A broken tulip

Hello to my loyal readers who believed I would be back.

Here I am, ready to write again. Grateful that you are ready to read again. Every artist knows that they do only half the work – the audience completes it. Writers need readers, painters need people to see their work, musicians need people to listen. That is a beautiful aspect to art, that by necessity it creates community. It is also one of the most vulnerable aspects of it because what if no one cares enough to complete your work by engaging it?

During my time away from this blog I have been tending to the beautiful and vulnerable work of community in other ways. This time, what was shared was the sorrow of my sister and brother-in-law. We share many things as humans beyond art. It is one of the beautiful ways we image our God who shares His love and delight, shares His authority and rule with us, shares His nature and image, and when we ruin it He shares our weakness and death so that we can share in His life again. He shares.

I am on the West Coast of Canada currently. It is a beautiful place for the mandatory quarantine imposed on returning travelers and I am grateful for it all—the fresh air, the rain, the mountains outside my window, the thick trees. I intend to watch the seasons change with attentiveness and care. I intend also to watch the changes in my own soul.

Nothing about our faith and inner life remains constant because they are relational realities. Like the Proverbs woman, we either build up or tear down our own homes. We are always changing—either towards or away from the light. Every season can be a re-conversion of the soul. “Are you saved?” a man bluntly asked my little sister recently. How can we presume to answer that question?

In the early mornings by a fire, waiting for the mist to lift from the mountains, waiting for quarantine to be over, waiting on God to speak in the stillness, I whisper the prayer of Martin Luther which resonates deep within me—I am yours. Save me.

It is good to be still. It is good to be silent. In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, says the Holy One. To repent is to return—return and rest. Slowly I feel strength return in the quietness as I pray over and over into the night and into the anxiety wound round my spine, “Father, I trust you.”

Believing the love of God is, perhaps, one of the hardest things a human will ever do. It is certainly one of the most important. It is, in 2020 language, “essential work”.

For the next months I hope to share with you some of the conversations that have been ongoing in my life.  As October slips into November I want to chronicle the ever-wet of Western Canada as rain and mist cloud the mountains. I need to release some things onto paper (or pixels) about women, about God’s story, about the love of the Trinity which carries this world forward, which carves a future of hope for each of us. I want to continue puttering towards understanding and relish every moment of brightness. You are welcome to share this next season with me.