in

I drink my morning cup slowly. Breathing the last of this warm, autumn air. It placates me, soothing my ruffled feathers, bedding me down slowly for the long winter.

My bare feet curl in Indian style on the front porch stairs and I watch the wind grant peeks of blue in a patchwork of grey, green, white, and brilliant orange. I am autumn. And it is me.

She asks me why yesterday, in the car, and I tell her it is because of the colors. My favorites. The dark, heavy, northern blue sky, the russet orange of the trees, and that surprising green backdrop. That is why I am autumn I tell her. Because these colors are my favorite.

But this morning I am autumn because I am impatient, rushing the process, thinking that the quicker all of me can die, the faster winter will set in and then leave. I am preparing for spring.

Two night ago I say to a friend, "You know me. I don't sit around twiddling my thumbs, waiting. I can't abide the idea of biding my time." But this season seems to be just that.

Sow with a view toward righteousness.
Reap in accordance with kindness.
Break up your fallow ground,
 for it is time to seek the Lord until
He comes to rain righteousness on you.
Hosea 10:12

And this year the breaking has happened, hurting every part of my person, touching every hardened place in my ground, crumbling it all into small soil. And after the sowing has taken place, seeds pushed into the soft earth, the earth closes over with its promise of protection. After that, I hunker down, letting the air placate me for the long wait.

And we wait.

(I wrote this post on this porch, on those steps in October 2007.)
(Photo by Ben Hull, photographer extraordinaire)
(No, really, extraordinaire.)

in

The mist pads slowly off our small Niagara, like a grey kitten I saw once at the top of the real Niagara. It lays like a thin blanket over the startling green fields. And the tree tips, like lit candles, brandish their autumn flames above. Kindled.

I am in the habit of setting notecards on the RPM field on my dash. Different days, different passages. It's one habit I have no intention of breaking. Sometimes it is my lifeline, sometimes it is my morning thought.

Today's passage was memorized six years ago, but a little review now and then was the author's original intention you see:

"I remind you to kindle afresh the gift
which is in you by the laying on of hands."
II Timothy 1.6

And so this morning as I watch the burning abase, the crumbling of life and green, and now orange, I wonder how it is that kindling is the thing that brings back life--that makes it fresh. I think back to the hands that have been laid on me--more numerous than I remember, more precious than I can describe--and I think that if only they knew how their imparted gifts have gone through the fire. Each and every one.

We mark them. We write them down. We keep journals and papers and margins and mental notes. We know it was the voice of God.

But we don't see it happening.

We see it dying.

We see all those high hopes and real expectations brought to a place where we use them as wood for our sacrifice--they are our only real expressions of worship (Romans 12.1)--and we watch them burn over and over again.

We watch that great, green life ebb into golden flame and fall to the ground. We watch those things we've marked as the Voice of God, the gift from the laying on of hands, the prophetic word of the Church for our lives, we watch them ebb into timid sacrifices, and finally empty them into the hands of the original Creator who knows the original design.

This is why we kindle. This is why our gifts, our words, and our design are kindling--the great fire starter. It is His design to make all things used pass away and make all things new.

Even the things which seem fine just as they are.

October 2007

in

If the rest of you are like me, you respond in like manner at those disciples when they reply to His question with clear condescension: You are in a crowd of people and yet You ask "Who touched me?"

I think to myself that those disciples weren't exactly the sharpest tools in the Master's shed.

And with that condescension of my own comes a perception of that whole crowd--I see them a bit negatively. Even though they formed a tight circle around the one person I would join a circle around too, even though they pressed in to the same man I claim to press toward, even though--well, those disciples make it hard to like the crowd. We opt instead for the woman with the issue. The one whose touch felt different.

I've been part of the crowd recently. I follow them. They follow me. We all run circles around the real One we want to see. We do ministry. We are ministry. We lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees. We run in packs, rubbing shoulders with the people who are already in.

We even touch His robe once or twice, or at least touch someone who's touched His robe.

But He's not stopping the crowd for us. He's not questioning His disciples for us. He didn't feel the power leave Him when our hurried pressing met his woolen dressing.


That was reserved for the one who pressed through all of us just to get to Him.

I find myself making a list of all the things I've crowded around recently, my plethora of ministry opportunities and familial commitments, my right hand service and my left hand giving, my relationships and my quiet times. And I find that the face of Jesus has been crowded out.

Even though I'm pressed in tight, against Him, His people, and His direction, I've lost my focus--and He knows my touch is only pedestrian. Not desperate.

Not like hers.

I've joined the ranks of the disciples and forgotten the deeper issues, the ones that don't go away until I get more serious about seeing and touching Him than running with the crowds around Him.

December 2007

in

I haven't read it yet, but it's my new favorite book. Normal Kingdom Business by Andree Seu. This is how much I love her stuff: among the file folders in my desk drawer marked Financial, Sermon Notes, Writing, and School, is one marked Andree Seu. It's filled with essays I've printed out of hers. I'm not kidding.

But now, delightfully, she has them compiled together in a book. And with a title like Normal Kingdom Business, how can it go wrong? I have visions of great inspiration, deep meditation, and a little bit of, I confess, trepidation.

Beside being my favorite essayist, she's also the normal sort of person who provides inspiration to people like me. You know, the aspiring, tumbling, prone to messing up sort of people. Her husband died, she wrote a eulogy, someone sent it to World Magazine, it got published, now she's a senior writer for them. Plus she manages the coffee spot at a prestigious seminary in Philadelphia.

Her life's not perfect, she's clear enough about her foibles and falters, her kids' rebellion and her shortcomings. She still can't believe her good fortune, that people read what she writes and like it too. I think she probably pinches herself and cries in the corner sometimes. I know she forgets things a lot because she says so. I like Andree Seu. The same way I like carrot sticks and skim milk, good and good for me.

Inscribed on the inside of this book is a short message from the giver, a permanent reminder, as though the verbal one I get every day isn't enough: To my Dear Lore: WRITE!

Not your typical book inscription. Most of them say things like "READ!" or at least "Hope you'll like reading this!" This one, however, carries with it a responsibility that will hover over my shoulder while I read each essay, then long after my lamp has been turned off and my mind pieces strings of words together.


Ninety percent of the things I write never make it here, never make it to my file folder marked Writing, never make it to the notebook I keep by my bed for quick jots; ninety percent of the things I write I never read again. I'm a very good non-writer. I'm very good at being good with something I don't ever do. Most of us are.

Which is why Andree Seu is my recent hero. Because she goes about normal kingdom business and spews forth a book of essays. Because someone told Andree Seu that not only could she write, but that she must WRITE!

Because somewhere I bet Andree Seu has a book someone gave her some Christmas. A book that she knew would be her favorite too, once she got past the charge of the inscription.

December 2007

in

I’m sitting in a living room with friends. A few have their back to me, a few face me, a few sit on the couch reading Philippians; one plays guitar like his hero; one sits in the corner, like bass players are supposed to do; one plays a loop on the keyboard; and a few are in the kitchen getting drinks of water.

I catch one friend’s eye. It’s all I can see of his face, the rest of it taken up by the mouth of the trombone he plays. It’s loud and the floor shakes with people, with laughter, with an earthquake eruption of the stuff of friendship.

I was reading a book, a good book, the kind of book that inspires one to write, and so I do. This kind of setting reminds me of how much I love creativity, how much I thrive on artistry and the skill of making. This kind of setting reminds me of little I do the things I love.

It feels, sometimes, that most of life is doing and not loving. I don’t think it’s meant to be lived that way, but the moment we decided that being smarter was better than being obedient, we chose the route of striving: eating the apple instead of admiring it. And our discipline was to do, to toil, to work hard.

I’m not sure that there’s an answer to all this work, or even an earthly reward. The most we can hope for of heaven here on earth is to watch artistry, creativity take form. I don’t mean to condescend to the accountants, engineers, and computer science gurus of the world: their art is just as valid as the art in this room, and perhaps even more vital. I mean to say that work is necessary, toil is essential, but art is the elective in the midst of it all.

I’m stretched thin this semester, spreading my fingers to ten areas of life and not finding enough time to give them each the creativity and passion they deserve. Sometimes that feels regrettable, sometimes I don’t have time to regret and the best I can do is to do my best. Sometimes it feels like a lot of work, but today I talked to someone I love and she said that these words can be the words I remember when time won’t let me remember that art is important too.

A man’s gift makes room for him.
Proverbs 18.16

So as I strive to make room in my life for art, I can be reminded it will make itself at home in my life simply because it exists. The honor is that is can be work at the same time. And that’s okay with me.

February 2006

in

There are pages and clips from magazines, glossy sheets of eye candy with handwritten notes in the corners. They say things like, “You could do this” or “You should do this.” Sometimes they say “You could write this better” or “This looks like the shop you’re going to start someday.” I get an envelope in the mail once a week or so, stuffed with clippings like this and accompanied by handwritten notes on handmade paper. I’ve begun tacking these clippings beside my bed, a space for dreams.

I’m not always one to dream extraneously—my dreams have usually been in secreted boxes and scrapbooks of treasures—things I love and dare not wish for aloud; things which disappear in the spoken breath, like the wisp by which they’re accompanied. A few people know some of them, and now you might too.

I dream of Europe and the Rhine, stone bridges and the Lake District.

I dream of making things and not keeping them because things take up space and I dream of space.

I dream of finishing and I dream of beginning and I dream of being happy in the middling.

I dream of a boutique on Main Street small town and adopting small children in China.

I dream of people and of front porches.

I dream of pretty things and sturdy things and mixing the two things together.

I dream of gardens, indoor and out.

I dream of being published and I dream of the day when I can crumple what I’ve written and not feel like a part of me went into the garbage with it.

I dream of being unselfish. And giving. And of living without dreams and only real visions for what really can be.

But, in the meantime, I dream of next week’s envelope from home and the possibilities it will hold. Perhaps someone thinks I could quest in unknown frontiers or tea-taste in Kashmir. Perhaps she’ll be convinced of my ability to sew a full clothing line or start a book club. I’m glad for her faith to believe that someday all those clippings tacked to my wall won’t just be dreams any longer, but part of the fabric of me.

February 2006

in

Empty. Apartment. Quiet. All quiet. Excepting the airplane flying overhead, the swallows in the tree outside my window, and the unobtrusive sound of the refrigerator. All quiet.

I thrive. I energize. I figure through my head the thoughts which have been waiting to be thought, wonderings which have been wondering when they, too, could be wondered.

Now is a good time, I say to my reflection in the mirror as I wash my hands. Now is a quiet time.

Now is a time I can think about Amy Lowell and her poem about the Madonna and a garden, about Luigi Pirandello and his six infamous characters searching for an author. Now is a time I could process more thoroughly what it means to live in the Land of the Living. Now is a time when I could rework my budget, figuring which things must be cut out, figuring which things must be counted in. Now is a time I could just sit and close my eyes; it's only eight-thirty, after all, and hardly time for bed. Now is a time when I could search for more internships, fill out endless applications, all the while praying that the two I really want will want me just as badly. Now is a time I could process the new events of Valentine's week: five good friends, all in my immediate circle, suddenly find themselves with Valentines of their own and so, once again, I find myself on the outside of that immediate circle and back to just God and me. Now is a time I could call home and talk to people (if only I weren't out of cell phone minutes again). Now is a time I could open the Bible that is only read for twenty minutes in the peak morning through eyes still blurry from too little sleep and too much reading.

I decide against them all and decide that, save for the five minutes it took to write this, now is the time to complement the quiet. Two quiets sitting side by side on a porch swing, drinking iced tea, and staring at our toes.

Perfect.

February 2006

in

There are soundtracks to life, to every season. I hear strains of a particular song and am reminded of that season, the pains, the joys, and the comfortable familiarity. I am listening to one such soundtrack as I type of my history study sheet and this post. I am remembering a season spent on a living room floor of a small apartment, late into every night, while two small boys slept upstairs and their father worked the graveyard shift. A makeshift mother with none of the fruit, only a nanny. I cried a lot during that season, journaled even more, and spent every night on my face to this soundtrack begging the Lord to pull through and pull me through. For that season I am thankful. For this soundtrack I am thankful.

He and I walked along the river, the budding trees brushing our shoulders and the tender ground, newly unfrozen and testing its strength, beneath our feet. We meant to do homework, but it was chilly and our pages wouldn't stop turning by the mystery that is wind and not speedreading, both convenient excuses to lock our books in the car and forget responsibility. We talked about pollution and factories. He talked about hiking and scientific facts of which I have no understanding but the greatest admiration for those who do. I talked about this morning's sermon and conviction. He reprimanded me for feeling guilty; I reprimanded him for not wanting to know a little something about everything. The spring air blew around us and the sun kissed our faces. We were friends once, and young.

The prayer I have been praying with sincere and earnest desire is that discipline would rise in my life. There are those who say to me to rest, prophesy that even the warrior needs a quiet place to go, to slow down, to take time for fun and to remember that this is the best season of my life. And maybe I'm obstinate to the point of ridiculousness, but I'm also convinced that as long as I have the go ahead from the Lord that my portion is to redeem the time above all else. But I haven't been walking in that in its fullness. Which causes me to wonder if one of two things is true: Maybe I don't have the go ahead from the Lord, or maybe I am just lazy.

February 2006

in

When I was very small February 28th had little significance to me. How could it? It was simply another day in my very large portion of forthcoming days. I was young and would live forever, February 28th would be there as well. After five years of coexisting alongside February 28th with no thought for it, an exciting event happened of which I have no recollection. My parents tell it like this:

I wake up and go to school, donned, I'm sure, in the same pink and green I wore the entirety of my elementary school existence. I announce to my kindergarten classroom that my mother has just given birth to a baby girl named Emily. My class is duly impressed; their parents stopped having children after the perfunctionary two. I am duly gloating; after all, I have the sister for whom I have been waiting for five years. Around lunch time we pulled out our My Little Pony and Transformers lunch boxes and trade food until most of us are satisfied. I am satisfied until an event occurs that can be the only explanation for my having no recollection of this event; embarrassment occurs. Over the loudspeaker it is announced to the entire school, which unfortunately included my kindergarten classroom, that Sean and Lore Ferguson's mother has just given birth to a boy and his name was Andrew David Ferguson. I am told that I crawled under the table. I think they were kind, though, and that in reality I must have cried under the table.

In any case, a brother was born. February 28th 1986. And thus, this date was suddenly filled with chocolate cake and red and the nickname Chub and huge blue eyes and the kindest of all my parents' offspring. We celebrated for 14 years; that's what you do, after all, celebrate the wonder of this wonder, even if he wasn't the wonder I first wanted him to be.

Shortly after that fourteenth celebration, though, a celebration we had no way of knowing would be his last (We would have taken more photos, you see, or bought him more than just model paints, but a helmet we would have made him wear at all times, to insure against the inevitability of April 19, 2000), Drew died of brain trauma. His body lay on the rainy blacktop, to the left of the yellow lines, and he breathed his last. I saw him. For the last time.

And with all the other suddenlies that are taking place in the frenzy of the moment, birthdays are the last thing on our minds. And his, being almost a year away anyway, is certainly the last thing on our minds.

For five years February 28th hurts. Because people forget. Because we're not celebrating. Because my family has four birthdays in February, but we only celebrate three. Because he would have been 15; he would have been 16; he would have been 19; no, he wouldn't have been. For five years February 28th tries to pretend it's just another day, but there are nine people to whom it isn't just another day.

But today is different. Today is the sixth year. Today I can celebrate the anniversary of a birth, 20 years, without the would have beens, might have beens, wishing he was. Today I remembered the birth of which I have no recollection but for the memories others have shared. And I remember the responsibility on me to be a sharer of memories and nothing more.

Happy Birth Day Andrew. Nothing more. Except sometimes I wish you could be here to share some of the memories too.

February 2006

in

We laughed and did a little bit of crying too, and closed with a prayer. I told her I was going to work on my portfolio, but I'm a little distracted by the Lord. She sent me an email this morning in which she said this, "I figured her answer would eventually just come down to Jesus. Beautiful, sufficient Jesus."

I had a conversation the other night with a friend about the foundations of life, and another conversation with two friends Sunday evening about the sovereignty of God. I guess, when it's all said and done, and theology becomes life through the veil, Jesus is the only thing we see clearly. I'm learning that more and more. My answers to the hard questions of life become less how to work through them, how to practically apply principles, how to stare down adversity, and more how to keep my eyes on Jesus.

And maybe that's a big, giant cop-out, and perhaps I'm simplifying my Christianity because of a lack of faith in theology to answer the dichotomies of life, or it could be that I'm just tired of inconsistency in my life due to misunderstanding the Lord. All I know is this--

And He is the radiance of His glory and
the exact representation of His nature,
and upholds all things by the word of His power.
Hebrews 1.3

The author of Hebrews knew one thing about the Lord, and consistently reminds their readers all the way through the book---when practices and principles fail, and we falter along with them, the answer comes down to Jesus. Beautiful, sufficient Jesus.

June 2006

in

A composite sketch for your viewing:

We talked, last night, about the Psalms. It is quickly becoming a favorite book of mine, though I am quick to add that I am very much aware of that statement's cliche value. I am learning to care less about cliche and care more about gathering life from every possible source. David was adamantly black and white, he said. But isn't that cool? I said. He was transparent and honest about the things the rest of us pretend aren't issues.

I'm glad too. Because recently there have seemed to be a plethora of issues in my life that need to be addressed. David does a fine job of helping me prioritize.

Our makeshift family continues to thrive and for that I'm thankful. Piece by peace, we take New Testament living to the degree our faith can handle. Sharing food and going from house to house, all things in common, and the things we don't have in common are laid bare on the table and disected. He sets the lonely in families and I'm so thankful for a season of the former if this sort of latter is the blessing that follows.

I am coming home in August. I know. Those of you who are most excited to hear about that probably already know and I didn't get the response I wanted to, but still, aren't you still a little bit excited? The dates aren't completely settled and there's still a little bit of discussion on how long and who, and where to and how.

I have compiled a semi-not-exhaustive list of things to see/be/do when I am home:

Play in the garden.
Eat berries.
Sit on the most perfect side porch ever created.
With the most perfect kind of people ever created.
See a best-friend's enlarged torso and love the child inside.
Go to church every chance I get.
Go to Birchbark, if not for books, at least for nostalgia.
Sit in Ives Park, maybe with Morgan's Ice Cream and a friend or two.
Hug Louissa. A lot.
Love every second of home with every fiber of me.
Say good-bye, because even though my heart will always be there, I will be vague for an indefinite period after August.


Things done, seen, been, gone, and otherwise tasted in the past three weeks of my voluntary silence:

Over the Rhine concert in Asheville, North Carolina--made sweeter by the seeing of Jacqui for the first time in a year.

Twelfth Night-- the Red Clay Theatre. Shakespeare at his best.

Blue Hole [2x] --the infamous Ocoee River never looked so good as it does in these hot humid days.

Fireworks over the Tennessee River in Chattanooga--spectacular, and yes, I know I'm biased by my love for any sort of fire in the sky, but really, my heart hurt they were so good.

The Prairie Home Companion Movie--for all those Garrison Keillor buffs who won't admit it but always wanted to sit in the Fitzgerald Theatre and watch the man work magic with words--this is the next best thing.

Inumerable nights on the front porch--sorting out life, spirituality, fears, hopes, games, guitars, more fears, and the respective arts of melted candle wax and cooking.

I have tasted life in many forms and have yet to find my favorite. I'm coming in to it, though; I can feel it in my soul.

June 2006

in

Broken systems don't have to break me. This is the thought that puts me to bed, wakes me in the morning, trickles down my face in the shower, and catches up with me all day long.

The wind has been knocked out of so many of my sails: dreams of missionary life, family life, marriage, motherhood, sisterhood--all of these great callings thwarted by circumstances and systems that don't work like the manual said they would. I think of nights heaving on a cement floor and a subsequent plane ride back from Central America nursing my Gatorade and my pride. I think of nights weeping on various apartment floors, wanting an intact family. I think of evenings on a front porch swing, talking, deciding, breaking, hurting, leaving, and finally healing. I think of crashed disappointments and fallen hopes; methodical plans that ended in chaos.

And I think, in the end, it is better to have seen the system break, than to see a person break.

Systems can be remade. Remodeled. Redone.

People have to have the wind knocked out of them, crumble to the floor, confess that their hope isn't in the sail at all, but in the Wind--and that never stops blowing.

Want to hear a secret?

I don't have this figured out--I'm figuring some things out this week. That's my plan. I want to explore Purple Hearts and walking wounded. I want to understand why the Israelites still don't eat the hipbone. I want to think about how very badly I don't want to be a victim, but I always want to remember the grace that pulled me through it all.

So over the next week I'm assigning myself this topic: suffering.

Don't have grand illusions, I'm weak in this area and I promise no great illuminations. I promise that I'll read and pray and think and then write.

February 2008

in
The trouble is
We don’t know who we are instead.
–Jars of Clay.

I guess the truth is that the truth is ugly. The truth is bared and laid down arms. The truth looks less like majesty and more like frailty. And I’ve been afraid to face it. I know that and that’s why I pretend that I’m okay when you ask; because to say that I’m not okay, or preoccupied with my humanity, is to say that I’m weakness underneath the strength I show.

The truth is ugly and I am along with it.


I’m learning about faith. Faith is the sort of thing that lands us on a summit-like experience one moment and the next plummets us to what Anne Shirley famously called the depths of despair. Faith is the sort of thing that restlessly hounds us to give up self and glorifies itself, if only for the brief moments of elation that result from an answered prayer. We forget answered prayers so quickly because there are always new ones to be prayed.

Faith is not the point—testimony is. I am learning that the truth is that I walk according to faith and sometimes that gets ugly, because I am human and because I only see through a dim glass and a somewhat patched veil. I fog up the glass and patch the veil because to see Christ face to face is to see me face to face—I was created in the Imago Dei Christo—I am infused with Christ. And yet the thing that trips me up, falters my step, blinds my eyes and keeps my nimble fingers sewing the veil that was once torn in two, is that I am unwilling to see my image the way Christ does. I am unwilling to see faith worked in my life according to His promises.

The truth is that the truth is ugly when it is just me you see. But the bigger truth is that He wants it to be Him you see when you look at me.

And that, somehow, makes it beautiful instead.

August 2006

in

He chose five stones. Even though he had complete confidence that God was on his side and the giant would be defeated, still, he chose five stones. In case the first one didn't work? In case the first four didn't work? We know it only took one, but we have the vantage of hindsight and Hebrew scribes. He had nothing but his stature and a slingshot to count on. And the faithfulness of his God.

(Tom Deters)

I remember once, listening to someone wise saying that sometimes in this Christian walk there are options in front of us that all look suspiciously right and good. Options that all lead to the Kingdom and life and make it hard to choose between rights and wrongs, because they all look okay and profitable. It's then, he said, that we just choose one. Walk in it in the faith that God knows our desire to head toward the Kingdom and trust that we'll get there in His time and in His way.

I'm standing at that crossroads, if you will, specing the territory. Seeing the options. Trying to not get overwhelmed with the possible goodness or probable suffering, just trusting that of the five stones I hold in my possession, all could do the job, but only one eventually will.

It may not be the first, or the first four. But we'll never know until the story is finished.

September 2006