This Beautiful Ordinary

Posted on May 26, 2017 by Elizabeth

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Ordinary.

Is there such a thing?

I’m tempted to think so.

In the midst of the dishes and laundry and cleaning toilets, snotty noses and bedtime stories, the routine can seem mundane, dull…

Ordinary.

Until I really look. Until I really stop. Until I really see what is around me.

Nothing is ordinary.

Those dishes mean a miracle of earth producing food that can be purchased and eaten at our table.

That laundry means a miracle of cotton growing from the ground and being woven into fabric that keeps our bodies warm in this cold winter.

This filthy toilet means an act of service, a deliberate dying to myself in a beautiful sacrifice for my family.

Those snotty noses mean a miracle of beautiful, sturdy bodies that are growing so very quickly.

These bedtime stories mean a miracle of imagination, of minds that eagerly search for and grasp new meanings and ideas every day.

These very things that seem so ordinary are the very fabric of the miracle that is my life.

The Christian faith does not simply, or even mainly, propose a few additional facts about the world. Rather, belief in the Christian God invites a new way to understand everything. ~ Andrew Davison in Imaginative Apologetics

Because all is created, because all is love, than nothing is ordinary. Everything is sacred.

I cannot separate my life into ordinary parts and miraculous parts, into secular parts and sacred parts.

Without Christ, nothing was made that has been made. In Christ, all things hold together.

No matter what surrounds you, it is not ordinary, it is not solely of this world.

No matter how tempted I am to name something as mundane, as secular, it is not so.

Nothing that God has created is ordinary.

All is miracle. All is sacred.

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

edited from the archives

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Sacred Eating

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Elizabeth

This is an essay that was featured on (in)courage’s Bloom Book Club Facebook page a few weeks ago. Those who were featured were asked to also post these essays on our blogs this week and link up with everyone else on the Bloom website. For those who have already read this essay once, I’ve added some pictures and a few links if you would like to read again. For those who have not read this essay yet, welcome!

My girls love to eat.

By “love to eat”, I mean that they are mildly obsessed with eating. It is, in fact, difficult to get them to stop at times.

When I was in the hospital, having just given birth to my second girl, my dad called me around lunchtime. “Analise has had two sandwiches, some yogurt, a bunch of grapes, a banana, and some applesauce and she says she’s still hungry.” “Cut her off! Cut. Her. Off.” was my gracious response.

I am grateful that I do not have to deal with picky eaters, and at the same time I wonder how to get my girls to slow down, to enjoy the act of eating more rather than simply inhaling as much food as possible.

It is so easy to fragment my life between sacred and secular, and eating would seem to fall into the latter category. Eating is, after all, a physical necessity, a way to sustain our bodily functions.

Yet God wants to knit the secular places of my life back into the sacred.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them upon your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Brother Lawrence, the dishwashing monk says:

The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great a tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.

So how do I make eating into a deliberately sacred event rather than a piece of my day that has no connection with God?

I am learning that eating is linked over and over again to fellowship with and enjoyment of God.

In the story of the Prodigal Son, the Father celebrates the son’s return with a feast.

Jesus shares His last supper with his closest friends and then tells them that He will not drink again until He does it with us in heaven.

The image of a banquet, especially a wedding feast, is used several times to illustrate our enjoyment of God when we are finally with Him in body.

When we eat, we often are doing more than simply nourishing our bodies. We are sharing of ourselves with our family and our friends. This is sacred.

Perhaps eating is one of the last things that our culture hasn’t been able to take the sacred out of.

Our world tries hard to take God out of all that we do, to make everything a matter of utility. Yet when we share a meal with our family or with our friends, there is a sacredness there that is felt even by those who do not claim to follow God.

God created food. He created eating. When all is created, when all is love, then nothing is ordinary. Everything is sacred.

I cannot separate my life into ordinary parts and miraculous parts, into secular parts and sacred parts, into praising God parts and eating parts.

Without Christ, nothing was made that has been made. In Christ, all things hold together.

When we share a meal together, it is not ordinary, it is not solely of this world.

No matter how tempted I am to name something as mundane, as secular, it is not so.

Nothing that God has created is ordinary.

All is miracle. All is sacred.

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the incarnation. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

Art credit: Brother Lawrence in the Kitchen from a book published by Fleming Revell Co. in 1900.

Our Miracle

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Elizabeth

I witnessed a miracle on Easter Sunday.

A miracle of a cold stony heart melting into a heart of flesh under the ministering of the Spirit.

My brother, once bowed low under the weight of tragedy and grief, now standing tall, glowing full of the peace and love of God.

A face once lined with bitterness and anger now dripping wet with holy water.

Eyes that once saw only darkness now open once again to the light of grace and joy.

Fists once shaken in defiance at the face of God now raised toward heaven in victory.

It has been a long journey. Three and a half years.

Kristina is still gone from this earth. Ethan is still motherless. Mike is still a widower.

As we spoke, this strong, ever-seeking brother of mine said that he still had questions, doubts, things that he doesn’t like about how things happened.

So do I. Don’t we all?

And yet.

Underneath all of those questions and doubts, underneath his dislike of the pain and suffering, there is peace.

The peace of knowing that there are answers. The peace that someday he will be reconciled to those years of heartache. The peace of knowing for certain that God is good and God is love and God is working toward the best for all of us.

As long as we know what it’s about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

The peace of knowing what God is about.

I got to be there as he chose once again to give himself over to the love and care of God, his Father.

I watched hard as he went down under the water

I wept unashamedly as he rose again, his fists raised high in triumph, his face shining with water and tears.

Those of you who have grieved with us over these past few years, will you also celebrate with us?

My brother has come Home.

This is my revelation
Christ Jesus crucified
Salvation through repentance
At the cross on which He died

Now hear my absolution
Forgiveness for my sin
And I sink beneath the waters
That Christ was buried in

I will rise, I will rise
As Christ was raised to life
Now in Him, now in Him
I live

I stand a new creation
Baptized in blood and fire
No fear of condemnation
By faith I’m justified

I will rise, I will rise
As Christ was raised to life
Now in Him, now in Him
I live

Deepest Need

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Elizabeth

I desperately wanted Kristina to be healed.

I long for the lost wisdom of my Papa.

I dream of a normal life for my friend, Stephanie.

There are so many stories that I, in my limited vision, would change if I had my way. What story would you change?

I am forced to look deeply at myself, however, when I read the story of friends who lowered the paralyzed down to Jesus through a hole. I hear Jesus’ first words.

Your sins are forgiven

I imagine myself as a friend.

Yes, yes. Forgiveness is good. But we cut away that barrier to You for healing. We want you to fix this. We want him to walk!

But this is Jesus. He is answering the deepest need first, and the deepest need is not to be able to walk.

It sometimes feels as though my deepest need is to be relieved of my burden.

Cancer is a heavy burden.

Rejection is a heavy burden.

Death is a heavy burden.

Yet over and over again, God’s best work happens when I am carrying my heaviest burden.

I can see this truth at work in the art that I love.

It is interesting to note how many artists have had physical problems to overcome, deformities, lameness, terrible loneliness. Could Beethoven have written that glorious paean of praise in the Ninth Symphony if he had not had to endure the dark closing in of deafness? As I look through his work chronologically, there’s no denying that it deepens and strengthens along with the deafness. Could Milton have seen all that he sees in Paradise Lost if he had not been blind? It is chastening to realize that those who have no physical flaw, who move through life in step with their peers, who are bright and beautiful, seldom become artists. The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain…Pain is not always creative; received wrongly, it can lead to alcoholism and madness and suicide. Nevertheless, without it we do not grow. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

In the midst of these hard things, Jesus wants to be certain that I am still able to rest in Him. He wants me to know that He has overcome all of these burdens so that even while I am underneath my burden I can have peace.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

The knowledge that I will have trouble is a hard truth. One that I don’t like most of the time.

A large part of me wants to clutch tightly those I love best and protect them. Yet a tiny part of me knows what is truly important.

God’s way of forgiveness and transformation is more important than relief from my heavy burden. I try to trust and let that smaller part of me grow.

I long to be who God intended for me to be. I want to grow. It seems that transformation requires hard things.

Paul, the one who was beaten and imprisoned and shipwrecked and stoned and rejected by many, calls these hard things “light and momentary troubles“.

I can’t do that yet. I cannot open my arms and embrace these burdens.

I can, however, accept them and choose to voice words of gratitude and praise to God for them, even if I don’t truly feel grateful. I can choose to allow these burdens, this pain, to help me grow rather than to drag me down into depression.

I am tempted to try to avoid not only my own suffering but also that of those around me, the suffering of the world.

Instead, I will continue to allow suffering to inspire my art, to trust that God will make all things beautiful.

Instead, I will allow pain to deepen and strengthen my life rather than to destroy it.

Instead, I will pray this grace for those around me as well.

Art credits: my thanks to Eddie Lowen, Pastor at West Side Christian Church in Springfield, Illinois, for his thoughts on this subject; The Palsied Man Let Down through the Roof by James Tissot; Illustration for Milton’s Paradise Lost by Gustave Dore

Ordinary

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Elizabeth

Ordinary.

Is there such a thing?

I’m tempted to think so.

In the midst of the dishes and laundry and cleaning toilets, snotty noses and bedtime stories, the routine can seem mundane, dull…

Ordinary.

Until I really look. Until I really stop. Until I really see what is around me.

Nothing is ordinary.

Those dishes mean a miracle of earth producing food that can be purchased and eaten at our table.

That laundry means a miracle of cotton growing from the ground and being woven into fabric that keeps our bodies warm in this cold winter.

This filthy toilet means an act of service, a deliberate dying to myself in a beautiful sacrifice for my family.

Those snotty noses mean a miracle of beautiful, sturdy bodies that are growing so very quickly.

These bedtime stories mean a miracle of imagination, of minds that eagerly search for and grasp new meanings and ideas every day.

These very things that seem so ordinary are the very fabric of the miracle that is my life.

The Christian faith does not simply, or even mainly, propose a few additional facts about the world. Rather, belief in the Christian God invites a new way to understand everything. ~ Andrew Davison in Imaginative Apologetics

Because all is created, because all is love, than nothing is ordinary. Everything is sacred.

I cannot separate my life into ordinary parts and miraculous parts, into secular parts and sacred parts.

Without Christ, nothing was made that has been made. In Christ, all things hold together.

No matter what surrounds you, it is not ordinary, it is not solely of this world.

No matter how tempted I am to name something as mundane, as secular, it is not so.

Nothing that God has created is ordinary.

All is miracle. All is sacred.

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

When I Don’t Understand

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Elizabeth

It has been a beautiful time and a difficult time, this time I have spent away from this space.

Breathing in the scent of my newborn, surrounded by the warmth of family and friends, secluding myself from the world while I both soak up and exude the love and joy of my little family.

Passing my baby on his way out of this world, my Papa said farewell to us and greeted his Father with joy.

Unable to travel long miles that soon after giving birth, I did much of my grieving alone.

My heart was reminded too often of our Kristina, of the thoughts and emotions of her loss only a year and a half ago.

Birth and death. Being and dying.

I often think of and long to know the meaning of this cycle of life and death.

in the light of love of the Creator, who brought them all into being, who brought me into being, and you…It is part of the deepest longing of the human psyche, a recurrent ache in the hearts of all of God’s creatures.

I am reminded once again of Love.

Of Love that wants the best for us, regardless of the cost.

Of Love that walked this earth with us and died for us and then showed us how to have everlasting life.

Of Love that promises that this is not the end, these dying breaths, that promises that we have life.

As I open myself up once again to loving another baby, to making myself vulnerable to the possibility of pain that loving brings, I wonder long about meaning and whether any of this is truly worth it.

Yet even as I wonder, I know. I know that love is always worth it. I know, even in the ugly and the pain, that this life is beautiful because we are loved by One who gives Himself with no hesitation, no conditions.

I know because even though I don’t understand our God, even though I don’t understand this life or the next or how any of this works and fits together, I find yet that I know what it is about. I know what HE is about.

As long as we know what it’s about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain.

And there is where the joy and beauty lie.

In knowing what it’s about even when we don’t understand.

Art credits: quotes are by Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water; Road to Emmaus painting by Robert Zund; Cross photograph by Asta Rastauskiene

To hear my blog post read aloud, just click the play button. If you’re reading this in an email, you may have to click here to hear the post on my site.

Ordinary.

Is there such a thing?

I’m tempted to think so.

In the midst of the dishes and laundry and cleaning toilets, snotty noses and bedtime stories, the routine can seem mundane, dull…

Ordinary.

Until I really look. Until I really stop. Until I really see what is around me.

Nothing is ordinary.

Those dishes mean a miracle of earth producing food that can be purchased and eaten at our table.

That laundry means a miracle of cotton growing from the ground and being woven into fabric that keeps our bodies warm in this cold winter.

This filthy toilet means an act of service, a deliberate dying to myself in a beautiful sacrifice for my family.

Those snotty noses mean a miracle of beautiful, sturdy bodies that are growing so very quickly.

These bedtime stories mean a miracle of imagination, of minds that eagerly search for and grasp new meanings and ideas every day.

These very things that seem so ordinary are the very fabric of the miracle that is my life.

The Christian faith does not simply, or even mainly, propose a few additional facts about the world. Rather, belief in the Christian God invites a new way to understand everything. ~ Andrew Davison in Imaginative Apologetics

Because all is created, because all is love, than nothing is ordinary. Everything is sacred.

I cannot separate my life into ordinary parts and miraculous parts, into secular parts and sacred parts.

Without Christ, nothing was made that has been made. In Christ, all things hold together.

No matter what surrounds you, it is not ordinary, it is not solely of this world.

No matter how tempted I am to name something as mundane, as secular, it is not so.

Nothing that God has created is ordinary.

All is miracle. All is sacred.

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

My girls love to eat.

By “love to eat”, I mean that they are mildly obsessed with eating. It is, in fact, difficult to get them to stop at times.

I am grateful that I do not have to deal with picky eaters, and at the same time I wonder how to get my girls to slow down, to enjoy the act of eating more rather than simply inhaling as much food as possible.

It is so easy to fragment my life between sacred and secular, and eating would seem to fall into the latter category. Eating is, after all, a physical necessity, a way to sustain our bodily functions.

Yet God wants to knit the secular places of my life back into the sacred.

Brother Lawrence, the dishwashing monk says:

The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great a tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.

So how do I make eating into a deliberately sacred event rather than a piece of my day that has no connection with God?

I am learning that eating is linked over and over again to fellowship with and enjoyment of God.

In the story of the Prodigal Son, the Father celebrates the son’s return with a feast.

Jesus shares His last supper with his closest friends and then tells them that He will not drink again until He does it with us in heaven.

The image of a banquet, especially a wedding feast, is used several times to illustrate our enjoyment of God when we are finally with Him in body.

When we eat, we often are doing more than simply nourishing our bodies. We are sharing of ourselves with our family and our friends. This is sacred.

Perhaps eating is one of the last things that our culture hasn’t been able to take the sacred out of.

Our world tries hard to take God out of all that we do, to make everything a matter of utility. Yet when we share a meal with our family or with our friends, there is a sacredness there that is felt even by those who do not claim to follow God.

God created food. He created eating. When all is created, when all is love, then nothing is ordinary. Everything is sacred.

I cannot separate my life into ordinary parts and miraculous parts, into secular parts and sacred parts, into praising God parts and eating parts.

Without Christ, nothing was made that has been made. In Christ, all things hold together.

When we share a meal together, it is not ordinary, it is not solely of this world.

No matter how tempted I am to name something as mundane, as secular, it is not so.

Nothing that God has created is ordinary.

All is miracle. All is sacred.

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the incarnation. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

I witnessed a miracle on Easter Sunday.

A miracle of a cold stony heart melting into a heart of flesh under the ministering of the Spirit.

My brother, once bowed low under the weight of tragedy and grief, now standing tall, glowing full of the peace and love of God.

A face once lined with bitterness and anger now dripping wet with holy water.

Eyes that once saw only darkness now open once again to the light of grace and joy.

Fists once shaken in defiance at the face of God now raised toward heaven in victory.

It has been a long journey. Three and a half years.

Nothing has changed.

Kristina is still gone from this earth. Ethan is still motherless. Mike is still a widower.

Everything has changed.

As we spoke, this strong, ever-seeking brother of mine said that he still had questions, doubts, things that he doesn’t like about how things happened.

So do I. Don’t we all?

And yet.

Underneath all of those questions and doubts, underneath his dislike of the pain and suffering, there is peace.

The peace of knowing that there are answers. The peace that someday he will be reconciled to those years of heartache. The peace of knowing for certain that God is good and God is love and God is working toward the best for all of us.

As long as we know what it’s about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

The peace of knowing what God is about.

I got to be there as he chose once again to give himself over to the love and care of God, his Father.

I watched hard as he went down under the water

I wept unashamedly as he rose again, his fists raised high in triumph, his face shining with water and tears.

Those of you who have grieved with us over these past few years, will you also celebrate with us?

My brother has come Home.

This is my revelation Christ Jesus crucified Salvation through repentance At the cross on which He died

Now hear my absolution Forgiveness for my sin And I sink beneath the waters That Christ was buried in

I will rise, I will rise As Christ was raised to life Now in Him, now in Him I live

I stand a new creation Baptized in blood and fire No fear of condemnation By faith I’m justified

I will rise, I will rise As Christ was raised to life Now in Him, now in Him I live

I desperately wanted Kristina to be healed.

I long for the lost wisdom of my Papa.

I dream of a normal life for my friend, Stephanie.

There are so many stories that I, in my limited vision, would change if I had my way. What story would you change?

I am forced to look deeply at myself, however, when I read the story of friends who lowered the paralyzed down to Jesus through a hole. I hear Jesus’ first words.

Your sins are forgiven

I imagine myself as a friend.

This is my revelation
Christ Jesus crucified
Salvation through repentance
At the cross on which He died

Now hear my absolution
Forgiveness for my sin
And I sink beneath the waters
That Christ was buried in

I will rise, I will rise
As Christ was raised to life
Now in Him, now in Him
I live

I stand a new creation
Baptized in blood and fire
No fear of condemnation
By faith I’m justified

I will rise, I will rise
As Christ was raised to life
Now in Him, now in Him
I live