My shoulders betray me.
Those days when I think I have life’s stresses under control – but do not – my shoulders sound a silent alarm: they tighten, knot and ache. Alternate ice and heat help relax them, as does one of my favorite treats, a 25-minute Swedish massage. But I’ve set my face to seek the kind of inner rest that leaves my body relaxed, even when stresses heighten.
Accomplishing this impossible task requires research. It requires looking at people’s shoulders.
Since this pastime could easily get me in trouble, I’ve begun by checking out shoulders of people long dead, seeing what loads they carried and what happened as a result.
Rebekah, for example, carried a water jar on her shoulder. That worked well, literally. As Rebekah faithfully fulfilled her assignment to draw water from the village well, she met a man who introduced her to her future husband.
Samson carried a city gate. While applauding his strength, we must question his sense. A people called the Philistines counted Samson their number one enemy. So what did Samson do? He walked into a Philistine city and spent the night with a prostitute.
When word got out as to Samson’s whereabouts, the Philistines lay in wait for him, planning to kill him at dawn. Judges 16:3 says, “But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.”
Did arrogance, desire or both take Samson into that city – the last place he should have gone? That time, his brawny shoulders saved him. Further emboldened, Samson continued to repeat the pattern until the day it brought his ruin. Ultimately, Samson died when a building full of Philistines came down around his shoulders.
In Israel, the Kohathite family of the Levite tribe carried holy furniture. In Numbers 7, God gave explicit orders: The primary items of worship in the Israelites’ portable tabernacle could not be transported by cart. The Kohathites “were to carry on their shoulders the holy things, for which they were responsible.”
Centuries later, a king named David discovered God still held the Levites responsible to shoulder the holy things. David tried to transport the primary holy item, the ark, by ox cart – and a man died as a result.
Another Israelite tribe shouldered a load they should never have accepted. Issachar’s dad Jacob saw it coming. In Genesis 49:15, Jacob said of Issachar, “When he sees how good is his resting place and how pleasant is his land, he will bend his shoulder to the burden and submit to forced labor.” Too comfortable, too compliant, Issachar sagged under oppression rather than buck the status quo.
So, okay, I don’t want to remove every load from my shoulders. It’s good – in fact, life-giving – for me to carry those things God has assigned me, regardless whether they look like holy items or water jars.
But how easy to fall into the Samson trap: to repeatedly follow desires that ensnare me and to think that, because I’ve managed to shoulder my way out before, I’ll continue to have strength to do so.
How easy to fall into the Issachar trap: to live for years shouldering oppressive burdens, because doing so requires less effort than casting them off.
Ah, yes, my shoulders betray me. They reveal when I’m carrying something beyond what I was designed to carry, something I need to unload.
© 2007, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Growing trees
When we moved to Oklahoma, we told our realtor we wanted a newer house on a lot with trees – not baby trees, mind you; mature trees.
We had lived four years in Indiana. There, our house stood on a treeless site wrested from cornfields. Now, we wanted a house young in age with trees tall in stature.
Our realtor looked at us as an adult might look at a child who’s just said something very innocent and very dumb. She first informed us, then demonstrated: The trees in Oklahoma City suburbs generally happen after the fact. You build a house on a lovely, but bare, lot. As part of the landscaping, you add baby trees. Thus, if you want tall trees, you buy an older house.
We looked at older houses but couldn’t find one that passed muster. Several came close – so close, in fact, that our realtor threw up her hands over the one “deal breaker” on which my husband would not compromise. With two middle school age daughters, he wisely insisted on two sinks, not only in the master bath, but also in the girls’ bath. After looking for weeks, we could not find a house more than eight years old that had two sinks in the second bath.
Thus, we bought a seven-year-old house with medium-size trees – you might say, middle school age trees.
Nine years later, my, how those trees have grown! Having left behind that awkward stage, they’ve matured dramatically. They’ve blossomed beautifully.
Sadly, not every tree made it. One standing at the back corner of our lot suddenly succumbed to heat stroke shortly after we moved in.
Two pin oaks, also in the back yard, stood not as tall as me when we bought the house. One of them withered quickly. Five years later, the other had not grown an inch. A few leaves hung from a few branches jutting out from a spindly trunk. That little tree looked like the pin oak version of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.
Ultimately, like Charlie Brown, we cut the thing down. Unlike Charlie Brown, we did not decorate it.
I felt the most grief when we said good-bye to the Bradford pear growing next to my home office window. About three years ago, the previously healthy tree began looking piqued. Two tree doctors told us, “It has blight. Cut it down. If you don’t, eventually a strong storm may topple it into your house.”
We waited two years, hoping that tree would defy the experts’ predictions and recover. Finally, confronting our denial, we told the yard man, “Take it down.” He did. I watched. Silly as it sounds, I miss that Bradford pear.
I thoroughly enjoy our several remaining trees, especially the ones visible through our large front and back windows. Yes, they provide shade. But they also provide something intangible, soothing and indescribably pleasant.
In Ezekiel 17:24, God talks about trees. He says, “All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. 'I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it'” (NIV).
God grows trees.
Ah, but here’s what both grieves and soothes: What he said there in Ezekiel about trees also applies to people.
© 2007 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.
We had lived four years in Indiana. There, our house stood on a treeless site wrested from cornfields. Now, we wanted a house young in age with trees tall in stature.
Our realtor looked at us as an adult might look at a child who’s just said something very innocent and very dumb. She first informed us, then demonstrated: The trees in Oklahoma City suburbs generally happen after the fact. You build a house on a lovely, but bare, lot. As part of the landscaping, you add baby trees. Thus, if you want tall trees, you buy an older house.
We looked at older houses but couldn’t find one that passed muster. Several came close – so close, in fact, that our realtor threw up her hands over the one “deal breaker” on which my husband would not compromise. With two middle school age daughters, he wisely insisted on two sinks, not only in the master bath, but also in the girls’ bath. After looking for weeks, we could not find a house more than eight years old that had two sinks in the second bath.
Thus, we bought a seven-year-old house with medium-size trees – you might say, middle school age trees.
Nine years later, my, how those trees have grown! Having left behind that awkward stage, they’ve matured dramatically. They’ve blossomed beautifully.
Sadly, not every tree made it. One standing at the back corner of our lot suddenly succumbed to heat stroke shortly after we moved in.
Two pin oaks, also in the back yard, stood not as tall as me when we bought the house. One of them withered quickly. Five years later, the other had not grown an inch. A few leaves hung from a few branches jutting out from a spindly trunk. That little tree looked like the pin oak version of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.
Ultimately, like Charlie Brown, we cut the thing down. Unlike Charlie Brown, we did not decorate it.
I felt the most grief when we said good-bye to the Bradford pear growing next to my home office window. About three years ago, the previously healthy tree began looking piqued. Two tree doctors told us, “It has blight. Cut it down. If you don’t, eventually a strong storm may topple it into your house.”
We waited two years, hoping that tree would defy the experts’ predictions and recover. Finally, confronting our denial, we told the yard man, “Take it down.” He did. I watched. Silly as it sounds, I miss that Bradford pear.
I thoroughly enjoy our several remaining trees, especially the ones visible through our large front and back windows. Yes, they provide shade. But they also provide something intangible, soothing and indescribably pleasant.
In Ezekiel 17:24, God talks about trees. He says, “All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. 'I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it'” (NIV).
God grows trees.
Ah, but here’s what both grieves and soothes: What he said there in Ezekiel about trees also applies to people.
© 2007 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
This little light of mine
We moved into our current home in July 1998, amid considerable pandemonium.
Between the general confusion of relocation, my husband’s job, my job and the challenge of getting our two middle-school daughters ready to start fall semester in a new school and a new city, the weeks swept past in a giant blur. I can vaguely recall standing on the cabinet in the family room, cleaning built-in wooden bookshelves that reached to the ceiling. I can recall sitting in the master bath floor, sorting toiletries we’d accumulated for no apparent reason. But I remember little else about those weeks.
Eventually, as we began to settle in, I noticed the lights over our two-sink master bath counter. A row of 12 clear-glass bulbs jutted out from 12 side-facing sockets, each socket hidden inside a shiny-brass cylindrical base, all mounted on a long shiny-brass faceplate. Nine of the bulbs looked like clear-glass globes. Three bulbs, jutting from three miscellaneous sockets, looked like glass candle flames – hanging sideways, of course. I call them chandelier bulbs.
All 12 bulbs had the same size base. All emitted light when we flipped the appropriate switch, but alas, three bulbs didn’t match.
This bothered me a bit. It would have bothered me more if I’d had time to breathe. But since all of us had way more to do than we could possibly get done, I didn’t even consider trying to replace the three chandelier bulbs with three round globe ones.
Instead, whenever I noticed the row of lights shining against a golden background and momentarily wished the three renegades matched the rest, I reminded myself, “As soon as they blow out, I’ll replace them with the round globe kind.”
Weeks turned into months; months, into years. Over time, I replaced many light bulbs, including a number of round globes hanging in the master bath.
In July 2006, eight years after we moved into the house, all three chandelier bulbs still brightened our bathroom. By then, I’d committed for the duration. Just how long would these seemingly eternal flames last?
Let me hasten to say: These bulbs did not owe their longevity to lack of use. We turn on this panel of lights as often as any lights in the house. Whenever we walk into the master bath, we flip the switch that ignites those 12 bulbs. Whenever that room has occupants – and many times when it does not – those bulbs are shining.
I didn’t record exact dates, but sometime before we reached the nine-year mark, one chandelier bulb quit, then another. I laid each to rest gently, almost sadly. July 2007, the last little chandelier bulb, holding the farthest socket from the bathroom door, celebrated another anniversary, still going strong.
Three months later, we decided the wallpaper that had graced the bathroom walls for 16 years had seen its day. On October 17, the man hired to texture and paint those walls unscrewed the 12 bulbs hanging over the master bath counter, in order to more easily reach the wall above.
Immediately, he came to me with the chandelier bulb in hand. “This bulb is loose,” he said. Wobbling dangerously in its base, the bulb could not be used again.
In Revelation 2:2-5, Jesus sent a personal letter to a group of his people. The Message paraphrases Jesus’ words this way: “I see what you've done, your hard, hard work, your refusal to quit,” it began. “I know your persistence, your courage in my cause, that you never wear out.”
Interesting, huh? Persistent. Refusing to quit. “You never wear out.”
The letter continues, “But you walked away from your first love — why? What's going on with you, anyway? Do you have any idea how far you've fallen?”
Then, this passionate outcry: “A Lucifer fall! Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I'm well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle.”
Oh. Pondering Jesus’ cry, I see a picture God took nine years and three months to paint. I see a little chandelier bulb that never blew out – but had to be removed because it separated from its base.
© 2007 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.
Between the general confusion of relocation, my husband’s job, my job and the challenge of getting our two middle-school daughters ready to start fall semester in a new school and a new city, the weeks swept past in a giant blur. I can vaguely recall standing on the cabinet in the family room, cleaning built-in wooden bookshelves that reached to the ceiling. I can recall sitting in the master bath floor, sorting toiletries we’d accumulated for no apparent reason. But I remember little else about those weeks.
Eventually, as we began to settle in, I noticed the lights over our two-sink master bath counter. A row of 12 clear-glass bulbs jutted out from 12 side-facing sockets, each socket hidden inside a shiny-brass cylindrical base, all mounted on a long shiny-brass faceplate. Nine of the bulbs looked like clear-glass globes. Three bulbs, jutting from three miscellaneous sockets, looked like glass candle flames – hanging sideways, of course. I call them chandelier bulbs.
All 12 bulbs had the same size base. All emitted light when we flipped the appropriate switch, but alas, three bulbs didn’t match.
This bothered me a bit. It would have bothered me more if I’d had time to breathe. But since all of us had way more to do than we could possibly get done, I didn’t even consider trying to replace the three chandelier bulbs with three round globe ones.
Instead, whenever I noticed the row of lights shining against a golden background and momentarily wished the three renegades matched the rest, I reminded myself, “As soon as they blow out, I’ll replace them with the round globe kind.”
Weeks turned into months; months, into years. Over time, I replaced many light bulbs, including a number of round globes hanging in the master bath.
In July 2006, eight years after we moved into the house, all three chandelier bulbs still brightened our bathroom. By then, I’d committed for the duration. Just how long would these seemingly eternal flames last?
Let me hasten to say: These bulbs did not owe their longevity to lack of use. We turn on this panel of lights as often as any lights in the house. Whenever we walk into the master bath, we flip the switch that ignites those 12 bulbs. Whenever that room has occupants – and many times when it does not – those bulbs are shining.
I didn’t record exact dates, but sometime before we reached the nine-year mark, one chandelier bulb quit, then another. I laid each to rest gently, almost sadly. July 2007, the last little chandelier bulb, holding the farthest socket from the bathroom door, celebrated another anniversary, still going strong.
Three months later, we decided the wallpaper that had graced the bathroom walls for 16 years had seen its day. On October 17, the man hired to texture and paint those walls unscrewed the 12 bulbs hanging over the master bath counter, in order to more easily reach the wall above.
Immediately, he came to me with the chandelier bulb in hand. “This bulb is loose,” he said. Wobbling dangerously in its base, the bulb could not be used again.
In Revelation 2:2-5, Jesus sent a personal letter to a group of his people. The Message paraphrases Jesus’ words this way: “I see what you've done, your hard, hard work, your refusal to quit,” it began. “I know your persistence, your courage in my cause, that you never wear out.”
Interesting, huh? Persistent. Refusing to quit. “You never wear out.”
The letter continues, “But you walked away from your first love — why? What's going on with you, anyway? Do you have any idea how far you've fallen?”
Then, this passionate outcry: “A Lucifer fall! Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I'm well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle.”
Oh. Pondering Jesus’ cry, I see a picture God took nine years and three months to paint. I see a little chandelier bulb that never blew out – but had to be removed because it separated from its base.
© 2007 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Timed-release blessings
The e-mail mystified me. I didn’t recognize the writer’s name. Her message began, “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to speak with you at [my] church today. I was at the bookstore table and couldn’t get away to thank you for what the Lord taught this church through you.”
The church she named stands several states away from where I live. I had indeed spoken there. My topic? Confessions of a Religious Has-Been. This talk does not leave listeners feeling pleasantly warm and fuzzy. It challenges them to step into a freedom they haven’t known. To do so, church-goers in particular must confront the web of religious thinking entangling them.
As the topic suggests, I speak from experience. I dangled in a religious web. I pledged allegiance to things connected with God that are not God. Wanting to look like Jesus Christ, I conformed to the pattern of the Pharisees. Tragically, I invited others into similar entanglements.
Through a series of traumatic circumstances, I saw the prison that held me. I heard Christ’s call, “Come out!” “Be free!” (Isa. 49:9 NIV). Responding meant inviting an identity crisis. It meant leaving behind a deeply frustrated – but comfortably familiar – me. The moment I took the keys God was holding out, “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:19 NIV).
He did not bring me out from the church, which he has always defined, not in terms of buildings or programs, but in terms of the people he knows as his. He did not lead me out of Christianity. Oh no. Freeing me from what hindered, he catapulted me to a new place of intimacy with him and genuine community with others who love him.
So now, Martin Luther and I have something in common. October 31, 1517, Luther reportedly posted Ninety-five Theses on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. He titled his document, The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power of Indulgences. He could have called it, Confessions of a Religious Has-Been. Luther challenged the churched people of his day to see the web of religious thinking entangling them and to step into a freedom they hadn’t known.
I was born October 31. Now when I make my own confessions, some churched people act skeptical; some, shocked. Invited to romp in this spacious place, some take offense. Some panic. When prisons we do not see trap and define us, freedom repels and terrifies us.
What a blessing to receive an e-mail from someone who has embraced the freedom Christ offers and who wrote to assure me (my paraphrase), “Yes, yes, yes! You said exactly what we needed to hear!”
How mystifying, the little word “today.”
The Sent date on the message matched the date I sat reading the e-mail, yet I had spoken at that church seven months before. The woman’s description of my talk reflected what I’d said months earlier. Yet, she wrote, “I’m sorry I didn’t get to speak with you . . . today.”
In reply, I thanked her for writing, then expressed my confusion. She responded, “Did you just get this e-mail today???? I did, indeed, send this e-mail the very day you came to my church seven months ago.”
Some 490 years after Luther’s bold act, we marvel at the multiplied blessings God has released as a result. Some seven months after I poured out my soul in one gathering of frustrated but comfortable church-goers, I marveled at the unexpected blessing and strong encouragement God released to me.
© 2007 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.
The church she named stands several states away from where I live. I had indeed spoken there. My topic? Confessions of a Religious Has-Been. This talk does not leave listeners feeling pleasantly warm and fuzzy. It challenges them to step into a freedom they haven’t known. To do so, church-goers in particular must confront the web of religious thinking entangling them.
As the topic suggests, I speak from experience. I dangled in a religious web. I pledged allegiance to things connected with God that are not God. Wanting to look like Jesus Christ, I conformed to the pattern of the Pharisees. Tragically, I invited others into similar entanglements.
Through a series of traumatic circumstances, I saw the prison that held me. I heard Christ’s call, “Come out!” “Be free!” (Isa. 49:9 NIV). Responding meant inviting an identity crisis. It meant leaving behind a deeply frustrated – but comfortably familiar – me. The moment I took the keys God was holding out, “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:19 NIV).
He did not bring me out from the church, which he has always defined, not in terms of buildings or programs, but in terms of the people he knows as his. He did not lead me out of Christianity. Oh no. Freeing me from what hindered, he catapulted me to a new place of intimacy with him and genuine community with others who love him.
So now, Martin Luther and I have something in common. October 31, 1517, Luther reportedly posted Ninety-five Theses on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. He titled his document, The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power of Indulgences. He could have called it, Confessions of a Religious Has-Been. Luther challenged the churched people of his day to see the web of religious thinking entangling them and to step into a freedom they hadn’t known.
I was born October 31. Now when I make my own confessions, some churched people act skeptical; some, shocked. Invited to romp in this spacious place, some take offense. Some panic. When prisons we do not see trap and define us, freedom repels and terrifies us.
What a blessing to receive an e-mail from someone who has embraced the freedom Christ offers and who wrote to assure me (my paraphrase), “Yes, yes, yes! You said exactly what we needed to hear!”
How mystifying, the little word “today.”
The Sent date on the message matched the date I sat reading the e-mail, yet I had spoken at that church seven months before. The woman’s description of my talk reflected what I’d said months earlier. Yet, she wrote, “I’m sorry I didn’t get to speak with you . . . today.”
In reply, I thanked her for writing, then expressed my confusion. She responded, “Did you just get this e-mail today???? I did, indeed, send this e-mail the very day you came to my church seven months ago.”
Some 490 years after Luther’s bold act, we marvel at the multiplied blessings God has released as a result. Some seven months after I poured out my soul in one gathering of frustrated but comfortable church-goers, I marveled at the unexpected blessing and strong encouragement God released to me.
© 2007 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.
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