Author: danefowlkes

“Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can’t think about them. I live with trees.”
~Annie Dillard

The weather on Saturday was ideal for a great number of things; unfortunately for me, that included raking leaves. We live with trees, and in the spring, summer and early autumn I enjoy them. Our home is surrounded by a panorama of Elms, Red Oaks, Pecans, Chinese Tallows, and one spindly Magnolia. A gangly Sweet Gum and stocky Fruitless Mulberry, both useless in my opinion, are also part of the mix. When the afore mentioned begin to shed their shade, our yard looks like an ocean of leaves, and every stiff breeze conjures up still another amber, gold and purple wave. Trees may be our friends, but the bottom line is that they leave a major mess for me to clean, and Saturday turned into a day of reckoning. Multicolored leaves covered every inch of ground like stippling in a Van Gogh painting; my grandson and I raked, shoveled, hauled, and burned for hours. Exhausted and game called on account of darkness, it seemed like we could work for days and be no closer to the goal. There is an end, we just can’t see it for the leaves.

Life resembles raking. We exert great effort at doing good; kind words, gracious gestures, helping hands, sacrificial service, ad infinitum. Then one day we look up and everything looks the same, so we ask no one in particular under our breath, What’s the point? The bad get ahead and the good are left behind; injustice spreads through the world like an incurable rash. Will the madness never end? The answer is, of course, that it will, for each of us. I cannot speak with certainty on what lies beyond if anything, but I can speak about what remains. Reputation lingers. Acts of grace and mercy outlive us. Buechner writes that love is the frame through which we see our neighbors; I would add that love is a fitting frame for any life. In the end, we are a lasting impression that we leave on the ones we love.

“People observe the colors of a day only at its beginning and end, but to me it’s quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations, with each passing moment. A single hour can consist of thousands of different colors.”
~Markus Zusak

The color was all too familiar. Eleven months ago we stood near the bed of a different family member, in a different room, under different circumstances, but with the same result. We had learned the evening before that my wife’s mother had taken a turn for the worse and was not expected to live through another week, so we made our way Saturday morning to the Bluebonnet Trails wing on the third floor of St. Catherine’s. We pushed aside the curtain that served as a door and entered the grey dimly lit room. As expected, Anne was non-responsive, so we spoke gentle words in muted tones with oxygen gurgling in the background, the only other sounds those of a Bingo game from down the hall; life comes and goes, but Bingo marches on. My wife’s sister arrived shortly thereafter, and while she updated us on Anne’s condition I took a moment to consider the sterile surroundings. An outdated television held center stage on one wall, flanked on the left by a metal rod supporting twelve items of clothing suspended by assorted plastic and thin metal hangers, and on the right by a tall narrow closet. A window ledge and small chest near the bed held an assortment of children’s toys and one crayon drawing, evidence of great grandchildren. A few old photographs on one wall told the essentials of her story: a black and white image of a young woman in nursing uniform conveyed her vocation; a sepia snapshot of three children provided a glimpse into her childhood; the subject matter of still another was her uniformed father holding her as an infant, the only evidence of parental involvement. Absence of a husband in any of her photos reinforced that she had divorced many years ago and never remarried. The opposite wall held a family tree that her sister had meticulously prepared, conspicuous against the whitewashed surface and even more so in the presence of a life near its end; an artistic reminder of who she had come from and who she was a part of still, confluence and influence. That was all.

It’s hard to rejoice when colors darken, except when such is an answer to prayer. All I could think to ask as we concluded our vigil was that God would honor himself and her by being gracious in the end. He was. None of us will fully understand death until we die and then it will be too late to do anything about it, but what we can say is that what matters most is what we do before the end comes. Who did we love? How did we love? What difference did it make? Who will continue to tell our tale and what will its color be? For better or worse, our story never ends with us.

“Above all, I guess, the good ones, for me, are the ones that one way or another suggest that although the night is coming, it is not darkness but light that is the end of all things.”
~ Frederick Buechner

Writing is one of my ways of fighting senility. The Oxford Companion to Anerican Literature tells about Ralph Waldo Emerson at a point in his life when he had “gradually slipped into a serene senility in which his mind finally became a calm blank.” Apparently Emerson happened to pick up a volume of his own essays one day, and after reading through them commented that although he couldn’t place the man who wrote them, all in all he thought they showed promise. Although I may one day look back on what I’ve written with “serene senility,” writing in the present demands at least a measure of hand and mind coordination. My intent is for something I compose and record to foster someone’s contemplation and corresponding personal growth. No doubt I miss that literary mark much of the time, but hopefully on occasion I succeed; it is not as though I will produce anything to keep one awake at night, but perhaps at times I write something that accomplishes what Buechner purposed–help us “see something as familiar as our own faces in a new way, with a new sense of depth and preciousness and mystery.”

I am currently working on a collection of thoughts and essays on “grace in present tense” that I hope to have published by the summer. I welcome your comments and suggestions, and would greatly appreciate knowing your favorite post of mine from the past, or a subject that you would hope I would tackle at some future point (literarily speaking). I am constantly amazed that anyone takes the time to pause and read my ‘thinking out loud,’ and am deeply humbled that you do.

“Never pray for an easier life–pray to be a stronger person! Never pray for tasks equal to your power–pray for power to be equal to your tasks. Then doing your work will be no miracle–you will be the miracle.”
~ Phillips Brooks

It was cold and damp in Waco last night, but that did not deter our grandson from insisting that he launch a few fireworks to welcome the new year. Being the wise and gracious grandfather that I am, I volunteered to remain indoors and work the switch for the porch light while grandson and a friend did the honors out-of-doors. The rest of us were ready for bed, but he faced into the future with wide-eyed wonder and abandon. I’m not so old that I can’t remember exuding the same unbridled enthusiasm for each new year. Meticulous resolution planning and euphoria over putting the past behind (again) characterized many New Year’s Eves in my younger adult years. More often than not these days, I make the per annum transition in bed. Instead of resolutions, my great need is recognition. Experience has taught that new years do not always bring good things, so I never pray for trials, but rather for wise endurance when they arrive.

The role of suffering in the Christian life remains a mystery, yet holds enormous potential for molding a healthy response to human agony in the world, as well as our own upward climb. Sadly, many gravitate toward one of two opposing poles: asceticism that glorifies suffering as something good in itself, or the numbing approach to living that would eliminate suffering at all costs. Help is available to gain a grip on this slippery slope by revisiting a familiar and oft quoted Scripture passage in the New Testament Book of Romans, the eighth chapter and twenty eighth verse: “All things work together for the good of them who love God and are called according to His purpose.” Frequently invoked as a sort of Christian talisman, the interpretation follows that belonging to God insures me against extended suffering and disaster of any sort. That kind of thinking calls into question God’s character and my own faith every time I fail or fall or stub my toe. I remember hearing Henry Blackaby say that God’s primary concern for us is not our position, retirement benefits, or our comfort; instead, his ultimate goal for us is Christlikeness and will allow whatever is necessary into our lives so that we become like Jesus.

If not insurance against hardship, what does Romans 8:28 promise us? Regardless of how difficult and demanding our circumstances, by relying on God and responding toward rather than away from him, God will see to it that we emerge on the other side of our situation more like Christ. When we decide that Christlikeness is more important than momentary ease and comfort, we become the miracle rather than another casualty.

“God teaches the soul by pains and obstacles, not by ideas.”
~ Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Our daughter has friends from California staying with them for a few days, and one of them is a yoga instructor. She graciously offered to put us through the paces if interested, and four of us agreed. We lowered the living room lights, spread bath towels on the ceramic tile floor, and did our best to bend our bodies on command. At one point, I looked down and couldn’t determine how my leg had made its way in front of my hand, while the other leg bent at an odd angle in the opposite direction. I felt like a pretzel and was ready to take up Twister again after all these years. We completed thirty minutes of synchronized stretching and agreed to do it all over again the next day, as it had gone relatively smoothly. The problem I learned during the second session was that our daughter’s friend had taken it easy on us the first day. Convinced that we could handle it, she pushed past the dimension of discomfort and into the arena of pain. I kept asking myself why I had agreed to this torture, and decided that yoga is a four-letter word. When I lightheartedly commented on the misery and torment of the exercise, the instructor smiled and pleasantly stated that expanded flexibility could add years to my life or, at the very least, would enhance the quality of whatever quantity I end up with. In the aftermath I’ve discovered that my back feels better than it has in a long time. Momentary misery is evidently worth the long term benefit.

Left to myself I choose comfort over commitment every time. That is precisely the reason I cannot leave the choice up to me–I must live the crucified life so that the choice is always up to Him. Dying today translates into life I never fathomed possible. Death to self does not mean an end or emptiness; instead, crucifixion means fullness and spiritual altitude–life on a higher plane than I would have chosen for myself otherwise. In order to soar, we must first advance to abandonment. Rather than passive inactivity, the crucified life insists that we take action, cutting erroneous ties and re-lashing our moorings to Christ. With the Prodigal, “I will arise and go to my father…” I will arise– I will wake up, get, up, grow up, and climb up. I trash and discard the garbage piling up in my heart and mind. Ruthlessly, I inventory motive and attitude and address each in desperate fashion. I recalibrate my attention to Christ each day with savage intentionality. “Reckon yourselves dead to sin…” This is no valley of ease; this is a summit to scale under harrowing and hellish conditions. Crucifixion places me precariously on a rocky crag with no safety net below, and bids me ever higher.

(I wrote the following for my wife as her Christmas card this year. She granted permission to share it.)

“The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming.” ~ Frederick Buechner

I cross the threshold into Christmas Day by reflecting on the attributes of my wife and the wonder of being married to her. Space allows the mention of only a few of the things about her that highlight the blessing that she is. She cares for birds the way most people do their children. I call them “her birds”, implying ownership when the last thing she would want is to own any one of them. We stop regularly at feed stores and hardware stores seeking out the finest seeds available for her occasional visitors, and a new feeder design turns her head every time. My wife knows why the caged bird sings.

She sits through entire baseball games and opts for football when push comes to shove and choices come down to sitcom or pigskin. Although she had never seen a soccer match before meeting me, she now heralds the return of the World Cup like a veteran aficionado, and cheers for every African team (as do I) as well as Team USA. She’s an American girl and does her country and gender proud by reading politics and speaking shrewdly on the perils of bankrupting democracy. Following one particularly engaging discourse last week, I looked at her so intently across the couch that she asked what was wrong. All I could do was swallow hard to keep from exposing myself as a hopeless sap, and choked out something like, “Wow, beautiful and intelligent to boot. All these years later, I still can’t believe you said ‘Yes’ to the likes of me.”

God the Father knew what he was doing when he hatched the plan for his sons and daughters to find one another and, in so doing, find themselves. God’s Christmas blessing to me this year and for the past eight years is Jo, his greatest gift to me outside of Christ.

Merry Christmas Jo!
I love you

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
~ Annie Dillard

Christmas evokes powerful memories. Enjoying a blueberry bagel and orange juice for breakfast this morning while sitting near the lighted Christmas tree in our den made me feel like a kid again. For some reason I cannot explain I was small and young and innocent again, even though I’m actually slightly overweight, old, and saddle worn. For those few moments I could see my father sipping morning Maryland Club and hear Mom baking biscuits from scratch behind him. Sister stood nearby holding kitchen towels that she insisted we place around our heads while reenacting the Christmas story. At least she let me play Joseph; I prefer to forget the other time when she made me wear something much less masculine. A flash of light pulled my gaze to brightly papered packages encircling like the Polar Express an artificial blue spruce. Several items remained unwrapped–Santa’s handiwork. The world was wonderful and small and uncomplicated then; love flowed freely and abundantly, and security had a face, two faces to be exact. Mom and Dad would always be there, and they still are after a fashion, inhabiting what Buechner calls a “room called remember.” There were no bills to pay and no battles to fight except the occasional one against my sister, especially when forced to share the rear bench seat of a ’65 Rambler Classic on family vacation.

Christmas was magical in my childhood, and I carry the miracle with me all these years later. The power of Christmas comes from the love we have for one another and the birth narrative we hold in common. When we exchange gifts, drink eggnog, sing carols, light candles, and relish the Christmas story we are banking memories and extending the miracle for another generation.

“When tradition is thought to state the way things really are, it becomes the director and judge of our lives; we are, in effect, imprisoned by it. On the other hand, tradition can be understood as a pointer to that which is beyond tradition: the sacred. Then it functions not as a prison but as a lens.” ~ Marcus Borg

I’ve never been crazy about the day after; Christmas arrives and departs far too quickly. It feels like only yesterday that I was lugging our artificial tree in a wheelbarrow from barn to den, and lowering unending boxes of ornaments down from the attic. Now the pressure will be on to dismantle the Christmas tree and neatly stow away decorations for another year. Doing my best to stave off putting away Christmas is not another attempt at procrastination. While I have not been without my own moments of procrastination (to put it mildly), this is not one of those unnecessary delays. The prolonging of Christmas wrap-up has nothing to do with laziness, and everything to do with reluctance.

My reticence to put away Christmas is complicated. I love Christmas and everything that goes along with it, and the joy I share with wife and family in preparing for Christmas and celebrating the days before the Christ-mass is exhilarating. Something stirs down deep about a lighted Christmas tree surrounded by a mosaic of packages in assorted shapes, sizes, and density, glowing in the corner of the den until bedtime. Tradition is tantamount to celebration. We enjoy simple ones like watching and listening to Bing Crosby as our annual holiday companion while he croons “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” and portrays our favorite Irish priest of all time, Father O’Malley, in “Going My Way” and “Bells of St. Mary’s”, gathering with family on Christmas Eve, and attending together the Candlelight and Communion service at the little Bosqueville Methodist Church. Like it or not, today’s Christmas cheer turns into tomorrow’s Christmas memory.

This year’s reluctance to close out the season comes from a deeper awareness of the brevity of life than from fascination with this sacred day. The absence of loved ones alters the tone and volume of celebration. Change is hard, especially when it means someone sacred is missing. This is the third Christmas without Mom and our first without Popi, and much of this year’s family conversation takes the shape of memories that includes them. They’re not the only ones noticeably absentee. Mr. Evans from down the lane is still alive, but he resides now in a home for those that can’t remember. Our neighbors’ father is in a home for those who can remember, but have lost the physical strength to do much more than that. The absence of these I care about leads me to engage in some soul searching of my own, and forces me to face squarely the fact that I’ve already celebrated more Christmases than I have left to celebrate– sobering realization. Instead of mourning loss, I pay tribute to what has been before and extol the virtue of what remains. Everyone chooses their own memories. I have no option as to putting away Christmas for another year, but I choose to keep the best memories and look for that which is holy in every day.

“When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a virgin, born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Galatians 4:4-5

Stockings are suspended above our makeshift fireplace. Mine looks like a cowboy boot, and my wife’s is a white fuzzy sock topped with red and with ‘Merry Christmas’ spelled out in elegant script and repeated all over in no particular pattern. Presents for family and friends are all purchased, gifts wrapped and waiting under the tree, and the brisket is smoked for our traditional holiday lunch. More from politeness than Christmas spirit, I ask my wife if there is anything else I may do to make our Christmas preparations complete. Anticipating a request for a Peppermint Mocha Skinny from Starbucks or some other festive assignment, I am emotionally ill equipped for my assigned task: fight the hordes in the grocery store and purchase paper plates and toilet paper. Instead of putting finishing touches on my address for the Christmas Eve candlelight & communion service at our little church, or meditating on the relevance of the incarnation, I make a store run for paper products. As grace would have it, I approach the toilet paper aisle at WalMart and run into a friend I’ve not seen for several years; we were jail ministry volunteers together at the McLennan County Jail. His voice breaks as he describes the family challenges and health issues he’s endured over the past few years. He tells me of the heart tests he didn’t pass with flying colors earlier in the week, but his countenance lifts as I pray for him between paper plates and toilet paper. After a closing embrace he said, “I’m sure glad my wife sent me after toilet paper today.”

Life is not so much about how well you plan, but how you handle interruptions, and the Christmas event is the highest example of holy intrusion in human history. For the individuals involved in the Christmas drama, it was one unexpected interruption after another. Consider Zacharias, busy about his priestly duties offering incense in the sacred holy of holies, when he is arrested by an angel. Think about Elizabeth, an upright woman who observed the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly in the sight of God. Her husband went away for his two weeks of priestly service in a normal condition and returned home silenced. Mary, a young virgin engaged to be married to a good man, is met by an angel that turned her life upside down and the world right side up. Then there’s Joseph, who gets the shock of his life when he finds out that the virgin to whom he is engaged is already pregnant. He is an honorable man, and knows that he did not have that honor.

Each interruption came on its own time and according to its own schedule, but for the actors in the Christmas drama each happened at the most inopportune moment God could have chosen. Holy intrusions remind us of who is in control. Although it was a surprise to all and traumatic for some, Christmas came exactly as God planned. This Christmas make room for some divine disruptions because that’s where life’s miracles take place.

Silent night! Holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight!
Glories stream from Heaven afar,
Heavenly Hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ, the Saviour, is born!
Christ, the Saviour, is born!

Shepherds quaked at the sight, and who could blame them? Sensitive Christmas shepherds reacted as one might expect when confronted by a choir of angels. These men, who struggled to eke out a hard scrabble life upon the cold and foreboding plains of Israel, were among the first to be granted a wondrous revelation, and it brought them to their shaking knees.

Is it wrong to admit physical reaction to spiritual reality? I hope not. From childhood church services at Trinity Baptist Church in Port Arthur to Royal Ambassador campfires on the Easley’s farm, from grand houses of worship in Britain to thatched huts in Kenya’s northern frontier, I have trembled at the overwhelming nearness of Almighty God. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in contemporary Christianity bent on removing mystery from devotion; it may be easier to tame the wind than keep our hearts in check when overwhelmed by grace. Though modern sensibilities may resist it, trembling depicts an essential movement of the heart before God. One need look no farther than the Psalms to find individuals whose Godward reaction is physical and audible. The Psalmists groan, cry, moan, laugh, long, desire, despise, dance, and shout; authentic and spontaneous, the Psalms disclose the sinner’s honest response to the overwhelming majesty of God. If we would understand their songs and allow them to nurture our inner life, we too must learn to tremble before our Creator; sadly, the physical and emotional experience of awe is largely absent from what we smugly term “worship” today. Desensitized by our own living, we are too numb to recognize the Holy. Our pace of life and even the noise in church can drown out a thunderous divine voice. Joining the masses of popular culture who see at best a God who is distant and unlikely to be encountered in the “real world”, many run aground on social sand bars, rejecting any sense of wonder having been persuaded that it simply isn’t sophisticated to allow religion to touch them very deeply or, Heaven forbid, visibly.

Physical trembling is not our main concern, of course, but I hesitate to put us at ease too quickly. It seems odd that while all creation shudders before the power and purity of the Exalted One, we should proceed routinely, wholly untouched by His Presence. From Belshazzar’s knees clattering together, through Quaker and Puritan revivals, and on up to modern times, many have had a physical response to the reality of God. The mind, body, psyche, and spirit are woven together so tightly that we should expect to be affected as whole persons when we sincerely encounter God. The Hebrew words most often used for “fear” in the Old Testament depict God as one who elicits ultimate respect. Fearing God in the Psalms does not primarily mean quivering in anxiety and terror, but instead describes a profound sense of reverence. The heart of this experience is acknowledging the superiority of God over against ourselves. God is the Wholly Other; to encounter this Holy One leaves us awestruck. We may respond with tears or praise or with great waves of laughter and joy, rolling out of every corner of our beings, or the open-mouthed astonishment may strike us silent. Christ the Savior is born, and it is entirely appropriate to tremble in his presence.