Fairy Tale

Once upon a time a young princess of noble heritage confided in me a dream. Often in the night, she said, she would find herself in some terrible danger. Always in the dream she would whistle for Shadowfax, who would come galloping across the hilltop to bear her away. If the noble steed’s speed was not enough she would cry for Aragorn, ever strong to save her.

As I listened the dream unfolded as a vision, if you will, a God-bestowed image of her own dignity, her worthiness of an Aragorn’s love.

Over time many princes crossed into her realm, and each was measured against her strong dream. Aragorn, the hero, the ever-wise and strong warrior whose very presence turns whole peoples to life-giving hope, would come and stand beside the suitor. The image was powerful to protect her from frivolous, empty young princes of lesser character, lesser capacity for courageous, tenacious love.

But as years passed this larger-than-life hero became a block. Never a mis-step. No weakness, frailty or uncertainty. The princess could see no other man who fit the measure, not even her own noble daddy.

For the princess regarded Aragorn through Eowyn’s eyes. Lovely, brave, vulnerable Eowyn, for whom Aragorn was knight, completely other, one to adore.

Until finally, one day, the princess noticed that Eowyn was not the one Aragorn could love. His heart belonged to Arwin, the elf-maiden whose gifts, strength and wisdom equaled and sometimes surpassed his own. Arwin, who knew his past and his fears, knew he sometimes longed to flee duty and destiny, and who supported and challenged him so that he became more than he thought he could be. Arwin, who regarded a real human man in strength and in frailty and loved him with her life.

Eowyn, for her part, got over her hero worship of Aragorn and found a better, truer love in the noble Faromir, an equally brave prince of gentler, quieter character. He, too, stood among his people as leader and hero. But Faromir was a man her strength, experience and noble lineage inspired--so that they, too, could love entirely as equals, partners who would enable one another to reach beyond themselves to something higher, to serve well, and to love long and strong.

A wiser princess still watches for her Aragorn, that man of vision for life beyond himself, committed, sacrificially brave and true. She knows herself worthy of such a prince. But she no longer looks for a hero to worship, preferring instead a real man inspired by her dignity and beauty, and who will grow through her as much as she through him.

Hammam

I lie naked, enfolded in water-sound and mist. The polished stone is warm beneath me, and I am surprised to notice how my aging body rests without pain on its hard flatness. The room is small, secluded and secure.

Firm hands scrub hard every inch of me, then anoint tender skin with oil. Scents born on steam permeate the intimate space and minister calm to my deep inside. Warm water sprays away detritus of dirt and death. Strong fingers entangle long hair to massage my scalp, and more water is poured, again and again, until the suds of cleansing swirl down the drain and all residue is gone.

I think of You, Jesus. You are always here, but today I am conscious of Your presence.

I am awash in the stories of Your naked body removed gently from the cross, of the ministry of loving hands to enfold Your death in oily spices and herbs of preparation. Doing unto You as Your Father looked on.

I wonder how the extravagant anointing of that sinful woman, and later of Your dear friend Mary, felt to you. The fragrance, their tears that understood some small part of all that Your love could mean to them. You experienced their touch, and I wonder today if it was balm to Your soul? You, Lord of All, in frail human body. Incarnate. Physical. Sensual. Did you, too, love the flow of fragrance and salt tears, the warm spread of cleansing water and nourishing oil?

And how about that day when you bent to wash their feet? To scrub with water and the towel. Perhaps to massage away the tight aches of long walking, the bruises of hard ground and stone? The sure touch of quiet ministry to body in a way that penetrated their frightened, weary souls.

I recall the stories. I muse whether the hammam, this ancient Roman bathing tradition, was a way of life for You. But there is more. You are today present here, indwelling my frail tent. As I receive this ministry with gratitude, You also receive. As I dwell in the grace of this moment, we share the pleasure.

You are Lord of the Universe. I am frail child in aging body lying on warm, smooth stone. Somehow invested with Your glory. Full of praise, deeply grateful, a tad mystified.

Blessed be Your Name. Amen.

People who call me "Mom" (in order of appearance)

Caitlin. Unexpected treasure granted this “infertile” couple. “Ha ha!” spake the Father-God in the fall of 1982. “Let me show you what I can do!” Now grown to woman beautiful-in-form made more lovely through abiding faith, depth of character, and courageous mind. Funny. Creative. Lover of science in the real world. Ever ready to celebrate and play. Comfortable in her own skin. Wise in the ways of animals--like she can see into their spirits and capture them with compassion. Hero-eyes for her dad. Valued contributor wherever she goes. Watching for Aragorn, investing in everyone.

Daniel. Experts are defied again as God grants a second baby. Cait’s prayer answered in a strapping-in-size yet fragile baby brother. “I have a boy-sister!” the three-year-old proclaimed when told her prayer had come to pass. God celebrated Dan’s birth with a full-arch rainbow out the window. A child who arrived with promises. Taller than we would have dreamed, he builds “tallest” things. Experimental, agile, with deeply perceptive mind and fast reflexes. Adaptable to original work and contented life in the developing world. I love to hear him sing. Devoted husband full of tender connection to his great love. Respect must be earned with Dan, but once you have it he is unswervingly loyal in work and in friendship. Keeper of confidences. Giver of magnificent hugs.

Eda. My first child-by-marriage is an Albanian beauty, gentle and incredibly strong. She first called me “Mom” to satisfy culture, and then we grew in love and our spirits intertwined. What privilege to have the young couple live in our home, to share with her the journeys of language-learning and all the rest of adapting to life in a strange new land. Quieter than my natural-born lot, she is the one who connects with others who, though so lovely, feel themselves outside the circle of rowdy American easiness. Yet she,too, will black a tooth and don a crazy hat to lip-synch a rock song. Or chase Cait through the house until both fall down and roll with laughter. Teacher of children, studious learner, and creative keeper of home, Eda may be the bravest woman I know. Proof-certain that Dan has wonderful taste in women!

Pawan. From Nepal, he was born just a month before Caitlin. We connected while he worked as guard in our building. I asked whether he knew of someone to do housework. He told me of Deepak, then said, “Madame, now I have told you about my friend, Deepak. Will you please tell me about your friend, Jesus?” Born to a Hindu family, Pawan met Jesus in Nepal and is ever-hungry to know Him better. Tai Kwan Do champion, supporter of his parents and siblings, networker to find work for his brothers. We love the evenings he comes by to cook his home food and share it with us. Pawan has vision to build his home church, and a heart that embraces many. A treasure.

Halil. Turkish. Married to Gül and father of sweet baby Yasmine. Lover of flowers who covers our table with garden blossoms whenever he senses a special occasion. A restaurant waiter caught in the cyclical tornado of the tourist year, Halil (and Gül, too, who is a cook) work non-stop through the season. Not wanting to leave his family for more plentiful off-season work, he finds what he can in Kaş in the winter. Time then to play backgammon with other men, and Halil willingly includes Curt with his local friends. Our family and guests—well, he takes them in as his own. It is “Momi” in Turkish to this lively, open young man. Halil worries some for the future and dreams for his little family. But he bounces, like some lively melody pours out from his core to give rhythm to his gait.

Tahir. The newest of the lot, just a year older than Dan and Eda. From Pakistan, he is another who guards our building. Trained in criminology, he longs for a position in his field. Just like Cait. Meanwhile he works 12-hour shifts, often seven days a week, watching and serving. His tenderness towards Dad and comfort around wheelchairs and walkers opened doors to learn that his mother suffered and died with MS. Like a few others, he loves to drop by to borrow DVDs, and to talk. Wants to know of our faith, and shares elements of his Islam. High hopes his family will arrange his marriage while he is home this month. So far he’s only named me “Mom” on a birthday card, but when he left on holiday he wanted a photo of his “family” here to share with those at home.

The first three—of course they call me “Mom.” High privilege to belong to them. Pawan, Halil, Tahir—well, do I just appear more motherly as I expand, wrinkle and sag? (My friend Chom, from Korea, longs to be fatter for she believes that softness in an older woman speaks of love and wisdom. Come to think of it, she, too, calls me "Mom," though she is older than me. For her it is the address for a spiritual mentor.) Or is it something else flowing through those cracks? Such admirable young men, all three. Hard-working, generous and sacrificial supporters of their own families. Elements of lonely longing in each journey. Diverse in faith, language, heritage. High privilege to be chosen by them.

Lord God, Father-by-adoption, thank you for this grace, pure gift from You. Bless them all, natural-born and born-of-love with ever-deeper knowledge of Your loving engagement in their lives.

Music to Dad's ears . . . remix

Something still niggled when I posted “Music” earlier this month. The piece was met with energetic amens from several over 45’s, and, I would guess, the silence of the offended.

The thing still out there for me was that, for all Dad’s affirmation of the church music of his early years, he did not find faith, and he left the church pretty much as soon as he left home. I grew up with the impression that for Dad the church represented harsh rules and rigidity.

Then I ran across Denis Haack’s recent essay “None Other Lamb None Other Name.” (Check out www.ransomfellowship.com.)

“I grew up around hymns and early learned to dislike them. It was the only music allowed in our fundamentalist home. I didn’t have a word for it when I was young, but I do remember the huge disconnect that existed between the lyrics we sang and the reality of our lives. The lyrics spoke of abounding joy, rich freedom, the sweetness of God’s presence, while our lives were solemn, judgmental, withdrawn, and regimented. The hymns we sang slowly ate away at my faith…,” he begins.

Denis struggled with the disjunct between words and life. With words he realized he could not sing with integrity. Though Denis did, in time, come to profound faith in Jesus, he says he says there is still Christian music that he cannot sing. He goes on, in his article, to celebrate and expound the beauty and truth of Christina Rossetti’s 1892 meditation on Revelation 5:6, “None Other Lamb.”

Last week I reminded Dad of what he had said about the beauty of the music of his boyhood. I noticed that, for all his love of it, he did not stay with the church, and asked him to share what that was about.

Dad explored my question in vignettes of memory. Being required, even as a young man on leave from military service, to be in church any time the door was open. The embarrassment of sitting in the midst of the congregation one Sunday evening when he knew he reeked of beer and could feel the disapproving glances of all seated nearby. The same 50 songs sung over and over. Dad spoke of visits from music leaders who worked long Sunday afternoons to teach the congregation to sing even more beautifully. “The music made the skin crawl up and down my spine--the sound was that amazing. But it was all about the sound. We never paid attention to the words.” He talked about how belonging to the church obligated his dad to patronize members’ businesses. Seventy years after the fact his shock and disillusionment still penetrated his voice as he told of two church members who cheated his dad, reminding me of a time in the US when church membership was tied to status and commercial interest. He spoke of his dad’s severity and fast, harsh punishments “though I know he always loved me.” And of his mom’s mental instability that often manifested in abuse. Of how she refused to acknowledge that I could be her granddaughter, and would not come anywhere near me.

“I remember when Elvis Presley first was famous. For about 10 years your mom and I wouldn’t listen to him. The morality, the suggestive way he moved. But a day came when we started enjoying it.” Yet, says Dad, “when the church copied Elvis,” when worship music began to take on his style, “well, why would the church imitate someone like him?”

“In the end,” said Dad, “I could never make sense of faith. I still can’t. I’ve given it a lot of thought over the years, but I just can’t.”

Dear friends enjoy a 46-year “mixed marriage.” He is English, of Anglican stock; she is Irish from a Baptist family. Today, she experiences Anglican liturgy and sacramental practice as powerful, life-giving worship; while he, who grew up with it, finds it dry, mindless repetition. Dad recalls the music as beautiful, the words as irrelevant, and the community as legalistic, with a few who would even exploit the others. Childhood experiences and lasting impressions. Who knows what the faith of the adults of so long ago actually meant in their lives?

I still think we need to ask what message the medium communicates, or even what it reveals. But we must always look over and beyond form to the underlying reality. Is there integrity of faith and love that makes the words—and all the rhythms and body language—an expression of something powerful because it is indeed worked out in transformed, grace-filled, faithful lives?

Drivers

It’s been a month of movement. Ireland, Albania, and now Turkey. Saturday-week was a transit day. Five hours by car from Erseka to Tirana. Short flight to Istanbul. Short flight to Antalya. Three hours by car from Antalya to Kaş.

A lot of face time with drivers.

The Bible School arranged for this young man Tony to drive me. He came from Tirana on Friday, arriving early enough to set up shop for the school, staff and church folks. Haircuts and new “do’s” all round. At 7:20 am Saturday we hit the road. I didn’t know Tony. Still shaky from a day of Morocco-crud, I was ready to hunker in and sleep.

Tony was ready to talk.

In broken English, he shared a LOT of life. I wish I could write with his words, but 10 days after—well, here’s some of his story.

Albania is arguably the poorest country in Europe. There’s not much work. The national economy, and almost every family, survives on money sent home by those who leave the country for work. Many, many young men go to Greece to labor in the jobs nobody else wants. Think, on the social scale, of Mexican illegals in the US, or Turkish “guestworkers” in Germany, or Pakistani laborers in UAE, or Eastern European factory workers in UK.

Tony went Greece the first time on forged documents. Eventually he was arrested and deported, and lost everything he’d earned. Penalty: a three-year ban on any legal application to enter Greece.

Tony stayed in Albania until unemployment again grew intolerable. This time he went into Greece over the mountain behind Erseka. Gramozi’s top marks the Greek border, and it’s just three miles out of town, an easy place to cross, but a long, dangerous journey down the other side on foot. Again, after some time, arrest and deportation. Again desperation mounted until he decided give it one more try.

That third trip was successful. Tony stayed in Greece a long time, long enough to save 7,000 euro, enough to set himself up in business at home. Lonely and eager for home, he started on foot back over the border the way he’d come. But it was winter. Cold and weak from days and nights of exposure, Tony realized he would die in those mountains without help. He also knew that under Greek law a third arrest would mandate jail. Tony had reached the end of himself.

He prayed. He admitted the mess of his life, and his need for a savior. And not just a savior from the cold of the day. In his dark need, Tony threw himself on Jesus.

The rest is a blur. After he prayed, he turned to human help even though his exposed location and Albanian accent would give him away. He offered his money. A man took him in, gave him food, and got him into transport to the border post. Somehow Tony got through the checkpoints. Somehow he, and his money, made it home.

That was last year. Tony returned to Erseka a new man, grateful and transformed.

Last summer he married, and the new couple have set up a haircutting shop in Tirana. Things are going well, though they must work hard. Can’t let down for a minute. Tony sold his motorbike, and they bought the old Mercedes sedan I rode in. The school gives him some extra work driving visiting teachers like me, and the chance to do a few haircuts there.

Tony is involved in the church in Tirana, but there is pain around that. He tells me that his wife is Muslim—a heritage he shares. She came to church, but found it terrifying. All of which led me to ask how his marriage came about.

“My father cuts the grapes,” Tony tells me. His dad is a vinedresser, and one day he was hired by a man in Korçe. “This man liked my father very much, and they began to talk. The man told my father that he had a son and could not find a wife for him, and asked for my father’s help. My father told him about me and said he would make an agreement with that man—that if he would find a wife for me, my father would find a wife for his son.” And so it was. That man had a daughter. Tony accepted her, and they were betrothed. All that was years ago. Long engagements are the norm in Albania, where it is also a serious breach of honor to break off a betrothal. Ruins the woman’s reputation, and potentially her chance to marry anyone else. And so, even as a believer, Tony felt bound to keep his promise and marry her.

Now he lives with it, loves her, and prays. During our five hours on the road, she phoned Tony six or eight times. “Where are you? When will you be home? Please, drive safely and take good care of yourself.” A new dear one for which to pray.

As Tony told me all this I marveled at God’s amazing answer to the prayer of my friend Monika. Tony is her brother. I remember how two years ago her talk was consumed with concern for him, with anxious longing for him to know Jesus and to find his way. I remember praying with her for him. As Tony dropped me at the airport I felt I’d been treated with a window into heaven.

Airport waits and two flights later I was the last to leave the international terminal at Antalya. “Lord,” I prayed as I waited for my bag, “let it be Ramazan driving tonight. I like him. He’s a good driver, and he’s easy to be with. You know I’m tired and sick. Don’t think I can face a stranger.”

Alas, no Ramazan. In fact, no driver at all. I looked. I waited. I wandered. I hunted through my phone, files and computer for a phone number, but came up blank. It got later—9:30 pm in front of an empty terminal alone, and I don’t speak Turkish. “Take a taxi to the bus station? But will there be a bus to Kaş at this time of night?”

Finally I approached the taxi rank. “How much will this cost me? Will anyone even be willing to start for Kaş at 10pm?” We haggled in broken phrases, agreed on a price and a currency, and then he asked me to wait five minutes. Another taxi pulled up and this very young man hopped out to load my bag. “Is he even old enough to drive?” I wondered.

We set out. Very fast, then hard on the brakes, then crazy fast again. He was taking and receiving phone calls. Then, in halting words, he asked if his mother could come with us. “Sure!” It’s not the first time the car we’ve hired carries family and friends of the driver in the back. He pulled off into a neighborhood and stopped before an apartment block. A woman in peasant garb and headscarf came out, followed by a girl of about 12. Mom and sister climbed into the back seat. “Esalaam alaykum!” Mom clapped me on the shoulder with affection. I was surprised by the religious greeting, rather than the common “merhaba!” “Alaykum esalaam,” I replied. She pressed almonds into my hand, still warm from the roaster, and chattered away to her son as we careened down the road.

They didn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Turkish. We chatted some with hands waving—enough for me to learn that she had always lived in Antalya, these were her only children, and that she had cancer. I understood enough of their Turkish to realize that she had never before been to Kaş and this was a huge treat for her from her son, whose love for her was apparent. It was pitch dark, a stormy, wet night. As we drove, he told her what towns and villages were coming up, and pointed out the window at passing scenes, describing in detail the beauty of the (invisible) view. She oohed and ahhed in amazement as the young man talked.

It was the fastest trip I ever made to Kaş. A combination of breakneck speed and delightful company. As I grabbed my bags and paid the fare in the middle of a dead winter night, I wondered whether they would drive around to see the town, wait until daylight, or head straight back. I even thought about inviting them to stay with me though my sick bowels and the unknown order and food-less state of the apartment checked me.

Don’t you love it when God takes people we see simply as the means from point A to point B and wakes us up to His image and glory in them?