Smiling in the Rain

 

I keep rain boots in my office ready to go

It’s raining today.  AGAIN.

 

The Chicago weather bean-counters inform us that we’ve had rain 18 out of the 26 days in April so far. I thought it seemed a little soggy around here, but hey, April showers bring May flowers and all that.

The challenge is to remember that there’s a beautiful bright sun up there somewhere even when you can’t see it.

 I had a favorite umbrella when I was a kid that sported  spokes covered by dull grey cloth on the outside but underneath, where only the holder could appreciate it, the umbrella was lined with cheerful blue fabric dotted with fluffy clouds. The lesson wasn’t lost on me.

Mike and I were talking with our new friends Pete and Pam at church the other night about our mutual love for the city of Istanbul. When we visited on sabbatical last June, we experienced a veritable monsoon. On the one free day we had to wander the city and visit the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Market, the skies opened up and water came down at a rate that left us gasping in admiration. This, after all, was the land of Noah. Turkey knows how to do rain!

Mike and I shared one miserable excuse for an umbrella between us and soon tossed the thing. We tried to dodge the drops at first, zigging one direction and then zagging another, but as the water rose around our ankles we rather started to enjoy the fancy footwork. It’s hard to sing in the rain when the noise of city traffic is amplified by a deluge, but dancing in the rain is something anyone can do.

Our daughter Amber lives in Tacoma, Washington, a city gifted with a LOT of wet weather. Sodden skies make me morose, but Amber has been blessed with her father’s perpetually sunny personality. For my birthday last year, Amber sent me a wonderful framed print depicting a group of people huddled under their umbrellas in a downpour. One woman sporting a yellow slicker, though, has her feet in a puddle but her face upturned to the skies, and the look on her face is pure bliss.

That’s the woman I want to be. Not part of the huddled masses yearning to stay safe and dry, but the one with my face tilted towards heaven.

Smilin’ in the rain. 

"Smile at the Rain" by Beth Hendrickson Logan

Bread for the World

Holding my fresh loaf of Frances’ bread

We grumble about Mondays and thank God for Fridays, but I personally have a new reason to welcome Wednesdays – it’s bread delivery day!

My friend Frances (aka The Crumb Mum) and her daughter Elle bake the most amazing whole grain bread I have ever tasted. Each loaf weighs 2.5 pounds yet slices up unbelievably light and moist. Frances’ secret is that she and Elle grind their own grain and bake the bread minutes after it’s been milled.

Frances told me that time is of the essence when it comes to making whole wheat bread because most of the nutrients found in the kernel of wheat disappear within 72 hours of the milling. But by grinding her own grain, she preserves the 26 vitamins and minerals found in wheat berries.

She and Elle also deliver, and a highlight of my Wednesdays is getting  a call from the receptionist down in the lobby at Tyndale saying, “Maggie, you have bread waiting for you!” The bread comes encased in a non-porous bag  with the distinctive Crumbs tag,  and it’s so fresh it’s practically still warm.

Can you tell I am passionate about good bread? I’ve enjoyed beignets in New Orleans, cornbread in Nashville, and Portuguese sweet bread in New England.  When Mike and I have traveled internationally, we’ve picked up crusty baguettes in French patisseries, fragrant samosas in Kenya, and sweet loukoumades in Greece.

What is it about bread anyway? Most of us would gladly give up other items in the food pyramid before we’d forego our daily bread. Mike and I have been trying – with limited success this year – to observe a partial Daniel Fast during Lent, but Mike’s internist told him emphatically that given his health history Mike needs to keep bread in his diet.

As I picked up my loaf at work this afternoon and returned to my office upstairs, I hefted it in my hands and thought of the tasks waiting on my desktop. I work in the field of Christian publishing, and our corporate motto is to minister to the spiritual needs of people through literature consistent with biblical principles. We work really hard to give our readers their spiritual “daily bread.”

 Jesus said that unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. He was referring to his own approaching death – the event we commemorate each year during Holy Week. John 12:24 foreshadows the fact that Christ’s death and resurrection would produce many new “kernals” – a plentiful harvest of new lives.

2700 years ago, the prophet Isaiah wrote of One who would be pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins, beaten so we could be whole, whipped so we could be healed (Is. 53:5).

Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, followed by Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and then Resurrection Sunday. During this holiest of weeks on the Christian calendar, my thoughts are turning to the One who was born in Bethlehem, which in Hebrew means  “house of bread.”

This week once again Mike and I have received Frances’ and Elle’s life-giving bread, and as we take it into our bodies with grateful hearts, we do it in remembrance of Him.

T.H.I.N.K.

Rodin's The Thinker

A wise woman, or maybe it was a wise man, once wrote that our faults irritate us most when we see them in others.

 I’m wondering why that’s so. Maybe it’s the social mirror principle: that we don’t really see ourselves clearly until our behavior is reflected in someone else’s life.

When Mike was a youth pastor back in the 70’s and 80’s he knew that his student ministry would never grow if the teens didn’t feel safe within the group. I never recall him having to break up a fight; the teens he pastored were good kids who wouldn’t dream of attacking or bullying other members of the group.

But Mike knew there was a far more insidious risk to his kids’ safety: the power of the tongue. It drove him crazy when he overheard teens criticizing, belittling or gossiping about others in the group. 

So he told his students one night at youth group that they had to learn to T.H.I.N.K. before they spoke. He doesn’t remember where he first heard the acronym he used to teach this concept but I still recall it decades later.

“Before you share information about someone else,” Mike said, “ask yourself these simple questions. Is what you have to say:

T –  True.  If not, it’s a no brainer!

H – Helpful.  Does it convey information someone else needs to hear?

I – Instructive.  Are your words constructive or destructive? Do they build up or tear down someone else?

N – Necessary. Is the one you’re telling in a “need to know” category? Are they in a position to do something about the situation?

K – Kind. Would you want someone speaking this way about you?

It’s interesting to me that these questions are summed up in Paul’s word to the Ephesians: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

Some years ago I was walking with two friends when the conversation turned to a third – I’ll call her Tammy – who had not been able to join us. Tammy had a difficult home life and we all felt for her, but when the talk turned to what she should or shouldn’t be doing to help herself, I began to feel uncomfortable. Would we speak this way if Tammy were present? Were the comments instructive or necessary? No, no, and no again. I changed the subject quickly, but the incident left me with doubts. Would my friends discuss me if I had not been present?

A cardinal rule of friendship? Don’t talk about people in their absence as you would not in their presence.

James, half-brother to Jesus and the author of the New Testament letter that bears his name, learned this the hard way. Remember the bitter tirade he and his brothers unleashed in Capernaum when Jesus was teaching in a private home? “He’s out of his mind,” they shouted.

Yet Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearance to his skeptical, cynical brother must have finally convinced James beyond all doubt that Jesus truly was who He said He was. No wonder James wrote in his letter, “Brothers and sisters do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it.”  (James 4:11)

Sometimes seeing behavior in others that makes us cringe helps us to see ourselves more clearly.

 Dear Lord, help me T.H.I.N.K. before I speak!

She’s Here!

 

Our chickadee boarder's view from the balcony

It’s lemonade, it’s lemonade, it’s daisy.
It’s a roller-skating, scissor-grinding day;
It’s gingham-waisted, chocolate flavored, lazy,
With the children flower-scattered at their play.

  So begins one of my favorite childhood poems: “April” by Marcia Masters.

As a farm kid growing up in northern Illinois, I longed for spring. Waiting for April’s arrival was like watching for a favorite aunt to come – it took forever for her to get there and the visit was over way too soon.

April gave indulgent permission to run outdoors with bare feet luxuriating in the feel of new spring grass between your toes. April produced from her deep pockets gifts of baby chicks in the coop and lambs birthing in the barn…swallows building their nests and dandelions pegging down a carpet of green.

It’s the sun like watermelon,
And the sidewalks overlaid
With a glaze of yellow yellow
Like a jar of marmalade.

  One of my favorite memories from my college years was the awakening of spring on what we called “front campus” – the sprawling park-like lawn and gardens sloping away from Blanchard Hall, the iconic symbol of Wheaton College. The college gardeners used to plant daffodil bulbs spelling out “It’s Spring!”, and it never failed to make me laugh. After the interminable Illinois winter, we needed spring spelled out for us.

It’s the mower gently mowing,
And the stars like startled glass,
While the mower keeps on going
Through a waterfall of grass.

As a young mom raising babies, April told me that the fickle New England weather could no longer hold us hostage in the house.  The sun warming  his blonde curls, Adam would skip and spin two steps ahead while Amber and Jordan rode in the pram facing each other – our destination the playground, our time extravagantly our own. April gave us slides and swings and shadows lengthening beneath the maple trees.

Then the rich magenta evening
Like a sauce upon the walk,
And the porches softly swinging
With a hammockful of talk.

Now I’m a woman who has anticipated nearly six decades of April’s visits, and I’m no less anxious for her to arrive with her largesse. See there – the forsythia bush blushed yellow overnight! Did you notice the purple carpet of squill? Watch carefully – it will be taken up and gone by the tenth. And we have a prospective boarder checking out the birdhouse on the balcony – I hope she likes us!

It’s the hobo at the corner
With his lilac-sniffing gait,
And the shy departing thunder
Of the fast departing skate.

E-mail today delivered its quota of sorrowful news: a close friend’s brother is dying, a Facebook friend came home to a house devoid of husband, foreclosure threatens yet another friend. I grieve their losses, pray for them, and chafe again at a world that reads like a book with too many endings.

Yet April sticks in my consciousness like a green post-it note reminding me that winter has not won, that spring has indeed sprung, and that the renaissance of the world was the Creator’s idea after all.

 Somewhere in New England the sap is running in the maple trees, and I swear I can smell the sweetness even from here.

It’s lemonade, it’s lemonade, it’s April!
A water sprinkler, puddle winking time,
    When a boy who peddles slowly,
    With a smile remote and holy,
Sells you April, chocolate flavored, for a dime.

Thank you God for April.