Monday morsel: one golden nail

I'm a little slow in posting my "Monday morsel" today, because it's been a busy weekend with family birthday celebrations and because I was preparing my "Twitterature" post for yesterday. But this amazing quote came to my mind recently when I was reading a post at Adriana's blog "Classical Quest", so I shared it with her in a comment. 

Upon his graduation from university, Japanese-Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama received this original poem from his father -- just ten simple words.  (You can read the background story HERE.)

"Into God's temple of eternity, drive a nail of gold."

June 2014 "Twitterature"

Today I'm linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy's monthly "Twitterature" post, in which we all share short(ish) reviews of what we've been reading.

  In the past month I've read three excellent books:

 

A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans.  Held Evans spent a year trying to take the Bible's commands about women as literally as she could, with funny and fascinating results.  Ever the overachiever, she engaged in numerous projects:  from sleeping outside during her period, to keeping silent in church, praising her husband in the city gates like the Proverbs 31 woman, dressing modestly, holding a ceremony to honour forgotten women of Scripture, interviewing a polygamous family, and much more.  Her conclusion that there's no single right way to be a "Biblical woman" doesn't have an "Aha, I knew it wouldn't work!" tone; rather, she finishes her experiment with a greater and humbler appreciation for her own faith, for her marriage, for other Christian women of all kinds, and for the freedom offered by the gospel.  A hilarious, informative, moving book (with pictures!) that isn't just for women.

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Found by Micha Boyett.  I started reading Micha Boyett's former blog, Mama:Monk, a few years ago and loved how she blended life as a mom of two sons with reflections on prayer and spiritual disciplines.  Found explores how she struggled with whether she was doing enough for God as a mother, and how she came to terms with her calling and discovered joy -- hers, and God's -- in her here-and-now life.  The book is structured according to the divine hours, beginning with Vigils: Midnight and ending with Compline: Night Prayers. This structure helps emphasize that the insights she gains are not once-and-for-all achievements but part of a daily, constant exercise of faith.  Great book for anyone who's ever wondered if their ordinary life matters.

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This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett.  This book of essays deals with a wide range of subjects:  Patchett's childhood as a daughter of divorced parents, her own early marriage and divorce, her second marriage (the "happy" one of the title), her writing habits and assignments, her beloved dog Rose, and other things.  The only previous books I'd read of hers were Truth and Beauty (about her friendship with writer Lucy Grealy) and her novel Bel Canto, so it was interesting to find out more about Patchett the person and the writer; but this book is well worth reading even if you haven't read any of her other work.

"Where is my peace?" - guest post at Bronwyn Lea's blog

Today I'm honoured to be a guest on Bronwyn Lea's blog as part of her "Words That Changed My World" series.  I met Bronwyn online and have enjoyed reading her insightful, encouraging blog posts and her comments on many of the other blogs I visit.  (It's quite a community out here in the blogosphere!) 

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I have a friend I've been walking with every Tuesday morning for the past several months, and our conversations about books, family life, friendship, and God are always inspiring and life-giving.  A couple of weeks ago  ....

Click here to read the rest over at Bronwyn's blog.

Monday morsel: "Hearts are meant to feel" (Franceen Neufeld)

Today's "morsel" is from my friend Franceen Neufeld.  Franceen has written a book called Suffering Eyes which aims to raise awareness about the suffering of animals in our world and to awaken compassion for all creatures.  These words are from a talk she recently gave at the Wishing Well farmed animal sanctuary near Toronto.

"As long as there is suffering in this world, and as long as there is love to respond to it, grief and joy must abide together.

 But what do we do with the fear?  The fear of pain, the fear of grief, the fear that we may not be able to bear it? What if we are right, that facing the suffering will break us? I think there is something far more fearful than that, something that is happening everywhere always, one thing that is perpetuating the suffering. In our fear of pain, in our desire to protect our hearts, we are hardening them – we are making them ill, unable to respond as hearts are meant to do. 

 Hearts are meant to feel, and when they are well that’s what they do: in the forming of close relationships, healthy hearts feel love; in celebrating life, they feel joy; at the invasion of loss, they feel grief; towards the infliction of injustice, they feel anger. And in witnessing grievous suffering – healthy hearts break. Indifference to the suffering of others is a symptom of a sick and hardened heart, one that has lost the ability to love. As the Puritans said, a broken heart IS a healed heart. If this world is to heal, we must welcome the breaking of our hearts, not fear it.

 I believe that the only way that we will ever welcome the breaking of our hearts, is when we stop being curved in on ourselves, as theologian Jürgen Moltmann put it, and learn to love somebody else. And the paradox is that when we begin to love somebody else, that is when we begin to find ourselves."

  freeimages.co.uk

Things fall apart

 "Things fall apart..."

Yes, those words are from a poem by William Butler Yeats.

They're also the title of a novel by Chinua Achebe.

But I don't mean them in the literary sense.

I mean them in the literal sense.

Things fall apart -- and they all seem to choose the same time to do so.

Our dishwasher died last week.  I know, that is totally a first-world problem:  a dishwasher is a luxury, not a necessity, and I've made sure not to complain about washing dishes by hand for the past few days.  But not complaining doesn't mean we intend to go dishwasher-less -- after all, something's got to fit into that perfectly-sized space under the counter!  So we purchased a new one the other day, and yesterday a guy came to remove the old one and put in the new.  This process required him to remove the baseboards under the lower kitchen cupboards because the water hose was installed in an "unusual" way, and to go out and get new pipe fittings to rectify some "unorthodox" plumbing decisions made by the previous owner.

Barely thirty seconds after the dishwasher guy left, our neighbour Bill appeared to do a little plumbing job we'd asked him about:  our main-floor bathroom faucet needed replacing because (1) it was starting to drip randomly and (2) it was 30+ years old and holding together by rust.  Our flashlights are all very lame, so I plugged a lamp into the bathroom outlet to give Bill more light to work by.  The lamp bulb blew, which also blew out the bathroom light fuse.  Sigh.  Fortunately I had another fuse ... better stock up on a few more.

The faucet's working great now (although Bill needed to run out to Canadian Tire for new water lines because the lines on the new faucet were three inches too short to connect with the pipes under the sink).  We'll probably need to buy another lamp, though, because that one may be fried.

Also, the pullout part of our kitchen sink faucet is broken.  The metal tube that surrounds the rubbery blue tube broke off and is now stuck inside the unit, so only the blue tube is exposed -- and it kinks if not pulled out properly.  I'm pretty sure we're going to need another faucet.

In addition, our front stone steps are starting to crumble, and we're thinking we'd better replace them before we have to put out an "UNWELCOME" mat.

And don't even get me started on the main-floor carpets that need replacing.

That's the way with material things, it seems.  The best dishwasher conks out eventually; ours lasted 14+ years, well past the expected 10.  Thousands of turn-offs and turn-ons and pull-outs will take their toll on even the best faucet.  Time, rain, ice, and salt will create cracks in stone and concrete.  Kind of reminds me of the old nursery rhyme, "London Bridge is Falling Down":  various solutions are suggested for repairs to the bridge, but they're all rejected because of their impermanence.  Iron and steel will bend and bow; wood and clay will wash away; silver and gold will be stolen away; and so on.

Sometimes non-material things fall apart, too.  Plans fall through ... dreams dissolve ... hopes crumble ... relationships we thought were permanent break down.  And there's no quick repair job or easy replacement -- as if we could install a brand-new friendship or dream into the space left behind by the old one.  

Those are hard things to face.  I ask "Why," but I don't really reach any satisfactory conclusions.  Some things just don't have easy answers.  But I do find it helpful to focus on things that are permanent and reliable, and that usually means meditating on Bible verses or song lyrics that I find meaningful and comforting.

Josh Garrels' song "Flood Waters" is one that particularly helps me.  Give the song a listen by clicking here -- and if you're experiencing that sense of things falling apart, I hope these lyrics help you focus on the stability and permanence of God and His love.

Higher than the yonder mountain, deeper than the sea
From the breadth of the east unto the west
Is the love that started with a seed

Stronger than the wildest horses and the rising tide
The cords of death hung so heavy round our necks
Will be left at the great divide

Flood waters rise, but it won't wash away
Love never dies; it will hold on more fierce than graves

Farther than the pale moon rises above the open plains
Past the time of the longest blood line
There shines an immortal flame

Somewhere in between forever and the passing days
There’s a place moth and rust cannot lay waste
This is grace, the face of love

Flood waters rise, but it won't wash away
Love never dies; it will hold on more fierce than graves.

Josh Garrels "Flood Waters"

from the album Love & War & the Sea in Between, 2011