The sky is a pearly grey overcast, the lake a pewter sheen with tiny ripples from the breeze. A blackbird sings from the shore; two geese honk in the distance. Coots circle near the dock, occasionally disappearing and bobbing back up. I want to be like a coot. Not that I want to grow feathers and eat live fish; I want to live differently than what my culture – even my church culture – dictates. I want to live an upheld life. I did not have swim lessons in a pool with a licensed instructor until I was ten. The limited coaching I got before that was from my then-teenage uncles at a Continue Reading
How Personal History is like a Bed Spring
Thirty-one years later, a thousand miles from where I’ve landed, I find myself back at a sacred place deep in a redwood forest. A trickling stream meanders through ferns and ivy, Stellar jays flit and scold, fragrance of jasmine blossoms hangs in the air.This is where he asked me to marry him.It’s a few steps to the entrance of the auditorium where, months later, we would take our vows. Today, organ music beckons me again, this time for the Palm Sunday service at the writers’ conference I helped organize when I worked here.I’ve come full circle. God has ordered my every step. I have known Continue Reading
Dances With Leaves
I stare out the window at hundreds of dead leaves on my neighbor’s sycamore, clinging, fluttering, spiraling down. Life is so much more messy and beautiful than if I were in charge. Take seasons, for example. If it were up to me, I would probably schedule the trees a little more precisely as to when they turn color and drop their leaves. They would fall all at once, stripping every branch clean and making for easy yard cleanup. It’s all about the to-do list, right? Not so much. God is not utilitarian; He is an artist. Creation is less God’s project to maintain and more His symphony Continue Reading
What the Leaves Mean
Raking autumn leaves is one of my favorite outdoor chores. It also tells me something about life. I was raking up quite a collection – crispy, furled maple, golden lilac, bright red burning bush – when I saw a metaphor. The true glory of a tree is not always evident. For most of the year, its leaves are green. Only in the autumn does the chlorophyll in a leaf recede, revealing the actual color that was there all along. So autumn is the brief season during which we get to enjoy the revealed beauty of the trees around us. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, “ And we all, with Continue Reading