Mourning Song
the first from Figure Eight Island
June 17, 2009
Foam, white and wondrous,
frothed upon the sand,
becomes small clusters of fading bubbles
that disappear under the next surge--
Crush my sparkling moments on earth.
My glory will only gather
into a stagnant, yellowing fringe
above the waterline.
Your glory is the thundering sea.
Wash me back into the waves.
Renew me in the white caps,
the glistening patchwork
on the turbulent ocean-green,
the splash and splendor
of the foamy crash.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
A Journey
At the end of June, my extended (and immediate) family will be spending our last family reunion at our beloved beach house, built by my grandparents in 1967. I've spent at least a week (sometimes four or five weeks) of every summer there with some of the people I love most in the world. Selling the house is an "end," but I'm reminded that every end is a beginning too; such a beautiful truth of life. As a writer, it's these transitions that invite me to remember and record.
I wrote "A Journey" in February of 2009. I think many more stories will come from my memories related to Figure Eight.
It’s a summer month and the air-conditioner is on in the car. What does that bring to your mind? Just wait a minute. You might have something to say about summer or air-conditioning or cars.
I remember how the drive to Figure Eight Island used to take four hours until a new highway was built. Interstate 40 to US-17 makes the drive three hours and thirty minutes. Forget the discomfort of being in a hot car; I miss the extra thirty minutes that meant taking back roads where the sand made the pavement shimmer and where the colors of the local fruit stands—the bright yellow of bananas and the green of the watermelons we’d sometimes stop and buy—were the signs that the beach was close. A quietness would fill the car then until the old Exxon at the corner of Market and Porters Neck.
That moment of pulling up to the grey beach house to the sound of gravel under the tires, with the smell of salt air and the knowledge that the paved pathway with puddles when it rains, ending at the stairs that go up to the front door, will lead to the longed-for glimpse of the ocean; then, the pull on the screen door that gets stuck and the climb up the wooden stairs to the kitchen and you coming around the black counter and Granddad getting up from his chair at the long table with a bowl of shells in the middle to hug all nine Helds in succession.
I wrote "A Journey" in February of 2009. I think many more stories will come from my memories related to Figure Eight.
A Journey
It’s a summer month and the air-conditioner is on in the car. What does that bring to your mind? Just wait a minute. You might have something to say about summer or air-conditioning or cars.
Here’s what it brings to my mind:
That summer month could be June, July, or August—the date of the family reunion changes each year along with the topics that will lead to shouting at the “uncles’ end” of the dinner table and the number of tattoos on my cousin Tim’s body. Once school ended, my brothers and sisters and I began a countdown on a whiteboard in the kitchen until we left for the beach. Each day, Joseph would subtract one from the number in the top left corner, erase it, and rewrite the new number with a dry erase marker that usually was dried out or lost within a couple weeks.
If it’s before my two youngest brothers Robert and Joseph were born, the car is a seven-seater, burgundy Toyota Previa (a van my dad preserved with steadfast love through last year while we kids grew to hate it for its loud shaking at stoplights and out-dated jelly-bean shape). The air-conditioner is probably blasting air on my older sister Katie and me with such force that our bangs are blown back with a few strands pasted to our foreheads. And the three youngest, John, Jane, and Thomas, are most likely sweating and complaining that they aren’t getting any air in the back.
Or if all seven kids have been born, the car’s a white Chevy Suburban. Nine Helds fill the three rows, three of us to a row. We better keep our hands to ourselves and feet in front of us or else someone’s gonna lose it (that someone usually being Jane with her red hair and hatred of another’s skin rubbing against her own). The vents are broken so cool air is a front-seat luxury for Dad-Joe-Mom. And the six, sitting in the heat behind them, want to roll down the windows and let the air beat against their eardrums; well, at least that’s what I wish for.
The car exits the highway—just a few more miles until we reach the beach. Can you remember a time when you went to the beach? Exited a highway? Just wanted to be where you were going?
The car exits the highway—just a few more miles until we reach the beach. Can you remember a time when you went to the beach? Exited a highway? Just wanted to be where you were going?
I remember how the drive to Figure Eight Island used to take four hours until a new highway was built. Interstate 40 to US-17 makes the drive three hours and thirty minutes. Forget the discomfort of being in a hot car; I miss the extra thirty minutes that meant taking back roads where the sand made the pavement shimmer and where the colors of the local fruit stands—the bright yellow of bananas and the green of the watermelons we’d sometimes stop and buy—were the signs that the beach was close. A quietness would fill the car then until the old Exxon at the corner of Market and Porters Neck.
Once we turned off of Porters Neck onto Edgewater, one of us (I think my mom was the first to initiate the tradition) would begin to sing, “We’re going to the beach….” We’d all join in: “We’re going to the beach! Hi-ho, the dairy-o, we’re going to the beach!” until the sharp curve as Edgewater became Bridge. “Shhhhh.” We could now see the bridge to the island, arching over water we’d soon be tubing and boating in.
Now when we get off the highway, there’s the Exxon, but across from it is a shopping center that opened around the time the beach house behind ours was built. That beach house is where our view of the marshes used to be and is elevated by a mound of sand brought in with trucks so the owner’s view of the ocean would not be blocked by our house.
I love the grocery store runs I make to the shopping center’s Harris Teeter with Aunt Topsy or mom or Katie and Jane. Their watermelons are always on sale if you use a VIC card.
We’ve reached 240 Beach Road North before any of the other extended family. This memory is mine. I have at least a hundred versions of it. I’ll share one with you, the one I hope I have for forever. Stop me if you remember any of it:
We’ve reached 240 Beach Road North before any of the other extended family. This memory is mine. I have at least a hundred versions of it. I’ll share one with you, the one I hope I have for forever. Stop me if you remember any of it:
That moment of pulling up to the grey beach house to the sound of gravel under the tires, with the smell of salt air and the knowledge that the paved pathway with puddles when it rains, ending at the stairs that go up to the front door, will lead to the longed-for glimpse of the ocean; then, the pull on the screen door that gets stuck and the climb up the wooden stairs to the kitchen and you coming around the black counter and Granddad getting up from his chair at the long table with a bowl of shells in the middle to hug all nine Helds in succession.
Now you have lost your ability to stand in the kitchen and cook dinner; for a while, you lost your desire to come upstairs at all.
Now you love to be with us at dinner but your dementia means you’re not sure who you are eating with or if you’ve ever had the meal before.
I love that you love banana ice cream.
Mamie, the doctors say you will lose most of your memories. For you, I’ll try to keep as many as I can.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
A Personal Wake-Up Call
In the past, when I have read or heard the parable of the sower and his seed (Do you know the one, from Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8?), in pride, I've assumed I'm the "good soil." However, if I am honest with myself, I realize that more often than not the effect of God's word in my life is more like what Mark 4:18-19 describes, "And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful."
In Chapel Hill, when I awake and make my way into the kitchen to grind the coffee beans and rummage for a handful of cereal, my apartment is quiet; the temptation to twitter or check my email is there, but for the most part, I come, undistracted, to read God's word. In Greensboro, when I awake, the coffee has usually been made, breakfast options are numerous, and my brothers' play can be heard in every room of the house; the temptation to twitter or check my email is still present. I love being home; it's a blessing to be reminded each day of a part of my God-given identity that can be forgotten or pushed aside when I am "on my own": I'm a sister and a daughter, and the Lord does wonderful things in my heart and life as I embrace these roles in joy and with contentment to his glory. Nonetheless, that "undistracted" time with God can vanish.
I've been asking myself lately, so what's the problem, why does my hunger for God seem to be ebbing more than it is growing? Must I wake up earlier? Maybe (probably :D). But even in my life as a single woman in Chapel Hill, I still struggle with reading God's word but not "eating it" and finding my delight and joy in it (Jeremiah 15:16) and then "filling" myself with substitutes for God the rest of the day.
So, it appears to me, that being the "good soil" has little to do with whether or not I hear (or read) the word and much to do with what I do as and after I read the word, as and after it is sown into my heart....
Do I
1) understand it (Matt 13:23)?
2) accept it (Mark 4:20)?
3) "hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience" (Luke 8:15)?
(here's my attempt to personalize it)
Do I
1) take the time to study God's word, discovering the context of what I am reading, look up words I don't know, delve into harder passages, write notes, etc.?
2) grapple with the passage, submit to it, come under its authority as God's very words to me, let it rebuke, convict, startle, humble, excite me; meditate, journal, re-read, obey?
3) seek to apply God's word to my life? In order to "hold fast" to it, are there thoughts and behaviors that I must renounce, let go and repent of, are there good gifts that I must fast from for a time? Am I committed to letting God work his word into my heart day by day through whatever means he chooses while I, in victory (because he's good) and failure (because we can do nothing apart from him and must be reminded of our utter dependence on him), stay near to the cross of Jesus in repentance and awe? Will I not grow weary in doing good, trusting that at "the proper time [I] will reap a harvest if [I] do not give up" (Galatians 6:9)?
Do I get creative: write verses on notecards, make time to share what God is speaking to me with others, seek out gospel-centered music and books to listen to and read? Do I pray a lot?
Or do I close my Bible, go into my day, and let the cares of the world (my to-do list, my future plans), the deceitfulness of riches (the way new stuff, great times with friends, sweet music, a good hair day or oufit can make me feel happy but has the danger of making me happy apart from God and vulnerable to idolatry), and desires for other things (the above "riches," marriage, tasty food, adventure, success in the world) choke out the living word of God from real, lived-out expression in my life?....
I woke up before anyone else this morning. And I realized that it's not the loudness or busyness of a household of eight that keeps me from God's word, and it's not the "summer air" that keeps me from discipline and combats the "fruit-bearing" in my life, it's the things Jesus lists in Mark 4:19, it's the sin in my heart.
I'm thankful I couldn't sleep so that God could expose the drift in my life. Most of all, I'm thankful that, because of Jesus' finished work on the cross, I am not under condemnation, but can come to God's throne of mercy and grace (again and again) and find all that I need for life and godliness, that I can come to the Bread of Life and be filled, the Living Water and never thirst again.
For my brothers and sisters in Christ, the same is true for you! I hope you are encouraged to keep fighting the good fight of faith!
1 Corinthians 6: 9-11, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
Romans 12: 1-2, "[...] in view of God's mercy, [...] offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
In Chapel Hill, when I awake and make my way into the kitchen to grind the coffee beans and rummage for a handful of cereal, my apartment is quiet; the temptation to twitter or check my email is there, but for the most part, I come, undistracted, to read God's word. In Greensboro, when I awake, the coffee has usually been made, breakfast options are numerous, and my brothers' play can be heard in every room of the house; the temptation to twitter or check my email is still present. I love being home; it's a blessing to be reminded each day of a part of my God-given identity that can be forgotten or pushed aside when I am "on my own": I'm a sister and a daughter, and the Lord does wonderful things in my heart and life as I embrace these roles in joy and with contentment to his glory. Nonetheless, that "undistracted" time with God can vanish.
I've been asking myself lately, so what's the problem, why does my hunger for God seem to be ebbing more than it is growing? Must I wake up earlier? Maybe (probably :D). But even in my life as a single woman in Chapel Hill, I still struggle with reading God's word but not "eating it" and finding my delight and joy in it (Jeremiah 15:16) and then "filling" myself with substitutes for God the rest of the day.
So, it appears to me, that being the "good soil" has little to do with whether or not I hear (or read) the word and much to do with what I do as and after I read the word, as and after it is sown into my heart....
Do I
1) understand it (Matt 13:23)?
2) accept it (Mark 4:20)?
3) "hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience" (Luke 8:15)?
(here's my attempt to personalize it)
Do I
1) take the time to study God's word, discovering the context of what I am reading, look up words I don't know, delve into harder passages, write notes, etc.?
2) grapple with the passage, submit to it, come under its authority as God's very words to me, let it rebuke, convict, startle, humble, excite me; meditate, journal, re-read, obey?
3) seek to apply God's word to my life? In order to "hold fast" to it, are there thoughts and behaviors that I must renounce, let go and repent of, are there good gifts that I must fast from for a time? Am I committed to letting God work his word into my heart day by day through whatever means he chooses while I, in victory (because he's good) and failure (because we can do nothing apart from him and must be reminded of our utter dependence on him), stay near to the cross of Jesus in repentance and awe? Will I not grow weary in doing good, trusting that at "the proper time [I] will reap a harvest if [I] do not give up" (Galatians 6:9)?
Do I get creative: write verses on notecards, make time to share what God is speaking to me with others, seek out gospel-centered music and books to listen to and read? Do I pray a lot?
Or do I close my Bible, go into my day, and let the cares of the world (my to-do list, my future plans), the deceitfulness of riches (the way new stuff, great times with friends, sweet music, a good hair day or oufit can make me feel happy but has the danger of making me happy apart from God and vulnerable to idolatry), and desires for other things (the above "riches," marriage, tasty food, adventure, success in the world) choke out the living word of God from real, lived-out expression in my life?....
I woke up before anyone else this morning. And I realized that it's not the loudness or busyness of a household of eight that keeps me from God's word, and it's not the "summer air" that keeps me from discipline and combats the "fruit-bearing" in my life, it's the things Jesus lists in Mark 4:19, it's the sin in my heart.
I'm thankful I couldn't sleep so that God could expose the drift in my life. Most of all, I'm thankful that, because of Jesus' finished work on the cross, I am not under condemnation, but can come to God's throne of mercy and grace (again and again) and find all that I need for life and godliness, that I can come to the Bread of Life and be filled, the Living Water and never thirst again.
For my brothers and sisters in Christ, the same is true for you! I hope you are encouraged to keep fighting the good fight of faith!
1 Corinthians 6: 9-11, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
Romans 12: 1-2, "[...] in view of God's mercy, [...] offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Definitions of Masculinity and Femininity (from What's the Difference? by John Piper):
MASCULINITY
At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man's differing relationships.
FEMININITY
At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman's differing relationships.
In What's the Difference?, John Piper goes on to carefully and insightfully break down each part of these two definitions to give a fuller understanding of Biblical masculinity and femininity.
I am currently reading What's the Difference?, but the small booklet is actually a chapter taken from Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, coauthored by John Piper and Wayne Grudem.
MASCULINITY
At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man's differing relationships.
FEMININITY
At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman's differing relationships.
In What's the Difference?, John Piper goes on to carefully and insightfully break down each part of these two definitions to give a fuller understanding of Biblical masculinity and femininity.
I am currently reading What's the Difference?, but the small booklet is actually a chapter taken from Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, coauthored by John Piper and Wayne Grudem.
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