burning bushes

I love autumn!  The break in humidity.  Cool mornings. Soup. Return to routines. Pumpkins and hot apple cider.  And here in Asheville the riot of color - golds and reds - that marks this season and bring the tourists flocking in.

Today I drove past a tree that was so flaming red that it was almost unbelievable.  I wanted to stop and take a picture.  But I was in a hurry.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes about reverence.  

"Reverence requires a certain pace.  It requires a wilingness to take detours, even side trips, which are not part of the original plan. I can stop what I am doing long enough to see where I am, who I am there with, and how awesome the place is.  I can flag one more gate to heaven - one more patch of ordinary earth with ladder marks on it - where the divine traffic is heavy when I notice it and even when I do not.  I can see it for once, instead of walking right past it maybe even setting a stone or saying a blessing before I move on to wherever I am due next." 


Taylor talks about Moses having this kind of reverence.  Exodus 3 says
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. ³ So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” And Moses said, “Here I am.” ⁴ When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

Moses' willingness to stop and notice the burning bush led to him having an unexpected experience with God and started him on a life changing path.   How many burning bushes/flaming trees have I rushed past this week.  How many God encounters have I breezed over?

Taylor quotes one of the wise women in Alice Walker's book The Color Purple.  "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."

This makes me smile.  It is not the picture I have of God, but I think it is a good reminder to be on the lookout for those beautiful, flaming red, autumn trees. 

closet full

This weekend a good friend is getting married.  We are making a quick trip to Maryland for a mini reunion/wedding.  So for the last couple of weeks the drum solo in my head has been beating out "go-to-the-store-buy-something-new-to-wear" over and over.

There is a myth that I've bought in to for a long time.  That the outfit I need to make me feel thin-energetic-successful is just waiting at a store for me.  Probably on sale.

But I have a closet jammed with clothes.   Some I love, like presents from my stylish, pro shopper Mom.  She takes time to consider flattering fit and wearer's delight. Some are hand-me-downs, practical pieces that are now part of my every day rotation.  Some I've grabbed, running through a store, because they were soft or a pretty color and only $6.00 on clearance. I've got lots of pieces, so many clothes and yet I'm still waiting for something else.

This summer I put a ban on more shopping.  I got strict with myself.  "Go to your closet."  I said.  "Dig deeper.  Be creative.  Stop thinking it's out there.  Find it in here."

The day of Jake's graduation, deep in my closet, I found a green and raspberry floral shell.  It was two years old, tags still on and beautiful.  I didn't have anything to wear with it.  Except a raspberry sweater that I bought a year ago and wear all the time.  Put them together with my white pants and I had a new party outfit.

A couple months later I was packing for my trip to California.  The one thing I was missing was a pair of nice, dark-ish pants to wear on the plane.  I kept thinking I would get to the store, and then found just what I needed at the bottom of my summer box, clean and folded since last year.

Yesterday I found an emerald green sweater to brighten my gray and black outfit and fight the chilly fall air. It was in a bag, bought on clearance during humid, hot days and tucked away.  It looks great with a multi-colored scarf I've had for years.

I need to trust that the closet is adequate. In so many ways.  Not just with clothes.  I find myself panicking about being equipped for my new job.  That what will make me feel thin-energetic-successful as a principal are the classes I can't take until next year, or the books I haven't finished reading, or the review I will get from my boss. The drum solo beats "you-don't-know-what-you-are-doing. You-are-in-over-your-head."

Then I look inside.  I realize that chaplain months in emergency waiting rooms with families, swallowing pat answers so I could hear their pain, is just the tool I need with frustrated parents.  Drawing out shy hospice patients is surprisingly not that different from drawing out shy 6th graders.  Plotting a sermon series uses many of the same skills that creating an art curriculum takes.  And leading an interdisciplinary team is a lot like leading a faculty meeting.

When I start to freak out I have to get strict with myself. "Dig deeper.  Be creative.  Stop thinking it's all out there.  Find it in here." I may be a brand new principal, and I can't wait to have more experience, but there are some good things in the closet.

I think about Elijah, looking for God outside of the cave, in the wind and fire and earthquake.  But God was inside the cave, Elijah's closet, whispering quietly to him.

So it's back in the closet for me.  To listen to God's quiet voice, to trust in my journey, and right now to find something to wear with a purple lacy J Crew skirt for the wedding.

blue -part one and two

Part one:  Once upon a time I had a blue office.  It was a really cool office, with tall windows, a square black table-desk, and two beautiful blue walls.  I loved this office.  I loved the color and the space.  I loved to sit at the table, look at the mountains and write and plan and think.  

Then I lost the office.  

After a while I started working at Spartanburg Hospital.  I had a cubicle.  And I was very thankful for the cubicle.  I hung a blue picture on the wall and learned to chaplain and chart and bare my soul.

Fourteen months later I became a hospice chaplain in Buncombe County.  I didn't have an office but I worked from my blue car.  I was so happy to be back in Asheville.  I visited and comforted and prayed with my patients.

I loved my work.  But it was hard and sad.  Sometimes, in the quiet of my bedroom or while driving back roads I would dream about someday having an office again.  With blue walls like the one I had lost.

I found out about the Principal job, interviewed and accepted it within one weekend.  I didn't even think about it coming with an office.  And then I walked into my new space and saw blue walls.  In that moment I felt God's personal, redeeming love with such force that I could hardly breathe.


Part two:  My blue walled office had been inhabited by a string of men.  It was very utilitarian.  There was a huge leather couch that took up half the room.  A third of the room was used for storage of various boxes and supplies. There were five different styles of chairs in one room.  I didn't care.  It had blue walls.

But I did call my friend Angela.  Angela is one of those friends who will sit in your living room and chat with you for hours.  And she will never wince at the dust piling up on the piano, or mention the door knob that has been broken for 36.5 months, or point out the slip-covered chair that once was white.  She is just restful and calm and friendly.  Until you call with a decorating emergency.  And then mild mannered Clark Kent turns into Super Decorating Woman.  You haven't had fun until you've watched dainty Angela move huge pieces of furniture back and forth across a room. Or balance on a chair to hang a picture.  Or sweep the room with her laser eyes before coming up with the perfect solution.    She is my hip fairy god decorator.   She took one look at the office and said "well, the couch has to go." And I knew things were going to get good.

She showed up with bags and furniture.  She brought chairs from her basement.  She found a beautiful table and lamp, a colorful rug, pillows, and a blue mosaic mirror.  Lots of rearranging and artistic perspectives later and my office is bright, welcoming, feminine, beautiful and.... blue.  I still cannot believe that this amazing room is my office!

I love this quote from C.S. Lewis about restoration and rebuilding. I can't read it without tearing up, because it reminds me that what Angela has done for my office, God is doing with my heart.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” 
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity