What difference do it make? - Stories of Hope and Healing by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile by Rob Bell

Grace [Eventually]: Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

You know how much I love Anne Lamott.  This book that she wrote after Traveling Mercies and Plan B has gotten some negative reviews, but I'm going into it with no expectations.  We'll see.

Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life by Donald Miller

Flies on the Butter by Denise Hildreth

Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan

Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg

These Strange Ashes by Elisabeth Elliot
There's nothing I've read by Elisabeth Elliot that hasn't challenge me to the core.

Muslims, Christians, and Jesus: Gaining Understanding and Building Relationships by Carl Medearis

Have you read any of these?  What books would you add?  Would love to hear!

My Year of Reading and Writing: 2009 recap.

In January 2009, we committed to a year of no television, canceling our DISH Network and stocking up on books, books, and more books.  My goal was to read twenty-two books from cover to cover, and, well, I only read fifteen.  I could have read more, but I'm proud to say that when I read, I soaked up every word.  As a result, some of the books I read this past year really changed my life.

One of the greatest things that has come of this is that we have no desire to hook up our TV service again.  All we watch are DVDs occasionally, and even then, it's a planned time rather than just brainlessly surfing through the channels.  I like how quiet our house is and that I have no idea what products are being promoted on the latest commercials.

I don't have as much to show for my writing, but I do still believe I worked on my writing this past year.  Becoming a better reader has been crucial to becoming a better writer.  I've learned to be more descriptive - to "show" rather than to "tell."  Something is holding me back from going full-force, though - perhaps my own fear or laziness, I don't know.  Writing is such a slow process for me.  And right now, that's just going to have to be okay.

In 2009, I learned that books are so much more than paper pages bound with glue.  My friend Lori refers to them as "books that are like friends," and I think that's a great description.  I have some books that actually give me a peaceful feeling when I pick them up in my hands.  They are portals into another's world - or even my own world - and tools that help me slow down and pursue the simple life.

Part of the experience is remembering the settings where I read each book: cozying up one afternoon in the peak of Texas summer, reading the winter chapters in See You In A Hundred Years, or sitting cross-legged and waiting for my mom on a bench at the Albuquerque airport with my nose buried in Bird By Bird, barely aware of anyone else around me.  I had an incredible book in my hands, clean mountain air in my lungs, and the anticipation of a weekend exploring in Colorado.  I took the time to swallow the words, let them to seep into my bones.

So here is my 2009 reading list along with a few selected quotes.  I hope you'll find some books to add to your list.  And please share yours as well!

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert

"I'm not interested in the insurance industry.  I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate.  I don't want to hear it anymore.  I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances.  I just want God.  I want God inside me.  I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water." (p. 176)

Almost every female I know read this book in 2009, and their opinions are as varied as the three countries featured in this book. Some hated Eat Pray Love and wanted to throw it against the wall.  Some loved it and were glued to each page.   And others, like me, put it down in frustration about ten times but ended up picking it up again.  Ultimately, I'm so glad I stuck it out.  What made this book difficult for me was, honestly, that Elizabeth Gilbert's perspective on life and faith could not have been more opposite than mine.  That is also why I'm glad I read it, though.  I thought I'd had enough by the India section, when it felt like Ms. Gilbert had tipped the New Age mysticism scales.  It makes me sad that she constantly rationalizes where she can find freedom, but ultimately it's not in places, people or things.  She begins to commune with God but stops short of the true picture of grace which, I believe, is found in Christ alone.  But I forged on through and found some absolutely beautiful writings - my favorite being the brilliant pair of poems she shares at the culmination of her time at the ashram in India.

Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
Have you seen You've Got Mail?  This is one of the "Shoes" books referenced by Meg Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly, at the end of the movie when she visits the big bad Fox Books Superstore. My dear friend Suz gave this to me for a birthday gift, and it was absolutely charming!  You'll fall in love with the all-girl English dance troupe - Mrs. Wintle's Little Wonders - and the witty characters Rachel, Hillary, and even awful Dulcie. Great, light read.  I've got to read the rest of the "Shoes" books now!

Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer
I don't agree with everything about Joyce Meyer, but one of the things I love about her is how plainly she communicates so that anyone can understand.  This book describes the war that is being waged in our minds, where negative thoughts can lead to all kinds of negative behaviors, like worrying for example.  She explains very simply and practically how to conquer those thoughts with good, pure ones that lead us down paths of hope and healing.  I know from personal experience that what she says is true.

Savannah by the Sea: Book 3 in the Savannah Series by Denise Hildreth
This is book three in a series about a girl named Savannah from Savannah, GA.  I read the first two in 2008, and this third book was mostly set in Seaside, FL, where I've visited about a million times.  But it was also full of Christian clichés.  I guess I kept coming back to these books because I love Savannah, GA, and I loved the character of Savannah's mother, Vicki.

Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall and Denver Moore
I cried through the entire second half of this book, finally finishing it at about 2am with my husband sound asleep beside me.  Set in Dallas, the very city where I live, this true story was very real to me and stretched my faith and perspective on the homeless.  You will fall in love with Denver Moore, too.

Girl Meets God: A Memoir by Lauren F. Winner
A life-changer.  I borrowed it from Mary but simply must get my own copy soon.   Lauren was raised Jewish in the South, and this is her journey of learning about Christ and converting from Judaism to come to faith in Him.  She says the Incarnation of Christ is what eventually captured her.  Through this book, I learned so much more about the beauty of Judaism, and it made my faith come alive as I saw the love story painted from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

"There are pictures of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition.  But I like that, when who we are shows.  Everything is usually so masked or perfumed or disguised in the world, and it's so touching when you get to see something real and human.  I think that's why most of us stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull - because when people have seen you at your worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much.  And that gives us license to try on that radical hat of liberation, the hat of self-acceptance." (p. 215)

I laughed with Anne, I cried with Anne, I wanted to be her best friend and friends with all of her best friends.  Her candid writing makes you trust her.  You can tell her faith is real, and it has been tested and tried by difficulty: divorce, death of close people in her life, single parenthood.  She can write a one-liner that will stick with you for days.  To me, this book feels like cool sun and a warm fire - where I read it on Easter weekend by the pool and realized I definitely wanted to be a mother - not for the fantasy of it, but for the real nitty-gritty of it.  I'll always remember this book for that gift.  And I'll probably read it ten more times in my life.

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott 
I actually read this before Traveling Mercies, and it was my introduction to Anne Lamott.  A bit on the political side, but it still has Anne's captivating and hilarious stories that will make you want to read everything she ever wrote.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

"So many of us can be soothed by writing: think of how many times you have opened a book, read one line, and said, 'Yes!'  And I want to give people that feeling too, of connection, communion...
It is one of the greatest feelings known to humans, the feeling of being the host, of hosting people, of being the person to whom they come for food and drink and company.  This is what the writer has to offer." (p. 204)

This is required reading for any writer or anyone who wants to become a writer - not just for publication purposes but even just for your own private enjoyment - to write your memoir, your stories.  I was sad when I finished it, because I knew that even if I read it again, nothing would be the same as the first time.  Anne makes it sound like writing can be one of the most sacred gifts you can give someone.  And after reading this, I believe it.


Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality  by Donald Miller

"When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body."

I was a latecomer aboard the Donald Miller train, but this book disarmed me.  It reminded me why I need people, that I'm not very good at hanging out with people who are different than me, and that I have simply got to visit the Pacific Northwest.  Soon.


The Unlikely Lavender Queen: A Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming by Jeannie Ralston
A fascinating memoir by an interesting lady who reluctantly leaves her high-profile Manhattan life to become a lavender farmer with her husband in the Texas Hill Country.  You can taste Jeannie's struggle as she deals with the feelings of leaving behind a life she loved for a new life she's not sure she'll be able to love.  It's a wonderful ending, and I hope to visit Hill Country Lavender one day to see the farm that she describes so vividly in the book. 

See You in a Hundred Years:Discover One Young Family's Search for a Simpler Life . . . Four Seasons of Living in the Year 1900 by Logan Ward
Another book about a Manhattan family who leaves the city for the simple life.  This book was fascinating - the Ward family - mom, dad, toddler - decides to live for one year in rural Virginia as if they are in the year 1900.  With no bathroom, only a horse and buggy for transportation, and a garden where they have to grow all of their food, it's a page-turner from start to finish.  I read this in the middle of the summer but felt I was right there with them in the dead cold of a rural mountain winter as they struggled to find heat and food.

Serve God, Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action by J. Matthew Sleeth
I already shared my thoughts about this book.  Great practical advice on how to be better stewards of the planet.  As a Christian, I believe it's one of my greatest duties and privileges, to care for the creation that God cares about, that He made.

Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods by Nina Planck
I believe that ultimately, fertility is up to God, but we are also given the tools to help build a healthy baby by feeding our bodies the best way possible in preparation for hosting a human life.  Nina is basically the poster mom for raw milk and has quite an in-your-face writing style, so be prepared.   But the book has lots of great practical advice, including clear reasoning behind her nutrition advice and explanations of why each nutrient is critically important.  I read this before I got pregnant, and I'm currently doing great in my second trimester drinking raw milk and eating real foods like grass-fed beef, pastured chicken, nuts, and fresh cheeses.  And no, contrary to the advice of many traditional dietitians, I do not have high cholesterol.

Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging by Brennan Manning
Ah, the "Imposter."  Brennan describes the poser living inside each of us and contrasts that against our true identity as God's Beloved.   Just beautiful.

Would love to hear about some of your favorite books of 2009!

Serve God, Save the Planet.

"Some people, in order to discover God, read books.  But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things.  Look above you!  Look below you!  Read it.  God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink.  Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He has made.  Can you ask for a louder voice than that?"  

~ St. Augustine

 As I was just sitting outside on the sunny front steps reading this St. Augustine quote, one of the largest and loveliest butterflies I have ever seen flitted into view, practically skimming the tip of my nose.  It was yellow and black with "tails" coming off its wings - a Tiger Swallowtail, apparently.  Beautiful.  How about that, loud voice of God?

As part of my Year of Reading and Writing, I just completed the book Serve God, Save the Planet by J. Matthew Sleeth, MD.   It's prompted me to think more about my role as a believer in God and how I am responsible for taking care of creation.  While I don't agree with every single thing Sleeth said or really adore his writing style, there were a lot of useful and truthful tidbits within its pages.

Lately, it's making more and more sense to me that if I love God {which I do}, then I should love all the things God loves. He created water and sky and ground and vegetation and animals, and of course, human beings, who seem to be the most difficult to love. {I don't see anything about houseflies, though, which is good.}

While the whole "green movement" may be popular right now, it doesn't seem to be as popular among Christians, which is baffling to me.  If we believe God created all these things, shouldn't we be the first ones to step out, to protect the earth, to consume less of these precious resources?

Some say, "Why should I care about the earth?  It's all gonna burn one day."  But that statement really gets under my skin.  I don't know exactly what's going to happen in the "end times" or if we're even living in the "end times" right now.  Regardless, when God created in Genesis 1, it was a blessing.   And it was meant for the provision and enjoyment of humankind.  How can we find grounds to abuse it?

gazania in my back yard

There is the whole "dominion" issue in Genesis 1:28, which some use as an excuse to abuse God's creation, or at the very least, just not care less about it: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." {ESV}

The author explains, "'Dominion' comes from a Hebrew term meaning 'higher on the root of a plant.'  Dominion does not mean ownership or even unrestricted use.  Implied in our dominion is our dependency on everything under us.  Cut the root out from under a plant and the fruit above it will perish, despite its superior position."

We have a dependency on creation, too.  

I especially love this in Genesis 2...

"And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.  And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." (Genesis 2:8)

Others say, "Those people are treehuggers.  It's not right to worship nature."   Why, if you care about the environment, are you accused of being a worshiper of nature?  As the author Dr. Sleeth puts it, "The problem today is not one of nature worship; instead it is the worship of all things made by human beings."  I couldn't agree more.  Or be more guilty.  

That's why I'm making some changes around here.   If I really believe this, what should be my response?  Contributing and savoring and enjoying more.  Consuming less.   God is not responsible for man's destruction of the natural world.  I am responsible for my part.

So here are some things we've already changed in the Bailey household:

• Sold 1 car, so we're now a 1-car family.
• Ride my bike to my friends' houses nearby rather than drive {besides, it's a necessity when my husband has the car all day!}
• Do more outdoor, free activities with friends, such as taking a walk or going to the park.
• Turned off the "heated dry" option on the dishwasher, and only use the dishwasher when we have a ton of dishes or when things are really dirty.  Hand wash as much as possible.
• Shower less - hee hee.
• Keep the air on the highest {summer} or lowest {winter} setting possible and use fans.
• Use non-toxic cleaning supplies so I'm not putting chemicals in the ground water. {You can pretty much clean anything with baking soda, white vinegar, and orange or tea tree oil.}
• Buy as much food as possible from local farms, including produce, meat, and dairy - and only farms that use sustainable practices and no harmful chemicals, pesticides, hormones, etc.
• Unplug appliances when we're not using them {could be better about this}.
• Use candles for light at night, or only have a dim light on in the room we're using.
• Only occasionally watch TV.
• Shop more at thrift stores or on other peoples' curbs.
• Skoy!   For only $5.99, I bought 4 of these cloths made from natural cotton and wood pulp.  Just one cloth replaces 15 rolls of paper towels!!!  And you can wash them and use them over and over.  
• Recycle and compost everything possible!

Things we're working on changing/haven't been good about changing yet:

• Thinking about switching to a clothesline when it's nice outside instead of the dryer.
• Not using heat this winter?  Use electric space heaters as much as possible.
• Turn off automatic ice maker in fridge.  Did you know it pretty much runs all the time whether or not it's making ice?
• Find a viable alternative for Ziploc bags.  It's just so hard to store lettuce or marinate meats without them.  
• Lots more I'm not thinking of right now.  I'd love your ideas if you have them!  And maybe my list will inspire you too.  

"God is not identified with the world, for He made it; but God is not separated from His world, either.  For He made it."   

~ Joseph Sittler

As I type this, I look outside my office window and see that the world echoes His name. Every blade of grass is covered in the golden light of dusk.  I think about the layers of a hollyhock bud, the symmetry of daisy petals, the sky around 7:05 in the morning or 6:30 each night in the fall, the peak of a mountain in Colorado...if you can even see that high.  It's everywhere.  If we do not notice it, we are failing to know a distinct piece of God's nature, or day I say, God Himself.  I don't want to lose that, do you?

hollyhock in las mochas, new mexico

What to do with darkness?

Do you ever find yourself in a period of darkness?  Your soul feels heavy, but you cannot pinpoint the reason.  All seems to be well on the outside...

For once, I am pondering darkness when I actually don't feel like I'm in a season of darkness.  I've felt light lately.  Encouraged.  Joyful. Free.

I've really been enjoying the book Clinging: The Experience of Prayer by Emilie Griffin that Tara Leigh lent me.  And it's the chapter on "Darkness" that's been most helpful to read when I don't feel like I'm in a dark place right now.   It's one experience to reach for help when your mind is clouded and desperate.  It's quite another to read it from a place of peace, more in preparation and protection for what might come. I'm not being negative to believe that the darkness will come again.  It's a part of life.

"I remember clearly (and any day it might come again) the terrible reluctance to start praying on the chance that the first thing I would find is a wall.  And the wall, I knew, would not be a wall at which I was to stop, but one I was expected to walk through.

And when one asks the Lord in prayer about the wall, asking Him to take the wall away, the answer is simply that the wall exists in order for us to walk through it.

But the remarkable thing is that we do.  We walk into and through the wall in a way that is beyond comprehension.  This impossible thing that is quite beyond us and that we nevertheless are able to do shows us both an inevitability and an incomprehensible overturning of the systematic order of things.  It's the what-we-can't-do-under-any-circumstances that is nevertheless to be done.

Darkness comes to deepen our prayer and to strengthen us.  But God does this not all at once and not by seeming to.  This experience is different from any other, akin to pain but not like pain because it has no sharp edges.  It is the bleakness of grief without any object of grief.  No one has died, nothing is lost to us, except perhaps a vision we once had and were clinging to, instead of God himself."

~ Clinging: The Experience of Prayer, pp. 36-37

What do you think of this?

I'm puttering through this book at a snail's pace, because I keep coming across paragraphs, sentences, or phrases that halt me, like the one above.  I could think for days on a portion of a single page, such as, "the wall exists in order for us to walk through it."  Those are the best kinds of books, aren't they?   I'll keep plowing through it...

Peaceful morning.

I am learning how to pray again. Thank you to Tara Leigh for the book recommendation...

"But the best reason to pray is that God is really there. In praying, our unbelief gradually starts to melt. God moves smack into the middle of even an ordinary day. He is no longer someone we theorize about. He is someone we want to be near."

~ Clinging: The Experience of Prayer
by Emilie Griffin

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