A Bewildering Reality

Every few hours I find myself clicking this link, and staring at the page, thinking, "Is it really real?"

As one of my coworkers put it today, we're just dealing with her absence, not with the loss; it hasn't sunk in yet.

We keep expecting to see her.

And while I don't want it to be real, I don't want to never see her again, I know that it is, and I know that I won't.

I go to Lancaster on Saturday for a service in her honor. I don't know what it will entail, but I know she planned it in her final days. So I know it's not going to be focused on her; it will be focused on her Savior.

But I think it will take away a bit of the bewilderment and turn the reality from vapor to solid.

And that won't be easy. But it will be real. And she loved real things.

When change and tears are past

This past week or so have been difficult. My Grandma Givens was in the hospital. She's out now, and back in the skilled care area of the village where she lives, but we know she's not well and we don't know if she'll be with us ten more days or ten more years. There's not much more wrong with her than age - her body is simply wearing out. After 93 years, I suppose it has the right.

But it's been hard. It's hard to think about my life without Grandma as a part of it - she's been an institution for 30 years of it so far. I know grandparents die - I lost both my grandfathers when I was very young, and my other grandmother when I was in high school - but somehow I never really thought about the idea that Grandma Givens would die.

I still can't quite imagine a world without Grandma praying for me.

When I heard she wasn't doing well, I panicked at first. Then I prayed. Then I got a chance to call her and tell her I love her. All of those things needed to be done.

And God gave me His comfort, and He gave me His grace, and He gave me His love. And all those things were good.

But yesterday He gave me one thing more. During our start of semester hour of prayer we sang, as we always do. Dr. Toews got up to read the opening passage of Scripture and he said that he had just finished teaching a course on the Wisdom Literature. And he said something that stuck out to me in a new way: "What became very clear teaching the wisdom literature is that one thing unique about Christianity is that in the midst of trouble, Christians sing."

In an instant I was standing around a piano at Grandma's house in my memory, singing with the whole family. Grandma was playing at the piano and working her way through the hymnal from favorite to favorite. We sang some of those hymns yesterday, and I needed to hear them.

Near the end of the service we sang one that I've known for a long time. It's one that I can sing without paying a whole lot of attention to the words, because I've done so many times. But suddenly it was new and fresh to me, and I realized it was the story of Grandma Givens.

From a childhood without a father, to stepping away in faith from the Mennonite church, to raising six boys, to losing Grandpa fairly young, to dealing with fractious church members and family members, there have been griefs, pains, changes, and thorny ways. But Grandma's best friend has always been Jesus. And He has always been faithful.

The second verse we sang targeted me. My turbulent fears of losing Grandma calmed as I thought of all the ways God has guided her through her life, and I remembered that He will do the same for me.

And as we sang a final verse, I began to cry the good kind of tears. Because I remembered that while I will be left without her, when Grandma goes to heaven, she will be with her Lord. Sorrow will be forgotten, love will be restored.

And one day, when change and tears are past, all safe and blessed we shall meet again at last.

Be Still, My Soul

by Katharina A. von Schlegel, 1752

translated to English by Jane L. Borthwick, 1855

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In every change, He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend

Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake

To guide the future, as He has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know

His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on

When we shall be forever with the Lord.

When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,

Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.

Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past

All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

Missing Uncle Sam

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer

Our spirits by Thine advent here;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

“Christmas is a time of joy,” my boss said yesterday. “I have to keep reminding myself of that.”

It is. A joy tinged with sorrow, as the Man of Sorrows left his throne and came to be born in a manger, knowing he would be the sacrifice that redeemed the world. But a joy nonetheless, because the end result of that sacrifice was resurrection – not just once, but for all who believe.

I’m holding onto the hope of resurrection right now. Holding on to the hope that the Day-spring will put death’s dark shadows to flight. Because they are dark. And they are present. And I ache in the missing him.

“I’m okay,” I keep hearing myself say. “At the moment.”

On the one hand, day-to-day, I didn’t see Uncle Sam much – certainly not compared to his students or his fellow professors of music. But sporadic lunches, quick conversations in hallways or offices, greetings at concerts and events were enough to keep that long-seated friendship fresh, one that had grown from years upon years of relationship with my grandparents, my parents, my sisters, his brothers, his nephews, our shared friends. And now I am left with them all, aching.

He was a musician. I know that. But it’s not like that stood out to me in a unique way – saying Sam Hsu was a musician would be like saying any other person had eyes. It’s a given. His music was so much a part of him that I sometimes didn’t even take note of it.

I know that must seem strange to those who knew him from the world of music. But that wasn’t the world where we overlapped so much. We met more frequently over meals, at family celebrations, or academic discussions. He was my friend, my “uncle”; and my friend came with music in his blood.

He was a friend I was privileged to sit under as a student, enjoying the breadth and depth his knowledge gave to a class that could have been routine. And in between the insights into the music, art, and literature of the western world, were tidbits of great beauty and depth that would flow from him: “He’s experienced a little of me and I’ve experienced a little of him. That’s what friendship is, isn’t it?”

He was a friend who may have been thought somber by those who did not know him well. But they never got to experience the moments of humor that would come from around side – hilariously unexpected. I’ll never forget the day he sat at the keyboard to introduce us to a Russian Romantic composer and paused with his fingers hovering above the keys: “I’m going to show you how the Russians loved,” he said. Then he lowered his hands to the first chord; it struck and faded as he paused again: “I’m not a Russian. I hope you know that.”

I stood at the hospital on Thursday afternoon, looking about me at Uncle Sam’s students who were there, and thinking of those, former and present, who were not. Men and women of God whose passion for music is fueled by their passion for Christ. And I thought: that is what they learned from their teacher. More than fingering, more than history, more than style. They learned Christ-following from one who was, preeminently, a Christ-follower.

I have allowed my mind to swim freely in the lyrics and music of hymns and carols for the past few days, knowing that it is a place he would have loved to be with me. And the joy of Christmas, the beauty of this world, the grandeur and faithfulness of God, the great truths – all of them have resounded over and over to me.

And I will rejoice. For God is with us.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

To read more about Dr. Samuel Hsu, click here.

Slow Burn

It's been a long autumn this year. The colors have passed their peak (evidenced, if by nothing else, by the fact that I could barely see the lines in the parking lot at work this morning for the carpet of yellow that covered them), but only just, and they began weeks and weeks ago. I saw a flaming maple in the middle of the park at the beginning of October, all alone in its glory, the deep green of late summer still on the limbs of the trees around it. The massive maple across the street has shed most of its foliage, but others are still bearing their yellow and scarlet leaves. I saw sun light the crimson tops of the grand oaks on the front drive as I was leaving work today. Meanwhile the small oak in my front lawn rusts away quietly.

A slow-burn autumn.

My mother has nicknamed me the Dragon. It's a nickname that brings concerned expressions to the faces of strangers and raises eyebrows among aquaintances and friends sometimes. But family - and I mean that in the non-biological definition of the word - family understands the name. I love the nickname. It reminds me that there's someone in the world who knows that deep inside of me is a burning intensity that I don't let out very often, because it's likely to scorch. That there's a passion and energy there which I'm constantly reigning in just so that I can function on a day-to-day basis. That when I've found something to believe in, or something or someone that I love, I do it fiercely-if quietly, because I struggle to express its force.

A slow-burn intensity.

I write. I write because I'm a storyteller and because I have ideas that can only express themselves through story. But it takes me a long time to get it all down. I mull and mull and mull over scenes or plots for days or weeks or months (or years, sometimes) before I start writing them. I play conversations out in my head before I type them on the page. I run through three options of direction a scene could take before I choose one.

A slow-burn creativity.

I've realized that I like a slow-burn autumn. I always say that fall and spring do a lot to make up for winter and summer here in Philadelphia - they have a lot to make up for, winter is usually pretty lame and summer is stupidly hot. Fall tends to be lovely here, with brightly colored leaves dancing in blustery breezes on sunshiny days. But this slow-burn autumn makes me even happier - like all the majestic intensity of this past week when so many of the trees seemed to suddenly realize it was fall and come out dressed for the season together was made better for the wait.

And that has made me wonder if slow-burning isn't so bad after all.

Nothing is Wasted

This has become a theme of my week - not because I'm going through anything particular, but simply the truth of it - and its applicability to past and future events. Its been, for lack of a more somber word, "refreshing" to remember that Christ redeems sorrow and pain.

The hurt that broke your heart
Left you trembling in the dark
Feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope’s a lie
But what if every tear you cry
Will seed the ground
Where joy will grow?

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is wasted.
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted.

The wound that leaves a scar
Becomes a part of who we are,
But this is not the story’s end.
The pain that closed the chapter
Sets the stage for what comes after
When all we’ve lost is found again.

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is wasted.
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted.

When hope is more than you can bear,
And it’s too hard to believe it could be true,
And your strength fails you half way there,
You can lean on me and I’ll believe for you,
And in time you will believe it too.

Nothing is wasted.
Nothing is wasted.
Sometimes we are waiting
In sorrow we have tasted,
But joy will replace it
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted.

Jason Gray, “Nothing is Wasted (Alternate)”

Living Stones

In Joshua 22, there's this misunderstanding.

The tribes who took allotments of land on the east side of the Jordan are finally going home after helping the other tribe conquer the land of Canaan, and they build an altar, somewhere near where they are going to cross back over the Jordan.

The tribes in Canaan think they're trying to build a second place of worship, away from the Tabernacle, so that they don't have to travel so far to make sacrifices. They rise up to make war against the eastern tribes and fortunately stop to ask questions before they do so.

It all comes out in the explanation: the eastern tribes didn't want anyone to forget that they fought for the land. They pulled out the practice of their fathers and forefathers and built an ebenezer - a an altar of remembrance - so that when their children asked why they had to go all the way to the tabernacle to worship, or when the western tribes' children asked why these strangers from across the river kept coming over into their land, someone could point to the altar and say, "See, your fathers and our fathers fought together and God gave them this land. It is His, and we all worship Him here."

Except, here's the thing. The stones could stand for generations, and they could represent what the eastern tribes wanted them to say, but only if someone said it first. The whole misunderstanding arose because no one was there to remind the western tribes of what had happened.

I've been thinking lately about living stones. Josh Garrells uses the phrase in his song, "White Owl": Every dream that you have been shown / Will be like living stone / Building you into a home / A shelter from the storm.

And I've been listening to him almost incessantly, so, frankly, living stones in my head. But that is just the background music.

On Tuesday evening we gathered together the Chorale that went to Poland this spring for a reunion. A significant portion of the group was able to make it, and we were able to have a little bit of time for people to share what God had been doing in their lives since the trip.

One by one, as they shared, I was reminded of the things we learned together as we traveled.

And I had this thought - we're living stones.

The Israelites set up piles of stones to speak as a remembrance of the things God did. But without a message to go with them, as we see in Joshua 22, they failed to tell the story.

But then I started thinking and trying to remember exactly what it was that Peter says about living stones. I looked it up: "As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." It's all in the context of the Church - and fitting that it's one of Peter's letters that uses the analogy. Jesus is the cornerstone, the one upon which He will build His church, but we are the walls, the steeple, the body - a spiritual house.

As I wander forward through history I begin to see that we didn't leave the piling of rocks back in ancient times. One has only to look at Notre Dame de Paris, or Westminster Abbey, or St. Paul's, or the National Cathedral for that matter, to realize that we've been piling stones as markers of God throughout the centuries. Problem is: one only has to look at the words coming out of some of those buildings to realize that the message has gotten confused along the way.

Perhaps then, we should pour ourselves into building piles of living stones, gathering around us other members of the holy priesthood who can remind us of what we learned, of what we want to remember.

But then we run into this: for all their faults in communicating messages, stones have one serious factor going for them: they last. There are still altars built along the Jordan River. We don't know exactly if one of them is the one from Joshua 22, but it's quite possible. If that one isn't standing, others from near the same time still are.

Living stones on the other hand, well, they're fallible.

Time, philosophies, and the evil one take their toll on living stones; making us wonder if perhaps they were never stones at all, but something false, like the lithops plant that avoids being eaten by blending in to the stony ground around it. And we're left wondering if it might have been better to build up stone walls as remembrances, rather than facing the disappointment and confusion that false living stones give us.

I haven't finished thinking about this whole thing, but I'm going to say no. Living stones are worth the risk. Because not only can they tell the story of what happened then, in that time that you're building the remembrance of, they can also tell the stories of what has happened since, and the new things that God has done.

A Little Bit of You

I've been attending a writer's conference for the past few days and have founds some really helpful tools and met some really interesting people. There's been encouragement; there's been frustration; there's been review; there's been new material.

In all, a positive experience.

A few thoughts and things I've learned:

1. Put a little bit of you into every character you create. - This shouldn't have been a new idea; and I don't know that it really was, but it struck me today in a way it hasn't before. And I immediately started thinking about an unfinished novel I've got in which the three main characters are basically a tri-furcation (see, I can make up words now) of my own personality. And then I had to tell myself not to get distracted from the other projects I'm working on.

2. "Save the cheerleader. Save the world." - There's a reason why the first season of Heroes was amazing. It lies in their tagline - all the cards were on the table. Goal (what are the characters aiming to do?) - "Save the cheerleader." Motivation (why are the characters doing what they're aiming to do?) - "Save the world." Plain, simple, and absolutely perfect. Note: once they saved the cheerleader, the entire television show fell apart.

3. It's really nice when the conference you're attending is at the place where you work, for, not only can you lock your purse up in your office all day and not have to carry it around with the 10 pounds of manuscripts in your bag, but also you can mooch coffee off the Admissions staff in the Welcome Center, which is way better than the Food Services coffee provided.

See, there you have it. I'm learning things.