The Deepest Secret of Joy

The bread is warm, and the coffee is fresh, and morning prayer is sung by a cooing six-month old. Outside the rain is pounding and drumming, but inside we are snug and safe. What more could I ask for? I have been given this, and so much more. At times I wonder why - why me? Why so much? The baby smiles at Daddy, and I think my heart just burst for joy. 

I have not always felt the joy. There have been seasons where the discouragements loomed large and shut out the light. There have been days when all I have been given has been a burden I nearly collapsed under. There have been times when joy was hard won moment-by-moment. I do not take it for granted. 

And yet, here it is. I have chased it down only to find it handed over as pure gift. I have felt its call from the far country, and sold everything to dig for the pearl of great price. I have known it as the tender unfurling of a fruit blossom, fragile and quiet, and I have known it as a great thrumming song of victory wild. 

I have learned I cannot create it. I cannot conjure it up. Its essence is otherworldly, yet it takes on form in such ordinary pleasures. It is embodied by what I can sense, but it is not limited by circumstances. It is one part of the Spirit-life that grows only when the seed of all I am falls into the ground and dies, hidden, waiting, waiting for resurrection. And yet I can, and must, cultivate it. I must tear away the vines that choke, grasping the thick trunk of mistrust to pull it up by its root. 

It is not sadness which is joy’s great enemy. It is lack of trust. Sadness is a rain that can water the ground and make it soft, make joy bloom all the sweeter for its flood. But disbelief is true lack - lack of water, lack of light, lack of compost. Disbelief is drought. Disbelief is darkness. Disbelief takes the discarded scraps of life and holds them bitter tight, squeezes them into a putrid slime that is death to the struggling seedling. But trust - ah, here I am only beginning to learn - trust takes the fallen leaves and embraces the decay of my frailty, entrusting them to the earth’s slow renewal. 

Trust is surrender, and surrender is the beginning of birth. Surrender is the beginning of beauty, even in what’s broken. Surrender is the beginning of joy. 

The baby laughs, and I hear the voice of my Father in her. Even her cry is His benediction, as I embrace the life He has given me and seek Him in her eyes.

Today, joy is my companion by the fireside. And perhaps tomorrow I may have to go out into the storm to follow its call. But I am learning to trust. Learning to take joy even when the winds are howling. There is a path of life wherever God is present. The deepest secret of joy is its Source, and He says, “Lo, I am with you always.”

~lg

S.D.G.

I Speak Joy: A Mother's Blessing

I am delighted to announce the arrival of our daughter, Ivy Joy, born on Good Friday! 

What follows is a blessing I scribbled out on the back of a piece of paper one night a few weeks before she was born. We didn't know whether we were having a boy or a girl, but I had an inkling that I carried a girl. And I had more than an inkling that this baby was somehow connected to all I have been discovering about joy. Her very name is part of my blessing to her, and God's blessing to me. "Ivy" stands for faithfulness, and "Joy," well, it speaks for itself! 

My darling,

I speak joy over your coming. 

Joy as you grow, and bloom to bursting,

Joy as you waken to life in the wide world,

Joy as you are received into the arms of your family,

And joy as our Father laughs to behold His reflection in your eyes. 

I speak joy over our meeting.

Joy as we weave our bonds of love,

Joy as we learn each other’s names,

Joy through the sleepless nights,

And joy as we count each sunrise together.

I speak joy over your future.

The wonder-filled joy of discovery,

The riotous joy of whole hearted freedom,

The steadfast joy of a deep-held faithfulness,

And the fiercely won joy of the sorrowful night.

I speak joy over you.

Unspeakable and full of glory,

Fruit of the presence of God,

Fire bright and blazing beauty,

The strength of a hundred hind’s feet on the heights.

I speak joy as my mother’s blessing,

A gift of words and of heart’s desire,

A beseeching prayer for divine bestowal,

A promise kindled by heaven’s purpose,

And my song of praise overflowing. 

~lg

The end of Lent: when all you have has run out

I cannot do it. Cannot keep up with the hunger. I cannot feed them all.

The bird feeder swings empty again in the harsh winds of March, and those who have not forsaken it by now hop about the tree with wondering eyes fixed on me, their supposed benefactress. But the supply has run out, and I am too weary and poor to replenish it. The hunger of winter outpaces my resources.

Simply to feed the birds - am I too feeble, even for this?

My joy turns sour. My ears turn cold. My kindness falls short.

Yet despite my empty vessel, the sun shines and the jays still flash blue and the chickadees sing. They have a Provider. My humble offering will not, cannot, sustain these hundreds of wings. It was never meant to.

Perhaps they have been the ones sustaining me, all this time. Here at the feeder, beauty has been gathered into my view. I have seen the colours of joy. I have heard the tongues of heaven. I have been graced with the soft brush of feathers in the snow. I thought I was doing them a favour. Perhaps this feeder has been God's gift to me all along. And he keeps giving. He keeps showing favour. He keeps sending the birds.

No matter how much I prepare, the realities I hunger for are still gifts from above. That is what Lent reveals. That at the end of the day, we are all empty handed. All in need of grace. All in need of manna.

I alone cannot create what I wish to be. But I can look to my Creator with an open mouth. And tonight, as he breaks the bread, I can swallow the grain that must fall to the earth and die. As I am brought face to face with my emptiness, once again, I remember,

"The LORD sustains all who fall
And raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to You,
And You give them their food in due time.
You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing." (Psalm 145:15-16)

All are welcome to gather in the swinging shadow of emptiness, where the ground is still cold and barren. He will open his hands to our insatiable, piercing hunger, and offer himself as bread for our need. Here at the foot of a leafless tree, he will spread a banquet in the presence of his enemies. From this cracked grain, he will give life to the world.

Here at the empty feeder, we will be fed.


~lg

Noon prayer: magnified joy

At the height of a mid-March day,
the sun is hidden beyond layers of stratus clouds.
Snow falls and a trio of ravens circles the sugar-topped pines, gliding above the slow footed creatures below. They glide above the slush and mud and slump of this temperamental season.

A the height of a mid-March day,
they remind me to look up.
To number my blessings by the flakes that descend,
to hold each crystalline wonder against the black pupil of my mind's eye,
to behold their beauty suspended in this moment and give thanks.

These blessings can float by unnoticed, small as they are, but now I enlarge my vision and capture them for what they are - all the little gifts that collide and stick together to shape my hallowed landscape.

The ravens move on, and so will this day.
Time to turn from window-gazing to worthy work,
but I hold these frames yet, and I will go imprinted by magnified joy.


~lg

Swan Joy

Joy is a longing,
a passageway with the white wingbeat of swans overhead,
and the silent current of a spring river beneath.
You cannot live in water or air, and yet they push and lift you into realms of beauty and desire,
so much the more powerful for their being out of reach.

Joy is this pulling of the soul right out of the body and onto the swan's back,
a dreamscape more alive than your waking vision.
It is forever captured in your mind's eye,
a trumpet call from a far country,
which even now sets your feet dancing on the rippled water,
dazzled by the bright sun toward which you run.

Joy is the elemental force you cannot contain,
yet which defines your every movement,
now from beneath, now from above,
the wave that buoys,
the wind that breathes,
the holy, humbling wild of spring unleashed.



This poetic reflection draws on C.S. Lewis's understanding of joy as desire, and is formed by memories of canoeing down the Salt River with my father one spring. In an afternoon I will never forget, we set up a tarp sail and the wind carried us downstream toward hundreds of white tundra swans that had returned to the river. As we neared, they rose up by the dozens and dozens, and flew overhead to resettle behind us. We were surrounded. I look back on that day as a gift of beatific vision. 


~lg

Lent Is For the Birds

Winter is truly here with a respectable -22 C morning. The snow is crunchy and crystalline, and the river shivers under its growing skin. Life stirs house by house, as first one plume of smoke and then another rises out of the neighbours' chimneys. All seems still, silenced by the cold, except for the birds of winter.

I've neglected the birdfeeder lately. The odd chickadee hops over to investigate their previous source of food, then flies off to search for other, more generous backyards. I miss them. I miss the chatter and flutter and closeness of small life.

I miss the messages they carry from another kingdom. Over the years, they have been to me heaven's carrier pigeons. (For God's voice is woven and wafted throughout all creation.) A year ago, a bird was somehow tied up with the beginning of this journey of a life of prayer.

Lent is a time for fasting. But it's also a time for feeding the soul.

This Lent, I've decided to feed the birds. 

Junco - Carrier of secrets, she knows where to find the hidden seed. She knows the song of the wind.

(Give me ears to hear!)

Chickadee - Cheerful herald through winter's cold, constant companion of woods and windowsill, bright bringer of joy.

(Give me a heart of joy!)

Sparrow - Common beauty building her nest, crafting a refuge of kindness out of bits and pieces, gathering nature's scraps into a soft bed for her young.

(Give me wings of kindness!) 


We will go out into the cold and fill up the feeder, scatter the seeds, and send our invitation. We will watch and wait for the birds to come back. We will listen, and learn, and lean close. We will feed the hunger of winter.

We will wait for the return of the birds . . .

~lg

afternoon prayer :: abiding joy

There’s an intrinsic connection between abiding in the true Vine and true Joy (John 15). If I’m feeling my joy waning as the day wears on, it’s a sign I need to reach and root into the source of my life. Mid-afternoon is the perfect time to pause and become grounded.

It’s as simple as closing my eyes and taking a few deep breaths, imagining my inner life as the flow of sap between a vine and a branch, picturing the vital connection I have to love, beauty, strength, joy, and fruitfulness. It’s breathing His name – Jesus – as prayer, as petition, as practicing the presence of God. It’s drinking this aqua vitae from a well I have not dug. There is a peace that flows in, a moment of waiting, and then the strength begins to rise.

His life in mine, and mine in His, and ours together breathing and becoming one – ah yes – His joy becomes mine and mine becomes full. 

~lg

Letter to a Little One

Little one,

You are growing, pushing, expanding my borders of love. I feel it already, your feet stomping out new territory, a land about to be lived in. Already, you are staking a claim to heart and home, and we welcome your flags with joy. Already your sister and brother are circling you with their arms and knowing love to enlarge with the ever-widening space you occupy.

You are getting in under my ribs, as if under my skin wasn't enough - flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. You are step dancing on my heart, and though I have yet to know your name, I know your rhythm. I know your hiccups. My blood knows your heartbeat.

I can't deny there is some trepidation at the thought of your coming. New life has a way of turning kingdoms on their heads. But headfirst is the best way to break into the new world, and we might as well plunge headlong if we are going to fall at all. You will turn me inside out, of this I am sure, and I will be put back together a new person.

New because of you. New because of pain, and new because of joy. New because your name will be on my lips, and your smile will be in my arms, and my heart will be on my sleeve. New because of love, the wonder of its wide expanse and rough terrain and matchless beauty, a kingdom delivered through the eye of a needle and led by a little child.

You, little one, are a herald from heaven. You run with the good news, and I am a mountain waiting to kiss your toes.


~lg

Single-Handed Theology: The Piper in the Striped Pajamas

Little boy blue, come play your pipe -
Enchanting with every step
and sound from your lips.
You pull me out of bed by your tousled  head,
catch my eye with a flutter of thick lashes,
warm me to the morning in your cotton striped pajamas.

I'm a little bit in love,
and it's a good way to begin a day.
You don't even know your magic,
and it was not yours to begin with,
but the fruit of a multiplication of love.
And now the proof is in the pudding -
you are filling my earth with the blessing of old,
and I see the blush of the Tree of Life upon your cheeks.

I did not know that such a song could stir me out of myself,
out of my sleep, and into a shining new creation.
You, little seed, are crushing my darkness.
In the chestnut-gloss of your eye
I see us all as we were meant to be.



~lg

morning prayer :: for a groggy day

I lift my eyes to the Ebenezer hills, thankful for small mercies after a sleepless night. The sun is here to warm and cheer, and I give my tired praise, even as I prepare another sick bed for the day. At least there is some calm, at least there is some coffee, at least there are home comforts for the least of these.

I pause to look out joy - I will need its strength today. This but a little trial labour, to see how joy may progress through contraction.

But the One who needs no slumber will lend his arm to the weak, and will give his rest to the heavy-laden eyes. Right here, between the river and Ebenezer, my Help will come.


~lg

The Shape of My Hunger

There are so many ways to approach a new year. Mine has already begun with hunger. I'm no stranger to cravings these days. (Another life growing inside has its own needs.) I could make a long list, I'm sure, of the things I need, the things I want in 2016. But I do better with less to remember, and when I boil it all down, this is the shape of my hunger this year:

Pursue joy

Practice the presence of God

Put on a habit of prayer


It's nothing new for me. It's all been a work in progress, but I want to make sure it remains a work in focus. When life gets overwhelming, distracting, and discouraging, this is what I need to come back to. Instead of getting "hangry," I need to recognize the hunger behind the growl. I need to come back to the table already set with the living bread broken. I need the cryptic promise of John 4:32. I need what only He can give.


~lg

Kitchen Sink Gratitude

Sometimes gratitude bursts upon you like a geyser in the spring floods. You're ho-humming your way through the dishes one evening, scrubbing pots and pans and thinking about the year that has been, when suddenly it all shifts into focus at the kitchen window.

The Narnian lamppost in the yard, and the two (soon to be three) rosy children who spent hours playing beneath it in the fresh snow, and the chicken dinner from your own backyard, and the husband stoking the fire the basement.

You think about the struggle and the wrestling that was, and realize how free your soapy hands now are, and how songs rise up out of dirty dishes and restless nights, and how strength has come dancing to you like hinds feet from high places. And from this vantage crest of year's end, you look down, and, like so many timeless moments before, the psalmist takes the words right out of your mouth:

"Truly, the boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places for me."

And you feel the safety and freedom of these love lines traced across your land, enclosing you in their embrace, all the while beckoning you to new heights in the center of it all.

Now even the dishwater seems to swish for joy, and the snowflakes fall like poems beyond the glass. There is nothing to do but smile wide and thank the Father of lights and keep on your grateful scrubbing.


~lg

The Secret of the Pink Candle: How You Can Have Joy Right Here

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Yes, there is joy, even in the waiting, even in the absence of a promise fulfilled. It comes as a pink candle, the one the children have been asking about since the beginning of Advent. We light it now, this third Sunday, because joy cannot help sneak into the patient sequence, right here.

It's here in little bursts as anticipation bubbles up.
It's here, a song in the air, even as our hearts yet grieve the darkness.
It's here, a merry flame of rose and gold, the steady blaze of the far country.
It's here, lighting the feast of God's provision and defying winter's icy grip.

It's here, because He is here, and in His presence is fullness of joy.

When we abide in His love, which casts out fear and overcomes death, His joy fills us.

He is here, in the secret place, where the seed of hope awakens. He is here, in the hiding place, where peace is spoken to still the angry waves.

He is here, with us in sorrow and sighing, with us in uncertainty and shadow, with us in the watching and waiting.

Sometimes a pink candle is all it takes to make the children laugh, to remind us of the colours of dawn, to assure us that joy comes to us from another kingdom, and nothing on this groaning earth can take it away.

Joy is the laughter of God resounding from heaven to nature. It is the music of eternity reaching the ears of creation. It is His delight in us embracing our flesh and bone. It is the welcome of His presence right where we are, and the promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Joy is Emmanuel, God with us.

O come, o come Emmanuel...

Even now the lament begins to turn and spin toward joy. One more candle, one step closer. We can make out His face in the glow.

Rejoice! Rejoice!


~ lg

The Slow Awakening

The clouds are blushing for the sun this morning in anticipation of his arrival: golden pinks and purple with a lavender secret, fresh scrubbed fleece and the far treed hillside on fire. It's a slow waking this December day. Muted greens and browns wait in the hush for the day to give them voice. A lone raven circles the riverbed, and he is first to greet the glowing king of the day.

A bird begins to sing outside the window. The little creature has my heart this morning, and I can't help but wonder, would the world change if we all stopped to watch the sun rise?

What if we stopped to watch the way a little boy runs headlong into his childish delights?

What if we stopped and held the sleepy girl a few more unnecessary minutes before moving on to matters of so-called import?

What if we stopped to breathe in the nuances of this morning's fresh air, and remembered to offer our thanks and praise?

What if we stopped and counted the colours of dawn, the heartbeats of a hug, and the notes of a songbird's hymn?

Perhaps this slowing would steady our tilted gait and ground us in the reality of our shared creation. Perhaps the light would heal our blinded eyes and reveal the hidden beauty. Perhaps the sun would cast his blush over our faces and kiss us awake to joy.


~lg

First Snow and the Grace of Morning

I am wakened in the grey light by her whisper. “Mom, I need to show you something. Something that happened outside in the night. It’s not what you expected.”

My sleepy eyes come in to focus on her smiling face. She points to the window, eager with her secret.

Snow.

I had known of its possibility, looking at the forecast last night. Yet it still surprises me now, as the first snow of the season always does. The white magic has gently coated the autumn world, icing the grass, frosting the pumpkins on the porch, dusting the carrot tops dozing in the garden.

Too often I am guilty of seeing the world through mud-coloured glasses. But this morning, my vision is wiped clear. Children have a way of waking you to wonder. It is their peculiar and powerful gift. To have their eyes – this is a grace of God. To know winter’s first kiss as pure joy – this, too, is a grace of God.

The sun breaks through the grey clouds over the hill, and the crystal covering sparkles even as the golden leaves are set on fire. The kids have already raced outside, snowsuits over pajamas, convinced that God sent the snow for their own mittened pleasure. Perhaps they are right.

And so this Monday morning we begin again. Begin with wonder, begin with grace, begin with new-fallen joy.

This is the mercy of each morning, if we have eyes to see.

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:22-23

~lg

Choosing Light

What happens when you decide to choose joy, and your week starts off horribly wrong?

Somehow I manage to wake up more tired than when I went to bed. There’s no milk in the house to put in my coffee.

Arden wakes up sobbing because she didn’t see the red moon last night. She “stayed up” in a chair by the window, and we promised to wake her up when the moon was red. We did. We brought her out to the chilly porch, and talked to her, and turned her around, and keep talking, and she mumbled a bit and opened her eyes and kept falling back asleep. She doesn’t remember. Now, all she knows this morning is that she didn’t get to see the red moon. She’s crying bitter tears of disappointment, I’m crying too, then the two-year old starts.

Two of out two pigs are supposed to be on their way to the butcher today. After wrestling, wrangling, multiple escapes, stepped on toes, and general pig stubbornness, there’s only one pig in the trailer. Jack’s apple fell in the pig muck, and he’s more upset about that than the fact that he nearly got plowed over by an animal eight times his weight. At the end of it all I’ve got pig poop smeared up my legs and there are a dozen burs stuck to the back pockets of my jeans. I need another coffee.

It’s going to be a long day.

How do you choose joy when Monday morning brings everyone to tears?

At the Rend Collective concert on Saturday night, amid riotous singing and dancing, they paused to say joy was a spiritual discipline. It’s something we need to cultivate. It’s a choice. I knew I needed to choose it again. For too long this giant of discouragement has been looming large over what I thought was going to be a happy season. I’ve been living in a shadow, where I know the light exists but somehow it just can’t get to me. I’ve been eclipsed.

I was given a beautiful painting earlier this year. It’s called “Choosing Light.”* It meant something then, at the beginning of the year. And now on this wearisome Monday, I go into the living room, pull back the curtains, and stand before it. The sun isn’t immediately visible in the brush strokes. But it’s there, behind the clouds. And if I look closely, I can see its golden presence, the promise that if I reach out for it, it will shine back.

So I determine, again, to choose joy.

As the kids are waiting in the car to go on the ride to the butcher with Daddy, with just one pig in the trailer, I make funny faces at the window. I press my face right up on the glass, squishing it into all kinds of contortions which little children find hilarious. There could be bird poop on this window for all I know, but I don’t care. I’m going to make myself a little ridiculous if it means putting a smile on their faces. I stand back to wipe the drool off the glass. I can see my reflection. Sure, a little tried, maybe a little harried. But I’m smiling.

I can do this, even when the week starts off all wrong. I won’t be eclipsed. I’m choosing light. I’m choosing joy.

~lg

* "Choosing Light" by Katy Rose. See more of her beautiful work and the goodwill living it supports on her website. 

In defense of feasting

O holy, riotous joy that wakes with Christmas morn, the blazing sun of a world made new, the Word made flesh! All of this waiting rewarded with the cry of a babe, the shout of the heavenly armies, the farmers turned heralds and drudges turned dancers! 

Strike up the band, strike the matches and light up the world with leagues of torches, and bring one yourself, come quickly and run! Christ is born - tell the folk of the village! The Light of the World has come!

O for a thousand tongues to sing this joy, a thousand bells to ring this birth announcement, a thousand jigs and reels to play our winged feet to the manger! 

Prepare the feast and break the fast! Empty the pantry and fill up the tables! The hunger is over, the famine banished, and now to revel in the lavish spread prepared! 

Let heaven and nature sing, all creatures great and small, let everything with breath bring praise,  and crown Him Lord of all! 

~lg

One red balloon

Once upon a one year old, a little boy fell in love with a red balloon.

It was your very first birthday party. There was a blue frosted boat cake with a candle, and singing, and presents, and the noisy joy of running children, and even Grandma. Your world was a merry one that day, hands dug into chocolate cake and ice cream, hugs from adoring family and friends. But your whole world stopped when one red balloon was snipped from the bunch and handed to you. You were hooked.   

Eyes wide, face turned up, floating somewhere between awe and glee, you held on for sheer joy. It bobbed and danced, played peek-a-boo and tickled your nose, and followed you wherever you went. You wouldn’t let go.

The party faded, for this was all you ever wanted and didn’t know it till now.

Funny how perfection can sneak up on you like that. You look over your shoulder just to make sure it’s still there. It is, and you glow rosy with it.

Oh, the wonder of first love – your heart captured on a string and lifted straight up as if by magic. You hold on and on, and this is pure happiness, and why would anyone ever let go? No, nothing compares to this singular balloon. Nothing compares to the weightless delight of one year old love.

~lg