Perspective

Dare I say it?

2008-12-31T20:52:00.002-06:00

Why did I feel such – dare I say it – dread?

A trip to Europe with two family members I love, to see another family member I love, should spark anticipation and excitement. Yet I did not feel excited.

Having scheduled the trip for the first week of November, I felt I’d goofed as to timing. Having recruited a sister and daughter to travel with me, I felt inadequate to lead the team.

Daughter Amanda, a fluent French-speaker living in Belgium for a semester, could guide the rest of us around Brussels. Ah, but other aspects of the itinerary intimidated me.

To begin, the three of us planned to depart from different airports and rendezvous in Atlanta. What if, due to a delayed flight, someone missed the overseas connection?

Landing in Paris, we would travel immediately by train to our next destination. With our tickets already purchased, what if we missed the train?

Indeed, we planned to spend lots of time on trains, both within and between cities. Returning by night from Brussels to Paris, luggage in tow, we had to change trains twice, then walk a couple of blocks to the hotel. Afterward, we’d sightsee in Paris for two days, getting place to place by metro with me playing tour guide.

“Karen and Megan are intelligent, resourceful women,” I told myself. “All working together, we’ll do fine.”

Yet, each of their husbands had expressed uneasiness about his wife’s going overseas for a week. “Don’t get separated. Don’t get abducted,” one husband advised.

The instigator of the venture, I felt responsible for us all.

Further, I felt remiss for leaving the country the week of the Presidential election. Even after voting absentee, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was going AWOL. That feeling intensified when a white supremacist group planned a rally in my town the same week.

“How dreadful!” I thought. “I need to stay here and do something!”

The weather forecast for Brussels and Paris promised highs in the 40s, lows in the 30s and rain, rain, rain. Even weather.com seemed to admonish, “Just stay home.”

Feeling silly for feeling such dread, I tried for weeks to ignore my feelings. Finally, I faced them. I listed everything prompting my anxiety. Then I asked, “Lord, what do you want to say to me about this trip?”

Shortly afterward, a friend sent me an e-mail in which she spoke of the trip as a time of “hilarity.” Instantly, that word lodged in my spirit.

The next day, when I mentioned the trip to another friend, she said, “Go enjoy Sabbath.” That admonition also lodged deep within me.

Through two friends who didn’t know about my misgivings, God told me his intentions for our trip. As I received what he said, my feelings changed radically. I drove to the airport expecting hilarity, expecting Sabbath. For the entire eight-day trip, I experienced both.

One night long ago, a boy named Samuel kept thinking he heard Eli the priest calling him. Three times, Samuel acted on what he thought, only to be told Eli hadn’t called. Finally, after Eli suggested the voice might be God’s, Samuel said, “Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.”

Originally, Samuel’s thoughts weren’t accurate. Yet if Samuel hadn’t acknowledged what he thought, he would have missed hearing God.

Before our trip, my feelings weren’t accurate. Yet if I hadn’t acknowledged my feelings, I would have missed hearing God.

Please don’t wait until you’re going overseas. Whenever implausible thoughts or feelings persist, quit stifling them. Instead, dare to admit them. Dare to ask, “Lord, what do you say about this?”

. . . . . . .

1 Samuel 3:9 NIV

The hilarity blessing

2008-12-12T17:43:00.001-06:00

Two weeks ago, I traveled to Belgium and France. Things couldn’t have gone smoother.

Okay, they could have gone smoother, but not much. Before the trip – hearing that I was traveling with a sister and a daughter to visit another daughter studying abroad – a friend blessed the week with “hilarity.”

Ah, what a blessing! Snags that could have created frustration prompted laughter instead.

We arrived at our hotel our first night in Brussels, more than ready to lie down and sleep. Online, we had reserved a double room for three occupants. Yet, the system showed we’d reserved a king for one.

Facing three exhausted women, the male desk clerk announced, “The reservation is for one.” He insisted he had no empty rooms and ignored our question about a cot. That night, we climbed into a clean, if crowded, bed, giggled, then slept.

The second night, the hotel still had no double rooms available, but the female desk clerk was determined to find a remedy. In this hotel, the king beds consisted of two twins with a common headboard. The helpful clerk sent up a third twin.

A housekeeping lady brought the extra twin. She knocked, then stood in the doorway, staring in stern disbelief at the tiny area where she was supposed to place the bed. Uttering no words but lots of distressed noises, she maneuvered the frame into place. Then she left, returning a few minutes later with the same stern expression and a mattress.

My sister and I were alone in the room at the time, both trying frantically to help in whatever ways we could – rearranging luggage, holding one end of the bedframe, saying “Merci!” repeatedly.

Exiting again, the housekeeper returned a third time, holding linens. As she and I worked together to make the bed, she finally spoke. “Two person – or three person?” she asked. We knew she meant, “Am I doing all this because you two Americans need three twin beds?”

“Three person. Trois. Three,” we assured her six or seven times.

With the third twin fully made, she surveyed our wall-to-wall beds and suddenly broke into a huge grin. After she left, we erupted into laughter, imagining her telling the whole staff about the Americans who wanted three beds in a pea-sized room.

In Brussels and in Paris, we rode the metro everywhere. Apparently, not too many tourists attempt that feat because everyone around us seemed to know exactly where they were going and how to get there. They breezed through mazes of connecting tunnels, hurried up and down stairs, got on and off trains with the confidence and unconcern of people who do so daily. We provided comic relief. As we discussed whether we had taken the right train going the right direction, as we asked dumb questions and tried valiantly to pronounce French words, people smiled covertly.

Exiting one metro station near Notre Dame Cathedral, we entered a café and ate. The lady next to us smiled covertly as we overcame several communication glitches with one waiter. After eating, I approached another waiter, pointed through the window to a tall building, and asked, “Notre Dame?” His face conveying both pity and mirth, he pointed the opposite way and said, “Notre Dame.”

Thousands of years ago, a woman named Sarah sang, “God has blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me!”

Looking back on our week, I’m echoing Sarah’s refrain.

We slept well. We found every place we set out to see. We asked for help when needed. Richly blessed with hilarity, we passed it on.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

No glace

2008-12-03T07:17:00.005-06:00

Aboard a small jet winging its 53-minute flight from Memphis to Atlanta, a flight attendant quickly served drinks. When she asked the lady next to me, “What would you like?” the distinguished-looking senior adult responded, “Wah-tuh. No glahs.”

Seeing the confusion on the flight attendant’s face, I translated: “No ice.”

“That was going to be my next guess,” the flight attendant said. I smiled, knowing her first thought and picturing her trying to serve, “Water. No glass.”

I smiled too because of the small victory I’d just experienced.

Rewind six months. Feeling more daring than ready, I announced my intention to learn conversational French. Our younger daughter Amanda speaks French fluently. In high school and college, I myself took French. Ah, but a few days – er, decades – have passed since then.

Three months after making my bold announcement, I hadn’t yet acted on it. Amanda pointed me to a language program online that teaches words and phrases. Downloading the “lite” version, I tiptoed into the baby pool of conversational language-learning.

My first word list contained names of 16 animals. Before long, I could say such crucial words as cow (la vache – pronounced “lah vahsh”), cat (le chat – “luh shah”) and bee (l’abeille – whose pronunciation I will not even try to explain). Thus, when my husband and I saw the movie, Wall-E, I pointed excitedly to the robot’s cockroach friend and announced, “Le cafard!”

Two months later, our daughter Megan, my sister Karen and I bought tickets to visit Amanda, studying abroad in Belgium. We planned to travel the first week in November, spending several days each in Brussels and Paris. Part of the time, Amanda would accompany us. Part of the time, we’d be on our own.

The day before departure, I shut down my French language program, feeling rising panic. I knew 325 French words and phrases – more or less. Had I learned the most vital words? When needed, would I recall them? Would I understand anything that an actual French-speaking person said?

One day later, on the first leg of my trip, I sat beside a woman who turned and spoke to the person behind her in a language definitely not English. Summoning my courage, I asked her, “Français?”

“Belgian!” she replied. (Yes, she had spoken French, but wanted to make her country of origin quite clear.)

I said, “Je m’appelle Deborah.” She told me her name, “Nicole.” In French, I told Nicole that I was going to Belgium to visit my daughter who was studying in Brussels. In French, Nicole told me that Brussels in November is very cold. Nicole lives in Brussels. She had come to Memphis with a group of eight. I asked, “Graceland?” She answered, “Oui.”

A few minutes later, she ordered, “Water. No glace” (meaning “ice” and pronounced rather like saying “glass” with a British accent). Amazed, I found myself translating from another language for someone else.

That short flight set the tone for the trip. On an elementary level and with some funny experiences, I actually communicated in a different language. Amazingly, I did it way before I thought I was ready.

Perhaps you’ve set out to attempt something daring, something you believe God is telling you to do. Perhaps you’ve waded in – and found the water getting very deep, very fast. Perhaps a loud voice inside you is shouting, “I’m not ready for this!”

In Hebrews 10:38, God says, “I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.” Mais oui! With the Hebrews writer, you and I can answer, “But we are not of those who shrink back . . .”

Hebrews 10:38 TNIV

Check out Byki (Before You Know It) language-learning system at www.byki.com.

Reformation Day

2008-11-21T14:14:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite movies – titled simply, Luther – tells the story of Martin Luther, the sixteenth-century German law student turned Catholic monk turned reformer.

Luther dared to say to the church leaders of his day, “Excuse me, but have you noticed that the way we’re doing things doesn’t match up with who God is and what he says?”

In particular, Luther dealt with the issue of indulgences. When Luther read the Bible (in Latin, the only translation available), he came to believe that “salvation is a free gift of God, received only by true repentance and faith in Jesus as the Messiah.” Meanwhile, the church was selling “indulgences” to raise money to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. A church fundraiser sent to Germany kept telling prospective givers, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

At first, Luther expressed his concerns privately. Church leaders responded with the Latin equivalent of, “Quit questioning The Church.”

Luther didn’t want to buck his authorities. But he also didn’t want to ride along behind leaders leading toward a cliff. What’s more, being one of the few who could see the cliff (because he had access to the Bible and could read Latin), he couldn’t in good conscience simply jump to safety while thousands of others followed the leaders over the edge.

So Martin Luther went public. On October 31, 1517, according to one early account, Luther nailed a copy of his “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg – an act “now seen as sparking the Protestant Reformation, and celebrated every October 31 as Reformation Day.”

Luther’s document contained 95 Theses. How could a nearly 100-point sermon posted on a church door spark a movement that “changed the course of Western civilization”? For one thing, other people of influence saw the wrong direction in which the church was heading. When their combined voices began to speak the truth, many received it. Further, Luther’s list didn’t stay on that church door.

Rather, “The 95 Theses were quickly translated from Latin into German, printed, and widely copied, . . . Within two weeks, the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months throughout Europe.”

In a nutshell, God blew on that fire and fanned it.

At that point, things got really interesting – and messy, and difficult, and dangerous. Sometimes, people trying to lead the right way did wrong things. Sometimes, they overcorrected. Sometimes, they expressed wrong beliefs. Just read a little of what Luther said about Jews and women, for example, to see that he himself did not get everything right.

Sometimes people with absolute power in the Western church structure made stunning countermoves intended to crush the new movement.

In spite of it all, the impossible happened. With shudders, groans and missteps, through confusion and disarray, the church made a critical course correction. It avoided the cliff God describes in Leviticus 26:23-24: “And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me; Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins” (KJV).

John Eckhardt writes, “Reformation blesses and strengthens the church.” He also writes, “Reformation is unpleasant and controversial but absolutely necessary. The Lord will continue to reform the Church until it is the glorious Church prophesied in the Word of God.”

Regardless when you’re reading this, thank God for Reformation Day. And ask him to grant his church courage to make critical course corrections needed in this Reformation season.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Quoted material referencing Martin Luther above is from “Martin Luther,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther.

John Eckhardt, Moving in the Apostolic (Ventura, CA: Renew Books), 1999, pp. 72-73, 78.

Under our rug

2008-11-14T17:23:00.003-06:00

One mild October day, I decided to have lunch on our covered back porch. Carrying my tray with peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich and tomato soup to the round patio table, I sat and began eating.

Happily munching, enjoying the peaceful scenery, I watched our cat Pewter at play. When Pewter paraded near the table, I looked down. There underfoot I saw ants.

Our concrete patio was poured in four rectangular sections. Because the patio lies under roof, we bought an inexpensive outdoor rug to adorn a central area where two lounging chairs sit.

Watching the ants, I realized they had made a highway of the center crack running the length of the concrete. I moved my feet away from the crack, leaned over and lifted the edge of the rug. Underneath, hordes of little intruders trekked along the hidden part of the crack.

I had swept the patio two days earlier and had seen no sign of ants. Further, we had contracted with a pest management company to keep the house and its immediate vicinity bug-free. A company rep had recently given the place a thorough treatment. He’d told us to call if we saw any insect-type pests.

The next morning, I called. That evening, another company rep knocked on our door. I took him around to the patio. “Hmm,” he said, as I pulled back the rug and showed him the critters scurrying along the patio’s center line.

Leaning and peering, then straightening up, he said, “I think they’re fire ants.”

Surely not! I thought. How is that possible? I wondered. I’m glad I moved my feet, I decided. “Fire ants?” I said.

The last time we lived in Mississippi – in the northeast section – we battled fire ants. We knew their reputation – aggressive behavior, painful sting.

Imported by accident from South America to Mobile, Alabama, in the early 1930s, they soon took up residence across the 12 southeastern states. In South America they had natural enemies. In the US, they do not.

Previously, fire ants signaled their presence in our yard by building large mounds. If someone dared to kick a mound or bump it with a stick, myriads of ants would suddenly swarm out. Eager to get rid of the venomous creatures, we followed the recommended procedures. Yet each time we thought the problem solved, we found a new mound.

Moving away from Mississippi 14 years ago, I bid a glad farewell to fire ants. Now, 10 months after our return, they’d come out to welcome us home. Yet, how? We had worked in our yard throughout the summer and into the fall. We hadn’t seen one fire ant hill.

The pest management man sprayed the crack in the patio. Then, he inspected the yard. He returned to report, “That mulch you have around your three new trees? You have fire ant beds in two of the three.”

He added, “The ants probably tunneled from their hills to the crack in the concrete under your rug when the night temps dropped below 50 degrees. The rug holds in warmth.”

Ah, ha! Sneaky fire ants! Hiding in our tree mulch and snuggling under our rug!

Jesus never dealt with fire ants. But he did deal with venomous people who hid behind religious masks. He told them, “You can't keep your true self hidden forever; before long you'll be exposed.”

I’m happy to report: Crafty fire ants exposed! Natural enemies or not, they do have an enemy here, with tenacity and new strategies to get these usurpers off our land.

Luke 12:2 from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.

More info about fire ants at www.fireant.net and www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/sep99/ant0999.htm.

Wake up, Deborah!

2008-10-31T11:34:00.002-05:00

“Wake up, wake up, Deborah!
Wake up, wake up, break out in song!”

So sang Deborah herself, a prophet and leader in Israel in the days of the Old Testament judges.

Who would have thought, at this late date in life, I’d find myself singing the same refrain, with a strange new confidence and joy? Who would have thought that a character in a local theater production in Mississippi and a wagon bed in North Carolina would contribute to my awakening?

The Deborah of the Old Testament served as a judge for years. Who knows how many people she helped as, one after another, month after month, “the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided” (Judges 4:5)? One day, Deborah awoke to a different assignment, an assignment to cooperate with God to deliver all Israel.

Cruelly oppressed for 20 years, the Israelites had at last cried out to the Lord for help. He responded by speaking to Deborah, telling her the strategy for deliverance. Sending for a man named Barak, Deborah gave Barak his marching orders from the Lord. As Deborah and Barak obeyed God, thousands of warriors rose up to join them – and the Lord himself routed their oppressors.

In a different era, on a different continent, I participated in a little theater production of The Miracle Worker, a play about the child Helen Keller, oppressed from infancy by blindness and deafness and by a well-meaning family with no idea how to discipline or teach her. As portrayed in the play, Helen’s father, Captain Arthur Keller, epitomizes the mindset of the Old South.

When Helen’s new teacher, Annie Sullivan, arrives, she and Captain Keller vie over who will carry her suitcase. Annie wants to hold the suitcase herself so she can give Helen a gift it contains. When Captain Keller tries to take the suitcase, Annie says, “I’d like it.” Keller holds on tightly, announcing, “I couldn’t think of it, Miss Sullivan. You’ll find in the south we view women as the flowers of civiliza—” Audiences smile as Annie wins the skirmish.

Audiences laugh out loud as Captain Keller clumsily carries Annie down a ladder after Helen locks her in a second-story bedroom. When Annie says, “I’m perfectly able to go down a ladder under my own—,” Keller interrupts her: “I doubt it, Miss Sullivan.”

Caught up in the drama focusing on Helen and Annie, play-goers find themselves liking Captain Keller, enjoying the laughter his antics provoke and overlooking his condescending attitude toward women.

One mild September day, sitting on a wagon bed in a North Carolina field, I encountered God. For decades I had known him. For decades I had recited Psalm 139:13-14: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” God came to the wagon bed, not just to remind me of that verse, but to take me back to the place it describes.

From the womb I had accepted dishonor as normal. I had lived with an identity obscured by a culture that still today hides its lack of respect for women behind its gallant shows of respect for women. A likeable culture, it endears itself by laughter – yet often the jokes themselves subtly convey that women aren’t to be taken seriously.

On that wagon bed, God told me what should have been obvious. My Father said, “Your name is Deborah.”

In that instant, I awakened to my identity. I accepted my new assignment.

Now I sing to whoever will hear, “Wake up, wake up! Let God himself tell you your name!”

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Wrong number

2008-10-24T17:58:00.001-05:00

You there – yes, you with the initials KB and the penchant for giving my cell phone number to your creditors – you need to hear the song I’ve found. You need to sing it.

For three years, I’ve enjoyed my mobile phone number. However, I haven’t enjoyed getting calls from the folks to whom you owe money.

I said so to the nice man who called yesterday. The phone rang. I answered. Like so many before, the man said your name. Oh, he didn’t know you – just your name.

Such calls tend to come in waves. Just when I think they’ve stopped, they start again. They provide insight into the intimate details of your debt cycle. I can provide nothing to the people trying to contact you, other than the strong suggestion that they delete my phone number from your record.

At first, I thought my cell phone number had belonged to you before I inherited it. Now, I wonder if you picked the number out of the air. I’ve never gotten a call from one of your friends or family members. If I had, I might know how to reach you.

We could talk. It would be like a “reveal your secret pal” meeting. You could get acquainted with the person to whom you’ve given so many “little gifts” of unexpected calls all these years. I could ask you questions.

“How did debt become a way of life for you?” “What about deceit – does it fix anything?” “Do you ever get incredibly tired of repeating the same cycle?” “Do you consider it a game?” “Have any of your creditors ever caught up with you?” “If you could find a way out, would you take it?”

After you answer, I could sing you that song.

Maybe a year ago, I complained to the phone company.

The courteous but unconcerned customer service rep said her company has no way to stop you from repeatedly giving out a wrong phone number which they have assigned to me. My only recourse? Change my phone number.

That solution creates other problems. Further, it may not end my calls from someone else’s creditors. Do you know CM? The two of you live in different states but have something in common. I get calls from CM’s creditors on my landline.

Which brings me back to yesterday’s caller. After I told him, “I’m not KB. I don’t know KB – but I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve gotten from her creditors,” he said, “I’m not a creditor.”

“You’re not?” I asked, astonished.

Apparently, KB, you’ve signed up on a job placement website. There, you listed – not one, but two – wrong phone numbers: my cell number and a non-working number. Maybe you hoped all potential employers would contact you by e-mail. Maybe you wanted me to serve as one of your references, since we’ve become so well-acquainted and all.

Yesterday, when I told the nice man what I knew about you, he seemed very grateful.

Long ago, the poet David “sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjamite.” We don’t know what Cush did. We do know what David sang:

“See that man shoveling day after day,
digging, then concealing, his man-trap
down that lonely stretch of road?
Go back and look again — you'll see him in it headfirst,
legs waving in the breeze.
That's what happens:
mischief backfires . . .”

I bless you with a way out, KB – so that you stop digging your own trap and you too join the refrain:

“I'm thanking God, who makes things right.
I'm singing the fame of heaven-high GOD.”

© 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

The Funny Little Mama strikes again

2008-08-13T11:08:00.002-05:00

One week during our daughters’ middle school years, my husband did a dangerous thing. He flew off to Indiana, taking our older daughter with him. This left me alone with Amanda, age 11. The danger? Though posing as a mild-mannered working mom, I could, at a moment’s notice, turn into the Funny Little Mama.

During our girls’ preschool days, I entertained them with fictitious Funny Little Mama stories. This lovely but loopy Mama might to do anything – put green beans on her ice cream, shower with soap but no water, use the bathtub as a bed.

The Mama had a daughter who always set her straight. “Mama, when you’re tired, you sleep lying on the bed, not standing in the closet!” “Mama, you don’t hold the hair dryer by the end where the air blows out!”

Of course, by the time our daughters reached middle school, I didn’t tell such stories any more. Instead, I lived them. Megan and Amanda delighted in describing my escapades to their friends. They cheerfully recounted all the times the Funny Little Mama had driven off with items sitting atop her car – items like a mug of hazelnut coffee, three days’ worth of mail and a pair of Daddy’s shoes. They told how this Mama managed to leave a purse in an Indiana library and car keys in a Kentucky quick-stop.

They told tales of the Funny Little Mama cooking lasagna in an unheated oven – and discovering the mistake after the company arrived. They told about her leaving the oven broiler on a full 24 hours during 110 degree summer heat (a crime known in Oklahoma as attempted arson).

The week Jerry and Megan flew the coup, I determined the Funny Little Mama wouldn’t visit. And she didn’t. Until Amanda and I ate supper on Thursday evening. Then Amanda mentioned a boy in her class named Peter Garriott.

“Garriott! What a wonderful name,” I replied. “It rhymes with chariot and lariat.”

At that moment, the Funny Little Mama interjected a poem made up on the spot:

“There once was a boy named Pete Garriott.”

“Mama, his name is Peter, not Pete.”

“You’re interrupting my poem. There once was a boy named Pete Garriott.
Who sometimes would ride in a chariot.
To the horse he said, ‘Whoa!’ Still, the chariot did go.
So ole Pete stopped that horse with a lariat.”

Friday, Amanda told Peter Garriott, her other classmates and her teacher about the poem. That should have sent the Funny Little Mama packing. Instead, she made up a second verse. Even the challenge of finding more words that rhyme with Garriott didn’t stop her.

“There once was a boy named Pete Garriott
Who loved to annoy his pet parriott
The parriott said, ‘Squawk! I know how to talk!’
Then he chomped on a fresh piece of carriott.”

Amanda repeated this new rhyme to her friends. As a result, I became known in sixth-grade circles as “Amanda’s hyper mom.”

Looking back, I see the crushing stress those days held for a near-menopausal woman with a high-pressure job, traveling husband and two daughters fraught with adolescence.

I tried valiantly to have it all together. I rarely did. But I cannot thank God enough that what could have burst forth as bad temper or gloom often erupted into light-hearted fun.

Like an Ancient Little Mama named Sarah, I could testify: “God has blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me!”

Some days, this Funny Little Mama did get angry, did shed tears. But our girls told people, “We laugh a lot at our house.”

© 1999, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Genesis 21:6 (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language
© 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Wordslingers

2008-08-07T08:29:00.001-05:00

In TV shows I watched as a kid, gunslingers roamed the wild West. They spent much time twirling and cocking their firearms. They regularly said to one another, "Take ten steps, turn and draw."

They weren’t issuing friendly invitations to play Pictionary. They were issuing challenges to fight. In TV shows, we could always tell the good guy by the white clothes he wore (and somehow managed to keep spotless while roughing it on the open range) and by his speed. Any good guy worth his salt could turn around, pull his gun, cock and fire it faster than any guy wearing black any day.

In the end, the good gunslinger won, and the bad gunslinger died, or limped off into the sunset. Everyone cheered. After all, the bad gunslinger deserved it for being bad, being slow and wearing black (which is way too hot a color for the open range).

Thus, all the bad gunslingers practiced gunslinging for hours on end in hopes that they would get fast enough to turn into good gunslingers before someone said to them, "Take ten steps . . ." They also placed "rush" catalog orders for white western wear.

Sadly, catalog orders in those days went out by stagecoaches, which were often robbed by bad guys who hadn't gotten to the catalog desk to place an order before closing time. And so the gunslinging continued.

Okay, I made up the catalog order part. Actually, the good and bad gunslingers differed in far more substantial ways than clothes. The bad guys terrorized people. They’d as quickly shoot you as greet you. The good guys risked their lives to rescue those oppressed by the bad.

In real life today, wordslingers roam the place where you live. These folks enjoy twirling and cocking their tongues. With well-placed remarks, they're as likely to shoot you as greet you.

Few give warning. They prefer ambush. For example, one day a friend asked me to lunch. I could tell even by phone that she was distressed. When we sat to eat, she showed me a venomous letter she had received three days earlier. Using crude language, it attacked her – for good things she was doing. It slandered her and her family. Not surprisingly, the writer hadn’t signed the letter.

My friend had no opportunity to take ten steps, turn and defend herself. The attack came out of nowhere. Now, she's lying on the ground bleeding while the bad guy walks away. She can't identify the assailant by wardrobe color. Looking into faces of people she works with daily, she has no idea which one carries the loaded gun.

Long before the first gunslinger ever rode the wild West, a man named Doeg gunned down 85 innocent priests with malicious words. As a result, God authorized David the poet-king to issue this warning to wordslingers in Psalm 52:2-5, The Message:

“You scheme catastrophe; your tongue cuts razor-sharp, artisan in lies. You love evil more than good, you call black white. You love malicious gossip, you foul-mouth. God will tear you limb from limb, sweep you up and throw you out, pull you up by the roots from the land of life.”

I know. Those words take me aback too – until, looking into my friend’s face, I see the untold devastation wordslinging wreaks, the people it decimates.

In Psalm 52, God isn’t addressing the propensity we all have to say hurtful words in anger or frustration. He’s giving fair warning, strong warning, that he will champion the victims of those who deliberately and with premeditation use words to destroy.

© 1999, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Here we go round the mulberry bush

2008-07-22T15:21:00.002-05:00

One Monday morning, a children's song kept playing in my mind. The song floated into my thoughts, not because I felt like singing, but because it described my plight.

With deadlines looming, I needed to write. Instead, I had prepared a gourmet breakfast (of cereal and toaster pastries), cleaned the kitchen, made the bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth and washed a load of clothes. Still needing to shower and dress before sitting down at the computer, I was folding shirts when I found myself humming: “Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush . . . .”

Children dance happily around imaginary mulberry bushes as they sing this little ditty. Without dancing, we all go round mundane mulberry bushes every day. We tackle chores that demand our attention, sap our time and ever need to be done again.

Having fixed breakfast, I cannot expect that one meal to hold my family for life. Having brushed my teeth, I can't throw away my toothbrush, declaring, “Well, that's finished.” Having washed every stitch of dirty laundry in the house, I can't sell the washer and dryer. Sigh.

How frustrating to keep redoing the same tasks.

How enlightening to discover two phrases that leap out from Romans 8. They announce that creation is “subjected to frustration” because of its “bondage to decay.” Ah, yes: “bondage to decay.” Left to themselves, things naturally devolve into a worse condition.

Every year, my husband and I struggle to maintain a yard nice enough to keep the neighbors from all going together to buy us a privacy fence. Continued work produces a lawn that's passable. But should we decide not to do that upkeep this year, our yard will not evolve into a well-manicured garden. It won't even remain passable. It will quickly yield to overgrowth and weeds.

Bondage to decay produces frustration when we see “emptiness as to results.”

Day after day, we go round and round – maintaining our bodies, our relationships, our financial records, the places we live and work, the stuff we own. Imagine how much time we'd have to get on with life if we never again had to bathe or wash hair or do any other personal upkeep chore.

Ah, but imagine how we'd all look and smell and feel if we stopped doing those things.

Therein lies the rub. We may not make progress when we go round mulberry bushes, but we do get somewhere.

R. S. Duncan, former governor of an English prison built in 1594 has suggested that women prisoners at Wakefield created the song, “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” while walking with their children around a mulberry tree that still lives in the prison yard.

Moms in bondage, subjected to frustration, sang as they circled a tree day after day, clasping their children’s hands. Those moms were accomplishing far more than could be tangibly measured. Yet, surely they longed for the day they could take their children far beyond that circular path.

In a decaying world, mulberry-bush tasks restore order, reestablish cleanliness, rebuke chaos. Yet, they can never fully conquer the decline that overtakes everyone and everything.

Thus, they leave us frustrated, longing for a day when endless cycles of maintenance stop.

Romans 8:21 promises such a day. It announces a moment when “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

In that moment, all who have walked, clasping the hand of Father God, will run free, circling the mulberry bush no more.

© 1998, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Rom. 8:20-21 NIV

“frustration,” mataiotes NT:353, from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.

“Wakefield,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakefield

Green hope

2008-07-16T15:22:00.002-05:00

Ah, green! Returning South after living away for 13-and-a-half years, how I welcome you!

Four of those years, we lived in Indiana. That’s when I discovered something Mississippi and Indiana have in common. Each has a Greenville and a Greenwood.

Further, the two states share this trait with 42 others: All have towns or cities with names beginning “Green.”

As best I can tell from my wanderings around Indiana – and my trusty atlas – the land of the Hoosiers ranks No. 1 in number of Green-named towns. The state has nine: Greenville and Greenwood (the two most-often-chosen “Green” names in the country), Greenfield, Greensboro, Greensburg (also popular nationwide), and (less common but equally interesting) Greencastle, Greendale, Greentown, and Greens Fork.

Rivaling Indiana for the Green title, Ohio boasts eight names. Illinois and Wisconsin tie for third place with seven apiece. Missouri has six. Most other states – including Mississippi – have three or fewer Green names.

I can understand why Nevada and New Mexico have no Green-titled cities. I can guess why the only Green towns in Utah and Wyoming are both called “Green River.” I can picture Green Mountain (in Colorado), Green Valley (in Arizona), Green Pond (in New Jersey), and Green Island (in New York).

But I'm puzzled that the states of the Ohio River Valley – rather than those in the Deep South – claim the bulk of the Green names.

Each year in Indiana, we lived for months with white grass, brown branches and only the dark arms of the evergreens rising to color the picture. Each spring, people trooped back from visits down South, exclaiming, “They already have leaves on the trees!”

Mississippi turns green earlier in spring than Indiana does and stays green later into autumn. So why doesn't Mississippi or Alabama or Georgia have nine or more Green names? Why do Indiana and Ohio and Illinois head the pack?

Maybe a large family named Green settled all across the Midwest. Then again, maybe people in this area appreciate green more than those who see it almost year-round.

Centuries ago, settlers in the Midwest without heated vehicles or centrally heated homes watched eagerly for the coming of the green. Maybe they waited until they thought they’d faint if those new buds didn’t pop out. When the green did arrive, they applauded its magnificence and wrote it into the names of their towns.

What we seldom see, we don’t expect and rarely miss. Thus, realistic desert dwellers don't name their towns Greenfield or Greenleaf. They look for beauty in the sand’s earthy colors and the sky’s brilliant hues.

What's commonplace, we expect, but often taken for granted. People in the north don't generally leap for joy over snow.

But what’s enjoyed – then denied for a season – we count precious. When it’s present, we celebrate. When it’s absent, we watch expectantly for its return. A Midwest town may look like “Brownville” or “Brownwood” six months of the year, yet we still call it the color of life that will one day appear again.

Way back on the third day of creation, “God spoke: ‘Earth, green up! Grow all varieties of seed-bearing plants, Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.’ And there it was. Earth produced green seed-bearing plants, all varieties, And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts. God saw that it was good.”

This summer, regardless the landscape palette where you live, “Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!”

Ah, green! How we welcome you!

© 1997, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Gen. 1:11-12; Rom. 15:13 (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Making nothing out of something

2008-07-09T16:43:00.002-05:00

“I don’t have enough . . . ,” I muttered, naming a certain resource that kept eluding me. It wasn’t the first time I’d mentioned the lack. Secretly, I hoped the Lord would take notice and act, preferably by announcing, “OK, I’ll give you . . .”

But that isn’t what happened. Instead, I was passing through a Bible story on my way to teach it to others. The story, as told by Jesus, concerned 10 servants, all of whom received a set amount of money from their master. At least two of the servants used their money to advantage. One didn’t use his at all. Instead, he laid it away in a piece of cloth.

Consequently, the master took that servant’s money and gave it to another servant who had already doubled his funds. When some called the move unfair, the master said, “I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”

I mulled that statement awhile. It sounded harsh and unjust, this idea of robbing the have-nots to give to the already-haves. But then I reread the beginning of the story, the part where the master “called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.”

To start out, each of those servants received the same amount – and a substantial amount, at that – the equivalent of two-and-a-half years’ wages. All heard the master’s instructions: “Put this money to work.” The one who lost out HAD. He had resources, start-up funds, given to be used. Yet, he acted like a have-not.

So did a whole clan of Israelites who lived hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth. Members of this clan approached Joshua, the nation’s leader, saying, “We’re a big clan. We don’t have enough land. Give us more.”

“Yes, you’re a big clan,” Joshua agreed, “and the forested hill country allotted to you is rough terrain. But you have plenty of manpower. You can clear it. And what about all the valley land you own? Many of you can settle there.”

“Don’t you know who lives in that valley?!” clan members cried. “Enemies occupy that land. They have formidable weapons. That valley might as well not belong to us, because we can’t live there.”

Joshua repeated, “You’re a big clan. You’re strong. Get to work and possess what you’ve been given.”

Don’t you hate it when you go to God looking for a handout and he gives you a one-two punch? Don’t you love it when his well-placed blows knock some sense into you?

The servant in Jesus’ story reminds me, “Don’t hide in a hanky what you need to invest now.” The members of Joseph’s clan urge, “Don’t beg for more, while dismissing what you already have.”

The clan and the servant instruct me: Quit saying, “I don’t have enough . . .” Look again at what you do have. See the value of assets you’ve taken for granted. Thank God for them. Ask him to show you creative ways to put those things to use. Then, go for it!

“Go for it?” I respond. “But, but . . . that involves risk.”

Exactly.

The servant had to risk to invest the money. The clan had to risk to possess the land. To avoid risk, both servant and clan made nothing out of something.

In Luke 19:26, The Message, Jesus summed up the matter this way: “Risk your life and get more than you ever dreamed of. Play it safe and end up holding the bag.” #

© 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Luke 19:13, 26 TNIV.
Joshua 17:14-17 – referenced.
Luke 19:26 MSG (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Ridiculous to sublime

2008-07-03T07:55:00.001-05:00

Which do I tell first – the sublime or the ridiculous? The walk or the swim?

The swim happened first, so let’s start there.

Three nieces were visiting. My brother-in-law brought them because my sister was working. When I asked the girls what they wanted to do, they answered, “Swim!”

I took them to a pool where I hadn’t gone before, a pool jam-packed with swimmers. This pool has a deep end featuring two tall, curving tube slides.

While the girls alternately tanned and swam, their dad and I sat on lounge chairs and talked. After an hour, with the heat pushing and the slides pulling, I stood and asked my 17-year-old niece Christy, “Want to slide?”

All the other women over voting age lounged decorously or sat sedately poolside, dangling their feet in the water. The average age of sliders appeared to be 6.

Showing great courage – and, perhaps, wanting to see the spectacle of an aunt shooting like a torpedo into the pool – Christy headed for the slide with me in tow. She got her spectacle.

Five times, I stood in line with munchkins. Five times, I climbed platforms that discriminated against adult-sized people. Five times, I launched, feet first, down a winding, water-filled tube and ejected into chlorinated water, nearly somersaulting underneath.

It may have looked ridiculous. But the first time I emerged to see Christy’s smiling face, I cried, “Why should kids have all the fun?”

The walk happened later the same afternoon.

My brother-in-law wanted to explore the woods behind our house, so at dusk we set out – my husband and I, our nieces and their dad.

“Are there ticks in the woods?” 15-year-old Shannon asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

Trekking a four-wheeler trail my husband and I discovered in February, we found the trail now overgrown. We followed the still-visible path, winding through tall grasses.

At a fork in the trail, five of us stopped while my husband scouted ahead. That’s when my brother-in-law saw a tick crawling up his pants leg, then a second, then a third. Christy found one on her sock. I saw one, then another, crawling up my jeans.

Now I know the answer to Shannon’s question: Yes.

Suddenly keenly interested in self-exploration, we began flicking ticks off jeans, socks, shoes and shirts. Hastily returning home, we shed our clothes – modestly, of course – took our garments outside, shook them out, then washed them. We also carefully examined our persons.

I ask you: Where is chlorinated water when you need it?

Somehow, Shannon and 12-year-old Brittany escaped with no tick sightings. Between the rest of us, we found more than 25 ticks scurrying across our clothing. Thankfully, none had become attached.

How ridiculous for ticks to abort a lovely evening walk. How sublime to band together to conquer them.

How ridiculous for a grown-up to play on a children’s slide. How sublime to climb upward and whoosh downward, banding together with a young friend to conquer fear of what people will think.

Reminds me of a story in Mark 2: “Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't get to Jesus through the crowd, so they dug through the clay roof above his head. Then they lowered the sick man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus.”

How ridiculous for four grown-ups to dig through a roof. How sublime when, forgiven and healed, their friend jumped up and walked away.

You’ve heard of going from the sublime to the ridiculous? Sometimes, conquering what’s attacking and paralyzing you requires going through the ridiculous to get to the sublime. #

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Swelled heads and wavy faces

2008-06-26T16:02:00.001-05:00

Years ago, when Daddy and Mama got a new TV, we oohed and aahed over its big screen and state-of-the-art features.

Several months ago, I visited my parents. Walking into the den, I saw their former technological wonder tuned to a show that featured an older lady singing. The lady offered peppy lyrics, a robust voice and endearing facial expressions. Alas, I could not focus on any of those things.

My, what big hair she has! I thought. Why would anyone wear their hair that big? It’s the biggest hair I ever saw.

Beyond BIG, her hair filled the screen.

Only later, when Daddy changed channels, did I realize my error. The issue lay, not with the woman’s choice of hairstyle, but with the TV screen. On every channel, people had huge cone-heads, short bodies and miniscule legs.

This opened up a whole new dimension in TV viewing. It made watching baseball games particularly fascinating. You may have heard that wealth and fame give people the bighead? We saw evidence. Swelled-head pitchers bravely pitched with shrunken arms. Cone-head batters zealously struck with stubby bats. But the real show lay in watching the hitters run, distended heads bouncing, teensy legs churning.

Same with football players. Big-headed, short-armed, practically legless, they vied for passes and handoffs while scurrying – uphill? Yes, on this TV, each football field appeared decidedly bowl-shaped, the lines converging, rather than parallel.

Whether we watched the news, a game show, sports event, movie or series, the distorted picture proved funny for roughly three minutes. Then, it became annoying. Always, it distracted.

Now, my parents have a newer TV in their den. The replacement isn’t as large or state-of-the-art as its predecessor. Yet happily, it presents people, objects and even words on the screen in correct proportion.

My husband and I visited my parents a couple of weeks ago. While Daddy and Jerry watched a ballgame on the replacement TV in the den, I relaxed with Mama in the master bedroom. Flipping on the bedroom TV, we located a Lawrence Welk rerun from the 1950’s. The performers offered us nostalgic songs, lyrical voices and lively instrumentals.

Alas, I could not focus on any of those things because of the ripples rippling across the screen. Old show, defective tape, I thought.

Only later, when we changed channels, did I realize my error. Wherever we turned, people stood still and danced the hula at the same time. Close-up shots showed people’s faces waving like flags.

Most of us care too much about high-def pictures to put up long with ailing TVs. But though we’ll fork out big bucks for clear images, how many of us live week after week, month after month, year after year with a distorted view of reality?

We repeatedly ignore evidence as obvious as cone-headed ballplayers, attesting we do not see people or circumstances, difficulties or blessings, material things or spiritual things, life or death, as they really are. More than annoying, more than distracting, it’s grievous what we miss.

Once, while healing a blind man, Jesus asked him, “Can you see anything now?”

According to Mark 8, the man answered quite honestly: “I see people, but I can’t see them very clearly. They look like trees walking around.”

After “Jesus placed his hands over the man’s eyes again . . . he could see everything clearly.”

Don’t live with a distorted picture of life. Do what a formerly blind man did. Regardless how foolish it feels, stand before the one who can miraculously restore what you’ve learned to live without, and say, “I can’t see clearly.”

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Uncommon strategies

2008-06-19T08:29:00.003-05:00

Make-believe carries us places. Books and plays, TV shows and movies transport us into regions and centuries where we cannot otherwise go.

We expect make-believe to whisk us away from reality, offering respite from the daily-ness, the disappointments, the struggles that life relentlessly throws our way. We don’t expect make-believe to offer us uncommon strategies for living real life.

But sometimes it does.

One Sunday afternoon, watching TV with my mom, I saw an old Matlock rerun in which attorney Ben Matlock, played by Andy Griffith, sets out to defend a young man accused of murder. As Matlock enters the courtroom, so does the presiding judge, played by Dick Van Dyke.

We viewers know: The judge committed the murder for which the young man is standing trial.

We think: How impossible to get justice when the person most intent on thwarting justice sits on the bench. How difficult to expose truth when the person most intent on concealing truth appears upright and wields great clout.

In this make-believe story, Matlock does not despair over his seemingly hopeless task. He uses an uncommon strategy to get the judge off the bench and onto the witness stand.

This week, I read Prince Caspian, the second of the Narnia chronicles, also just released in movie version. I won’t give the story away, but here’s a peek: The four children who journeyed to Narnia through an empty wardrobe in the first book find themselves whisked away to the same land again.

There, a dwarf named Trumpkin tells them about a young king Caspian who desperately needs help. After describing the situation, Trumpkin laments, “I suppose I’d better go back to King Caspian and tell him no help has come.”

Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy announce that they have come to help. Trumpkin does not believe four children can provide what Caspian needs. Dismissing their offer, he says, “As it is – we’re awfully fond of children and all that, but just at the moment, in the middle of a war – but I’m sure you understand.”

The children have no great physical strength and no army, yet they offer Caspian something that proves even more valuable: uncommon strategies for victory.

We applaud uncommon strategies in make-believe. In life, however, we look askance at any remedy that seems illogical. Yet, God delights in using uncommon strategies to meet real-life needs.

Once, in the real land of Israel, the men supposed to uphold justice did just the opposite. These men had great authority. In days when “messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon,” God did what seemed silly and useless: He awoke a boy named Samuel, told the boy his plans and relied on Samuel to tell others (1 Sam. 3).

Ultimately, the unjust leaders died just as God had said – and Samuel, the one who dared to say what he heard God saying, became judge in the land.

On other occasions, God:

planned for a 90-year-old barren woman and a century-old man to birth a nation.
deployed a boy with slingshot to defeat a giant.
led a coward named Gideon and 300 men armed with trumpets, lantersn and empty jars to route innumerable forces from three invading nations.
commissioned 120 people without rank, status or financial clout to change the world.

How many times have you and I dismissed uncommon strategies as make-believe?

If, instead, we’ll look for them wherever this God chooses to reveal them, if we’ll receive them as the help we’ve been seeking, uncommon strategies will carry us places – places we cannot get any other way.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Giving

2008-06-12T09:00:00.001-05:00

My husband suggested doing pizza for lunch. Checking the phone book, he found that a certain pizza chain had a location near us and called to get directions.

The teenager who answered the phone handed off to a woman who provided the details and landmarks we needed.

Easily finding the place, we ate Round One from the pizza buffet. As we stood to return for Round Two, Jerry said to a lady bussing tables, “I called earlier to get directions. Are you the one who gave them to me?”

Perhaps in her 30s, with short, curly, sandy-colored hair, she smiled and responded, “Yes. That was me. Did you find the place all right?”

“Yes,” he said. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

Our meal finished, I sat sipping root beer and contemplating an idea that had just come to mind. “Jerry, what about giving that lady a hundred dollars?”

A light dawned in his eyes. “Oh,” he said. “I’d forgotten. But yes. I think that’s a good idea.”

In 2006, I started a small business with this succinct purpose: “investigate truth, instigate bold living.” Since we relocated in January, I’ve been reestablishing my business in a new state, which has meant lots going out, little coming in.

The last month, I’ve been asking God to release resources from unexpected places, and especially to provide resources so I can give to help meet others’ needs. My husband loves to give and does so generously. I ached to contribute again to such giving.

On Sunday, we visited a church both of us had noticed. Once there, we learned this church had distributed $30,000 to its members the week before, in envelopes containing anywhere from $5 to $500 – with instructions to everyone who received money to give it away, in Jesus’ name.

When the pastor announced that more envelopes would be distributed to those not present the week before, we watched church members stand to receive their envelopes. Then, the pastor said, “Visitors, if you want to participate, stand up.”

I looked at my husband. My eyes said, “Please.” He looked at me, and together we stood. After the church service, settling into our hot car, I unsealed our envelope. It held two 100-dollar bills.

Three days later, Jerry left our table at the pizza place and returned, followed by the sandy-haired server. “Is everything okay?” she asked anxiously.

“Yes!” we both answered. “What’s your name?” I asked. She told us. “We have a surprise for you,” I said. Jerry offered her a 100-dollar bill.

“I can’t accept a hundred dollars,” she said. Jerry said, “This is a gift to you from people who love Jesus.” We explained that the donors belonged to the church we had visited, that we were just delivering the gift. With wonder, she asked, “But God told you to give it to me?”

We nodded. She asked, “Can I hug you?” She said, “I think I’m going to cry.”

“Do you have any special needs this money might help you meet?” Jerry asked.

“Oh, yes!” she said. “My husband had a wreck this week. He’s been off work all week, and we had to replace the car. We found one for $1,600, though.”

She thanked us. We all thanked God.

Now, I’m eagerly watching to see where he wants to place the second $100 and how he will continue to release unexpected resources. I’m eagerly calling:

“Come down to make your name known. . . .
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down.”

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Foundation issues

2008-06-05T12:17:00.001-05:00

Never have foundations fascinated me – until now, when mounting evidence of faulty ones rivets my attention.

Interesting thing about faulty foundations: While the problem lies at the bottom, the evidence appears at the top. Said another way: If you’re seeing rifts and fissures – in buildings and life, in organizations and relationships – to correct the problem, you must do more than patch the sheetrock. You have to fix the foundation.

Ah, but we love patching.

Patching enables denial. It keeps us from having to admit the problem’s extent. We gain a sense of accomplishment – while avoiding the painful and costly process of identifying and correcting deeper issues. What’s more, patching keeps the appearance neat.

No matter what’s happening under the surface, we want the appearance to remain neat.

Yet, instead of solving the problem, patching compounds the problem. We can hide the truth only so long. Meanwhile, the rifts we’ve carefully covered continue to grow. New fissures appear, as what once held together snaps apart.

When patching fails, do we then get serious about dealing with foundational issues? No. We blame. We love blaming.

Blaming enables denial. It keeps us from having to assume responsibility. We feel exonerated – while evading the painful ordeal of getting to the root of what went wrong. What’s more, blaming keeps our pride intact.

No matter what’s happening under the surface, we want to keep our pride intact.

Yet, instead of solving the problem, blaming compounds the problem. We can deflect the truth only so long. While we point fingers, new damage appears and grows.

When blaming fails, do we finally get serious about fixing the foundation? No. Instead, we loudly proclaim that we intend to get serious. “We’re going to fix this the right way,” we say. “We’re going to do the right thing!” Meanwhile, we continue to find reasons and ways to let the matter slide.

We love stalling. We love pretending to intend to fix things. Yet empty promises can mimic the truth only so long. The clock continues to tick, and the damage continues to mount.

“When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” the poet-king David cried in Psalm 11:3 (NIV). Maybe David had faced all the patching, blaming and stalling he could take.

His question sounds almost like a hand-wringing cry, an everything’s-going-to-collapse-and-there’s-nothing-I-can-do cry.

But the rest of Psalm 11 reveals that David wasn’t asking rhetorically. He was asking strategically. He wasn’t lamenting, “We’re doomed! Nothing can be done to avert disaster!” He was crying for strategy to deal with foundational issues people had denied way too long.

According to the NIV margin, David’s question might be translated, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what is the Righteous One doing?”

The answer? He’s doing plenty. In The Message rendering of verses 4,7, David continued, “He’s in charge, as always, his eyes taking everything in, his eyelids Unblinking, examining Adam's unruly brood inside and out, not missing a thing. . . . GOD's business is putting things right; he loves getting the lines straight, Setting us straight.”

What can we do when evidence of faulty foundations mounts? We can keep patching and blaming and stalling until everything crashes down around us.

We can wring our hands.

Or, desperate, we can seek God’s strategy. We can cry for the Righteous One to show us how to fix the problem from the foundation up. We can actively cooperate as he reveals root issues – humbly admitting the truth and taking each step he indicates.

When we finally pursue the strategy we tried so hard to avoid, we find it sets things straight.

© 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

It's French to me

2008-05-29T16:08:00.002-05:00

I sat outside a Starbucks with a view of Pike’s Peak.

Earlier I’d met my sister Judy for lunch at her workplace, the International Bible Society headquarters in Colorado Springs. While waiting for Judy in the small bookstore/lobby, I found a French New Testament for sale.

Opening the pages and scanning a few verses, I actually recognized several words. By the time Judy arrived, I’d decided to purchase.

Our younger daughter speaks French fluently. Thirty-five years ago, I took French in college. Last year, I enrolled in a seven-week conversational French course. The class provided just enough information to frustrate me – and to entice me to learn more.

In the months after, enticement got buried under a pile of daily responsibilities and activities.
Sitting alone outside Starbucks, I drank iced mocha, enjoyed the sunshine, admired the snow-laced peak and thought about French. Now the proud owner of a new French testament (which, with Judy’s discount, cost me exactly 82 cents), I revisited the idea of taking a course that might help me actually read my New Testament and converse in French with my daughter.

The idea, like the mountain, intimidated me almost as much as it interested me. It smacked of adventure, accomplishment and conquest.

“Am I up to it?” I wondered.

Other days, observing people instead of peaks, I’ve noticed a recurring theme, particularly among women in my age range. Generally, this theme has nothing to do with French. It has everything to do with reawakened dreams.

Many, in their youth, longed to develop a certain skill, follow a certain interest, pursue a certain path. Then life intervened. Often, “life” included taking care of others and launching them toward their dreams.

Now, these women find their own dreams reawakening. But they wonder, “If I couldn’t get there when 25, how can I possibly meet the challenge at 45 or 55 or 65?”

Facing French, I have an advantage I didn’t have three years ago: vigor, arising from a growing awareness of who I am and a growing confirmation from others that I’m seeing accurately.

If you’d asked me at 25, I’d have told you quite confidently who I was and where I was going. Not knowing my view was skewed, I spent the next quarter century slamming into brick walls.
Just a few head-on collisions with rock-hard walls can shatter our confidence and our dreams. Reeling, we may take one of two paths. Either we keep attempting the same things – with the same devastating results – or, defeated, we snuff the dream and settle for staying where we cannot get beyond.

At my most shattered, I discovered another option: a gate leading out of walls I’d kept crashing into. Beyond the walls, I found a world I didn’t know existed. Beyond the walls, I’m finding me.

Once a man named Samson had a skewed view of himself. As a result, he entered walls he had no business entering. His enemies surrounded the walls, plotting to kill him at daybreak. At midnight, Samson “went out to the city gates and lifted them, with the two gateposts, right out of the ground. He put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the mountain across from Hebron!” (Judg. 16:3 TLB).

While I sat gazing on a different mountain, music played over a loudspeaker. Suddenly, a female singer began singing in French.

Laughing aloud, I decided: C’est possible!

As we step into our God-given identity, intimidation no longer hems us in. Barreling past it – carrying the gates, if necessary – we go places we’ve longed to go but never before could.

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Woman reading

2008-05-21T20:03:00.001-05:00

It felt decadent. It felt grand.

I sat crossways in my rattan chair, legs hanging over the chair’s left arm, feet propped on the windowsill. With the window raised, the breeze tickled my toes. The afternoon sun warmed them.

Most of the day, I’d sat reading. Turning each page, starting each chapter, I faced a mini-skirmish within. “Get up and do something!” the antagonist demanded.

“I am doing something,” came the insistent reply.

“If only an artist would happen by,” I thought. “Then I could pose in reading mode, and the antagonist within me would relax.” When you’re suitably employed as a model, you’re not wasting time.

The pose-for-a-painter idea – brilliant, if improbable, since the rattan chair sits in an upstairs home office – came from my 2008 engagement calendar, The Reading Woman, published by Pomegranate Communications. This lovely calendar dedicates entire pages to reproductions of paintings and quotations from books – all portraying women reading.

Authors as varied as Shakespeare, Ezra Pound, Eleanor Roosevelt and the French mystic Madame Guyon weigh in. Other quotes spring from such familiar works as Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Eudora Welty writes: “She read Dickens in the spirit in which she would have eloped with him.” Kylie Tennant announces: “She would read anything from a dictionary to a treatise on turnips. Print fascinated her, dazed her, made her good for nothing.”

Ah, but the paintings intrigue me most. A sampling of titles doesn’t begin to convey the variety of women, poses and artistic styles rendered: Reading, Woman Reading, Young Girl Reading, Woman Reading a Letter, Woman Reading in a Sunlit Room, Woman Reading by Candlelight, By Lamplight, At the Window, Reading on the Terrace, Two Women Reading in an Interior, The Reader, The Reader Crowned with Flowers – and my personal favorite: A Woman Reading near a Goldfish Tank.

The distinguished artists who painted these works were English, Scottish, Danish, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, Swiss, Italian, Austrian, Australian, Russian and Ukrainian. How interesting that so many artists hailing from such different places and periods found so much delight in capturing on canvas a woman reading. How telling that none of the artists lives today.

With the bulk of the works more than a century old, the latest was painted in 1939 by Australian Gwendolyn Grant. Titled Winter Sunshine, it pictures a young blonde woman in sunsuit reading outdoors.

Every stroke, every picture illustrates a quote attributed to Henry Miller: “We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate.”

Luxuriate. Sounds decadent, doesn’t it?

Maybe that’s why contemporary US artists have trouble catching contemporary US women reading.

The day I did so, my antagonist within repeatedly reminded me of the rules: Reading, if done at all, should be relegated to waiting times in doctor’s offices, school parking lots and beauty shops – or to the moments just before you nod off, exhausted, to sleep.

I had other things to do that day – yet could not do them. I needed to break some rules.

Romans 12:2, The Message, urges, “Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.”

Pressed in spirit, I knew God wanted me to spend the day doing what my cultural bias labeled “Good for Nothing.” I needed what Edmund Leighton identified in the title of his painting of a woman reading in an English garden: Sweet Solitude.

And thus did I luxuriate. #

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Flatter 'n a flitter

2008-05-15T07:31:00.002-05:00

Granddaddy coined the phrase. His voice solemn, his eyes twinkling, he’d say, “Anyone I catch sitting in my chair, I’ll mash flatter ‘n a flitter.”

We grandchildren didn’t know how flat a flitter was, nor indeed what a flitter was. If guessing, I’d have said a flitter resembles a cartoon character smashed paper thin by a suddenly opened door or large dropped object.

According to Dictionary.com, I had the right idea. In the Southern vernacular, the noun flitter can mean “a fritter or pancake.” Ages ago, the prophet Hosea described a flitter when he wrote, “Ephraim is a flat cake not turned over” (Hos. 7:8 NIV).

Regardless, we grandchildren sat in granddaddy’s chair, alternately giggling and screaming, as he hurried across the room and pretended to flatten us.

I hadn’t thought about the phrase in years. Then, two recent incidents brought Granddaddy’s words to mind. Traveling Highway 78 across Mississippi with our daughter Amanda one night, I hit a short, thin piece of wood. Not seeing the board until just before my front drivers’ side tire ran over it, I had no opportunity to swerve.

Immediately, I began checking the tire pressure indicator on my car’s dash. Thankfully, all tires showed equal pressure for the remaining hour of my trip.

The next morning, Amanda and I got into my car, intending to head out shopping. Immediately, a warning light and insistent ding alerted us that the front drivers’ side tire was low. Getting out to look, we confirmed the report. Ultimately, we went shopping in my husband’s car while he took the deflated tire to be fixed.

Three weeks later, my sister Karen was driving across Mississippi, taking primarily four-lane highways. On the one 50-mile stretch of two-lane road, she had a flat tire.

Thankfully, the tire didn’t blow. Instead, deflating, it made a noise like a helicopter. Hearing the noise, Karen saw flashing lights in her rearview mirror. A young man in a white truck behind her was signaling a warning. Then, she felt the rear drivers’ side tire go flat.

As she pulled off the road, the young man passed her, turned into a driveway and walked back. Before she could say, “Flatter ‘n a flitter,” he changed her tire. She tried to pay him. He refused. She asked his name. He wouldn’t say. “Just count this as my good deed for the day,” he said.

“Oh, I think this counts for the next week or two,” Karen quipped.

Flat tires, flat cakes and flattened people have this in common: The air has gone out of them. Rescuing angels – including young men in white trucks and husbands – revive what has deflated or, that failing, replace it.

Alas, my sister’s tire could not be revived. We’re planning an appropriate funeral.

Interestingly, in the Old and New Testaments, the words translated spirit also mean air or breath. Thus, a person “crushed in spirit” has, in the Southern vernacular, been “mashed flatter ‘n a flitter.”

Even the most helpful of people cannot always revive those who’ve been crushed and deflated, yet scripture insists there is someone who can.

If you’ve had the wind knocked out of you, if you’re feeling about as worthless as a half-cooked pancake, I have a message for you “from the high and towering God, who lives in Eternity, whose name is Holy.” He wants you to know: “I live in the high and holy places, but also with the low-spirited, the spirit-crushed, And what I do is put new spirit in them, get them up and on their feet again” (Isa. 57:15 MSG).

© 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Tunnel ahead

2008-05-07T21:37:00.001-05:00

You're driving along a mountain highway on a cloudless day. You round a curve and see this sign: Turn on Headlights, Tunnel Ahead. Two minutes later, you enter the tunnel.

The sun was shining before you entered the darkness. It will still be shining when you exit. Inside the tunnel, your eyes tell you the sun has stopped shining. Don’t believe them. The sun continues shining the whole time you're passing through darkness: you just can't see it.

You may not like driving in the dark, but you must keep pressing forward to get to your destination. You realize the folly of trying to turn around or back up in a tunnel.

If the tunnel is long, you may begin to wonder whether it ever ends. It does. But if you get discouraged, stop, turn off the engine and wait, you’ll never reach the daylight – and an unsuspecting driver will probably rear-end you.

To see the sun again, you must keep your seat behind the wheel while your car continues to move forward. Your headlights must continue to function. If your headlights go out or if you begin feeling claustrophobic and try to jump from the car, you're in serious trouble.

All road trips aside, you may be driving along in the sunshine. Your skies have few clouds. You can easily see the light and feel the warmth of God's love.

Then, abruptly, you enter a tunnel. Suddenly in the dark, you have no idea how far to the other end. If the light doesn’t reappear quickly, you may wonder if the tunnel has another end. Much as you might wish to do so, you cannot turn around or back up.

You don't like driving in darkness. The deeper it gets, the longer it lasts, the less you can feel God’s love.

In the days before people drove anywhere, a prophet named Jeremiah went through a long, dark tunnel time. In the midst of it, he wrote: “There's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: GOD's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I'm sticking with GOD (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left” (Lam 3:21-24 MSG).

In the tunnel, Jeremiah kept reminding himself, “The sun of God's love still shines!” – though for the life of him, the prophet could not see it or feel its effects.

Jeremiah believed he would one day move out of the tunnel into the full glow of sunlight again, and he recognized the secret to getting there. Jeremiah declared, “GOD proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks” (Lam 3:25 MSG).

In your tunnel times, remember this: Be still . . . and keep moving. Instead of trying to bolt and run, “passionately wait” on the Lord, sitting tight like a driver behind the wheel. Even when you cannot see it or feel it, know that once you’re in Christ, nothing can separate you from his love.

While resting in the Lord, resist the urge to park. Your destination lies on the far side of the tunnel. Keep your foot on the accelerator, your hands on the wheel and “diligently seek” to go through to the other side.

Be still; keep moving. Passionately wait; diligently seek. From the moment you see a sign, “Tunnel Ahead,” those twin headlights will keep you on track till you break out into the sunlight again.

© 1994, 2008 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Exploring

2008-05-02T12:54:00.001-05:00

Every kid ought to have woods to explore – every adult too.

Three months ago, when my husband and I moved to a new home, we got woods.

For several weeks, whenever heading out walking, I stuck to the streets. That provided enough scenery, I told myself. Sure, the neighborhood promotional materials boasted walking trails, but the one trail I saw veered off the street, around a small lake and disappeared into the wild.

Passing the trail, I looked longingly but didn’t go there until the day my adventurer husband suggested we walk it together. In his boyhood, he had woods. Now, he heard again, too strong to deny, a call to explore.

We set out walking along the road, then turned onto the trail – a wide, graveled, four-wheeler path. A low iron gate barred larger vehicles from entering. Stepping over the gate, we trekked past two small lakes, the second lake hidden from the main road. Visions of fishing excursions danced in my husband’s head.

Curving, the path took us behind the main row of houses in the neighborhood. Looking one way, we saw back yards of relatively new houses. Looking the other way, we saw wilderness. Eventually, we also saw a green metal building sitting far from a paved road. A sign advertised the building as a motorcycle repair shop. Near it, sat a wooden, one-story house with front porch – perhaps 1940’s vintage.

Just past a second gate, we stepped onto a narrow, paved trail that made an oblong loop through a field, taking us close to a main road before curving back around to the second gate.

Returning the way we had come, we noticed where secondary paths meandered away from the four-wheeler trail and determined to explore those paths another day.

Two weeks later, we explored again, this time cross-country. Our house sits on a hill. The back yard slopes down to a ravine where a little creek runs and woods begin. Beyond the ravine, the land slopes sharply uphill again.

On a Saturday morning, I decided to pick up trash that had blown into the ravine. My husband said, “What if I come too, and we go see what’s over the rise?”

Brunt and Brunt doesn’t carry quite the same ring as Lewis and Clark. Yet, we felt just as much explorers as they. Fording the creek, walking under tall, leafless trees, climbing past fallen trunks, low entangling branches and vines that hadn’t yet budded, we topped the ridge. Another four-wheeler trail ran along its far side.

We walked the trail in both directions until stopped by water holes too large to cross. Then, we returned home, picking our way back down the hill, crossing the ravine and promising ourselves we would return another day to explore further.

Only later did I read the words God spoke after Abraham moved to a new place: “Take a walk in every direction and explore the new possessions I am giving you” (Gen. 13:17 NLT).

Only later did I read the call to a different kind of exploring in Galatians 6:4, The Message: “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that.”

How satisfying to explore the new place we live! How deeply enjoyable to gain perspective, to discover together much we otherwise would have missed.

How wild – at my age – to hear a call, too strong to deny, to explore who I am. Eager, yet afraid to go there, I hesitate, until he who created me says, “What if I go with you?”

© 2008, Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.