The Mighty Maple

Anytime I spend time in my small New England garden at the end of the day I feel like I’ve had incredible “head space” and time to talk to God. No media, no music, no interruptions. After seven days of rain, drizzle and overcast skies the time for weeding was urgent and so, I got my garden tools out, pulled on those garden gloves and got to the task at hand which in my case was pulling out weeds that had grown into small trees. I have a lot of weeds that are working on their second year because last year’s poison ivy fiasco meant I had lost all desire to garden. Honestly I was a bit nervous to get going and feared getting another summer case of the stuff but it’s a little too early for poison ivy which hopefully will never show it’s ugly potent leaves in my yard again. There is one redeeming factor we can attribute to Round Up which is it kills poison ivy among everything else in it’s path.

Today I am sore and feel the long day of weed/tree pulling and yet I’ve only accomplished about half of what I wanted to. Digging out a couple of ugly shrubs that weren’t doing much for me and shoveling out extensive fern roots, stubborn maple shoots required every muscle I had in my body to uproot. At one point I was struggling with probably the 5th maple tree that had grown into a small tree right in the middle of another shrub root system when I thought the only way to really get rid of the maple tree weed problem would be to cut the big maple tree in my front yard. When do I justify that end? Should we cut a gorgeous hundred year old maple tree down when it provides shade, turns brilliant orange in the fall and measures your children’s growth with every first day of school? 

When I first moved to Massachusetts from New York City my first few days in my garden it was clear I was not a master gardener. I had managed to grow some basil on the fire escape and kept a potted tree alive in my apartment but now that we lived in a house with dirt I was intimidated by my surrounding garden aficionados on the street.

I asked a neighbor, “How can you tell what is a weed vs. what is a plant?”

My 90 year old neighbor replied in her wisdom, “a weed is a plant that is growing in a place you don’t want it to.”.

Obviously the previous inhabitants of my home loved ferns because my garden is prolific with them. Maple seedlings or “helicopters” at some point start dropping and I will say maple trees really can grow anywhere as we know in New England. The maple is part of New England’s great beauty and sustainable industry in the production of maple syrup. We need maple trees. We love maple trees. However, if you don’t pull the weedy little things out of your garden they eventually will take over and you will have a tree on it’s way to being near impossible to remove. All the maple seedlings come from the ever loved large maple tree in my front yard which is the only maple in the near vicinity. It’s not the healthiest tree sadly and after bi annually pruning it I know there will be a day that it probably will have to be cut down. The tree is also one reason we disqualify for solar panels on our home…we’ve been asked if we would consider cutting it down. Imagine that…chop down an oxygen producing maple tree down to put ugly solar panels on our cute little cape. I don’t think so!

Once a neighbor was having a tree cut down and my husband asked the tree service if they would cut the maple tree down at a discounted price. I ran out of the house and just as the guy said he was going to cut it down and I put a stop to it. I’m glad I was home at the time. While we don’t have a lot of sun for a veggie garden or fruit trees I often enjoy the shade of this maple tree and see that squirrels and birds also enjoy it too. I know that someday we’ll have to cut the mighty maple down, maybe we won’t be here when it happens. Despite the seedlings that it produces the maple goes unappreciated perhaps because it’s always been here or maybe because it’s easy to take for granted all the years it took to grow to it’s mighty height. I live on a street that has a maple canopy and they each maple tree is slowly dying off because they were planted too close to the road, salt from the harsh winters and the root systems are stressed because they actually strangle themselves when they meet the pavement of the street. This maple is tucked far enough away from the road that it’s remained healthier than others and it also is that main feature of our front yard.

While digging out yet another maple tree, God brought to my attention that when you cut a tree down you might not have issues with the weeds however look what you loose when the ancient tree is lost. It’s natural beauty and benefits far outweigh the day’s work of weeding.The cool shade that it’s shadow casts over our roof provide relief from hot humid days and a place for the critters to live. Until the maple is not longer healthy enough to sustain itself it will stay exactly planted in the same spot in which it was planted probably 50 plus years ago. Some maple trees have been around when Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson wrote their poetry. They are witnesses to the past. 

While taking a break from my labor as I sat under the shade of that Mighty Maple, God pressed upon me that the Church must be like a maple tree. Strong and able to grow just about anywhere, but not turning back on it’s own when it doesn’t work out the way we often wish it to. Sometimes it needs to be uprooted in areas where there is pride and corruption. Sometimes it needs to be challenged where there is complacency. When being uprooted assuming  no fault or error is not a healthy, but it should move us to deep inner searching, prayer and repentance, to be open to reproof, rebuke and sometimes even removal and replanting where maple trees don’t exist. In the end, the Master tree still stands. The Church needs to recognize the Master tree that it comes from. In a world that seems to be flying off it’s rocker with an intensity towards insanity, I pray we can recognize where we are to get our nutrients to be healthy from. God’s Word and His Word alone. Not from the pundits or newspapers, nor the podcasts or the paid pied pipers. I myself sometimes find my natural inclination is to take queues from these outputs but it only takes a day in my garden to correct my orientation to gaze once again, the Master Gardner’s ways. If I ever find myself to be uprooted, I trust by His own hands he will replant me in fertile soil. 

The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.– Pslam 92:12

Sandcastles and Sinking Ships

Gosh it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged! And you know what? I don’t feel so bad knowing that there are other bloggers out there that just as slack about it. I’m free to be slack and focus on what is consuming most of my time these days which is the last stretch of a semester at Eternity Bible College. I am graduating in May with a Biblical Studies degree. That’s right folks. I will have two degrees. One in Fashion and one in Bible. This boggles the mind as to how this will be practical for mother of three and a wife of one. I still love fashion and even though it’s industry is probably the most discriminatory and oppressive industry we have in this country. (That is a separate blog post for sure) I honestly can not put into words at this point how my knowledge and love of fashion has actually served to help me in this 4 year process of going back to school.

Like any student, I have struggled keeping focused. I have struggled carving out quiet time. I have struggled in being 40 plus years old learning to write papers all over again. Most of my projects in fashion I could use my hands and create something out of nothing. Sort of hard to sew an exegetical paper on the book of Revelation! Writing is hard, reading is hard, learning how to study is hard. Memorization is just simply disgustingly difficult for me. I have learned to love doing it and loved to learn it.

As I am in the home stretch, I am reminded of why and how I came to be a student at EBC four and a half years ago. Going back to school for me really came about when I decided to close my retail business for many reasons that are too personal to share, but the main one being the economic downturn of 2008. I was the captain of a sinking ship! When I closed my business, I also closed the door to a job, a career and a small part of my identity…okay a big part of my identity.

What was next? Who was I? What was I supposed to do all day?

Times of transition can be excruciatingly painful because often times the means of recognising the need for change comes with something being destroyed. You would be surprised at this theme of “destruction/transition” in most areas of our life. Some of our ideas do need to be destroyed in order to transition to the next thing God has for us because they are holding us back. For me, it was the idea that I would be a small business owner which was a dream and goal of mine since I was a teenager. Even in becoming a stay at home mom after my kids were born I had always done something to keep my feet in the game. I mean what was I supposed to do? Sit around and actually play with my kids? More mommy and me groups? Baby yoga? I just didn’t have it in me to fight that uphill battle and knew it was not my time, not the place, not the year. It may never be and I’m okay with that. That particular ship has already sailed.

During a buying trip in NYC for my retail store, I attended a church service that had a special speaker whose name was Francis Chan. I had never heard of him or his book Crazy Love but all I know is I went into that church service one person and left a completely different person. I knew God was calling me to something I had no idea what but it became painfully obvious to me I needed to shut my businesses doors. Over the next several months I listened every week to Francis Chan online and every sermon confirmed what I was to do regarding my business. I miraculously came out of a business minimally unscathed and when I say minimally it’s only in hindsight that I can say that. Being financially ruined vs. emotionally are two different things although they are intimately tied to one another. We still had our home, we had food in the pantry and really that’s a lot more than most so I am grateful to God. Emotionally however I was feeling like a complete failure. I spent that summer emotionally tied up in a knot of confusion, my children were still young and very needy which meant I couldn’t just fall into a job or another project easily. I was broken and feeling quite hopeless. Oh yeah, and my marriage was a mess. I remember hiding behind a good pair of sunglasses that summer sitting in my beach chair at the lake…angry, frustrated and yet strangely free from the ambitious empire that I had created for myself. Like a toddler I had built a sandcastle and some brat knocked it down and I was about to throw a fit. When in reality, the tide came in and sucked my precious sandcastle into the sea. That just sucks, especially if you build your sandcastle on the beach during a hurricane.

Francis Chan who I had listened to over the months that I was pitching a hissy fit inside basically seared my heart and mind with the Truth and awakened me to my spiritual calling. I just didn’t know what that really was. He also just so happened to found a Bible College. I decided to enrolled at EBC because it was online, I could still stay with my kids and I could also go to school on my time, and also be in my pajamas if I needed too. Most seminaries don’t let you attend in your pajamas or maybe they do and that’s just my previous fashion baggage. Many many people don’t understand the practical usefulness of a degree in Biblical Studies degree and why would they if the goal is a paycheck, a career or position? Why go to Bible school at this point in my life?

I entered EBC with three things that I knew God pressed upon me.

It’s about the journey not the destination. Be in the process, discipline and daily accountability of reading and digesting God’s Word. I crave routine. Online school has carved out order, a schedule and a return to time management that my family needs. We are seriously not perfect, but we crave order! We do not function well in chaos.

Don’t be “product driven” This ain’t the fashion industry sister. YOU are the final product. God despite my asking did not directly reveal to me what I would be doing with my degree yet this has been what EVERYONE has asked me with most frequency. “What do you plan on doing with your degree?” Well…God only knows!!

Do not incur more debt. I’ll be straight up and say any institution that puts unnecessary debt on you,  even the most elite intellectual institutions…I would question the outcome. I am free to move onto the next thing God has for me because EBC is committed to students not incurring massive debt. More Bible Colleges and Seminaries should take a note from their model. Debt is a trap promising you something but putting you into slavery. This is the American way…don’t fall for it.

In the last four years while attending EBC there have been tulmoutrous times, trials and temptations that James speaks of that we are to count as joy. Upon entry to EBC, I had to have a local pastor mentor, be involved in a local church and also have my husband’s support to enroll at EBC. These things have held me accountable to my call, but those three sources of accountability would also be tested in different ways over the past four years. My first semester at EBC we had the worst winter I had experienced in New England. Record snow and ice dams damaged our home, and the spring thaw that flooded our basement leaving us a long list of things that we must do to repair and improve to prevent ice damage from happening again. Here once again my last semester at EBC, we have had record snow and ice damage, frigid cold and more snow days than I’d like to count, Seasonal Affect Disorder, depression and children transitioning to teenagers are the rip currents that have flooded my life this spring. Destruction and transition are obvious once again. This long frozen winter was destructive on many fronts. Yet, even winter can’t hold back spring as the crocuses are forcing their way through the melting snow. Something always grows out of even the most destructive of things.

I honestly don’t know what I would have done without EBC over the last four years not because it kept me busy or gave me a routine, or that I learned a lot of theology, understand hermeneutics and “big words” but because it was painfully true that I had build sandcastles on the beach in many areas of my life only to get upset when the tide came in. Four years down the track I can honestly say my anchor is sure. It’s rock solid because it’s on dry ground. I’m no longer the captain of a sinking ship, in fact I’m not even the captain anymore. I still love the beach and I still build sandcastles although, I know when the tide is coming in and I’m not worried that my sandcastle’s destiny is to return back to the sea.

The Holy Kiss

This will be a short but sweet one. The holy kiss. What is it, why am I going to talk about it?

Something is vastly missing from our culture. It’s also missing in our churches and families here in the western world. I’m talking about affection. Not PDA as couples go but the holy kiss. In scripture, we are commanded to greet each other with a holy kiss not once but at least three times in the New Testament. Paul twice, and Peter once (Romans 16:16,1 Peter 5:14,1 Corinthians 13:12). What does a “holy kiss” even mean? Do we even in our own cultural context, have the slightest clue?

I don’t think so and I will tell you why.

I have a friend from the near east, namely Israel that is not a Christian but every time he steps in my house or I in his, there is an affection that gushes between our families that to outsiders would be a spectacle. In fact, I think that some in looking at at it through the lens of our American culture would consider it almost borderline scandalous. Greeting each other with a smothering of kisses  on the cheeks, hugs that embrace way too long, eyes lock and souls unite and say you are family. For many, this type of affection makes us squirm, uncomfortable, pull away and tidy our selves up to be prim and proper. I myself don’t like that I feel the need to pull away from this.  Do you know that physical touch has a lot to do with babies development, curbs depression in adults and extends lives in the elderly?

It’s how God built us to be. With each other however, we’ve sexualized affection to the point of isolating ourselves and others from the joy of receiving such a thing as a holy kiss. The hug that hangs on for dear life. The arms wrapped around your shoulder or neck with the laughter that is a salve to one’s hurting soul. Could this be what Paul meant in his words “holy”….kiss? Not sexual but holy ordained affection.

I’ve experienced this in Europe as well, namely Italy as complete strangers grabbing my head and planting a kiss on both cheeks…who are you? what do you want from me? Honestly as a woman you always second guess forms of affection from men. It’s our nature to be skeptical. But I am always taken aback that genuine affection my Israeli friend shows me is a part of his upbringing and culture that we simply can’t see or understand from our vantage point. There’s something about these cultures that we should understand as we are gravely anemic in this vital practice. If we don’t practice affection, we don’t see how isolated we can be from each other. Imagine if the church truly expressed the love and affection for each other like this.

I tell you what, I think people would walk through the thresholds of church more often.

“I’ll go back this week they loved me!!”

I think singles would not be so lonely.

“It’s been so long since someone held my hand”

I think depression in the church and beyond would waiver.

“I felt accepted and valued there….”

I think orphans would find families.

“I’m an only child with no parents…I am alone on the holidays”

I think widows would find comfort.

“ I can’t fathom the rest of my life without his embrace or a good night…”

I mean, imagine being told you are loved over and over again. How beautiful you are even though you didn’t even dress for the occasion. Imagine the feeling of belonging…to a family. My friend never ceases to bring this feeling into my home. Middle eastern culture, and much of Europe this is how they are…all the time. Hugging, kissing, celebrating with feasts, weeping in grief for their friend’s loss of a loved one or the absolute joy in the celebration of a wedding, a birth or milestone as a Bar Mitzvah. Somehow, sadly we’ve lost this aspect in our culture and as a result in the western American church. I’m not dogging the countless other ways we express love in the church, but this is about filling a need that we might just don’t even know we have. When this dear friend leaves my home, I mourn just a little because it feels like a family member is leaving for a really long time. A brother that you spend time on your knees asking God to protect them against the savage haters in this world that want to snap their necks simply because they are Jews. What my dear friend has also taught me, is that love regardless of belief opens the doors to peace and the gospel. Jesus said to love our enemies and to pray FOR them. Do GOOD to them. That’s tough stuff. Judas kissed Jesus with betrayal. It was not a holy kiss. Yet, Jesus poured out his life for sinners who rejected him. I am almost positive, that Jesus poured affection on his disciples in the form of a holy kiss. Grievances melt, bitterness and envy have less room to grow if you are locked in a holy grace embrace. We hear, read and quote many things about love but because Jesus walked among us in the flesh there was no holier kiss than to be loved by Jesus. So the next time you are the greeter at church or you see a friend, plant a sloppy holy kiss on each cheek and help melt the frozen chosen.