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.

Parables, pictures and prayers from Kaş …call to prayer

Five times every day the call to prayer streams from the mosque to envelop the town. The singer invites the faithful to pause, cleanse themselves, and bow before Allah—now standing, now kneeling, now with forehead on the ground.

Five times each day: before sunrise, around lunchtime, mid-afternoon, late afternoon, and evening. After years in the Middle East, I barely notice. Lately, though, I’ve given more thought to the awareness of God’s presence that a pause for prayer might bring.

In April, friends took me to a Benedictine monastery in Northern Ireland where monks gather to sing “the hours” several times each day, using the Psalms as their source. Shortly before, I’d browsed a book at a friend’s house in Baku. The author, a pastor, talks about that rarified morning time of reading and prayer—and the emptiness of how little its blessed insights impact his intense days. From his own search for a more penetrating awareness of God’s presence, he suggests a personal practice of “hours,” and even proposed a schedule and format. We talked some about it with our hosts. They found the idea overly ritualized. It put them off.

But my hunger is similar to that pastor’s. It’s not that I don’t pause for prayer during my day. We pray grace at meals, and at meetings and studies. I pray for directees and others who come to talk about spiritual things. I throw up “arrows” of prayer when surprised and uncertain what to do. I lean into God when I’m stumped and barren in my writing. But this pause simply to give God worship, this pause that is active as it requires one to interrupt the flow of work and move to a place and position for prayer, or even to gather with the community, this is different.

I’m “nudged.” In Kaş last month I decided to respond by intentionally interrupting whatever I was up to each time the mosque call began. I would go stand on the balcony, as though standing next to Jesus as He brooded over the town, and pray for the community until the call ended. An experiment. A learning.

First I learned how rarely the familiar call penetrates my awareness. I never hear it before dawn, and probably only notice about half of the other times. At the beginning of my experiment when I did notice I would go, stand and look, and find lots of things for which to pray: people I care about, situations and events of the day, the peace and prosperity of the town, the possibilities of the gospel, the timing of our move there. I watched people scurry by below me, to the grocery store, or to their cars, or into the school—people alone, people with friends, people buzzing by on scooters. I saw how they, too, seemed oblivious to the call. No one stops work to head for the mosque, or even pauses in their conversation. A big change from 20 years ago. I began to pray for the imams who make the calls, for God to touch their broken, frustrated hearts.

Later, as the “new” of my experiment wore off, I found that I could be aware the call had begun, but unwilling to be interrupted. Whatever I was focused on took precedence over prayer, whether it was an exciting discovery of just how to express a complex thought, or a conversation with another person, or solitaire on the computer. Sometimes I didn’t want to go to the balcony because it was hot. That brought me to some shame, and some repentance, reminded of how easily our human agendas overtake and consume us so that we fail to respond when God interrupts.

Then came days when I could no longer think of much to pray for, save to repeat what I’d already prayed. To say anything began to feel like babbling. I would stand and wrack my brain for something fresh. I decided it was time to stop talking and listen, and look. The sense that I was invited to stand and brood with Jesus increased.

“For My house will be called a house of prayer for all people.” Isaiah 56:7 jumped off the page at me. My heart went to the Gőkseke house, for that is our vision: a welcome, and space available, to anyone God might bring to pray, to lean in to Him, to seek and explore the reality of His presence. Isaiah’s context is a prophecy that strangers and foreigners, not just returning exiles, will find a spiritual home with the people of God.

I hear Isaiah’s words in another way, too. Our “house” is God’s house—wherever in the world He may place us. That image of Jesus standing and brooding over Kaş, and drawing us to stand and brood with Him—oh, the deep, deep love. In a town where no one knows His Name He is present, He is protecting, and He desires to be known and to bless.

O Lord, thank You for the certainty that You look out over Kaş, for the humbling realization that You drew us there to watch and love with You. Grant, please, that we, in all our fallen frailty, would act worthily. We long for Your presence to so permeate our days that Your life spills out to the bits and the few that we touch. By whatever means, increase Yourself in us.

Extravagant Welcome

I sit here pecking away at my laptop, easy-chair turned to face the view. Erratic stone-walled patch-work rolls down to the Irish Sea. Brilliant greens mix with the darker, duskier colors of waning heather and gorse.

In this place, I have permission to be quiet. It’s okay to lie in late, or to rise early to read, pray and drink coffee behind closed door until I feel ready for conversation. My room invites me to work or relax, with coffee pot, fruit bowl, ample lamps, music, books and candles. The garden and the hills beckon, but so does the fireplace in the living room. Meals are regular and simple, but made celebratory with views, candlelight and gentle companions.

Luke talked this morning about a dinner at Simon’s house.[1] You know, Simon the Pharisee, that Simon. The meal was proceeding well, and then this WOMAN arrived. Not on the guest list, and with her reputation, not likely to be. We’ve had some odd interruptions at our house, but never yet has a street person wandered in sobbing to pour sweet-smelling ointment over a guest’s feet and rub it in with her hair!

As Luke unfolded his story, I noticed Jesus’ comments about the welcome He’d received at Simon’s house. Simon is all worried about reputation, and feeling critical of Jesus, his invited guest. Jesus was experiencing something else entirely:

“Do you SEE this woman, Simon? I come into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.”

Truth is, Simon DIDN’T see her. He only saw a disruption, a sinner. Seems he didn’t really see Jesus, either. Certainly not for who Jesus was, but not even as a “real” houseguest. No water to wash His feet, not even that basic courtesy. No double-checked kiss of warm welcome, as we give and receive all the time in the Middle East. No anointing to bless his Guest and set His coming apart as something special.

Over 25 years Ken and Eva Needham and Curt and I have swapped hospitality, so far in Alaska, England, Scotland, Ireland, UAE and Turkey. I love being in their home. They see Jesus, and they see me. Their various homes have all celebrated creation’s beauty, and been rich in thought life, and deeply prayerful listening—places designed with guests in mind. Masters at balancing their own work and solitude with attending to their guests, their peace is contagious. Patterns to imitate, people to learn from.

We saw a stranger yesterday.
We put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place
And in the sacred name of the Triune God
He blessed us and our house
Our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song:
Oft, oft, oft goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise. (Unknown author)

[1] Luke 7:36-50