Articles by Ann Voskamp at Heartlight

Under All These Masks

http://aholyexperience.com/ (Ann Voskamp) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0600

He never told us his name, that night. It's the way of the street. Concrete and asphalt and dark don't require you come with a name, for the streets christen with names of their own. And anyways, names may be forgotten, but not a face like his, never his story, the one these streets lent him.

I'm trailing the youth from our fellowship down Yonge Street, the last of the light seeping out of the autumn gold of the trees. I dig my hands deeper into pockets and warm. The grey chill's creeping in, up the wet pavement. It's going to be a long, damp night out here.

A wild mane of graying hair, he's standing, back to me, in front of the Yonge Street Mission front entrance. It's him, his tribe, we've come to minister to, to be ministered to. Tonight's not about what too often happens -- us getting to where we're going, walking wide of the crumpled hurt, looking the other way. Tonight's about the street and its people, their stories. About us each finding Christ in the other. Before I reach the entrance, he steps out in front of me, walks towards our cluster of kids. His buddy stays in the shadows, swigging long out of a 1 liter pop bottle. I feel something inside tighten, twist.

Marisa and Hadassah and Erica are up ahead, huddled together, hands drawn up into warmth of coat sleeves, waiting for staff from Center for Student Missions to meet us, give us directions for the night. Tyler and Dan and J.D. are closer to the street, checking out models of cars blurring by in thickening twilight. I can hear Dan's voice above the others, "Catch that little beemer? Sweet." Kids mingle, joke, laugh, wait.

I'm a few steps behind this bulk of back and tangled hair, watching our kids already gathered up there on the street. And I see him pull down a mask. He's pulling down a mask, walking into the center of them.

I walk faster.

I can see his hands gesticulating, but from behind him, I can't make out his words, words muffled under the plastic of the clown's mask. Yet over his shoulder, I can see the uneasiness of Marisa's eyes and see Hadassah's ashen face. Then I catch a phrase.

"Why you think I'm wearing this %*$#& mask? Hey? Why?"

Hadassah's stepping back. The raspy voice yells louder, leans into these home schooled, mostly farm kids.

"Why would I wear a *$%# mask like this?"

Tyler's not watching vehicles. Lean and lanky, sunglasses hanging from the neck of his jersey, he shifts from one foot to the other. Erica scuffs her shoe at the crack in the sidewalk. None of us know what to do with this. It's not on the itinerary.

Then this man rips the mask from his face and the blade of his howl slashes at us all stiffened to this spot here.

"I'm wearing the &%$#& mask to mask my feelings."

He shakes the painted rubber face in his hand. "I'm masking the real me! Know what I mean?"

I want to raise a hand to my own face, see if I can peel off mine.

There are more words, drifting ones, but I can't hear them. I can see his wide shoulders seem to slump, shudder. Erica looks up. Tyler chews his lip. And the night air on Yonge Street, with the traffic still whistling by, fills with this guttural moan, this pitched wail. It's the exposing of a naked soul. He's crying. Sobbing. I catch snatches ... "I'm so *&$**# up ... Jesus ... Savior ... need ... know what I mean? ... Just so ... Jesus ... Lord ... know what I mean?"

Bared, he writhes, storms past me, a flurry of tears, hair, hands. A mother in the group calls softly after, "Jesus loves you ..."

He stops. Half turning, he tries to steady his voice between the wracking of sadness, tries to find the face that went with that voice. "Yeah, He does. And He loves you too, lady."

The wind whips at his hair and he blusters down the street.

If the story had ended there, we would have had questions, knots I'd have worked long at loosening, and his face, that mask held up in clenched fist, would have lurked in memory alleys of that night. But God has more on the itinerary.

Later, we run into him again at the door of the mission. His mask's still in hand.

His eyes dart, desperate, driven. He's not done. He stands in the middle of the street, blocking the way of our Street Mission worker. There's more to this story, lines he's got wrong, parts we haven't understood. Do we have time to listen?

"Hey, I'm sorry, okay, lady? I've got issues, know what I mean? I'm like, bipolar."

His buddy spews his drink, mocking. "You're not bipolar." Like graffiti, the label's smeared across the coming dark, a cuss word. But the scoffing doesn't deter. It's us he's got to say something to, whatever this is.

"Hey, I'm *&%$#* messed up, man. Look at me!" He steps into the company of young people. Some look away. "Look at me!" His rage shakes us.

So I look. His nose is crooked, busted up somewhere, healed all wrong. His mouth clings to a few brown teeth. His skin's pocked, ruddy, and his eyes look like a childhood friend's. Maybe he's my age.

"I'm a **%$& retard. Fried my brain on crack, know what I mean? Gotta pacemaker in here." He pounds his chest. "OD'ed just down there," he waves his hand, "and it took them five hours to find me. Don't do crack, know what I mean?" His eyes are fiery, searching the faces of these country kids.

"Don't get &*%*$# messed up like I did. Love your mom and dad cuz they love you, know what I mean?" He's choking back emotion.

I wonder where his mom and dad are -- if they know he's here, like this, if they care that he's in all this strangling torture.

"Gotta Bible?"

He's in Erica's face.

But this, this is what we came for. But we didn't think it'd be like this.

Erica manages a slight shake of the head.

"Who's got a Bible?" he hollers at us all.

I'd had one in my small backpack all weekend, but for tonight's street walk, we'd been instructed to bring no money, and I'd left everything back in a locked church basement.
He rummages in his duffle bag. Kids look at each other. But we don't move.

He shoves a dog-earred red Gideon's Bible at Erica.

"Read Romans 7:14 to Romans 8."

I can hardly hear over the traffic, the rumble of the city.

"Louder. So they can all hear you!"

Then comes Erica's voice, calmed by these words she knows and the Person in them.

"... I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do ..."

And a low bass throbs.

It's his voice. He's mumbling the words from memory, his eyes penetrating, his hand keeping beat with each word Erica reads, "... but I hate what I do."

I still inside, rapt. His cerebellum's scorched with fraudulent relief and yet these words are branded deeper, right into his core.

"... I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature." He slurs some of the words, stumbles. Erica reads on and he marks each word with a swaying hand, his voice echoing hers, "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out."

He's rocking his whole body to the cadence of ancient words, this cry that his flesh weeps. He turns my way and I look into tearing eyes, begging eyes ... "What a wretched man that I am!"

He's peeled it all off and here stands the cold, bare skin of a soul. I can hardly look.

Then there's an exchange of words that I can't hear, our mission worker saying something, nodding and he muttering something in return. Then our group spills past, escapes. And when I, the last one, trickle past, he makes eye contact, asks, "Did I get it right this time?"

Something right. Did I get something, anything, in this busted body right? Do I do any of the good I long to do? The plea madly tugs. Doesn't it echo off the walls of humanity?

I can't fix the consequences of his past, but I can nod, look in deep. "Thank you." I say the words slowly, hoping they soak into his pores. He'd wanted to share hope and Jesus with us. Had his second encounter got it right? I don't know really, but this heart knew the howl of his, and I nod again. "Thank you for sharing."

Into the Toronto night we walk, carrying glimpses of Christ we'd see in the other. For isn't the worst kind of homelessness these masks we wear -- homes outside of Christ?

Later that weekend, I'd come home, pull back clean sheets, tuck my own boys into peace. And, with no warning, little Malakai's lip would waver and tears brim, and when I pulled him close, he'd whimper words I didn't know where they came from, or why then. "I just sin so much, Mom. I can't even remember all the sins and bad things I've done." His chest would heave and the words lurch out. "I ... just ... sin ... so ... much."

And I'd hold him and gently say the last verses, ones a wild man groaned, "Who will rescue ... from this body of death? Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25).

On a Sunday night while the rain fell, I'd hold my little Kai and let him cry into me, and stroke his still-soft cheek. And I'd think how names don't matter, about how we are all the same under all these masks, and of a nameless man, somebody's boy too, and me too, with my own messiness and brokenness.

We're all just wretched ones clutching, unmasked and naked, to the Cross where He hung naked, our only hope.

"Thanks be to God ..."

Ann helps us see "the holy" in laundry, listening, and liturgy. Her blog, "Holy Experience," is a fresh breath of air for the soul.

Website: Holy Experience

Untangling Family Knots

http://aholyexperience.com/ (Ann Voskamp) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500

"It'll get better if you get closer."

John's mom laughs as she untangles five-year-old John and Malakai, two boys practicing for a three-legged-race at a community gathering.

But our Malakai is close to tears as I unknot him from a snarl of arms and legs and feet.

"Really, if you'll get closer, put your arms around each other, you'll find it gets easier."

John's mom takes an arm and wraps it around a shoulder and I find one too and direct it around a neck, and the boys shyly giggle and step out again.

"One-two! One-two! One-two!"

John's mom chants, and I cheer, and the boys stride off in rhythm, arms flung over shoulders. And the boys turn faces to each other, happy eyes shining, and belly-laugh. Us mamas can't help but laugh too. They're maneuvering life's tangle!

For isn't family life a bit of a three-legged race? Days tie us together, and schedules trip us up, and everything snarls. We stumble and fall and it hurts.

"It'll get better if we get closer." Because relationship -- love -- is the most transformative force in the universe. It's what God wants with us: intimate relationship. Get closer. And it will get better.

Too often, I buy the lie, the one the serpent hisses.

Speak harsher and it will get better. (More tasks will get accomplished.)

Push harder and it will get better. (More places can get crammed into the hours.)

Bluster longer and it will get better. (More life squeezed into life.)

But don't I know it? "A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city ..." (Proverbs 18:19). The harshness, the blustering, the pushing, offends and we trip. Knees and elbows smash and we bruise. It gets harder to get up.

A flurry of accomplishments will not get us happily across life's finish line. Tasks aren't the purpose or the priority. If to-do lists are what compel us, inevitably, we'll stumble. Because that's not the essence of family life.

The essence of family life is the care of souls.

When we tenderly draw near, collect hearts, wrap each other in arms and love, we hit our stride. The three-legged race (or five legged or seven legged or ten legged race) becomes a happy delight. We get closer. And it gets better.

What I'm learning as we step (sometimes fumble) through the three-legged race of family life, these ways of getting closer genuinely make it better:

Reach out and gently touch when you talk; make it a practice to always connect before your direct.

Fully listen to conversations with your ears, eyes, whole body language. Smile into eyes.

Make time for walks, a mug of hot chocolate, a chapter of a book read aloud together. There's no better way to spend time than making time.

Fill your words with the affection you feel. Children don't assume they're loved when our words aren't loving.

Tuck in with long talks in the dark, a foot rub, prayers. It's the happiest way to finish a day.

Slow down: the priority is hearts not household tasks. Take a deep breath and preach to yourself often: "I want to be, more than I want to do."

Relationship is not just the priority. It's all there is.

Our family relationships are hallowed. Aren't they forever? (And, yes, true, clean floors and schedules aren't.)

The three-legged boys practice intently and when the race begins, I'm at the other end, arms wide open, ready for Malakai and John as they step, tumble, laugh across the finish line.

And when they fall into me and I wrap them up, this happiness feels good.

We're closer and it couldn't be better.

Lord, cause me to draw near today -- to You, to others. Relationship is all there is.

Ann helps us see "the holy" in laundry, listening, and liturgy. Her blog, "Holy Experience," is a fresh breath of air for the soul.

Website: Holy Experience

Long Fire

http://aholyexperience.com/ (Ann Voskamp) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Like a teenager, September can't make up her mind. Her moody clouds, bursts of rain, can only be patiently endured. Then, she turns.

And the boys, two cousins, pause in their Sunday afternoon game of glorified croquet and sit with me a moment, too, on a park bench, in a patch of unexpected warmth.

"What grade you in now, Caleb?" Andy's eyes are closed, his face turned up, basking in her happy sunshine.

Cale's bent over his club, curling his back under reprieve of heating rays, and I hardly hear him answer. "Eighth. You?"

"Ninth."

A blast of dark cold whips. I can't catch my breath, but it's not the wind. "You're in ninth grade, Andy?" I'm fixed on this boy at the other end of the bench.

He grins big, this Dutch boy with white blonde hair and a splash of freckles. "Yep."

I weakly smile, nod, then turn, looking for the face of a Dutch boy I once met in ninth grade.

He's down there with Little One, worn, grease-creased hands wrapped around hers, helping her line up the club to putt the ball. He's tanned dark from a summer of working fields under the sun. I see that smile of his, can hear him laughing, as Little One squeals in delight over the tapped ball rolling.

I glance back at Andy. Really? At fourteen, Farmer Husband looked like this mere child?

I don't remember it like that.

I remember, still feel, this spreading smile of his that made me flush, ignite. This gleam when those dark blue eyes of his glanced my way. That tall, lean Dutch boy with the big farm hands and quiet words and simple dreams and love for Jesus that kindled something inside of me.

The flame still grows higher, hotter.

In the thick of summer heat, a night this past June, that once fourteen year old boy and I celebrated fourteen married years, this gold band ringing me. (When I knead dough, I slip off gold band but a band of white through summer's brown remains. This love's written on my skin, etched into me.)

That anniversary night, we sat at wood's edge, he and I, in the still dusk, and remembered. The blushing awkwardness of fourteen-year-old grade niners, the ardent bliss of twenty-year old newlyweds, the wonder of love that embraced and mingled and birthed six new souls. And now at thirty-five, passing the halfway marker through this life, lacing fingers together in the dark, and feeling the heat of all that's been.

Then the night sparked with the white heat of fireflies.

Hundreds of flares lighting up the black, the fireflies flashed and we dared not speak, hushed and awed before these soundless, hallowed fireworks, a celebration of love vows kept.

The night blinks and I think of how love is there too, in the dark spaces, unnoticed, when I fold underwear, and he changes the oil, and I flip the eggs and he gets the next roll of toilet paper and I scrub the grime out of the bathtub and he tucks children under dream covers with whispered prayers. Silent and so often hidden, this romance, stringing through the shadows.

And, now and then, its heat blazes.

Last night, long after the putting clubs were put away, and those teenage cousins waved bye, and Little One has hugged her Daddy's neck one more time before eyes gave way to sleep, I lie in bed, watching stars wink like fireflies.

I reach over and run fingers across the nape of his neck, up through closely-shorn hair, hair thinning, receding.

And I think of how time grows a man and years stoke a fire and how, in the shadows of ordinary days, God braids a three-fold wick, igniting the night.

Lord, today, light these vows ...

Images of her "Dutch" boy working on the tractor after dark and as she puts it, "those hands of his." Images by Ann Voskamp.

Ann helps us see "the holy" in laundry, listening, and liturgy. Her blog, "Holy Experience," is a fresh breath of air for the soul.

Website: Holy Experience

Stop Signs

http://aholyexperience.com/ (Ann Voskamp) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0500

I think it was because my window was rolled down a few inches that he bothered to yell at me.

Otherwise, he might have just left it at that disgusted frown and shake of his head. But his driver's window was cranked down, too. We both were looking for the relief of breezes from that sun blazing down. So when we turned north off the 4th line, down at Knapp's corner, our dusty van barely paused there at the intersection. He didn't even have to lean over when he hollered at me.

"There's a stop sign there, you know!"

Color, shame, floods my cheeks. But before I can nod, mumble an apology, he and his diesel pick-up rumble off.

"That wasn't very nice of him. You had stopped, Mom." Joshua's passenger seat defense tries to soothe.

"Why did that man yell that?" Hope turns back after the truck's dust cloud, looking for answers.

Flustered, I carefully scan to the west, then east, then west again, before creeping forward through the intersection. And then manage a feeble explanation.

"He was concerned I wasn't going to brake in time. That I hadn't seen the stop sign. It scared him. And that's fair."

The wind blows through our open windows, our hair. In the rush of spring, I wonder if each of us replays his words again, the scene, reading his anger as fear. But maybe they don't, their young faces silently watching the meadow slip close to the road with its petticoat of white trilliums. Maybe it's just me thinking about stop signs nearly missed.

I'm like that. Always rushing, hardly braking in time, off again. In a hurry. So much to be done. Or so I think.

What hard stops in my life have I been driving through -- or hardly pausing for?

How often am I mindfully slowing to intersect my time with God? Early, throughout, and late. Or do I barely make meaningful time at anytime in my day to commune in lingering, unhurried ways with God? Some days, yes. Some days, no. There are too many rolling stops.

The meadow retreats and waving fields of greening wheat lap up along the roadside. The children, hands pointing and voices sure, debate whether that farmer is planting corn way off in a field on the horizon, or if he's drilling in beans. And it's just me thinking about stop signs nearly missed and slowing to meet with God.

I'm listening to the prophet in a pick-up: There are stop signs here, you know. So I'll stop and linger long in prayer.

To avoid life crashes.

Lord, if life is crashing ... have I been running stop signs?
Today, it's all speeding by so fast, I simply have to stop and pray.
© Holy Experience

Ann helps us see "the holy" in laundry, listening, and liturgy. Her blog, "Holy Experience," is a fresh breath of air for the soul.

Website: Holy Experience

Uprighting the Earth

http://aholyexperience.com/ (Ann Voskamp) — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note:
Please check out our new women's blog, http://akindredheart.com

I've known she's been dying for quite some time and (dare I confess?) no remorse has gnawed away at these insides, no aching sadness slowly draining. Just a happy relief washes over me when I think of it. Frankly, she needed to go, her demise long overdue.

Rest in peace, my Drama Queen. You who listened to the news and ranted and raved. You who dove into online theological polemics, internally wrangling wildly, blood pressure rising. You who fell captive to crisis and commotion. Adieu. I do not mourn your passing.

For I discovered your impotence. Your absolute and utter inability to effect change. You held me rapt too long, riveting my attention horizontally, on those around me. All your fuss, your finger-pointing, your flapping about, distracted me from a vertical perspective. From Him who Reigns over all.

As you, eristical one, laggardly expire, I quiet. Peace comes softly. Old rankled skin molting, new contented life emerging, I'm discovering deep, universal change comes in surprising, unexpected ways.

Not in criticism, negativity, sensationalism. But in praise.

May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. Then the
land will yield its harvest ... (Psalm 67:5-6).

Our land will yield a good crop when the people praise. Our culture will produce bounty when we give thanks. Our nations will bear fruit when we exalt.

So will this heart.

But does gratitude, praise, worship capture anyone's imagination, vision, life? Why do we find the good, the lovely, the beautiful so ... insipid? Why do we thirst for the bad, the ugly, the contentious ... and spew out the glory-worthy as bland?

Couldn't anyone use a little good news today?

Rod Dreher, a popular conservative columnist for the "Dallas Morning News," and author of "Crunchy Cons," recently wrote (in the comments of this post):

I blog about negative stuff for the same reason that newspapers aren't filled with good news: because "usually" (though not always), "good news" isn't that interesting to talk about.

I understand. I relate. It's a common consensus. Who can market gratitude, praise, good news?

Good News often seems less than compelling. I too have often brushed it aside, apathetic. I pray for grace to learn new ways:

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work ... (Romans 1:16).

Good news, praise, thanksgiving, exalting, this is the power of God at work. This is what will change our hearts. This is what will prosper our land, bless us with yield, bounty, harvest.

And, really, why wouldn't it? Because when we think on the lovely, the noble, the right, "whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy" (Philippians 4:8) ... we are thinking on very God Himself:

Sing praises to His name, for it is lovely (Psalm 135:3).

He is lovely and all that is lovely in this cosmos reflects but the substance of Him. To think on the good is to think on God.

Yet we live in an upside-down, inverted world. We reject the praiseworthy as vapid and unremarkable. Boring. Juvenile.

And that which is scandalous, disagreeable, we find fascinating, intriguing, worthy of attention. Meriting discussion. An engagement for the intellects, the pundits. The lovely? Dismissed.

So it has always been:

And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
He is despised and rejected by men ... (Isaiah 53:2-3).

We rejected Him once. Forbid we would again.

No, no grief as I bury my negativity. I'm done with my addiction to criticism, with my drama queen.

I whisper praise, this tongue's new language, and feel the land beneath my feet swell with abundance, the earth uprighted.

Loveliness, God, embraced.

© Holy Experience

Ann helps us see "the holy" in laundry, listening, and liturgy. Her blog, "Holy Experience," is a fresh breath of air for the soul.

Website: Holy Experience

Sweat the Small Stuff: It's the Big Stuff

http://aholyexperience.com/ (Ann Voskamp) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500

"It's a design flaw."

My mother's words drift from the sink, her milky white hands scrubbing dishes, skillet and spatula immersed under suds, and I'm searching. Cabinets banging shut, pots clattering, enamelware clanging.

"Yes, I agree, a design flaw. Such a little piece, and if it's lost, the entire appliance is rendered useless." I shuffle cutlery about, wondering if the child who responsibly put away the dishes may have inadvertently dropped that wee center gizmo for the Bosch food processor in here. Or here?

"It's like the weight that sits atop the pressure cooker," I mutter, rifling through oven mitts. "If you don't have that little piece, all grinds to a halt."

I turn to Mama, looking upon her crown of white suspended over stainless steel scoured. She feels the look close and receives it with warm eyes, eyebrows arched, inviting thoughts to step out into the open, and through.

So they do: "I think little things are actually the big things."

Little things like weights for pressure cookers, gizmos for processors, easy smiles for children, and long hugs for husbands. Peering into the corner of cupboards, I think how little things are the minute gears necessary to move the titanic arm of God, small things that move heavy hearts.

Doesn't the significant, humble by its very nature, masquerade as the insignificant?

And I realize, as I stand atop a chair to inspect a top cupboard, how very wrong I am. This is no design flaw, but rather, the wisdom at the heart of a Designer who values the least of these. "Little drops of water, little grains of sand,
Makes the mighty ocean, and the beauteous land."

More than the little simply comprising one microscopic element of the grandiose, the momentous moves by very virtue of that which is but a moment. Or it is no more.

I scour a kitchen while Mama scours pots, and it buffs up, how moments leverage a life and little acts of love, little resistances, little noble stands, they wield this existence of ours. "And the little moments, humble though they be, make the mighty ages of eternity." The diminutive fuels the portentous, the seemingly unessential being in fact the most essential of all.

I don't know why it comes, but that it is the peculiar ways of Him who is Spirit, but standing there at a loss in the kitchen, having a processor assembled with all the pieces save for a singular, unremarkable piece, I see with startling clarity that the loss of a little thing like prayer immobilizes the entire scope of a life of faith. When a life doesn't -- won't -- work, is prayer the integral missing piece? Prayer appears disposable. And yet, a rudder under the hulk of a life, hidden far below the waters, it steers—no, more: propels -- a soul Homeward. Do I not pray more because I foolishly deem the small thing inconsequential?

Doesn't the adage go to the effect, "Don't sweat the small stuff! And it is all small stuff"? I understand the sentiment, and, in large measure appreciate the directive. Yet sometimes I wonder, especially when the misplacing of one small component of a kitchen appliance brings a meal preparation to a standstill, if the small stuff, (which, true, is much of life), isn't actually worthy of most of our attention. Because much of life hinges on it.

Standing on tiptoe, feeling along a shelf, I whisper a prayer for a little food processor gizmo. And fingers find it in a green splatterware bowl, tucked back behind.

Mama's smile catches mine at the sound of this whirling processor.

On prayer's hub, we listen to life hum.

Father God, am I paying attention to life's smallest, biggest stuff?

Photo: processor gizmo and pressure cooker weight found. Photo courtesy of Holy Experience and Ann Voskamp.

© Holy Experience

Ann helps us see "the holy" in laundry, listening, and liturgy. Her blog, "Holy Experience," is a fresh breath of air for the soul.

Website: Holy Experience

Living on Beam Unending

http://aholyexperience.com/ (Ann Voskamp) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500

There is a patch behind the country church with its split rail fence, there beside the quiet of the woods, where heaven meets earth and I stand there in the early morning still. Clouds, gray and swelling with spring, loll over. Brown leaves, fall's remnant left behind by winter just gone, lay wet underfoot. Only the sound of water trickling off the water mill there in the pond meanders up through the trees, asking me if I want to fall down too. I think that is why I came.

Tentative, I step closer and let my hand feel the weathered wood, wet from last night's rain, of that Cross that grows out of the earth back here. An Old Rugged Cross.

Fingertips brush the moss that clings to the grooved grain, new life out of that which died. Without fanfare, velvet moss pulls up over the crossbeam's nakedness. It's just two lengths of lumber. tree long dead, I know, but where it takes me, to the intersection of history, of humanity and its Maker, of my sin and His mercy, that is the holiness that hushes me, bringing me low.

I press my forehead against the wood, leaning, It holds. And that verse from past week's memory work slips up unannounced,

"In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him" (1 John 4:9 NKJV).

Not only know Him. Not only be saved by Him, reborn and washed. But to live through Him. Like oxygen.

Daily, I count gifts, numbering how He loves, and yet it's here at the Cross He drives the stake into the ground, nails His devotion over humanity: "In this the love of God was manifested toward us ...."

The common blessings I experience daily only extend the Crossbeam of Calvary into my everyday, leading me along the Love that supports the cosmos.

I inhale this place. Today, to live through Him, on this, the beam of blessing unending.
© Holy Experience

Ann helps us see "the holy" in laundry, listening, and liturgy. Her blog, "Holy Experience," is a fresh breath of air for the soul.

Website: Holy Experience