Dreaming of Silver Roses

I read this recently and thought it merited further thought…so here’s my thinking.

“We live under the illusion that if we can acquire complete control, we can understand God, or we can write the great American novel. But the only way we can brush against the hem of the Lord, or hope to be part of the creative process, is to have the courage, the faith, to abandon control. …
When I urge that we abandon our rigid self-control I am not suggesting that we abandon ourselves into hysteria or licentiousness, uninhibited temper tantrums or self-indulgence (ouch!). Anything but. However, when we try to control our lives totally with the self we think we know, “the result is that grown in self-awareness is inhibited.” And, William James continues, “There is a sort of devilish perversity in this organizing me not to sin by means of the very thing which ensures that I shall. Faith, on the other hand, consists in the awareness that I am more than I know.” Such awareness came to the prodigal when he realized that he was more than a starving swineherd. What led him home was his becoming aware that he was also his father’s son. Yet his awareness of sonship was enough to make him journey homewards.

The journey homewards. Coming home. That’s what it’s all about. The journey to the coming of the Kingdom. That’s probably the chief difference between Christian and secular artists- the purpose of the work, be it story or music or painting, is to further the coming of the kingdom, to make us aware of our status as children of God, and to turn our feet toward home.” (L’Engle,Walking on Water)

All my life, as far back as I can remember, I wanted home. I wanted all that home meant in my mind. I wanted parents that loved and wanted me – not that mine didn’t, but no parent is perfect and all children when they are angry or hurt or mad dream that they are princes and princesses misplaced in an unjust unloving world. I know this because I have listened to my own children in Time Out! I wanted a place where I made a difference and mattered. I wanted to be utterly loved and accepted. I wanted to go home. This yearning has played a role in many great adventures in my life and many horrible choices I made as well. I didn’t really get it. I didn’t understand why I was so restless. Why was I so ill at ease everywhere?

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” says Ecclesiastes. That calling me home, resulted in me thrashing about even recently with a friend. No one can fill that and help me find the way there except for the One who has already made that journey for me. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:3) It isn’t just about beating death, I think. He made the journey to a right relationship with the Father. He made “home” a reality.

I am learning, I think, that out of love for me the Perfect Father already knows what I think I am and what I want, but wants me to ask. He is concerned about my desires. He is also concerned with giving me the right heart full of the right desires so that I can find my way home. He is placing the people, the circumstances, and the tools in my path to make my journey home more obvious to me. There have been times when I have asked other travelers for directions. Sometimes they have them. But often, unless they were placed there by the Abba, they are just trying to figure it out too! I get bent out of shape and worry and stress when they can’t meet my needs for direction when truthfully they can’t even meet their own. We are all on this journey together and there is only One who has traveled this road and is home now calling to us. Instead of getting frustrated with my fellow travelers I should be pointing to the Guide and shouldering their burdens on the path so that I resemble the One who is calling to them. When I reflect the Trailblazer well and they see Him in my life, the call to them is louder, too. That can lead to conflict if they accidentally mistake me for Him, but that’s when I just wave and point and shout out all the louder gesturing toward His position. I will admit others have done so for me and I have misunderstood and even gotten angry or frustrated wanting them to be the reflection I was seeing.

We are all going home. Unfortunately in this microwave technologically tainted generation we don’t realize that we are pioneers. There are no modern convinces for this trip. There are no gas stations. There are no coke machines or fast food joints- you can’t get Living Water from this well source ask the Samaritan woman (John 4). The Bread of Life isn’t found in a drive thru pick up window! There is however an internal eternal GPS and He wants to be listened to since He has been with the Father and Son and knows the way, but that’s about as technologically advanced as we will get on this journey. There are no shortcuts. The way really isn’t that long in the grand scheme of eternity. He just wants us to endure and listen to His call.

For me, I lean to heavy on others when I want a shortcut. They are not home, just a reflection… a foretaste. I lean on books first without consulting Him. I think I can read the map and get the directions on my own. Hmmm. Those who know me well know that some of the most incompatible things in the entire universe are April + directions! I need to abandon control and let go of the wheel and let Him drive. I have to move myself out of the way. To open my heart up to his prompting. It’s hard. It’s work. It’s discipline and takes time. But the cool thing is that I am going home. The journey itself is full of tastes and encouraging signs that tell me so. I believe there is home for me.

When Abbey was very little, I would watch her begin to wilt after a long walk like around the Dallas Zoo or a nature hike in the heat. She would want to finish. She wanted to control the journey herself even when she thought she was fighting to be free of control. (Someone is always in control. There is no such thing as ultimate chaos. Ask a Kindergarten teacher! It’s either the adult or the child but someone is calling the shots!) Abbey would droop like a dry lily in a Texas flowerbed in August. She would toddle and stagger alternately all over the path until she almost dropped on the sidewalk or path. Diallo would finally scoop her up, (regardless of the fight she put up and she was valiant!) snuggle her close, and place her on his “daddy shoulders” where she would squeal with girlie delight at being lifted so high. Or if she was beyond the ability to hold open her tiny eyelids, as they batted over her cocoa brown fawn eyes, daddy placed her head on his strong shoulders, cradled her in his arms, and kept walking eventually Abbey made it home. No matter what. She comes home. But you know, as soon as she stopped fighting us, she was just as content on the journey on Daddy’s shoulders or in Daddy’s arms. She didn’t have to reach our final destination to be in sync with daddy. It was enough to live in the taste in Daddy’s arms.

When I let go, when I stop trying to satisfy myself, the taste of home is so sweet that it sustains me. And one day, I will go home. I will get there. Until then it is imperative that I learn through my art – writing and my living to rest at peace in daddy’s arms content with a taste of the home He has prepared for me. I have to learn how to settle in and let go and ‘be’ where He is.

There was an article I recently read about Michelangelo Buonarroti’s David. (written by D. Stuart Briscoe) The marble was purchased for one aspiring artist. It was taken to the chapel to be used. The artist looked at it. It was expensive and massive and impressive…. and flawed. The artist pronounced that it was of no use to him and it was abandoned. A few years went by. Another artist was commissioned to work on the Biblical characters for the chapel’s art. He requested materials and the marble was brought out in hope. He too said that it was too flawed and not of use to him. The marble was, forgotten. Michelangelo, just 26 years old was commissioned of course to create art or the cathedral. He walked around the marble and looked. He touched the marble and thought. He saw something.

There is a legend that when asked how he could create such an exquisite masterpiece Buonarroti said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” He carved away until what he saw by faith inside the marble was revealed.

Abandoning control is like that. We don’t find ourselves. If I am lost there is no way to go out and look for myself. That’s nuts. We even tell cub scouts boy scouts and children in a mall, stay put until help arrives! And yet here we are as people sure that if we set out to find out who we are all on our own we can do that and we call it self discovery! We are not finding ourselves when we abandon control. We find ourselves like the David sculpture. We are slowly uncovered by the Artist who has a unique vision of the best we can be. Abandoning control isn’t the freedom to live lasciviously and recklessly. It isn’t about a lack of control in total. Someone is always in control make no mistake. It’s about letting go of our own need to tell the Divine Artist how His masterpiece should look, sound, smell, feel, be. Rich Mullins I think captures what happens in that moment of growth when a new step is taken to reveal a little bit more of the art than before… Maybe the process is messy at times, but it’s life.

“Oh, now I’m getting strong enough
You helped me chip my way out and open myself up
And for the snow that comes with winter
For the growth that comes from pain
For the joke I can’t remember
Although the laughter long remains
For the faith that brought to finish
All I doubted at the start
Lord, I give you praise for all that makes
For the hatching of a heart” – exerpt from Hatching of the Heart, album Brother’s Keeper

Filed under: poetry, purpose, Uncategorized, wonder, writing on April 29th, 2008