In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus is preparing his disciples for ministry amongst their fellow Israelites. A new message is being given. The old has passed away and the new has come, the new being profoundly known in Jesus’ ministry. The Kingdom of Heaven has begun in the life and death of Christ. The words in Matthew’s gospel are confounding. Jesus says, ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth, I have not come to bring peace, but a sword’ (Matt. 10:34).

Jesus goes on to explain that within family circles there will be division about who God is. There will be misunderstanding and a desire to be right. How can this be? There are more questions than answers in this passage for me, but I am aware of a sense of the radical nature of what Christ came to do. It required a radical alignment with Him in order that the world would be saved. Is this not what we are living right now? And it is what it means to “let go” of one’s own preferences in order to align with love.

Several years ago we took our girls to Disneyland for the first time. That afternoon, while riding the Alice in Wonderland ride, we were winding our way through the garden and passed playing cards that were frantically painting white roses red. Around the next turn, we encountered the Queen of Hearts and it made sense why they were doing so. They had been anticipating the fury of the Queen, who was sure to hand down the judgement “off with their heads” when she discovered things not as she demanded them to be.

Psalm 42:2-3, 11

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior, and my God.

My Aunt Jennie has never been much for Christianity. The only time I’d seen her inside a church was at my father’s memorial service. The next day we went to the cemetery to place his ashes in the wall, and when it was her turn she said a few words to Buddha. Up until a few weeks ago that’s about as spiritual as it got.

Over the past decade we’ve gone on with our lives. The phone calls have been a little more infrequent. Last Christmas I told auntie that our son, whom she doted on at birth as “Baby Ryan,” was turning 24 years old. “You’ve got to be kidding! Let me get a pen and write his name down. How do you spell it?”

My whole life, I have been fascinated by the Northern Lights. These amazing streaks of light dance through the night sky, as if making the point that light is an active presence, ready to peek into the darkest corners. I’ve been in a few places where Northern Lights are common – in Alaska and Norway in particular – but always at the wrong time of year. Even the Seattle area recently we had a night when they were expected to make an appearance. I woke in the middle of the night, and went outside to seek them, but the lights reflected in the sky were simply the lights of the city and not the glowing greens and blues that we recognize as those iconic polar phenomena.

As I’ve been practicing Centering Prayer lately, one of the thoughts that keeps surfacing is, “I feel like one of the 10 virgins sitting and waiting on the bridegroom.” Then I say my sacred word to release that thought, reaffirming my consent to God’s presence and action, and continue to sit.

I haven’t thought about that parable in a long time; it’s a parable I’ve had to hold openly because of my many questions about it. I’ve always found it interesting that when asked to share their oil, the wise virgins said “no, there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.”

No? Not enough? Go buy your own oil? What about sharing and giving to those in need? Why couldn’t those without the oil just walk along beside those who had it; wouldn’t the lamp provide enough light for both to walk?

As part of my early morning quiet time, I have been writing out some of my prayers. I would like to share with all of you one of my recent, written prayers with which some of you might resonate in different ways.

What does it mean, Oh Lord, that I am getting older?

Physically there are changes that I have experienced:

Less physical strength and endurance;

Cataracts and poorer eyesight;

Added weight;

More aches and pains;

No longer able to hike the mountains carrying a thirty or forty pound backpack.

I remember the first conference that CFDM NW held for spiritual direction training. It was retreat based and we were together for a week. It was twenty years ago and two days into our retreat, 9/11 happened.

As we sat together in grief and stunned silence, we began to learn about discernment. We also began to learn about hope. Gerald May writes about John of the Cross in “The Dark Night of the Soul” saying in John’s thinking, “memory is not just a storehouse for experience; based on the past, it also fuels the imagination in looking to the future. Memory is the ground of dreaming.”

We dreamed that God was doing something outside of our understanding and yet we would be held. Remembering faithfulness in the past that fuels our imagination of a future in which God is still the same – active and present, will love us into the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free… (Gal 5:1)

Disruptions in life are guaranteed. Currently mine include a pandemic, of course; a spouse’s imminent retirement; a litter of seven puppies—very busy Mini Australian Shepherds; and why not develop a serious gardening addiction to ensure there is no margin…?!

Yet amid this whirling dervish, I left a masked birthday party recently with a lighter step, and humming, “This is how it feels to be free,” a Phillips, Craig and Dean tune from long ago.

“Free from what?” the person beside me asked.

“Hatred, I guess,” I said, surprised at my own answer. I knew there was unresolved tension in the relationship with another guest, but I wouldn’t have named it hatred! Yet the expansive sense of loving freedom where there had been a decade-old barrier, begged for a term of equal intensity in contrast. It was a given moment when grace prevailed, and we simply stepped in.

How is it that we can live so fully in the wonder of grace, yet harbor pockets of sludge that cloud parts of the image of Christ being revealed in all of us? Thus is the state of our beauty and brokenness.