Hello everyone and thank you so much for hanging in here with me. It has been a while since I posted, I know, but I hope to do so more regularly from now on. I do wish I could slow the days down a bit. How did it get to be the end of January already??
What’s Up Next?
Well ….I’m really excited to join with others once again for the Abundant Rain Writing Pilgrimage, starting with a meet and greet on Feb. 3rd – that’s this Saturday! We’ll have some special bonuses for you that morning (11:00 a.m. MST) and will outline how the pilgrimage will work. We’ll be using a revamped copy of Volume 1 and will get the link to you as soon as we can. In the meantime, there will be a download of the PDF. Do join us, even if you can’t, or don’t want to, do the whole pilgrimage. Here’s the link to get you started
Feel free to share that link with anyone you think may be interested in joining with other writers of faith as we walk this path together.
Update on My New Fantasy Novel:
For those of you following my progress with Pebble, my next fantasy novel, I have been working on it slowly, and hope to have the first draft ready for Beta readers soon. If you would like to be a beta reader – (all that means is, you read the pdf I send and give any feedback you wish) – let me know and I’ll put you on the list. Please pray that I’ll be consistent in the work and that the Lord will lead as I write.
BTW, the other series I’ve been working on has been popping into my head a lot lately too, so stay tuned for more on that as the days go by.
A Bit of Personal News:
Many of you know that we had a tragic thing happen over the holiday season, with the suicide death of a young man who left his wife and three little ones behind. It hit us hard, since it was in the family, though we did not know him well. Please pray for the young mom, that she would find help and support and above all that she would find the Lord.
Otherwise, our Christmas was great, with my 3 daughters, their husbands and our 2 grandkids all in attendance. Little Sparky was a delight – I think he loved tearing the paper off all the presents more than the presents themselves. 😉 And Thea was thrilled with the big blanket picturing the front cover of my children’s book, Merrigold’s Very Best Home (a lovely gift from my publisher at Seritona Creative Publishing).
The New Year roared in with very cold temps that kept us inside most of the time, except when we had to venture to Calgary for some medical appointments, mostly for my husband. We were very glad to finally have some tests and prodedures scheduled after many months of things falling through the cracks. It really does help when you have a family doctor who gives consistent care. Spence is scheduled to have a hernia repair done on Feb. 6th. Prayer appreciated for the surgery and for the recovery. 🙂
Livy’s Life
Liv seems to be adjusting to life with her new companion, Little Duffer. I’m not so sure about Spence and I!! 🙂 We keep renaming him – Little Terror, Little Stinker, Mr. Pest, Psycho cat, etc. etc. He is most persistent about joining me as I work on my laptop!
(sorry, for some reason it’s not letting me adjust the size of those 2 pix).
February is shaping up to be quite busy but one of my priorities is keeping in The Word more. I’ve taken on the challenge to read through the Bible in 90 days (thank you, Mary DeMuth!) Tomorrow will be day 30 so I’m 1/3rd of the way through! It truly is wonderful to read large chunks of the scripture and get a more ‘big picture’ view. Our God truly is an awesome God!
Thank you all for your interest and support, once again! I love to hear from my readers, so do pop me a note if you have a minute! Or, if you feel so led, use this link to support my writing. thourgh paypal.
Blessings of this Blessed Season to you all! In the midst of all the turmoil in the world, know that God is still on His throne. I’m sure He weeps with us and longs for His return when He will set all things right. But for now we must trust and pray and try to follow His path as best we can, ” to do justice, and to love kindness,and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
Here is one of my favourite Advent poems by Malcolm Guite from his book, Sounding the Seasons. (If you don’t know Malcolm’s poetry I encourage you to look him up).
O Emmanuel By Malcolm Guite
O come, O come, and be our God-with-us O long-sought With-ness for a world without, O secret seed, O hidden spring of light. Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame, O quickened little wick so tightly curled, Be folded with us into time and place, Unfold for us the mystery of grace And make a womb of all this wounded world. O heart of heaven beating in the earth, O tiny hope within our hopelessness Come to be born, to bear us to our birth, To touch a dying world with new-made hands And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.
****
And, for your reading pleasure, a Christmas story –
Missing Christmas By Marcia Lee Laycock
Sulking and soaking. For me, the two always go together. I know when I’m not fit to be around people, especially the people I’m mad at, so the bathtub is the best place to be. I run the water as hot as I can stand it and stay there until I feel like I can be civil again. That night, the night before Christmas, I thought I might be there till dawn.
Tim had dropped the bomb when he came home from work two days before we were to go home for the holidays. Somehow he’d managed to mess up making the flight reservations. How could he mess up something so important, so essential to my sanity? Bad enough he’d talked me into coming here, to the end of reason and any sign of civilization, just so he could have a “real northern experience.” Bad enough he didn’t once compliment me on how I’d bravely been enduring the minus fifty-degree temperatures. Bad enough we still had five more months to endure life in this town on the edge of the universe. Now we were stuck here for Christmas.
Even if we drove south till the temperature was warm enough for planes to fly, there weren’t any seats to be had. And what was his excuse? He thought he’d told the travel agent to book it, but he had only asked her to give him the details. When she didn’t hear back from him, she assumed we’d changed our minds but didn’t bother to check. There are too many people in this town who definitely aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree.
And speaking of trees. To try and pacify me, Tim dragged a tree home today. I caught him going out the door, downed from neck to ankle, a toque on his head and wool scarf wrapped about six times around his face. When I asked him where on earth he was going, he said something unintelligible and walked out the door. Three hours later I heard him stomping around on the porch. I poked my head out, the cold hitting me like a slap. All I could see were his eyes. They were laughing. He tugged the scarf down long enough to tell me to wrap up and come out for a minute. Curious, I pulled on my parka and went outside.
He stood there like a little boy who’d just bagged his first bird. Only it was a Christmas tree he held on to. Or rather, it had been a Christmas tree. My mouth fell open and I sputtered through a mouth full of scarf. Tim pulled his away from his mouth and grinned.
“Just call me Charlie Brown,” he said.
The tree was almost bare. Tim described how the needles rained down with every blow of the axe. What else did he expect at fifty below?
Then we tried getting it inside. The few needles left on the branches showered the linoleum in the kitchen until it looked like a forest path. We stood it in a corner and stepped back. Tim glanced at me sideways just as I did the same and we both burst out laughing.
“I’ll go buy an artificial one,” I said. Tim didn’t argue.
I trudged off to the only store in town, but of course they were sold out of Christmas trees, artificial or otherwise. Then I went to the grocery store to buy a turkey. No turkeys left either. No cranberry sauce, no fresh vegetables. They had some Caribou steaks on special. Whoopdeedoo. By the time I got home I wanted to scream, “Baaah Humbug!” That’s when I locked myself in the bathroom and tried to soak away the frustration.
The next morning I wished Tim a halfhearted “Merry Christmas,” then told him his present was waiting for him at my parents’ house, three thousand miles away. The house that would be decorated so beautifully, with a six foot tree. The house that would be filled with the smell of roast turkey and pumpkin pie. The house where all our family would gather to sing carols by the fireplace. My pity party was complete when he told me my present was waiting there too.
I was choking down tears when the phone rang. A cheery voice said, “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas.” I handed the phone to Tim. I heard his voice go up a few notches the longer he talked. He kept glancing at me, then finally said. “We’ll be there,” and hung up. When he told me we’d been invited to his boss’s house for dinner, I just turned and walked into the bathroom.
He gave me an hour to soak, then tapped on the door. “They have eggnog,” he said. “And it’s warmed up to minus forty.”
I sniffled a bit, dried off and opened the door. “Okay. Why not?”
We dressed in our Christmas best and arrived at the house just in time to see a dog sled scrape to a stop. Tim’s boss, Jerry, waved us over. “The Yukon version of a sleigh ride,” he said. “Hop in.”
Tim and I crawled under the down blanket and I let him wrap his arms around me as the sled jerked forward. The dogs trotted easily and the sled slid with a sighing ssshhh over the snow-packed ground. Jerry gee-ed and haw-ed and within minutes we were on the river. It seemed like we were floating now, whooshing around ice sculptures heaved up by the force of water and carved by wind. I rested my head on Tim’s chest and watched the reflection of a rising moon glint on nature’s statuary. By the time we got back to the house I was breathless with the thrill of the short ride.
Inside, Jerry’s wife, Sonya, handed me a hot spiced apple cider and, as we joined several others in the living room, I realized I almost had what you could call the Christmas spirit. The smell of roasting turkey helped. Sonya had decorated with impeccable taste, but my heart sank a little when I saw there was no Christmas tree. There was a rather odd shape draped in a sheet in one corner, but everyone seemed to ignore it, so I didn’t ask. I even sang along with the others as someone led the carols accompanied by some light finger-picking on guitar.
The meal was wonderful, the laughter and constant chatter enough to bring the spirit of the season into full bloom. But I was not prepared for what happened when Jerry tapped his glass and told us all to follow him back into the living room.
Sonya was behind me as we went. She leaned forward and whispered. “This is always the best moment.”
I followed the group and stood on tiptoe to see what the big secret was. I couldn’t see anything remarkable. In fact, all I could see, as everyone formed a semi-circle, was that we’d been led to the corner with the strange shape draped in a sheet. I held my breath.
Jerry turned and Sonya excused herself through the crowd to hand him a book.
“This has become a tradition for us ever since we moved north,” Jerry explained. “We gather our friends, feed them, entertain them, and then we read a bit.” He flipped the book open and adjusted his glasses. This is the book of Luke, chapter two, verses one through twenty. “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree …”.”
As the story unfolded, I watched the faces around me. Some were intent, some looked bored, but there wasn’t a sound in the room – just the words of an ancient story told with simplicity and grace. It thrilled me to know the story was true. Tim stepped to my side as it came to an end.
Jerry closed the Bible, looked around at everyone and smiled. “Now we unveil the tree.”
Sonya slipped through the crowd again and the lights went out. I heard the soft sound of the sheet falling to the floor. Then the room burst into white light. Before us stood, not a decorated Christmas tree, but a spindly birch. Thin branches reached up toward the ceiling. Each branch sprouted groups of bright green leaves. The leaves glowed with the twinkling of tiny white lights.
I stopped breathing and started crying at the same time. The sight filled my eyes with a color they’d been hungering to see and filled my soul with a light that made me forget about myself. I reached for Tim’s hand.
“We don’t like to cut down an evergreen for the sake of tradition,” Jerry said quietly. “So we grow one.” He waved toward the birch. “It seems to suit the spirit of Christmas, the Spirit that teaches that the birth of Christ was a point of new beginnings.”
Sonya stepped to her husband’s side. “Jesus was an ordinary man, nothing special to look at, the scriptures tell us, like this little birch, but he was also the Son of God and he brought new life and light to a dark world.”
Jerry’s eyes gleamed in the reflection from the tree. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
The words echoed from all the lips in the room, including mine.
Hello everyone. As many of you know I had some problems with my Mailchimp newsletter. I will now be sending Words to Take Us Home from SubStack. Just click that link to get to the landing page. There is a paid option, if you would like to support my writing/speaking/teaching ministry, but no pressure! Just choose the free option if you prefer.
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“We and the world, my children, will always be at war. Retreat is impossible. Arm yourselves.” Leif Enger, Peace Like a River
I was born into a world at war. No one told me. No one around me seemed to know.
But it didn’t take long for me to understand that it was so, and I joined in with enthusiasm. At times it seemed as though it was all a game. I was at war with my brother, three years my senior, continually. It was a physical war that left bruises on us both. That made my grandmother cry. That bewildered me and made me feel an unwelcome thing – guilt.
I was at war with my sister too, though it was a much different kind. It was not the knock-down, fist in the gut kind of war with her. She, the first born, warred with steely looks and sighs that said I was merely a nuisance, barely worthy of a mention. But under the fake indifference was a seething anger, because she believed I was the cherished one. She, so much my elder, had to be responsible and take consequences while I “got off scot-free” too many times.
The only sibling I did not seem to be at war with was my other brother, the second born. He waged his war on other fields, a war of constant pressure to raise himself to an unattainable standard. I watched and listened and secretly cheered him on.
I was the brunt of another’s war, often, and to my great frustration. His name was Bruce and he lived two doors down on our street. He was the only son of a brutal man who beat him with a belt. Bruce raged against everything and everyone. I was an easy target, being much smaller, and a girl. My brothers didn’t provide any protection, the one being too weak, the other being too old to notice.
So I was left as a lone sentinel, without a weapon, to try and guard the fortress of my well-being. I was knocked down a lot, but occasionally I won, in a manner of speaking, by discovering that if I could draw attention to the damage Bruce caused me, he’d get a beating far worse than any I could give him. His father became my secret, fearsome ally.
I waged war in forts built of cardboard and rock. I waged war in gardens owned by neighbours and on the school grounds in games of chance and learned skill. I was only about seven or eight years old when I learned that the games could be deadly.
Her name was Stephanie. She was very blonde and very blue-eyed and my mother said that was the problem. “It seems to strike the little blonde, blue-eyed angels,” she said when she told me Stephanie was dying. That day I learned a new word in the vocabulary of the war – leukemia. I remember staring at Stephanie on a swing in the playground the day after I learned that children could die. She was laughing as she pumped higher and higher. I remember hearing rumours of her funeral later and ever since I have turned away from empty swings hanging still in a playground.
Three years later the deadly seriousness of the war struck again. My grandmother disappeared.
I knew she had been waging war for a long time. She argued with my mother daily, in bitter words that made no sense but felt like stones being pelted in my direction. I felt the hatred in her for my father and knew the bile she poured out on my brother came from that same place.
I knew she didn’t like most people, especially the “gypsies,” the dark-eyed children who came to ask if I could play. They weren’t gypsies, but Italians, but to my Grandmother, they were ‘other’ and therefore suspect. I remember a day when a boy I secretly liked came with his little sister and asked if they could use our bathroom. My grandmother’s nose wrinkled and her lips clamped tight and she closed the door without answering. I felt that unwelcome guilt again, and could not look into that boy’s dark eyes at school the next day.
But Grandma made good cookies and let me knead the margarine bag until the red button bled, and made peanut butter toast for breakfast, with tea she sipped first to make sure it wasn’t too hot. When I sneaked into her room late at night, she would get out a large tin box full of buttons and let me sew them together or let me leaf through magazines or watch her small television, until I fell asleep. She must have carried me into my own room each night, because I always woke up there.
And she told me stories, sometimes about the war and the bombs that fell in England, the place where she was born, and the way men are. “Like animals,” she said. “Gorillas. You can’t trust a gorilla.” She told me about working, at the age of eleven, as a maid in a big house near Buckingham Palace, how the liquor bottles were marked so the maids couldn’t drink from them and how they all would rush to the balconies and wave their dusters as the King and Queen rode out in their carriage. She said looking at the Queen’s daughter was like looking in a mirror and she always wondered why she was the maid and the other child a princess.
She disappeared in the fall, on a day that smelled of snow. They found her jacket then, but not her body, until the spring. She had jumped into the tail race that flooded the locks for the huge freighters that passed from Lake Huron into Lake Superior. I remembered she had talked about drowning, said it was a pleasant way to die. When the police came with her jacket, I listened from the stairs high above and knew that a battle had been lost. My father identified her body, but I heard him say it was hard to recognize her. She had been in the water for a long time. My mother didn’t cry until the day of the funeral. I was deemed too young to attend it. I wondered what they had done, what they had said, if they felt guilty about being relieved of her. As I did.
That’s when I armed myself with numbness. I learned a war could be silent, a necessity now that the source of conflict was gone from our home. Don’t do anything to cause it to come back again. Keep the peace at all costs, even if you have to lie. Those were the unwritten rules. I became very good at keeping them. Too good. I spoke little. I made friends only if it was to my benefit.
It was many years later when that curse was broken, and my personal war came to an end. Death had been all around me and at last I sought a way out, a way to know the depth of peace that can only come from one source. I at last acknowledged the shape of the hole in the core of my being that groaned to be filled. It was the shape of a man, a God-man whose name is Jesus.
When He came to me, He lifted my head and opened my eyes and the world became beautiful again, shimmering with an innocence I had thought long gone, long defiled. It beamed from the face of an infant. The world shone with colours I had not noticed, rang with songs I did not know I knew. Though the war still raged around me from every quarter, I now stood protected, armed with truth, able to recognize the lies hissing in my ears, able to rebuff them, able to smile and mean it, able to love with a genuine love that flowed through me but was not of my own instigating. And though the mystery of it all is too deep to understand, when I acknowledge my weakness, I am not beaten down, but comforted, because I believe there is One who fights the battles for me.
And He never loses.
My only sorrow now comes from knowing some I love have not yet recognized their need nor looked into His face and said, “yes.” But even in that sorrow I am not left alone.
Yes, the war rages. But now I am armed.
****
This piece was recently the first place winner in the Personal Essay category in InScribe’s Fall Contest
Have you ever been on a pilgrimage? Dictionary.com defines it as “a journey, especially a long one, made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion.”
The closest I’ve come to going on a pilgrimage was the trip my husband and I took to Israel some years ago. It was a time of soaking up the word of God while being in the very places where the events of the Bible happened. It was a stirring time during which I experienced several moments of ‘epiphany’ and insight.
I remember one day in particular. I was alone, having had to stay behind with an elderly woman in our group who had taken a bad fall. While she rested in her room, I took a walk along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and stopped for a while to read my Bible. I landed on the calling of James and John in Matthew 4. When I finished and looked up, the sun was pouring through the clouds, striking the lake with a glorious stream of light and I was struck by the sudden realization that the very words I’d been reading had occurred in that place. And the words took on a deeper meaning, a more clear reality.
Going on a pilgrimage is a very old concept, one that began centuries ago. Some trace it back as far as Abraham, who was charged by God to leave his home and travel to a far country. It is believed Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land began as early as the 4th century A.D.
True pilgrimage is not just about travelling to a far-away place. I like what Brian Morykon, Director of Communications at the Renovaré Institute, said about it. “It’s a journey undertaken with a humble heart and with an openness to be transformed. The pilgrim isn’t trying to get somewhere as fast as possible. She wants to become someone along the way. She’s willing to linger, to reflect, to slow down.”
That is exactly what I hoped for those who would read Abundant Rain, my collection of devotionals for writers of faith. I chose Deuteronomy 32:2 as the theme of the book: “Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.” It has become my prayer for all my work, and I hoped it would be so for readers of Abundant Rain, that their writing would flow out to their readers with refreshment and enlightenment that would cause many epiphanies.
Although a pilgrimage is and should be a deeply individual thing, it is usually undertaken with others, and for good reason. The Christian walk is not a solitary affair. It is meant to occur in community.
After a time of prayer one day, I began to ponder the idea that writing is not done in isolation either, as many might suggest. Writing is a communal effort toward wholeness, both for the writer and all those who assist her, and for the reader as she takes in the words and then puts hands and feet to them in the world around her. So I launched the first Abundant Rain Pilgrimage, that I might share in a pilgrimage of words that bring epiphanies, with others.
That first group was small but mighty, committed to the process and the goal of “becoming someone along the way,” someone refreshed and rejuvenated by drawing closer to Christ.
I’m excited to launch a second pilgrimage in the days ahead, using Volume 2 of Abundant Rain as the catalyst.
As often happens, God has encouraged me along the way. I opened my email the other day to find a message from Malcolm Guite who has written a wonderful book called Word in the Wilderness, which “introduces poems about pilgrimage itself and our life as pilgrimage.”
I leave you with a few words from the poems Malcolm chose –
“At length I go unto the gladsome hill, Where lay my hope, Where lay my heart;”
(The Pilgrimage by George Herbert)
“And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage … My soul will be a-dry before; But after, it will thirst no more.”
(The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage by Walter Raleigh)
And some words from Malcolm’s poem, First Steps, Brancaster:
“This is the day to leave the dark behind you Take the adventure, step beyond the hearth Shake off at last the shackles that confined you, and find the courage for the forward path.”
And finally, scripture:
“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.”
(Psalm 84:5)
Here are the links you’ll need to participate in the upcoming pilgrimage for writers of faith, beginning July 3rd at 7:00 pm MST:
During the pilgrimage, participants will read and write using Marcia’s book, Abundant Rain: A Devotional Journal for Writers of Faith, vol 2 (revised). Check it out here:
This time of year makes me a bit jittery. It’s that time when people ask, “Do you garden?” I take that question personally. I guess it’s a hold-over from my Yukon days, but I always have the feeling the person is really asking, “What are you good for, anyway?” The question always makes me squirm because I’m not good at it. I inherited my mother’s black thumb. I’m death to fruits and vegetables.
Not that I haven’t tried. For twelve Yukon summers I dutifully planted rows of cabbage and broccoli, peas and lettuce. I even built a greenhouse and kept a fire burning in it at night to keep a few tomato plants alive. Once I replanted three times when late frost hit, only to have it all wilt from an early one in August. With a season of twenty-four hour sunlight, the plants that survived grew furiously. So did the weeds. A neighbour once drove by, honked and called out – “tendin’ the weed bed, are ye?”
I wanted to give up, but at the end of each summer, I harvested what had managed to survive. I was thankful there was a grocery store in town. We surely would have starved if we’d had to live on what I could grow.
When we moved to Alberta, I anticipated the “game” would go on, but was delighted that there were so many grocery stores to choose from. When spring arrived, I dutifully got out my spade and tested the ground in the back yard. But, oh, woe is me, it was full of roots! The large old cottonwood in the corner of the yard had spread its thick underground fibers far and wide. My husband took a turn at the spade but could find not a single spot suitable to till. Such a pity.
Having an excuse eased the guilt, but I feared my failure was apparent to the world. When friends asked if I wanted their harvested leftovers I always said yes, with thanks, but had that nagging suspicion they were pitying me. I knew I was a failure. So did they.
Then one day, a friend asked if I’d like some potatoes. Seems she’d planted way too many and they all grew wonderfully (of course!). My family and I spent a morning digging up her potato patch. It was one of those special times – a glorious morning with the smell of earth freshened by rain and the delight of children’s voices in the crisp air. But the most wonderful part was the look on my friend’s face as we loaded the boxes of food into our vehicle.
“I just love being able to do this,” she said. “Thanks for coming out.”
The power of her words hung in the air around me for days as a simple truth sank in. There were things I loved doing that could be a blessing to others. I don’t have to be good at everything. It’s okay to be a failure at gardening. It’s not my gift.
1Peter 4:10 says – “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” My friend did a great job of that the day she invited us to her potato patch. On that day I started admiring the work of people with green thumbs, without feeling guilty. They have that gift. I have others.
“When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” John 19:26
When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2011, the thing that crushed me most was having to tell my children. Knowing they would grieve with me was almost more than I could bear. I wanted to spare them the pain I knew they would suffer. But I was helpless to prevent it.
I suspect it was the same for Jesus, as he suffered the agony of the cross, watching those he loved in anguish below him. Especially his mother.
But he did what he could. He appointed one he knew he could trust to protect and care for her. No doubt he was thinking not just of his mother, but of his friend, John, as well. he knew this “disciple whom he loved” would be blessed in the caring for his mother.
In a way, Jesus’ words might be surprising. Perhaps we would expect him to say something like, “Put your trust in God and you’ll be fine.” Or “Why are you weeping? Where is your faith?”
But Jesus is compassionate. What a beautiful testimony to the character of our Saviour, that even in his agony, he was other-centred.
And he was practical. There’s an old Irish saying – ‘Trust in God but don’t dance in a small boat.’ Jesus knew the world in which he was leaving his mother, a world that was not often kind to women not protected and cared for by a husband or son. So he did what he could to ensure her well-being.
It brings to mind the words written by James, the most practical of the apostles – “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15,16).
Jesus is, as always, the example for us to follow, even in this. We too are to give practical aid where and when we can, with compassion and love, as Christ did, no matter our own circumstances. We too are to be other-centred, for when we do, we exhibit the true nature of Jesus and when that is revealed the world stands in awe. God is glorified.
I saw a beautiful example of this some time ago, at a Christian writers’ conference. I’d been suffering with what is called, ‘frozen shoulder,’ an extremely painful condition, but I had agreed to teach at the conference and felt I could not back out of that commitment. A woman I barely knew approached me just before my workshop began. “You’re in pain, aren’t you?” I was surprised, since I hadn’t told anyone about my condition. I asked her how she knew. She smiled. “I’m quite familiar with pain. I can tell by the way you’re moving. Just wanted to let you know I’m praying for you.” Then she walked away. It wasn’t until later that I learned that woman had a medical condition that gave her pain so severe she was required to wear a morphine patch to manage it.
That left me in awe, that someone, in such agony herself, would recognize my pain and petition the Lord on my behalf. She exhibited the compassion of Christ. God was glorified through her, and I’ve never forgotten it.
Have you ever been on a pilgrimage? Dictionary.com defines it as “a journey, especially a long one, made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion.”
The closest I’ve come to going on a pilgrimage was the trip my husband and I took to Israel some years ago. It was a time of soaking up the word of God while being in the very places where the events of the Bible happened. It was a stirring time during which I experienced several moments of ‘epiphany’ and insight.
I remember one day in particular. I was alone, having had to stay behind with an elderly woman in our group who had taken a bad fall. While she rested in her room, I took a walk along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and stopped for a while to read my Bible. I landed on the calling of James and John in Matthew 4. When I finished and looked up, the sun was pouring through the clouds, striking the lake with a glorious stream of light and I was struck by the sudden realization that the very words I’d been reading had occurred in that place. And the words took on a deeper meaning, a more clear reality.
Going on a pilgrimage is a very old concept, one that began centuries ago. Some trace it back as far as Abraham, who was charged by God to leave his home and travel to a far country. It is believed Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land began as early as the 4th century A.D.
True pilgrimage is not just about travelling to a far-away place. I like what Brian Morykon, Director of Communications at the Renovaré Institute, said about it. “It’s a journey undertaken with a humble heart and with an openness to be transformed. The pilgrim isn’t trying to get somewhere as fast as possible. She wants to become someone along the way. She’s willing to linger, to reflect, to slow down.”
That is exactly what I hoped for those who would read Abundant Rain, my collection of devotionals for writers of faith. I chose Deuteronomy 32:2 as the theme of the book: “Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.” It has become my prayer for all my work, and I hoped it would be so for readers of Abundant Rain, that their writing would flow out to their readers with refreshment and enlightenment that would cause many epiphanies.
Although a pilgrimage is and should be a deeply individual thing, it is usually undertaken with others, and for good reason. The Christian walk is not a solitary affair. It is meant to occur in community.
After a time of prayer one day, I began to ponder the idea that writing is not done in isolation either, as many might suggest. Writing is a communal effort toward wholeness, both for the writer and all those who assist her, and for the reader as she takes in the words and then puts hands and feet to them in the world around her. So I launched the first Abundant Rain Pilgrimage, that I might share in a pilgrimage of words that bring epiphanies, with others.
That first group was small but mighty, committed to the process and the goal of “becoming someone along the way,” someone refreshed and rejuvenated by drawing closer to Christ.
I’m excited to launch a second pilgrimage in the days ahead, using Volume 2 of Abundant Rain as the catalyst.
As often happens, God has encouraged me along the way. I opened my email the other day to find a message from Malcolm Guite who has written a wonderful book called Word in the Wilderness, which “introduces poems about pilgrimage itself and our life as pilgrimage.”
I leave you with a few words from the poems Malcolm chose –
“At length I go unto the gladsome hill, Where lay my hope, Where lay my heart;”
(The Pilgrimage by George Herbert)
“And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage … My soul will be a-dry before; But after, it will thirst no more.”
(The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage by Walter Raleigh)
And some words from Malcolm’s poem, First Steps, Brancaster:
“This is the day to leave the dark behind you Take the adventure, step beyond the hearth Shake off at last the shackles that confined you, and find the courage for the forward path.”
And finally, scripture:
“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.”
A while ago our neighbourhood was turned into a beautiful winter wonderland. The temperature had dropped suddenly and for a while we were shrouded in thick fog. When that cleared, the sun came out and everything sparkled as though it had been painted with a fairy’s brush. The thick frost was dazzling. As I walked Livy that day I remember thinking,
What could be more beautiful?
I love where we live. It’s a quiet neighbourhood full of large trees, crisscrossed with walking paths dotted with boxes of doggie bags at strategic places. On a calm night we can hear the gurgling of the river behind us and the lights from the small town aren’t enough to block out the stars. Deer often wander up from the nearby woods and now and then a moose will jog down the street. I often fall asleep to the sound of coyotes yipping at the moon. Yes, I love it here.
But it’s not where my heart belongs.
My heart belongs in a faraway place that I’ve never seen, a place that, unlike our current home, can never be corrupted or destroyed. Matthew 6:19 & 20 says – “do not lay up for yourselves treasured on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (ESV)
I thank the Lord every day for giving us such a beautiful place to live, but my true home is where my Saviour is, where my Heavenly Father lives. Remembering that truth keeps me from grasping for the eathly things that will fade away, rather than focusing on those things which are eternal.
It began with the arrival of our youngest daughter, Meagan and her energetic Black Lab cross, Pika. Just before they arrived we discovered our Bernedoodle, Livy, had two abscessed teeth and needed close to $2000. worth of dental surgery followed by antibiotics and pain killers. She was not so energetic, which seemed to puzzle Pika, who whined at her. A lot. Also, just before they arrived, I started feeling a strange rumbling in my tummy. Someone had given me an unexpected Christmas present – the stomach flu.
So as my eldest daughter, Kate, arrived with her husband and one-year-old Great Dane, Arturo, I retreated to the bedroom. From there I heard Kate ask her dad for blankets. Was she so cold? I wondered, hoping she wasn’t coming down with a bug too. No, the blankets weren’t for her, but for Arturo. He was afraid of our hardwood floors so blankets were needed so he could join the rest of the tribe. I heard laughter as they coaxed him until he gingerly put only one paw on the bare floor.
By the time our youngest, Laura, arrived, I was spending more time in the bathroom than the bedroom but in between, got to enjoy the squeals of our grandson as Arturo snuffled his neck, then leaped back as the little one reacted. Our granddaughter thought that was hilarious and of course squealed with delight when she saw the many presents under the tree, most of which had her name on them. At only three years old she already recognizes and can write her own name. No flies on that one!
Kate, ever the caregiver, popped into the bedroom now and then to bring me water, an antacid, and ginger ale. I dosed off and on, listening to the girls chatting as they prepared the breakfast quiche and set the table. I sensed the calm as I heard my husband’s voice pray the blessing over all.
Auntie Meg entertained Thea and Spencer-Mark with puzzles and tent-making in the basement while my two sons-in-law chatted about ways to relieve stress. (They both work in the health care profession). I prayed for them before dozing off again, until my husband poked his head in to ask if I wanted to put on a mask and join the family for the traditional unloading of the Christmas stockings, which had, as usual, overflowed into gift bags around the tree. I made a feeble attempt but then thought it wise to save them all the unpleasant memory of me upchucking on the living room floor, or more precisely, on one of the blankets covering it. I slipped away back into the bedroom.
I woke at one point to the smell of gingerbread cookies baking and smiled as I thought of the look that would be on my granddaughter’s face while she helped decorate them.
At some point the turkey was prepared, with all the trimmings, by my three capable girls and that calm moment of prayer helped me dose off again. I woke a few times to hear laughter and the pitter-patter of those little feet joined by the scrabble of the dog’s nails on the floor. All except Arturo’s, I assumed.
Eventually the day came to a close. I felt more than a little sorry for myself as I heard the commotion of gathering kids, dogs and sundries, followed by the good-byes and ‘I love you’s’ and the thump of the doors closing.
The next morning I felt well enough to emerge, slowly, to sip a cup of tea, slowly, and was surprised to see all the stockings and gift bags still full under the tree. “They all wanted to wait for you.” My DH explained they all planned to return later that morning. But by the time they did, I was banished again to the bedroom. Kate and her hubby decided to head out on their two hour drive, hearing of bad weather on the way, and Laura and family decided to stay put in the city since the little guy seemed a bit out of sorts and they wondered if he was coming down with the bug. Turned out they were right, so we promised to bring the presents to them later in the week, when everyone was feeling better.
Meg stayed for a couple more days, during which she continued to do most of the cooking and helped her dad replace a problematic kitchen faucet. Then it was her turn to say good-bye with air-hugs for me and a big real one for her dad.
The tea and toast stayed down that morning, so I decided to risk a turkey sandwich on one of my son-in-law’s wonderful homemade buns. It tasted great, though I was still a bit sad that I’d missed the real meal.
“There’s lots of left-overs,” my DH said, obviously reading my mind. I managed a smile and a short, though heart-felt prayer of thanks for him and the rest of my ‘tribe,’ including the four-legged variety.
And perhaps it was the Lord who pointed out a silver lining as I went to bed that night. This is the only Christmas in memory when I did not gain a few unwanted pounds.
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Blessings to you all in 2023! May it be full of precious moments with your ‘tribe.’
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