Up the Sunbeam

--   " Every idea of Him we form, He must in mercy shatter.  The most blessed result of prayer would be to rise thinking ' But I never knew before.  I never dreamed . . .'"   C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, Letter XV      Some quotes, like this one from one of the world's greatest storytellers, C. S. Lewis, grab your attention, won't let go, and yet remain a mystery. I have found myself drawn to this one, so much so that without trying to memorize it, the words stay in my heart and ring softly once in awhile like a breeze-kissed wind chime when I think I get just the faintest  glimmer of it. In the span of a mere 250 pages of a book I've been meaning to read and finally got around to, the mystery is solved, and gone is the pride that kept it hidden from me. I think I really thought I knew God . . . at least well enough to have a pretty fixed picture of Him. I don't mean I thought I comprehended all of Him, clearly that...

-- WWJD?   Widely recognized initials symbolizing the question "What would Jesus do?" Many believers wear it on bracelets, carry it on Bible covers, put it on their key chains, anyplace that will frequently remind them to check their actions against what they think Jesus might do. It's a good question to ask ourselves. Maybe there's another question.  Maybe there's more to it than knowing how Jesus might behave in a given situation.  Maybe that's the end and maybe there's a beginning I need to find first. Maybe it's less about what Jesus would do and more about who Jesus IS. Jesus, the great I Am who confined Himself to helpless infant. Jesus, the King of kings breathing sawdust as a carpenter. Jesus, the Christ wrapped in the frailty of human flesh. Jesus, the Creator of all becoming the servant of all. Jesus, the very Son of God choosing to call Himself the Son of Man. Jesus, the sinless God-man crushed beneath the weight of all humanity's ...

-- I wish I had asked her name. I was in a bit of a hurry, and really needed to find a parking space close to the front entrance of our Costco store so I could get in and out quickly. I spied a family of 4 and an elderly woman, each pushing their carts heading toward cars in the first bank of spaces, so I pulled into position to snag the first space available. The elderly woman was closest to me and I watched as she moved item after item from her cart to the trunk of her car. She was small and slender, but there was nothing slight about her. She moved easily and efficiently, not even appearing to feel a strain when she picked up a box of assorted items out of the big basket. Finally everything was loaded into her car but one green box of Pale Ale she had put on the bottom of the cart. She looked around like she might like a little help with what was surely the heaviest item especially since it would need to be lifted from down so low. With what appeared to be perfect timing, a...

-- Three days after God called LIGHT out of nothing into the blank space of His new universe, He gathered a handful of it up and rolled it into a fiery, glowing orb and set earth whirling around it. From that day to this one, there has never failed to come a sunrise. We set our lives in whirling motion of our own every day, based consciously or unconsciously, on our confidence that another sunrise will come tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that . . . Our faith in the next sunrise is not something we have to muster up, or exert effort and break a sweat to produce, or even think about most of the time. We have a good long track record to base our faith upon, we've never known the sun to sleep in or call in sick or go on vacation, so we trust that it will continue to be its faithful sunny self for as many bright tomorrows as God allows. When it is so easy to have faith in something as finite and beyond our control as the sunrise, I wonder why we have such cha...

-- The lush, grassy expanse was fragrant and inviting under the not-too-hot August sunshine, just begging for bare feet to run and jump and play there. Games of catch with balls of various shapes and sizes ensued, played by people of even more varied shapes and sizes. After a huge family dinner to celebrate my mother-in-love's 70th birthday, everyone decided to try out the new volleyball net brought along to the resort where we were celebrating. Oh the games people play, and the joy they get from playing them! . . . at least some of them do . . . although I have rarely been one of them. From as early as I can remember I have loved to watch  sports of all kinds.  Growing up the delighted daughter of a football and basketball coach, sports were as much a fixture in our everyday lives as the couch in our living room or the kitchen sink. They tell me I went to my first basketball game when I was two months old and by the time I started school I had spent untold happy ...