up side of shame

This is Sam - artist, philosopher, motorcycle rider.To live with regret is to be human.

Regret means a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done. It can refer to sorrow over the loss or absence of something. The opposite of regret is shamelessness. To live without shame or regret is to deny being human. 

As I look back on 2011, I have some regret, even shame, to be sure. I look at some areas and postulate, “well, that was just not at all perfect.” Some places I had resolved to “fix” or “address” moved about like a glacier. Frankly, I failed in some areas. 

I’m thankful for cycles or seasons that the Lord gives us. Every morning, He says, His mercies are new. A heart that won’t admit regret can’t open up to receive mercy. Conversely, a heart that is willing to feel healthy shame (admission to limits) is poised to receive a showering of grace and mercy. When we admit our failures and humbly reach out for Someone bigger, we can ask for His help and admit that His plan is better. 

This morning my six-year-old, Sam, woke up crying with a sore “frope,” his word for throat. As I ladled honey-laden tea into his mouth, he stunned me with a question. He is full of questions these days like “What is your favorite word” or “planet” or “number.”  He sputtered between sips, “Do you have to get hurt?” Groping  for context I asked a few questions. He gets so frustrated when I don’t understand. I asked him, “Do you mean generally, in life?” He shook his head yes. 

“Yes, Sam,” I said, “living in this world, everybody gets hurt at one time or the other.”

Today I want to recognize my human limitations and accept the help of a God who is infinitely bigger than me and mysterious.

a Christmas remembered

This Christmas one of our Honduran sons, Franklin, visited us. We are so grateful.The prophet prepares the way…

I don’t know what it is about November but it wears me out. Every November I groan as we enter December. Usually about the second week of Advent, I realize that the first Sunday of the season flew by me in a blur.  I lament to myself: I am already tired and the holidays are coming.

The story I want to share is from a November that we lived in Honduras probably 2004. This particular November ended with a visit from my mama. I had my own little Christmas miracle as Mama and I bustled about Tegucigalpa shopping, cooking, visiting and having fun. But that is another story. 

This December began with a prophet staying with us. He called himself a prophet. He walked like a prophet, talked like a prophet, dressed like a prophet; so I guess he was a prophet. Modern Sansabel polyester pants and a cowboy hat replaced the usual goat-skin tunic. Prophets are ok to have around, maybe even necessary, but they are not very good house-guests. There is a reason Elijah and John the Baptist lived in the wilderness. 

I knew it would be bad when I arrived home after a day of shopping in the city (by this time Mama was back in Mississippi) and Matt told me the prophet would be eating dinner with us. I was aware he would be staying with us but I thought he would be eating in the “Big House.” We were living on Rancho Ebenezer and guests usually stayed there and ate their meals there. The prophet had come to lead a conference. That wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was that Matt tried to help me with dinner and burned the tortilla chips he was frying. I slammed a few cabinets and the prophet kept bringing up my behavior at dinner. He complimented Matt on the near black chips. It went downhill from there. 

Like John the Baptist, our prophet came before Jesús …

All that was to say we were tired as a family… tired from November, tired from the prophet. That’s why we decided to visit only one family Saturday. We hosted construction brigades here every other week to build out the Ranch with houses. The abandoned children who were a part of WGO lived in “foster” type situations with a mother and father. Four Honduran boys lived with us. We loved them as sons.

Our family was in charge of outreach to the poor families living in the mountain nearby. We would take the construction teams to visit two families, share a few testimonies, and leave them with some gifts. Out of convenience, we “picked” Sandra’s family. She worked on the Ranch. She was an easy choice because she was at the prophet’s conference. Jesús is Sandra’s brother and in this story he is the prodigal. Jesús is a common name in Honduras. In Spanish it is pronounced “hay” like horses eat and “seus” like Dr. Seus. Just say “hay” “seus.” 

Our family visits Jesús …

Saturday morning the team from South Dakota loaded up and we headed down the mountain to Sandra’s house. When we first arrived, Jesús was hugging the barb wire fence in the shadows far outside our circle of missionaries. He was wearing an earring in his left ear. Nobody wears an earring in Honduras except maybe gang members. He wore a hard expression. I worried he may be a gang member as I scooted our children closer to the circle.

As we shared with Jesús the love Jesus had for him, Jesús began inching toward our circle on their tiled patio. The team began to get excited. Everyone piped in and asked questions. Jesús understood that God loved him. He knew he was a creation of God but not a son of God. He was without Jesus and without eternal security. Our discussion resembled a ping pong match between 14 people. All of us were praying. We felt the spiritual battle for this man’s soul. I could not translate fast enough.

It’s all about the cigars…

It all came down to cigars. Jesús thought he must give up cigars to come to Jesus. We lent our voices in a feeble attempt at explaining grace. We told Jesús about the Holy Spirit that would guide him and work in him to change him. We come to Jesus, we added, broken and needy not tidy and fixed.

The prodigal comes home...

As our family and the team gathered round about Jesús, he confessed with his mouth the belief that was in his heart. We could almost hear the hallelujah chorus. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The only picture I have of Jesús is one that burns in my mind’s eye. I’ll never forget the look on his face…the joy radiating from his countenance as he wiped away tears of gratitude. The internal war had ceased. The prodigal was home. The sheep was with his shepherd.

Deck the hearts…

Sitting in church the next day, I fought a panic attack as they lit the second advent candle and I realized that I had “missed” a quarter of Advent. Not one Christmas decoration decked my halls. But Christ had decked my heart. I pondered the story of Jesús and treasured it in my heart. This wayward missionary was called back to the true meaning of Christmas by Jesús. 

The prophet had prepared the way. 

The prodigal lead me. 

I am in awe of such perfect grace.

The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. John 1:14

I’m still in awe even as I sit here and remember those few years ago how He lead us and cared for us. And now He is still preparing a way and leading and astonishing me.

Merry Christmas!!!

like a child

If I am not poor in spirit, Christmas will not come to me. The other morning, I sat reading from my journal of 2011. I felt sad and perplexed that some of my goals had not been realized. I asked Jesus what is up with that. He answered me in my Advent readings with a quote from Oscar Romero. The poem is below:

No one can celebrate
a genuine Christmas
without being truly poor.
The self-sufficient, the proud,
those who, because they have
everything, look down on others,
those who have no need
even for God - for them there
will be no Christmas.
Only the poor, the hungry,
those who need someone
to come on their behalf,
will have that someone.
That someone is God.
Emmanuel. God-with-us.
Without poverty of spirit
there can be no abundance of God.

Christmas is a time of giving. We like to think of ourselves as givers. I have been motoring about buying presents, flying through cyberspace bargain hunting. But have I thought of myself as a receiver? 

In Sam’s oral presentation about Christmas for kindergarten, he gushed about how opening presents is our favorite Holiday tradition. He has no misguided self-concept of being a giver. This boy knows how to receive. Tear open the package and dig in. 

As I have grown up, I have forgotten what it is like to receive. If I want Christmas to come, I must open my arms wide to receive the bounty that Christ brings. I must empty myself of all my vein notions and haughty thoughts that I am generous. The truth is that I am needy, broken, destitute. I need grace. 

I want to recover the child-like joy of receiving the Present this Christmas.

holy & human

The Divine wrapped on flesh and entered our world. We celebrate this mammoth event with Christmas. We acknowledge the waiting with Advent. 

I’ve been musing the incarnation. 

As I talked about it with friends, I realized that even the term “incarnation” should be reserved for the event when the seed of God entered a woman and produced Jesus. It is holy. That holy. But what’s got me going is that God’s spirit dwells in me... a sort of little “i” incarnation. Or, let’s don’t call it that, it’s something else. What do we call it? 

In the timeline, after Jesus ministered here on earth, he ascended into Heaven. He said he would not leave us as orphans and he sent the Holy Spirit a little while later. That Holy Spirit indwells me. That’s what it is... an indwelling.

His Spirit communes with my spirit. The spark of life. The holy in the human. 

This morning before dawn, I lit the Winter Forrest candle and turned on the Christmas tree lights. My hands smelled like OxyClean from the t-shirts I soaked in the sink just before I sat down with my Advent book. And I began to read about Zechariah, a herald of Advent. 

The laughter bubbled up from deep within me as I pictured him gesturing wildly to the breathless audience outside the Holy of Holies. You know he went in there at risk to his own life. They put a bell on his robe and a rope around his leg so they could pull him out if he keeled over. He must have jumped so at the sight of Gabriel there by the alter that he almost burned his robe with the incense. Gabriel announced that old man Zechariah would have a son, John the Baptist. Ole Zech didn’t believe. He said, “How can I know this is true?” Gabriel struck him mute because he did not believe. And out Zech goes to try to tell the audience why he can’t speak and why he is wild with anticipation and why his robe is smoldering.

I’m so thankful Zechariah is included in this story and his unbelief is no stumbling block for the gospel. Zechariah is a herald of Advent to us. And if Advent is nothing else, it is the celebration of the collision of the holy and the human.

broken angel

Things break.

Here on earth, everything breaks, wears out, corrodes. This morning I found this favored angel from the nativity scene with his wings discarded nearby. Sam owned up to wrestling with Gabriel. A new Christmas scene is written in the McMurray house. 

Last month goes down in history as one of the most horrible in my life. My mother landed in the hospital with a life-threatening MRSA infection. A situation with a family member sat in my gut and my mind constantly replayed the scene. What if I had said that? What if I had pointed out this? Friends in crisis. Conflicts. Disease. Death. Dreary grey weather. November had it all.

Through all of this, God called my heart heavenward. Confident of his presence with me, I breathed prayers like the Jesus one. Inhale and say, “Jesus Christ, son of God.” Exhale and say,  “have mercy on me a sinner.” One day as I ran to my car late to meet someone, a rainbow appeared through the gray dreary clouds. I gasped aloud. Awe. 

On the same day, I drove down a gorgeous Tennessee back road and something at the tree-line caught my eye. A horse? No. I saw the antlers. It was the biggest buck I have ever seen majestically ruling ore the plain. I pulled over and watched it from a distance. Awe.

To see something extraordinary and to try to put words around it is to muse.

Awe is the first step to worship. If I understand something, I will never think myself smaller than it. I am learning that life is hard and there is good in the hard and hard in the good. 

The angel proclaimed peace (wholeness) on earth, good news to men. His wings dazzled the shepherds. They fell on their faces in worship. 

Things may break here on earth but there will come a day when it will all be new.