in baby smiles

     Last night, a baby smiled at me. He smiled at me over and over and over again. He looked right at me, and he smiled and smiled as if we were the only two. I felt his delight. I felt delightful. For a few minutes, the answer to my gnawing am-I-enough question was a sure and shining ‘yes.’ I wonder whether he was telling me something a lot bigger and better than I can imagine . . . something that seems too good to be true . . . something that I don’t dare to believe unless it sneaks past my defenses in baby smiles.

“The Lord delights in you.” Isaiah 62:4

light as a feather

     I surprised myself a few days ago. I was having lunch with friends, and I told them about something I was ashamed of. I had been carrying this thing around in secret for months, but at that lunch I wrapped words around it.

     They listened. They asked me questions. They looked at me with kind, me-too looks. They looked at the thing I had been carrying around, and it didn’t look shameful to them. After a while, it didn’t look shameful to me, either.

     By the end of lunch, the shame was gone. It couldn’t survive being shared. And I felt light as a feather.

“Shame . . . hates having words wrapped around it. It can't survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy. When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.” Brene Brown

“[O]ut of darkness into His wondrous light.” 1 Peter 2:9

the 'who' of the person

     Certain people teach me good things. Sometimes I learn from their words, but I tend to forget words because I hear so many. What I don’t forget is the ‘who’ of the person--who he is on the inside. If the ‘who’ of the person is good, it shines out. It invites me onward and upward. It gives me the little prod I need to jump to the skies. And most of the time the person has no idea that he has taught me anything at all.

“There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.” Robert Frost

"God's kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man who then goes to bed and forgets about it. The seed sprouts and grows--he has no idea how it happens.” Mark 4:26-27

'help'

     I don’t ‘help’ people as often as I used to. That’s because somebody taught me to ask three questions first: 

• Does he think he has a problem?
• Does he think I have the answer?
• Did he ask me for the answer?

I’m finding it a much more restful (and respectful) way to be.

“[R]est for your soul.” Matthew 11:29

lavish listening

     Not long ago, I was having a hard time. I told a friend, and he listened. He didn’t try to fix me or give me advice or encourage me to shape up or talk me out of feeling what I was feeling. He didn’t say much at all. Every once in a while, he would ask me a question, as if I were a work of art and he wanted to be sure to take in all the hidden beauty. In the end, he simply said, “I don’t want you to feel alone in this. I am here.”

     Someday, when the tables are turned, I hope I remember what lavish listening feels like.

“Then the lame will leap like a deer. . . .” Isaiah 35:6

“An essential part of true listening is the discipline of bracketing, the temporary giving up or setting aside of one’s own prejudices, frames of reference and desires so as to experience as far as possible the speaker’s world from the inside. . . .” M. Scott Peck 

swallowing a star

     I find myself growing older on the outside, which is no great surprise. The great surprise is growing newer on the inside. Some days it feels like swallowing a star.

swallowing a star

makes it hard

to trudge through life

as if you hadn’t

and squeeze into rooms

all burning and bursting

with light

as if

you weren’t

“[O]n the inside, where God is making new life. . . .” 2 Corinthians 4:16