Pictures, because people worry about me

Hello, Friends and Family, especially those at a distance.  

We have just gotten back to Minnesota.  Two weekends ago was our last foreseeable journey to the West Coast, at least for now.  Seth is successfully ordained.  He will be installed this Sunday.  This week is Thanksgiving (and I am cooking a whole turkey by myself for the first time). Advent is coming around the corner.  And snow is falling as we speak.  The all-knowing weather people anticipate 6 to 12 inches.   

It's going to be a fun week.  

Now, lest my west coast friends and family worry, none of our neighbors seem to be worried about our coming snowstorm, all though there are allowances being made for scheduled events.  "Weather permitting" has now entered the general vocabulary, and it sounds like it will stay there until spring.  We just went to Costco this past Saturday, so our cupboards are full.  As long as the pipes don't freeze, we should be fine.  

This is the living room, complete with new couch.  

Can you think of a more cozy way to watch snow falling?  

Seriously, I love watching falling snow.  Even in February, when the snow on the ground looks like chunks of funky oreos, and everyone just wants to see grass, I love to watch snow fall.  I just don't like it to stick at that point.  And when watching it from inside a cozy house with a big bay window, how can I go wrong?   The church is across the street, and we don't have to fly anywhere, or be delayed in an airport for 5 extra hours or drive all the way across the state of Minnesota until July at least.  So we're good.  No worries.  

The most popular question I got when we were back west was, "I bet you're going to be glad when this is done, aren't you?"  The answer to that is yes.  There are good reasons for all the processes of ordination.  The church needs to know that her ministers take their callings seriously and are prepared to execute that calling.  All well and good.  Still, we are glad the process is over:  4 years of classes, two internships, three episodes of moving house. two fouled up flights, and a lot of prayer later, we are glad to have a place to put down some roots.  My mom told me, "You look tired, Jenn.  It's time for you to start building your home." 

The second most popular question was, "You have a house, right?" to which I assured everybody that yes, we have a house and promised to post pictures.  It's a parsonage.  The church remodeled it after their last pastor left, and so we walked in to 

a big open floor plan, 

new cabinets

and vinyl that looks remarkably like wood. 

 As you can see, we already have our wall hangings up and books stowed.  In fact, for the first time in several years, we have unpacked all of our books and actually made room for them.  It helps that Seth has an office now to hold all his books from seminary.  That cleared up a bookshelf and a half all in itself.

In addition to an office, we have also gained the following:

 1. a spare room, which we have never had before.  In previous houses, our guests have had to use a) a futon in the Livingroom, b) a futon in the basement/piano desk room, c) a mattress in the tv room (because the futon finally broke), and d) an actual bed in the basement.  Now if you come to visit we can put you on an actual bed in an actual room with a closet, a window, and a door, and it's right across from the bathroom.   I don't think we've ever had all of those things in one place at once before.

 2.  more than one bathroom. In the seven dwellings that Seth and I have had since we got married, we have twice had more than one toilet available to us and our guests. Now we have three to offer, 

one in the main living quarters

 

one by the back door, as is tradition in country houses,

and one downstairs near the two extra bedrooms.  

 This has been an adjustment for our family.  We have had to get used to the fact that we have another option if someone else has gotten to the main bathroom ahead of us.

3.  a lovely deck which is just aching  for a grill and patio set.  We have the grill.  Seth bought it yesterday and brought it home in a blizzard.  The patio set will wait.

 4. and an attached garage.  But I'm not going to post pictures of that.  It's a garage.

The basement is not completely set up yet.  It is still ridden with cardboard and half-assembled furniture.  There's nothing on the walls.  So not pictures of that either.  All in good time.  

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.  Stay warm and dry and remember how much you have been blessed in the past year.  

Yearning . . . a healthy Christian thing?

I was reading the Lady Julian this week, where she discusses prayer in Ch. 41-43, and she says,

Prayer is a right understanding of that fullness of joy that is to come, along with true yearning and certain trust. In prayer, the lacking of our bliss (that we are naturally appointed to) naturally makes us to yearn; true understanding and love (with sweet remembrance of our Savior) graciously make us trust.

And thus by nature do we yearn, and by grace do we trust. And in these two actions, our Lord watches us constantly, for it is our duty, and HIs good ness an assign no less to us.

Let me break that down for you. The "fullness of joy that is to come" is being enfolded into God's joy, "to be one-ed to and like our Lord in everything" (42). We had this joy in the very beginning when the first people walked and talked with God. That's what she means by "naturally appointed to." This is what we were created for, but we don't have it anymore. We are "lacking" something, and we want it back. We really want it back. That's what she means by yearning.

The definition of yearning, according to Bing, is to "have an intense feeling of longing for something, typically something that one has lost or been separated from." Yearning is a craving, an unfulfilled passion, a deep tingling desire that can actually take your breath away.

And I wondered, do I yearn for God? Do I ache to be one with him.

I know what yearning is. I feel that mildly every spring when I walk past the garden section of the home improvement stores because there are all kinds of plants that I would love to buy but that I'm not really prepared to grow.

But more seriously, as a Navy wife, I lived with yearning every time Seth went out to sea. At 4 pm, every day he was gone, I would start listening for an engine in the drive way, and I would jump if a neighbor closed a car door, even though I knew that Seth wasn't coming home that night. I would stay awake until 2 in the morning because our empty bed reminded me that he was gone. That's yearning.

Yearning is a physical feeling. It catches you in the chest and the throat, and, if you be married, in other parts of the body too. Yearning is anguish, like being stretched, like having the skin of your soul lifted off of your heart and pulled in the direction of the thing you long for. "Leaning and harkening" is the phrase that John Donne used in "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning." Yeah, lots of leaning and harkening and listening and hoping and waiting. Those are not fond memories. Poetic, perhaps, but not pleasant.

But do I yearn for God? Julian says it is natural to us to yearn to be closer to God. Moreover, she says it is our duty.

This is the God-shaped hole but on a higher level. This isn't just a hole in one's soul. Julian isn't describing a need to be filled but a need to be joined.

I like to think that I hunger and thirst for righteousness, but I don't often sit and yearn for God. At least, I don't pine for him the way I used to pine for my husband. When I'm trying to get sin out of my life, I'm not usually working with the thought that it separates me from God. More present in my mind is the idea that sin hurts me or hurts my neighbor (And, hey, whoever does not love human beings, whom we can see, can't say that he or she loves God, whom we cannot see.) and makes God unhappy.

We are accustomed to seeing God as a Father, as a King, as a Shepherd. How often do we think of Him as a Lover/Husband? We know that God is always with us. How often do we think about how much closer we will be? The psalmist longed to see God's face. I can tell you, there were days when I longed to see Seth's face.

 I think I need to indulge more in longing for my Heavenly Husband.

Peace in Confusion

Grant Us Thy Peace

O Lord, my God,

grant us Thy peace; 

already, indeed, 

Thou hath made us rich

in all things!

Give us that peace of being at rest, 

that Sabbath peace, 

the peace which knows no end. 

Amen. 

St. Augustine

Peace.  The illusive quest of 21st Century life.  I have had several reminders this past week that I am not particularly at peace.  I am impatient, discontented, and edgy.  A bit lonely too.  Only by the grace of God have I not devolved completely into a Mrs. Bennet.

  People keep asking us how we are settling in. The physical answer is that the whole main floor of our house is ready for action.  The beds are assembled.  The fruit baskets are hung.  The dining room table has been delivered. The keyboard and dulcimer have their own little corner of the the livingroom underneath Seth's great big world map.  Judi's painting is hung over the kitchen table.  Physically, we are settling well.   

See?  All unpacked.  

But the word settle implies a resting.  Silt settles into the calm, slower moving part of the river.  Dust settles when the wind dies.  I am not settled yet.  There is a cognitive dissonance about moving here that I hadn't reckoned on, and I didn't really notice it until all the physical things were taken care of.  It makes settling hard.  

Cognitive dissonance is one of the first terms I learned as a young education student around the turn of the century (It was 1999.  I can say that.).  We all build patterns of behavior, expectations in our minds, and then when we encounter something new, we have to demolish part of our pattern and work the new habit or expectation in.   There are "should be's" in our brains, and when those should bes no longer fit the world in front of us, we feel uncomfortable.  We feel helpless.  We feel unprepared.  That's cognitive dissonance.  Look up Piaget.  

Like most first born perfectionists, I like to imagine that I have the information I need to live a productive, efficient, effective life.  Cognitive dissonance is my least favorite state of mind.  Living in a new community that by necessity does things much differently than any community I've lived in before, leaves me integrating a lot of new information into my current patterns (called schema by Piaget).  My current needs, like finding an orthodontist for my daughter, are running into my preconceived ideas, like there ought to be one within thirty minute's drive.  The same could be said for the kind of grocery prices that I'm used to.  An hour away at least.  When will the snow fly? Today, apparently. Cognitive dissonance!  Cognitive dissonance!

The locals recognize and sympathize with these difficulties.  They are full of advice, invitations, and the occasional offer to drive.  They also water all their perennials well before the first frost of November and schedule eating fresh vegetables because, you know, good, cheap produce is an hour away.  They know the game, and they appreciate that the game takes some time to get used to.  So I have no pressure;  I'm just uncomfortable.  

In the middle of all this emotional static, I came across a passage in The Complete Julian that really struck me:

To me was shown no more cruel hell than sin, for a natural soul hates no hell except sin, and all is good except sin, and nothing is evil except sin.  (Revelation 40, emphasis mine)

"Nothing is evil except sin."  Until I read that, I would have classified my discomfort as evil.  We have a habit, I think, of categorizing uncomfortable things as bad.  Speaking solely for myself, I know that I have an inner three-year-old who pitches a fit in the back of my mind when life doesn't feel quite stable.  "Aaaah, something is wrong. This isn't fair. This world is evil and out to get me.  I shouldn't have to go through this. This should be easier."   But if sin is the only thing that is evil, then my growing pains are not evil.

The corollary, "all is good except sin," is more shocking when you think about it.  I mean, it certainly applies to me.  Cognitive dissonance means that I am growing and learning. The roots and branches of my conscious mind (and unconscious mind, I'm sure) are expanding and broadening.  This is a good thing, and when I have a moment of perspective, I can see it that way.  That's one of the reasons I write: moments of perspective.

However, a lot of pains we can't call good without divine perspective.   A friend of mine is starting her second round of chemo for her third round of aggressive breast cancer.  Members of our congregation just lost  the family farmhouse to a fire.  One can't call those things good.  Up the ante and look at all the pains in the world that are caused by sin, by evil -- abuse, extortion, war, environmental destruction, murder -- and one's head whirls.   Julian knew plenty about pain and uncertainty living in the 1300s with plague and uprising and oppression, yet she could call everything good, except sin.  How did she do that?

Well, she had a divine perspective.  She understood that God wants nothing more than to have us close to Him.  Therefore, anything that pushes us closer to God is a good thing, and anything that pulls us away is evil.  And I also get the feeling that she expected a certain amount of pain in her life. She had already built that schema in her brain, so discomfort didn't cause her any cognitive dissonance.