Meditation: Being an Anomaly

In a recent email exchange, a friend made the comment that he viewed himself as sort of an anomaly, to which I responded “you are an anomaly!” (I didn’t put an exclamation point on it in the email, but I did in my mind.  It was such a perfect word.)

But since my response was meant to be an encouragement, I thought I’d best look up the word in the dictionary before hitting “send”.   Though my first reaction to the word was positive, when I worked in systems design an anomaly was never a good thing.  It was always the thing that happened that you weren’t expecting, and since you wanted computer programs to function as expected, you were definitely not happy when an “anomaly” popped up.  But people are not computer programs (thank God!), and I for one find those who don’t function as expected quite refreshing.  So, fortunately I have a dictionary on my Apple Powerbook that pops up with the flick of the mouse.

Anomaly: Something that deviates from what is standard, normal or expected.

When I read that definition, I almost also wrote in my reply: “I hope I’m an anomaly too!”  And then I got to thinking: Wow, wasn’t Jesus an anomaly?  He really absolutely never functioned as he was “supposed” to.  He always slipped out of the verbal snares others tried to lay for him, because he didn’t answer as expected (I won’t list examples since they can be found in almost every interchange he had in the Gospels).  And in fact, he upset the religious establishment because he didn’t act as expected either (hanging out with all those “sinners”!  What was he thinking????)   And hey, I think he called us who follow him to be like Him, and therefore to be anomalies in the world as well! Which makes me think, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all viewed ourselves as anomalies?  I think we just might turn the world upside down.

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12:2

My Father

This piece was originally written in 2004 as a tribute to my Dad on his 70th birthday.  It is one of my favorite pieces.  I won’t say more.  Let the piece speak for itself.

with Dad on the farm

As I approach my father’s 70th birthday, it’s hard to believe so much time has passed by.  I remember as a little girl, looking up to my Daddy who was a colossal 6 feet 2 inches tall, with broad shoulders.  A giant of a man, yet with such a tender, gentle heart.  As a child, I remember our family moving to a farm 2 hours from the city so my parents could spend time writing.  We would take long family walks together.  It always seemed that my mother and brother would charge ahead, while I walked behind with my father – me, because my legs were the shortest, and my father, because he liked to stop and look at some small flower or bird.  A gentle giant who noticed the smallest flower and the most fleeting bird.  Every once in a while, he would pause just to listen or observe – “You hear that, Margaret, that’s a Bob White.”  or “You see that, Margaret, that’s a Mountain Laurel.”

But of all my memories, what is most precious is how my father taught me to be a spiritual being.  He did this without hardly knowing it, and at a time when he himself had lost faith in the existence of a God.  I once tried to tell my father about this memory, but he seemed to think the memory was a painful one for me, and apologized.  I didn’t know what to say, so said nothing, but now wish I had clarified.  It happened when I was around 6 years old.  We lived on the farm then.  It was glorious – a house on a hill nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  When I stood out in front of the house, mountains greeted me in every direction.  I was just at the age that it was dawning on me that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, among others, were not real.  Other questions began to creep into my mind, so one day I went out to ask my father, “Dad, is God real?”

“Well, Margaret,” he replied, in his honest philosophical voice, that never talked down to me, “I don’t believe in him, but others feel differently.  I think your mother may feel differently.”

From there I went to my mother, who replied, “I think there’s some power out there, but I don’t know what it is.”

Today, I have deep gratitude for these answers.  My father was an atheist, but he was a humble atheist.  He didn’t pretend that he knew the answers for me, and thus put the question back in my own hands.  So, I ended up standing in front of our house and asked the Universe, or whatever might be out there: “Is God real?”  In a moment, as I gazed over the visual cacophony of colors bespeckling the autumn Blue Ridge Mountain range, I knew.  I am still amazed to this day, that a young 6-year old girl could have the thoughts that flashed through my mind, but when I looked at those mountains I saw the work of an artistic genius.  I knew.  Dad, your answer was not a painful one for me, but a powerful one.  My memories of those days are the sweetest I know.  I was unknowingly pointed to the only One who could answer my question, and I heard the Voice answering visually from the mountains.  Now as I reflect back I realize that even the power of observation that answered me that day was taught to me by my father.  No, Dad it was not painful, it was the day God spoke.  Thank you.

“But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is!  By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.”  (The Book of Romans, The Message Bible)

“So you’ll go out in joy, you’ll be led into a whole and complete life. The mountains and hills will lead the parade, bursting with song. All the trees of the forest will join the procession, exuberant with applause.  No more thistles, but giant sequoias, no more thorn bushes, but stately pines – Monuments to me, to God, living and lasting evidence of God.” (The Book of Isaiah, The Message Bible)

planting our garden

Thanks to you Truth Tellers!

A few weeks ago I was discussing with my mother what I appreciated about the teaching style of a pastor friend of mine, which led to a discussion of how two people can say basically the same thing, but with one it’s just words, but the other there is life because there is depth behind the words.  To this my mother asked, pondering, “What do you think it is that causes that depth?”

I like my parents, because they both really make me think.

After considering for a moment, I replied, “I think it is suffering.  Not that the whole world doesn’t suffer, but some people allow the suffering to touch them and transform them.”

Another time recently, a friend wrote me an email to encourage me about something I was going through.  The words deeply encouraged me.  Why?  The brother wrote me from the experience of his own dark nights, and long and weary fight.  The words were so beautiful in their truth that I encouraged him to consider writing a book one day.

Or, I could also tell of the friend I spent a week with recently.  She is an absolute beautiful lady, a precious gem, but her life has taken her down a road that is currently causing her deep pain.  Her pain took me back to experiences I had nearly 20 years ago.  We spent the week together in both uproarious laughter and heart-wrenching tears.  Was this friend’s suffering a burden to me?  No.  It is an honor and a privilege to be allowed to enter another’s suffering.  To me such a place is like the Holy of Holies.  My life is richer for knowing such a woman.

These and other experiences have reminded me lately of a favorite passage in Oswald Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest.  This passage articulates both my own struggle to express truth, and my appreciation of many of you out there who express truth to me.  Sharing Oswald Chamber’s words below is my way of thanking you and encouraging you – some of you are fellow bloggers or writers, some are friends, some are leaders, some are just simple folk who don’t think of themselves as leaders but are.  Thank you for struggling to express to me and others the truth God has given you. My life is richer because of it.  I hope you know who you are!

APPROVED UNTO GOD (Source: My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers – December 15 entry)

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” – 2 Timothy 2:15

If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone else. Go through the winepress of God where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle to get expression experimentally, then there will come a time when that expression will become the very wine of strengthening to someone else; but if you say lazily – “I am not going to struggle to express this thing for myself, I will borrow what I say,” the expression will not only be of no use to you, but of no use to anyone. Try to state to yourself what you feel implicitly to be God’s truth, and you give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you.

Always make a practice of provoking your own mind to think out what it accepts easily. Our position is not ours until we make it ours by suffering. The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.

Beautiful Answer Quote

Okay, I happened to notice in my stats that I got several searches from people who were trying to find out where the quote “Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question” came from. So, here’s the more precise answer: it’s the last line of the introduction to E.E. Cummings collection “New Poems” published in 1938. Or if you get your hands on his collection Poems: 1923-1954, it’s the last sentence on page 332.

By the way, the introduction is in prose, but it’s just as interesting to read as his poetry.

(My post inspired by this quote is found here.)

Being a Beautiful Answer

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.” – E. E. Cummings

This quote from E. E. Cummings is one of my favorites.  E. E. Cummings was a master of using the “wrong” parts of speech in both his poems and prose.  He often used nouns as verbs, verbs as nouns, adverbs as nouns, etc.  His punctuation at times seemed random, but often in the midst of reading one of his poems suddenly it becomes clear why he used a certain piece of punctuation in his “incorrect” way.

If you’ve never read the quote before, stop and read it again, and answer this question:

Who is the “who” referred to in the quote?

The “who” is “the beautiful answer”, right? — thus this quote is saying that the person who asks a beautiful question somehow is or becomes the beautiful answer.  The beautiful answer is a person, not an idea, a plan, a concept, or a strategy.  My big search in the larger community of faith today is not for those who are offering all the answers, not for those who have the most powerful strategies or ideas, but for those who are asking beautiful questions.

By “beautiful question” I wish to make it clear that I don’t mean using beautiful or flowery language in the formation of the question (and judging by E. E. Cummings poems, I don’t think that’s what he meant either).  Rather “beautiful” here means something that deeply resonates and touches the center of human existence.  For instance, when I see a homeless person begging on the street, his very existence can be a beautiful question I ask of myself or God or both.  If I do not ask the question, I never materialize as the beautiful answer.

The beautiful questions are the hard questions that many are afraid to ask.  They are the questions for which many are ready with pat answers, but the really beautiful questions do not have easy answers.  Instead, the answers often lead us to other hard questions.  For instance, at times when I have experienced the greatest and most profound suffering, those who comforted me the most were not those who quoted scriptures to me, or said “read your Bible more” or “pray more” or “Just trust God”, but rather those who let my hard question ring in the air unanswered, and even entered the question with me, and let themselves feel the full weight of what the question was asking.  In this way, they themselves became a beautiful answer for me that somehow enabled me to make sense of my pain, perhaps not intellectually, but in my depths.

Another example?  The book of Job in the Bible is God’s answer to Job’s profound and very beautiful question: “Why am I suffering?”  But what is the Book of Job but 42 chapters of questions?  Does God ever answer Job’s question?  I believe He does, but not with the pat answers that Job’s friends had offered.  Instead God answers Job’s questions with questions.  And the result is some of the most profoundly beautiful passages in the entire Bible.

Many of us, sincere and well-meaning, want to be the beautiful answer, but are we willing to ask beautiful questions?  Are we willing to ask the questions that are resonating with the world around us?  Are we willing to let the beggar, the hungry, the homeless be the question we ask ourselves?