Concord Today

Thoreau’s home (and Emerson’s, I think, and most definitely Louisa May Alcott’s) welcomed me with a hug and a twinkle. With white steeples and children in polo shirts with gel in their hair. With school buses and roundabouts and mobiles made of bowls and cups and plates and forks and spoons, and a store called French Lessons that is for lingerie and perfume. With mermaid ornaments, seashell earrings and tiny wire birds nests and postcards and a coffee shop boasting a warming menu that includes wine, fresh muffins and chocolate eclairs. Now, I write from the shop. Each table at the coffee shop wears centerpiece of a mug, filled with miniature gourds, fallish berries, leaves and dried corn husks. (I am reminded of Colonial Christmas in fifth grade, when we made dolls out of corn husks. Except I always thought they were tamale dolls, because I had only seen corn husks used to make tamales. We also drew each others silhouettes by having the subject stand between paper hung on the chalkboard and a shining projector. And, we made candlesticks. For the time being, for this moment, I would like to pretend that it all started there, making candles and corn husk dolls, that somewhere, in that suburban colonial day with tamale dolls and projectors, I sensed something deep and true calling to me from Colonial America, teaching me that there is something intrinsically gratifying about making things. Of course it most likely wasn’t Colonial Day calling me, and I can’t really argue objectively that it is better to make things, but I’ll tell you this- my sister’s salsa is a lot better than Pace, and my banana bread is better than a Little Debbie). But I digress.

Framed pictures of old Life Magazine covers hang near my head, with Sandy Koufax staring at me, looking very American and very skeptical. I am drinking iced coffee through a pink straw and wondering if I should buy the overpriced hat I saw next door. I should not buy the overpriced hat, but my head is normally too big for once-size-fits all hats (I take a moment’s pause now to gratefully acknowledge hats that honestly admit in their tiny sown in tags…“One Size Fits Most.”) and this hat fits me and it is plaid, so I probably will buy it, in fact. I wore a flowing scarf today, a light peach color with gold sequins braided into it. I didn’t think about it too much at the time, but now I’m grateful that I dawned one of my more whimsical pieces of clothing.

Kate (my traveling buddy for the day) and I opened our brown paper bag lunches on a picnic bench outside of an antique store. The store had a bubble machine on the outside, so as my friend and I chatted with our mouths full of peanut butter and honey sandwiches (which presented quite a challenge to chatting), bubbles floated by. Later I ran my fingers through a bowl of dried seahorses, very carefully so as to not break any of their tails off, and I talked to a woman named Karen who also believes in beauty.

And I wish I had friends who liked birds, because then I would buy them everything I could afford in the store called “The Nesting,” but I can’t think of anyone with any particular affection for birds. It doesn’t really matter. I bought some of you bird things anyways, and I think you will be appreciative.

There is just something about jasmine hand soup with starfish carved in, and about touching dead sea horses and trying on rings made of jade that made my fingers dance on this here keyboard. I wonder what makes your fingers dance? Or your pointer finger click or your guitar strings strum or your paint blend or your knitting needles pearl one?

Fall

Fall is kissing her New England growing things already, and I am paying the strictest attention. Most of the time fall seems to grow from the inside out on the leaves. It starts with a yellowish orangey spot on the inside of the leaf, and then grows until it takes over completely, like a stone causing a ripple in the water, or like a crater. Or like those purple ring-rocks they sell in gas stations sometimes as crystals. The sunflowers in the garden are turning their mammoth heads down to the grown and letting their petals sag. I tried to turn one back up to the sky to get a bit of warmth, but found myself disturbing the resting place of a golf-ball sized fuzzy bee, and decided to just let the bee be. The raspberry plants are still giving us hundreds of fresh raspberries every week, so we have fresh jam in the mornings. Sometimes the wind will pull a leaf to the ground prematurely, when it is still green, and I mourn the early death of these leaves, still in the Summer of their lives. I try not to get angry unless it is a squirrels fault. Then I don’t try too hard.

Pictures taken by my roommate, Mary

I, of course, am not playing it tough at all, and feel no need to, having been born and raised in glittery sunny Texas, and I am already (though quite happily) freezing to death. I live in a mansion (literally, with three full kitchens and apartments, three sleeping rooms for guests (with about 10 beds each), one butlers kitchen, three massive dining rooms, a library bigger than my apartment, and a lovely patio with a ceiling overlooking the lily pond). The mansion is a hundred and fifty years old, and heated with wood burning stoves. They do not turn on the stoves until mid to late October. One of the reasons I don’t write much is because it hurts my fingers to not be under a blanket or around a hot mug. But I am not complaining, and take walks every day. Gorgeous, sunny, and freezing.

My sister asked me on the phone last week, So what exactly are you doing? And I laughed and thought I might could explain it better. I am working at L’Abri, which is a study center for people asking any kind of honest questions. People can come and stay for twenty-five dollars a night, and while they are here they study, have long slow meals, serve each other by working in and around the property, (doing everything from laundry to mowing to gardening to painting), and just live in community. It was started by Francis and Edith Shaeffer in the fifties, and exists to welcome anybody and everybody who might be honestly pursuing answers. The people who work at L’Abri are orthodox Christians from all different backgrounds and denominations. I copied this from the L’Abri website for anyone who might be interested—

There have been perhaps four main emphases in the teaching of L'Abri.


First, that Christianity is objectively true and that the Bible is God's written word to mankind. This means that biblical Christianity can be rationally defended and honest questions are welcome.


Second, because Christianity is true it speaks to all of life and not to some narrowly religious sphere and much of the material produced by L'Abri has been aimed at helping develop a Christian perspective on the arts, politics and the social sciences etc.

Third, in the area of our relationship with God, true spirituality is seen in lives which by grace are free to be fully human rather than in trying to live on some higher spiritual plane or in some grey negative way.

Fourth, the reality of the fall is taken seriously. Until Christ returns we and the world we live in will be affected by the disfigurement of sin. Although the place of the mind is emphasized, L'Abri is not a place for "intellectuals only".

But what am I doing here? I came last term as a student to work through some things after Seminary, and now I am working on the hospitality side of things, helping to welcome people and make them feel at home here as they study. I love it. I spend most of my time cooking and cleaning and gardening, and then in my free time reading and having discussions with anybody and everybody. We also occasionally go to Irish Pubs, watch movies, and play games. As you can imagine, this place attracts everybody from over-educated suburban white kids (me) to modern day hippies to doctors to business people to immigrants to professors. At meals we talk about what we are learning and studying, and people ask about everything from whether or not aliens exist to how to be ethical in the arts community, how to steward their gifts, how to forgive people who have hurt them, why God seems silent and far away sometimes, etc. L’Abri believes that the Bible has the final authority when it comes to these questions, but many guests here disagree with that, and they are listened to and safe here. I like that.

I also get to cook and meal plan wonderful meals with fresh healthy food. So far my favorites have been a curry soup with hummus. My least favorite has been a meatloaf that I almost chucked rather than giving it to anyone, and lasagna rolls over which I almost had a panic attack trying to put together in time. By the time I got to that meal, I was too wiped to participate in any conversation, and just looked around tiredly, hoping people were enjoying their food.

Well, my fingers are too frozen to write anymore. Be blessed today! Find something very very small to be thankful for, and point out something wonderful in someone near you.

Heaven on Earth

Today is my study day. That means that this morning, after breakfast I can spend hours quietly in books. Right now I am studying to the biblical view of the bodily resurrection. I’m reading N.T. Wright’s book, “Surprised by Hope” and learning about the loss of the doctrine of our bodily resurrection, and the influence that has had on the way we live now. Normally I don’t post my every revelation on my blog, but I feel strongly impressed upon to include you all in this train of thought, and to invite your feedback via email if you feel compelled to offer it.

One thing God has been doing for me through two beloved professors at DTS, two dear and brilliant friends and through L’Abri is weaving back together what I had separated (I alluded to this in an earlier post), namely, the physical and the spiritual. I have learned since being here that the habit of separating the two has much to do with Plato (who taught we should transcend the lower physical desires in order to attain pure, spiritual ones) and little do do with biblical Christianity. However, my upbringing and thinking about life after death has been heavily influenced by this line of thought. I thought that one day I would escape my body and this earth. I thought that any beauty I saw in it hinted at heaven, but had no inherent significance or goodness in itself, as it had been marred, massacred by the fall. I spoke in that earlier post about thinking that I needed to close my eyes to the world, to turn away from it, reject it in order to pursue the eternal, namely, the spiritual. Like I wrote earlier, I have learned recently that while the Bible does command us to live in light of the eternal, this has absolutely nothing to do with turning away from the physical. Christ infuses the physical with eternal importance. Am I making sense?

A couple of years ago I began to find a bit of theological grounding for taking care of the earth. I had always wanted to, had always hated litter, been drawn to recycling and not wasting, but I was probably more influenced by trend, and I had little theological grounding for doing so. Then I began thinking a little bit critically about the creation mandate, about the earth being created by God, and God LOVING it, and saying “It is good.” After that, the nature passages in the Bible came to life before my eyes. God treasures his creation, and we should too. So that gave me a bit of motivation, and a strong belief that Christians should be on the front lines of careful conservation movements. However, I found it difficult to justify anyone spending much time working to care for creation in light of what seemed to be an entirely spiritual future, moving either toward heaven or hell.

But as I learn more what the Bible has to say about our future, my thoughts are hesitantly changing. My final paper last year in seminary looked at the Greco-Roman influence on the Christian idea of heaven. While Jesus talked mostly about a kingdom and a re-creation, and Paul talked about our own resurrection, the Greeks and the Romans taught about a spiritual world of Zeus and the other gods, and a beautiful place called Mount Olympus. Somehow my idea of my future has been a mesh of the biblical messages of hope and the ephemeral idea of a banquet in the sky. I am learning that the mental notion I had of heaven has little foothold in the bible, and I have been astonished. Both the Old Testament and New Testament point toward a very physical hope for our future, and a kingdom at least for a time established on this earth, with us in our physical bodies. I’m not sure why, but I have never spent much time meditating on the bible talking about our physical resurrection until now.

I don’t know nearly enough about this to be writing so brazenly, but this morning as I wanted to write, I felt led to share this with anyone who might be reading. If you have the chance and some extra reading time, I strongly recommend the aforementioned book by N.T. Wright. I wish I had someone here with which to discuss it! I also recommend a fresh look at the gospels or Paul’s writings on the future, on the Kingdom.

This is all I can do for now, and it is both amateur and immature, but from a heart longing for truth and the privilege of processing in community, even if that community expressed here is a bit virtual for my taste.

My mother

This, in case you didn't know, is my mother. She is the one on the right, kissing the shoulder of my baby sister Keila. It shows more of her character than her physical features. My mother loves her daughters. This was a hard day for Keila, and she was there there to love her.

Well, I can't write the funny story as promised, and the lesson has been learned: don't say you'll write something when you haven't written it yet. I actually wrote the whole story, but as I was writing I realized I didn't feel quite right. I think I realized that some of her stories are hers to tell. The thing is, as I've said before, my mother is magic, and especially to her family. But you have to know her to know. She gets to choose who she lets know her and who she does not, just like I do. If anyone read my blog two days in a row, I'm sorry that I can't make good on my intentions. But I would like to invite you over for dinner so that you can ask her about the funny story I was going to tell. Or just to know for yourself how easy it is to pass hours standing around the kitchen island when my mom and dad are there making you laugh and making it home.

Home for the Fall.

Hello all. This is my home now, for the next few threeish months. (It's much more like two, but I'm rounding up.) I am just inside the window just to the right of the door as I write this. If you look really close, you can see me waving at you. ;) This week, Mary and I drove from Dallas to Boston. We took four days to make the trip so that we could stop everywhere we thought there was something pretty to see or fun to do, as well as every hour so that I could go to the bathroom. We listened to Dixie Chicks in Arkansas, Johnny Cash in Tennessee, Nickel Creek in Virginia, and then made up the rest because no music came to mind when we drove through Delaware or Connecticut. Any ideas? Oh, and we accidentally timed our trip to where we drove into and out of Manhattan during rush hour, so we tried not to die, and once we were completely stopped we rolled down the windows and listened to rap songs that celebrated the Big Apple.

Now I am here, at L'Abri. Today I took a walk and looked at the leaves that are changing colors, went grocery shopping, helped clean the house to get ready for guests, and chose a Halloween costume. I know I'm early, but a friend at L'Abri has a green cape with a hood and a beautiful wreath crown thing, so I am going to be a woodsy elven Tolkien- creature. Or at least, try.

I am writing this because I realize being here how much treasure I left at home. You are likely my friends and my family, and I value you. I don't want to fall off the face of the earth, really. I would love a for real letter from you. And if you write, I'll write you back. I would also like prayer for two things. If you pray, please 1) Please pray that I my days would be filled with praise of the Author of all this beauty, and that I would count others needs more important than my own. 2) Please pray for my future, as I am seeking God's will and direction with this Next Step.

A thought about nature: This summer as I walked in Boston, sometimes things that I knew were beautiful felt very far from me, if that makes sense. I mean, I could acknowledge their beauty in mental assent, but I couldn't feel it. I knew it, I rested in it, but sometimes I couldn't be moved like it. I wondered if this was a sad part of getting older, or if I were still a little depressed, or what, what was keeping me from being moved. Anything I could say about the river floating by our house or the trees growing out of the water like huge mushrooms was stale and rigid. Yesterday I think I realized why that was. I was separating the spiritual and the physical again, trying to connect with God, and then trying to connect with nature, forcing both. Yesterday when I walked, I stopped and closed my eyes. I told God how meaningless nature and beauty seemed apart from Him. How stupid. How I would rather have peace and twinkling wonder from the inside out, rather have Him physically with me than any tree or mountain. And what amazed me was that when I opened my eyes, I found myself not asked to reject or belittle the beauty I saw before me, but asked to see it as it is: charged with love from the Creator, charged with meaning and purpose, trees growing tall and strong, saying something about our God (He said, "it is good"). The sun rising and setting, saying something about our God (Romans 1, Psalm 19). Nature isn't robbed of it's beauty, but charged as I look to Christ. Christ makes sense of the broken parts of the world, the robbery, the selfishness, the ignorance and lack of care for people without, the trashing of creation through pollution. And He makes sense of the beautiful; people created in God's image, with diversity and inherent dignity and little creators themselves, an absolutely stunning jewel like creation, imaginations that long for heroic stories, etc. He makes sense of my desire. So when I stopped and saw the trees and even the squirrels and the sunset in light of Him, I reveled. I talked to Him, I fell to my knees in worship.

For a while I thought I worshiped a God who asked me to turn away from this world. It was worth it, because I saw Jesus and I loved him, and I believed in sin and I loved people. I still think those things, but now I see that Jesus came to this world. He came here. Stunning. God became a human, and embraced this world. He touched people, and he ate and drank and went to a wedding. I am not asked to turn from this world but to love it well. To take care of it.

I have so many thoughts about that, but I'll stop now because I am small and tired and shouldn't talk too much about things I don't understand. But just this one more thing: I know that if I can't find beauty in the small things; a basil plant, a well baked cookie, a kind word to a neighbor, then I won't find it in the big things; the Grand Canyon, the ocean, etc. I will at first of course, but my appetites have grown now, and the Andes can't fill them and Europe can't fill them and neither can a piercing or a trip to China. If I can't find beauty in coffee with a friend, I won't find it anywhere. I don't know if that's the same for you. I'm finding myself turning to smallish, smallish things again. The very smallest actually. Oh, this has grown too long. Goodbye then. Tomorrow I'll tell you a funny story about my mother.

Adventure Time

It started this at six this morning, with me bouncing back and forth between making quiche, packing for three months, and cleaning my bathroom. Today my mother, sister and I hosted the wedding shower for the future Sra. Sanchez. We had mimosas, coffee cake, parfaits, and quiche. We homemade them all and are very proud of ourselves. I feared awkward moments, as I usually do when hosting such events (which is ridiculous. there are such better things to be afraid of than awkwardness... like salmonella and bedbugs and asthma attacks... but no, I fear awkward) and breathed a sigh of relief when people seemed to enjoy themselves. Hooray for champagne in the morning.

The guests left and I scrambled around the house, feeling a bit anxious, not knowing whether to scrub pots and pans or pack that extra pair of shoes. I tried to both and managed not to pack the pots or scrub my shoes. I am not good in moments like this, and often can get confused and side tracked. It is usually Ali's job to keep me on track. (She gave herself that job after she found me trying to fill out my birthday calendar when I was supposed to be moving out of my apartment last spring. It felt urgent).

I left at two today, picked up my friend Mary and headed East on 30. We are driving to Boston, taking our sweet time, staying with some strangers and some friends and just enjoying the ride. Tonight our hosts are Debbie and Jody, a lovely couple in Little Rock Arkansas who enjoy peanut butter ice cream, football and laughing their daughters. We spent the last few hours chatting with them about football and nooks and Elvis. They are the kind of people you can slouch in front of without feeling bad. I like 'em.

Already as the trees grew taller and the land bumpier I am feeling a bit of newness. Tonight as I lay down it is about 50 degrees outside. Tomorrow I'm chasing fall to Tennessee.