accidental stones

        What greater happiness could anyone know
        than collecting accidental stones to place
        end to end to end?

Luci Shaw asks this in her poem “Found this morning”  (Water Lines, 2003).  Reading her question, I am delighted.  Our house is full of stones, baskets and jars of them, picked up everywhere, from shorelines and driveways and mountain lookouts, they come tumbling out of pockets to rattle in the dryer,  are caught in the cracks between couch cushions, lie on the kitchen counter to be absently rubbed by whomever might sit there.   Shaw describes spreading her stones “onto paper, a fresh, white beach,” to play with them:

With what deliberate care I array them,
end to end to end, aligning the chalky stripes
so that what looks like a white string
connects them all together! Placed
so that the bright lines join, the stones
snake an arc across this wave-less shore. 

It seems to me that this collecting and arranging of stones is an apt metaphor for much of life.  It certainly captures a great deal of what I do.   So much of writing is the collecting of “accidental stones” — phrases, images, events — and arranging them so that they form a coherent whole.   It is my task to spread them on paper, to show how their “bright lines join.”   Shaw calls it “Intention / connecting the inadvertent.”  Look, I want say, here is order.  Things fit together.   On the white page the things that seemed chaotic when “scattered across / our pebbled beach” become clearer; it is easier to see the “white string” connecting things when they are spread out before you. 

In college, one of my professors taught us that “Everything is connected” — not in any mystical way, but simply that facts and events lead to facts and events, and no matter how divergent two things may at first seem, they can be brought together, though sometimes by very circuitous paths.  (I have good memories of games and activities designed to do this.)   And are these connections not what everyone — not merely writers — hopes to find?  We want to see that things mean something, that the stones are not accidental, but have been carefully placed by an intentional Hand.   In her novel Housekeeping (1980), Marilynne Robinson asks, “What are all these fragments for, if not to be knit up finally?” 

And, surely, there is a Hand ordering our scattered stones.  One day, we shall see the bright lines joining them all.  Even now, in small ways, we are allowed to see them, to place the “accidental stones / end to end to end.”   Great happiness, indeed.

for encouragement …

       For my second birthday, I received a lovely little book called God Is with Me.   It features simple watercolors of children, accompanied by simple, yet large, truths about God.   Though many books given to two-year-olds are grown out of, this book has grown up with me.  Rereading it takes me back to the very secure feeling of being two years old: back to lamplight, and my footie pajamas, a sippy cup of chocolate milk around which I looked at the pictures, and my mother’s warm side and her voice reading the book to me.  And this I know: however unsteady things may feel, I am as secure, and even more secure, than that child knew herself to be; I am kept in the care of the Almighty, Who is with me.  
       I can’t reproduce the pictures here, but I thought I’d share the words; they have helped me, again and again.   They look so bland, and almost harsh, typed out onto the page.  Try to take the statements one at a time, as they come in the book.  Try to put yourself into situations where these are specifically applicable, as the illustrations so aptly do: the little girl alone in the woods, reflecting that God is with her; the sad child sitting on a fence and thinking; the boy and girl refreshed by watermelon slices; the boy, among whose many cares is the haircut he is about to receive … I love the way the book brings the truths down to a child’s level and reminds us that the Lord is just as close to the boy brokenhearted over a lost baseball game as He is to the woman who has lost her husband; His love is sufficient for small needs as well as great.  His name is Immanuel — God with us.  Without more explanation, then, my book:

GOD IS ALWAYS WITH ME.  HE WATCHES OVER ALL HE MADE.

“Give thanks to the Lord … who gives food to every creature.” Psalm 136:1, 25

“The Lord is good to all; and His tender mercies are over all His works.”  Psalm 145:9

GOD IS WITH ME WHEN I’M SAD.

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart.” Psalm 73:26

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

GOD SHOWS HIS LOVE TO ME THROUGH FRIENDS.

“He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”  Proverbs 11:25

“A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones.”  Proverbs 15:30

GOD IS WITH ME IN NEW PLACES.

“When the cares of my heart are many, thy consolations cheer my soul.”  Psalm 94:19

“The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.  He is my helper.”  Psalm 118:6a, 7b

GOD IS WITH ME NOW …
AND HE ALWAYS WILL BE.

My Shepherd will supply my need:
Jehovah is His Name;
In pastures fresh He makes me feed,
Beside the living stream.
He brings my wandering spirit back
When I forsake His ways,
And leads me, for His mercy’s sake,
In paths of truth and grace.

When I walk through the shades of death
Thy presence is my stay;
One word of Thy supporting breath
Drives all my fears away.
Thy hand, in sight of all my foes,
Doth still my table spread;
My cup with blessings overflows,
Thine oil anoints my head.

The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days;
O may Thy house be my abode,
And all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger, nor a guest,
But like a child at home.
–Isaac Watts, 1719

pretty things

I saw a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea,
And oh but it was laden
With pretty things for thee.

There were comfits in the cabin,
And apples in the hold;
The sails were all of silk,
And the masts were all of gold.

The four-and-twenty sailors,
That stood between the decks,
Were four-and-twenty white mice
With chains about their necks.

The captain was a duck
With a packet on his back,
And when the ship began to move
The captain said Quack! Quack!

My brother is building a small wooden ship in our workshop, and, as we discussed its anatomy today, this nursery rhyme popped into my head.  It has stayed all day, and, with it, the illustration from Eric Kincaid’s Book of Nursery Rhymes: the white mice, adorned with not only chains but red-and-white striped shirts and black hats, lounge and stand and work all about the deck.  (There are really four-and-twenty; I’ve counted before.)  One leans against a railing on which hangs a “Wet Paint” sign; a bit of humor I only understood when I learned to read.  The ship is painted gold and red and blue and brown, and the green waves split before its prow in curls of white foam.  Beside the gold-striped sail a white gull wheels, his mouth open as if in a cheerful greeting; and on the deck stands the duck-captian, glorious in his blue captain’s coat with its gold epaulettes, with a leather packet on his back and a telescope under his wing.  Never has there been such a prosperous ship as this, with golden filigree painted on all sides and carved in the masts, and a golden lion figurehead.  It could not fail to be laden with pretty things, and the child who has been used to receiving good things from good hands entertains no doubts that those pretty things are indeed for her.  

Ah, yes, sometimes the ship will seem slow in coming, and sometimes a storm blows up to hide its approach, but it comes and it comes, and the good king’s daughter — whom you may remember from a different nursery rhyme post  –  knows that it will arrive at the proper time, and that its cargo, however little like her imagining it may be, will be infinitely satisfactory.   With that knowledge, she will wait, and gladly.

Why so many details, God?

I’m reading Exodus, and have arrived at those lengthy chapters of instructions for the tabernacle.  My eyes begin glazing over in the confusion of cubits and networks, fine twisted linen and pressed oil … why not say “Make it beautiful” and leave it at that?  And why did ancient Israel have so many instructions about forms and ceremonies, while we are set loose with the admonition to “worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24)?

Left to their own devices in the matter of beautiful worship, Israel ended up with a golden calf rather than a tabernacle.  Do we really do any better?  Ah, yes, we know there is a mercy-seat, but what images have we not placed upon it, to what have we not looked for salvation?  Like Israel, we cry, “Make us gods who shall go before us” (Exodus 32:1).  In the face of mighty deliverances accomplished by a mighty God, we hold feasts of celebration to our idols.  Rather than thanking the One who feeds us, we give all our gratitude to the food.  And our God, who would have destroyed Israel for this offense, continues, day after day, to deal patiently with us.

We build, day after day, His tabernacle to match our own plans: “This is what I consider beautiful; surely God will be pleased to see that I am made happy.”  And, day after day, He undoes our building, removes our laboriously-carved pillars, erases lines in our blueprints and adds designs of His own … we would have unity, strength, wholeness, while “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit” (Psalm 51:17).  When the work of the perfect Sacrifice was complete, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two” (Matthew 27:51).  (No doubt they set about mending that brokenness at once, completely ignoring the new wholeness that had been accomplished, the union of God with man.)

The details of the tabernacle are not my favorite reading material, but I find this comfort in them: as surely as God cared for the details of His tabernacle then, so surely does He still care for them.   His dwelling place is no longer in a tent or a stone temple, but it is in human hearts — in me.   And, though He has not chosen to tell me the plans, though He has not told me the cubits and curtains and lamp-stands of my life, I know that He has them, that He has designed them to be more beautiful than I ever could imagine, and that He will see to it that His plans are accomplished in me.  That, indeed, is very good.

Life is full of surprises.

If you keep your eyes open, you might see a considerable cockroach hiding beneath your flip-flop; you might almost step on a not inconsiderable cottonmouth when going around the pond.   If you keep your eyes closed, you might be in for even greater surprises …

And all the nations said, “How strange.”

At least, that is what I would have said.  I’ve been reading Exodus lately, and trying to think of the story from outside my this-is-of-course-what-happened-I’ve-known-it-all-my-life position.  It is rather a strange one.

First, there were all these slaves in Egypt.  Somehow or other the slaves’ ancestor had been responsible for making Egypt great, back in the time of the Seven Years’ Famine.  And now Egypt had really become great and glorious, built on the backs of the sturdy slave labor which had grown up in the land.  News of Egypt’s prosperity spread far and wide, and the kings round about wished that they had been the possessors of such slaves.

But then things changed, and all of the news from Egypt was calamity — they lacked water, suffered under hail and locusts and sickness and bugs.  Rumors were likely confused and even stranger than the reality: There’s some new leader in the slave camp, he can make snakes and frogs appear out of nowhere.  He ate some of Egypt’s magicians …

The news was that the slaves had gotten a God.  Nations round about were astonished as this God killed Egypt’s first-born, led Israel out, and drowned the entire Egyptian army.  They trembled; surely this mass of slaves was out for world dominion; surely this God could wipe out all of the nations.  Had Israel shown up in Canaan immediately, the Canaanites would have scurried away without any fight.

But Israel did not go to Canaan.  Instead, this strange nation of Yahweh-followers went out and wandered in the wilderness.  In the wilderness!  Where there was nothing to eat and nothing to drink.  And, instead of perishing like any ordinary mass of lunatics, they prospered.  They, who by the might of their God might have inhabited all the palaces of Palestine, trudged about toting tents in the wake of a pillar of cloud, following a detailed law code, and killing sheep.  Strange?  Well, yes.

It’s likely people came to forget how the Israelites had gotten there.  The occasional thundering from the wilderness became less terrifying, and children grew up believing that just as Canaanites dwelt in Canaan and grew grapes, so did Israelites dwell in the wilderness and grow manna.  This became the established order for the Israelites, too …

And so, if it were commonplace to follow a cloud and have your bread falling out of heaven, you would not be likely to realize how very much your God is involved in making that happen.  But, if the manna were to stop, if the cloud disappeared — well, then you would likely be very frightened, and you would be eager to hear any word of direction from your God, for how could you do anything yourself?

And, if you were one of the nations watching the “mixed multitude” of Israel emerge from the wilderness after their forty-years’ ramble, you would, quite possibly, have forgotten all of the wonders that took them into the wilderness; you would laugh at the idea of these strange nomads conquering your cities.  You would — woe betide you! — laugh at the idea of their God.