Faces of sand

The dunes are different today. Last month the sand was soft—easy to get stuck in, but also forgiving, giving way to the impact of a crest taken too fast or the abrupt change of uphill angles approached under full power.

Rain has fallen since then. The sparse plant life is greener, and Dan worries about bugs as we check out a campsite. Just below the surface the sand is cool, and some of the subqa is water-logged.

From the road everything looks the same, but the moment we head off the shoulder into the wilderness we experience the difference. Dan goes first. His Pathfinder’s wide tires don’t even penetrate the surface, and only light tread marks record his passing. We easily crest the first steep rise and swerve effortlessly to avoid the pit beyond it.

Then Curt makes a power-run at a sand hump, an abrupt-but-low hill best conquered by bashing. We make it up, but (shock and “oh, my!”) it jars like we hit a wall! Another couple of minutes and he is high-centered on the peak of a sharp crest, one tire spinning useless in the air. Later he will go airborne taking a crest too fast—which may be some people’s idea of fun in the dunes, but miles into wilderness at the edge of The Empty Quarter in a three ton Landcruiser, well, NOT a good idea….

The sand is hard. Today it doesn’t give way and absorb our blows. We can’t brashly bash our way through confident of a soft landing. Nor can we scoot through by side-slipping tight passages, since the damp sand binds our tires and could cause us to roll.

This untouched area is a favorite, a spot we return to again and again. Always before, though, we nibbled at the edges and treated a radius around our camp as our giant sandbox. We conquer and slide down the steepest places over and over like a merry-go-round ride. This trip we decided to camp deeper in the wilderness, and made riskier plans to thread our way overland to a far-away road we spotted on Google Earth.

The sand’s new firmness encourages us. We can travel further faster and climb higher with less chance we will become hopelessly bogged down.

Unless, of course, we break something.

Same desert, but today we meet a different personality.

I ponder the same in relationships with living beings and the sand begins to speak to me of the Father God.

Many encounters, and we’ve known softness. We’ve bashed and played and experimented. Last time I learned to mix gentleness with confident power-engagement to get me out of the bottom of a steep slide. Yes, we’ve stayed close to the road in case we get hopelessly stuck, but we never feared real damage--until today. It was easy to think we’d come to know this desert.

My fellowship with God can be just like that. I am playful child, now experimental, now angry and bashing, now just plain stuck and in need of a gentle yank, all the while gaining confidence and trust. Certain I’m safe, that there will be no real damage. And coming to think I know this Eternal Person who loves me.

Today we meet firmness. Abrupt. Jarring. We could crack something, or break off whole pieces, or smash. We might learn in breaking them about things we don’t need anyway--we pitched the snazzy low front bumper and shiny chrome exhaust-pipe covers years ago. Maybe we’ll need repairs. But the firmness is full of fresh possibility, a new side of the desert. We can learn and adapt and go where we never imagined, to a destination discovered only through risky exploration. We can move faster. We can choose to embrace this new desert-face.

God is not just a soft, pliable daddy who delights to watch me play,

build my confidence, and make me happy. Though (joy!) He does reveal Himself as just that in certain seasons, God is also Rock, plumb-line, disciplinarian, and trainer in truth, purity and righteousness. He has His agenda, and would like me to notice, to approach Him with fresh respect, but to remember the quality of His love as I climb on board to go further and higher.

God has His firm side, as well as His Abba-daddy side. Also His mysterious three-in-one community side. His incarnational side. His shekinah-shiny side, and His terrifyingly holy side. He chooses, over time, to reveal more of His faces, to allow me to know Him better.

Oh, Lord, grant me the courage and the amazing grace to embrace You increasingly in the fullness of ALL that You are!

The church at the crossroads...

This Saturday 15 people with gather in our Abu Dhabi home for silent retreat. They come from England, Peru, Japan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, the US, India, Singapore, Australia, China, Iraq and Jamaica. To think of the prayers that will rise from that global gathering of men and women--Lord, we lay for You a banqueting table, and rejoice in confident assurance that You will nourish us!

(For more on home at the crossroads, see my original post.)

Lessons I learned from Nadeek

He stands at the edge of the kitchen. Slight and muscled, with rich brown skin, the young-ish man in jeans and polo shirt watches and waits. His stance is erect. His brown eyes are alert, yet calm. Invisible, yet fully present. Willing to do nothing; ready to do anything.

The house is quiet, but a walk from room to room counts a dozen or more people reading, resting, scribbling in journals, praying. Christians leaning into the Lord Jesus in a space set apart for them this day.

We are hosts to a silent retreat. Men and women spread in comfortable chairs, or on cushions piled in a corner. Others stand gazing out the window or into a painting. Nadeek is not a participant. He is here to serve, to make sure the juice pitcher is full, the fruit bowl is replenished, and the dishes get washed. He works for us.

I work, too. As retreat leader, chief cook, and hostess I have plenty to do. Still, Nadeek’s undivided attention arrests me.

I am here to serve, a guardian of space, peace and the silence conducive to focus and meditation. Yet within all that I have my own agenda. I, too, desire as much holy solitude as I can carve for myself. So I come and go from my space in the study. My attention is divided.

“I lift up my eyes to You, to You whose throne is in heaven. …As the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till He shows us His mercy.” Psalm 123:1-2.

I see myself as servant. Yet Nadeek takes me aback. How flawed is my understanding of genuine servanthood. As a creature of the West, where individual trumps community, I see “service” is an activity of the moment. “My time” is to be maximized to get in as much “me-time” as I can around my responsibilities to others.

Nadeek is from Sri Lanka, a child of the East. He turns “servant” into a dignified profession as he gives me a lesson in humility. I asked him to help out with lunch and dishes. He is otherwise free to disappear into his own pursuits. I don’t see “enough” for him to do. Nadeek, on the other hand, sees this set-apart day as filled with opportunities to bless in quiet ways and has set himself as guardian. Most of the day he will stand invisible, but empty cups magically disappear, tea and coffee are ever replenished, the kitchen serving area is spotless. The smallest needs are intercepted before they have a chance to become disruptions.

Suddenly I stand on holy ground as witness to the heart and soul of a true servant. Nadeek could be out about town, resting, or pouring over his beloved sports page. But his master has something going, and he can’t imagine not being there, alert to faces and body language, giving full support to my agenda as he attends those I’ve taken in today.

“Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in Your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your name. I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify Your name forever.” Psalm 86:11-12.

With gratitude to my teacher, Nadeek.

Planes, plans and reality

Wow! The plans I make in that rarified space of air travel between one world and another today meet the crunch of real life where laundry and dishes must be done, mail opened and business paperwork addressed, and no one has been to the grocery store for two weeks. Where traffic and lines undermine every schedule; and conversations, in person or cyberspace, fill the margins reserved for the writing of profound thoughts.

Today:

Menus
Groceries
Gas bottle
Pick up house/unpack
Laundry
Dentist
Arensens for dinner
Follow-up e-mails: Gordon/Holta
10,000 steps

And, please God, can I work on the book a bit, and blog???

Picture Jesus...

Jesus stands at the full-wall window of my high-rise living room gazing out over Abu Dhabi. His back is to me, and I glimpse Him more in profile. Below us spread tall buildings, 5-star hotels, shops, port facilities, a marina, and heavy traffic. People crammed together because housing is costly and scarce, others in long lines for taxis that don’t come because rampant development has made the way too congested, laborers sweeping walks and washing street signs for $150 a month to send home to their hungry families, locals in their gorgeous vehicles with the dark black windows.



His back is to me, but the sense is companionable, me with Bible and journal in my morning chair, Jesus in contemplation of the city.

“Why are you looking out the window?” it occurs to me to ask. “Because I care about this city.” An obvious reply.

And so we dwell there in quiet fellowship—Jesus lovingly brooding, me turning over this fresh sense of inclusion. My prayer of late has been so focused on my “stuff”: failure and guilt as I cling to two specific ways of emptiness I love while He whispers, “Let them go.” Today I see something wonderful. Jesus, there at the window, so matter-of-factly includes me in what He is doing. He brought me to Abu Dhabi, and I, too, often gaze out that window with compassion, or drive the streets with anger over development that chases wealth for a few while destroying quality of life for so many. With Jesus and through Him I am moved to receive the people who inhabit this place. He includes me as companion, as instrument, as incarnation.

Yes, the “stuff” remains, and I need to give attention to ways I resist His voice, and stay with Jesus in it until I break through to surrender. But that’s not all of Jesus, or all of me, or nearly as big a block in our companionship as I’ve made it. He sees me differently than I see myself: as one of His own, as with Him in His ministry, as a co-lover of those He loves. His perspective is life-giving.

And it may even make it easier to loosen my grip and let go of the “stuff!”