All Else Fades

I ask my girls to draw the nativity to make ornaments for the tree. Virginia  simply draws a manger and a babe, feels that’s enough to get the point across, then moves on to begin her next picture.

I watch Mary Helen as she carefully draws the manger, then places a frowning baby in it and colors the manger orange.  She picks up a pencil, presses down hard, and draws a tiny Mary and Joseph and three itty bitty wisemen. The babe in the manger seems huge, way larger than the miniature people she has drawn. 

She has never drawn a nativity like this, and we draw one every year.  I wonder why the people are so small, out of perspective, it seems to me.  But then I see what God is showing me, his perspective through hers.   The Christ Child in color, the people fading away because of the bright orange she has colored the huge manger. She colored the one that is color, the one that is life, the one that gives us both.

Shouldn’t he be what stands out? Shouldn’t all else fade away?

I think of Mary and Joseph and the wisemen afar bringing gifts.  Wisemen afar… their gifts just part of a plan.  Mary, the carrier of the Christ child.  Joseph, the human father who provided for him.  They were part of the story, but they were not the story. He was the story, the Word who became flesh. Why not draw the Christ Child larger?

Father, do I focus more on my part of the story, on what I can do for you,  than on what you did for me?  Do I focus more on what I can give,  the ways I can carry Christ, than on Christ himself?  I am a Mary, a carrier of Christ, but would I draw myself larger than you, Jesus?  Make my part of your story bigger than your love, bigger than your heart lying in a manger.   

I ask Mary Helen why baby Jesus is frowning, and she says, “All babies cry when they are born.”  And she reminds me that He was flesh, fully God and fully human, reminds me that he cried, and hungered, and had human needs. Reminds me that he was cold and had to be swaddled when God clothed himself with human flesh?  Do I really understand what that means for me?  Do I really know the love that came down? Am I so focused on my part of the story that I forget about his love, forget that he swaddles me with it,  like the tissue wrapped around the clothespin Jesus in the manger Katie made at school.

  
The girls reenact the manger scene  in a game of charades by the fire. They turn the lights down low and assume their roles.   My youngest Katie is Jesus.  The older two roll out a blanket and tell her to lie down.  They swaddle her and attempt her to hold her in their arms.  But she kicks her arms and legs, resists the swaddling in all her busyness and says, "I don't need any covers,"  and they laugh and call her the run away Jesus.   But I know why she flails and resists the swaddling, because there is something in my heart  that resists his love, that resists the intimacy, is scared somehow it will restrain.   But the swaddling is what calms a baby, God whispers, is what makes them know they are safe, is what lets the world know they are loved.  

A baby unswaddled was a baby abandoned in Jesus’s day.  So Father, you sent Mary to swaddle your son, to care for the Christ child until it was time for him to be unswaddled, undressed, and forsaken so that I could be swaddled in you, clothed with your garments of salvation and your righteousness.   So that I could be cradled in your arms like the hay and the wood and the arms that cradled Jesus. 


So maybe Christmas is not about whether we give or get but about whether our hearts are swaddled in you.   Whether we know the love that came down as flesh, whether we see the Christ Child as ALL so that all else fades away.  Whether we know that Jesus is the color and joy of our life, the love that propels us to give his away.  And maybe it’s not about how much we give or keep or spend or not spend, but about whether your love propels it all.

Father, let us give because you gave your love to us, because you become greater and we become less.  We are part of your story, but we are not your story.  Jesus is the story, the beginning and the end.  Let us know his love that came down and clothed us, and let that love propel us to clothe others with the love of Christ this Christmas and always...In Jesus’ Name.  Amen

Salt on Shackles

6 x 6Matthew 5:13 You are the salt of the earth.  But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men.  

I stroll down the streets of Charleston, passing hundreds of beautifully preserved homes, most of them with workmen on porches. Homeowners preserving, constantly fighting decay. Paint chipping, wood rotting, iron and metal rusting from the warm salt air. The word "salt" keeps running through my mind, and I wonder how salt can preserve and tenderize meat, yet rust through the iron and metal adorning these homes. I think of the immense cost in preserving these historic homes, and I am reminded that there is cost in being salt, in being a preserver of good, of the things of God.


I think of my sister who is in college, spending the next four years here, and I am reminded she will pay a price for being salt. I think of how she is living her life, giving so much of her time to Young Life, preserving the hearts of teenagers, adding flavor at a crucial point in their lives. Giving back what she has been given. Preserving her own heart in the process.

As I continue walking, I pass churches on street corners, and pray they are preserving the hearts of their people the way they have preserved the outside of their building. I pass a building where an Episcopal Church once gathered, where God's people once sat in pews and worshipped. I glance at the sign above the beautiful stained glass windows that reads "Bar and Grill", and I ask myself, "Did someone let go? Did someone stop preserving? Did someone decide not to be salt?"

I walk toward the white porch of an antebellum home with an iron table and chairs chained to the porch railing. I wonder who stole the first one. I wonder what that did to the heart of the homeowner, to the heart of the thief. The homeowner is determined not to let go, not to let the thief deprive him of his right to sit on his porch, to enjoy his life. He chains, shackles to his porch what is rightfully his. Preserving his way of life. Preserving his freedom.

I stroll into a knitting shop tucked away on a corner. My eyes feast on baskets of colorful yarn and beautifully knitted scarves and hats. Women are gathered in a cozy room, their hands and needles moving quickly and quietly as they form rows of stitches. Hands knitting while knitting hearts together. One woman is knitting teddy bears for children with AIDS in Afghanistan, another a shawl for her granddaughter, another a shawl for her home. Hands knitting. Hands preserving the heart of an AIDS stricken child. Hands preserving the heart of a granddaughter. Hands preserving the heart of a knitting woman through the warmth of a shawl and the gathering of women. Hands pouring salt with their gifts and talents.

I walk toward a building with a large sign that reads, "Preservation Society", and I think of the church. Is that what we are called to be, Lord? A preservation society, preservers of the hearts of your people, so that we can be the flavor of Christ, so that the world can taste of you.

I pass by the Gullah women weaving baskets at the old slave market, a gift to the slaves, a place for them to sell goods after they gained their freedom. And I am reminded that there is another slave market a few blocks away, where the hands and feet of men were once shackled and sold. An auction block for men.

I wonder what those shackles did to the hearts of those who wore them and to the hearts of those who placed them on. And I am reminded that salt stood up to those who shackled. Salt stood up to those who could not see that the freedom they were stealing was also stealing their own. Salt preserved the hearts of those enslaved and those who would have been, prevented the decay of hearts, the heart of the shackled and the shackler.

I walk by an art gallery where a sign reads, "Women in Art; Breaking Down Barriers." I am intrigued by the title, and I think of this woman in art, and I wonder will my art, my life, my love, break down barriers to the gospel. Will I be salt that rusts through metal, that breaks down shackles, that sets God's people free?  Will I be salt that preserves the good in this generation, making hearts more tender to receive the gospel? Will my words, my actions, my thoughts, be as salty as my paint and my ink?

"You are the salt of the earth," I hear him whisper over and over. Be salt on shackles that threaten to steal freedom from your children, from your husband, from your loved ones, from your generation and the next.

And know there are times I will call you to shackle. Like the homeowner, who chained his furniture to his porch, you must chain to your heart the things of Me, my word, my truths, my ways. You must hold onto, shackle to your heart what I have freely given you, what is rightfully yours.

Rusting through shackles and shackling what is good all at the same time. Rusting and preserving, while adding flavor to a world that views the Christian life as colorless and bland. You must allow those in your influence to taste of me, to know the flavor of Christ, to feel your love acting as salt on shackles, to feel my love, the only love that truly rusts through and preserves all at the same time.

And as I pour you out, your own heart will be preserved in the process, not sheltered from hardship or pain, but preserved. My salt will rust your own shackles as you allow me to use you for my purposes, for a saltier life.

So this is how we guard our hearts, Father, not by building walls around them, but by letting you pour us out to a broken and hurting world? Father, would you equip me to be salt on shackles? Would you rust, peel away from my heart the things that are not of you, the unloving ways that only tighten shackles. The freedom I steal from others that also steals my own and causes me to lose sight of the truth that I am salt.

I am the salt of the earth. A ruster. A preserver. A bringer of flavor to a bland and decaying earth. An otherwise colorless piece of dust except for the flavor of Christ within me. Pour me out, Lord. Pour me out. Pour me out. Let my art, my writing, my life, my love be nothing but a way for others to taste of you. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Preserver of All Things Good

10 x 10Matthew 5:13 "You are the salt of the earth..."

Salt.. 1. A colorless or white solid chiefly used as a food seasoning and preservative. 2. An element that gives flavor or zest

You are the salt of the earth. Jesus says. A seasoning. A preservative. The flavor of Christ. You are the preserver of all things good, the preventer of moral decay. Salt, a preserver of food that nourishes our bodies. Me, You. Preservers of good things that nourish souls.

What am I called to preserve in this lifetime you have given me? Hearts, I hear. The hearts of my children, the heart of my husband, the hearts of family and friends, my own heart. How do I guard these hearts you have entrusted to me? Remind your children, your husband, yourself who they are and whose they are. Keep truth always before you.

Be proactive, I hear God say. Salt is not passive. Salt is aggressive in its preserving, in its pulling water out of meat so that it will not spoil. It has a job to do, is active in its fight against decay. It draws out those things that will spoil what is good, removes the elements that allow decay to creep in.

Father, let me be active in preserving the things in this world that are good, your Word, your truths, your ways. Is that what these paintings are Lord? Preservers of truth. Salt to my children, your children, a way for them to see that a life in Christ is joy and color and life. A seasoning to go with your word, the good food you have given us. A way to preserve their hearts, instilling truth to keep decay from setting in.

As I paint and write, I see you working, Lord, removing the elements in my own heart that could bring about the decay of your children’s hearts. Control, impatience, my always rushing, my desire for approval… Remove these Lord, that I may better preserve hearts. Make me saltier, Father, that my loved ones would taste of you. I pray that my love, your love, would seep deep down into the meat of their hearts, making them more tender to the truths of the gospel.

Thank you for your patience and your grace in my unsalty moments. Teach me to walk in the truth of who I am, your salt being poured out over the earth, preserving and adding flavor. Keep that truth at the center of my heart like the salt shaker that sits at the center of my table. Keep reminding me of who I am and whose I am. The salt of the earth, chosen salt to be poured out to accomplish your purposes.

I am the salt of the earth. Let me live as though that were true...

In the name of Jesus. Amen