I Need A Cross With Jesus On It

I need a cross with Jesus on it

Suspended, silent, suffering there

All agency given up and over

Hands and feet pierced and bound

Head bowed, humble, resolute

For my crucifixion is ongoing.

I can’t abide the polished ones

Hanging empty, sterile, lifeless.

I need the pulsing, breathing, bleeding One

To fix my eyes upon.

I am in fellowship with Suffering!

My body, too, is Center 

Of some great contest 

A point, the origin, uniting all opposites

Arms horizontal, bearing others in

Body vertical, bringing all to God

The mind in Heaven

The feet in Hell.

Someday He’ll take me down from here;

He'll give me leave to me come all the way

Receive my spirit 

Bury me

And wrap me up into Him!

Then my cross will be of gold 

And very small 

And altogether separate from my flesh.

To my hands stretched out

From His hands He gives me to hold

A bright token of remembrance;

He gives me to wear a glory universal

To demonstrate this Particular Love 

We will have now shared.

A Lyme Lament

 Lord, please attend to my body.

It is being overwhelmed and undone by my sins.

I can't breathe; I cough all day long, even coughing on others.

My skin is red, blotchy, hot, itchy. 

I am weighed down by fat.

In all my motions, I am undermineded by weakness in joints and acute muscle pain. 

My closest friends are too distracted to notice my distress or be concerned. 

I need healing, deliverance even. 

Something within or without or within and without is killing me, consuming my vitality over years. 

My bones waste away. 

I try to keep doing the right, the good, but my hands fail, my feet tire, and less and less is possible. 

I am in no condition to glorify You.

But I will glorify You with what strength I have, because You are where all glory belongs. 

You are altogether whole and lovely and the source of all life. 

I put my hope in Your help. 

You have always had compassion and mercy on those who sought You and reached out to You for aide. 

Save me! 

Human doctors are trying, but they can only know and do so much. 

But You, O Lord, can do all things, and You know what I need. 

I wait for You. 

Chreia to CS Lewis

C.S. Lewis wisely says, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”

Humble people usually aren’t even aware that they are humble, because they aren’t taking time to think of themselves at all. 

They can serve others out of the confidence they have in God’s love for them. 

God’s overwhelming love allows the humble to forget themselves entirely for the sake of serving the Beloved and the ones He loves. 

The proud, by contrast, can’t forget themselves. 

They are trapped in self-consciousness, because they have yet to lose themselves in the love of God. 

They may do service, but they think of themselves constantly as they serve, never forgetting how righteous they are for serving, never forgetting how unworthy the objects of their service are, never able to abandon themselves because they are not swept up and away from ego into the love of God. 

Just as seed must be cast away and it must bury itself before it can grow up and produce any fruit, so we must cast away our pride and bury it, dying to ourselves, so that we can resurrect and grow up in Christ and bear righteous fruit. 

Jesus said that if a man would come after Him, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Him. 

Jesus, being very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing. 

He abandoned Himself to God’s will and gave Himself as a sacrifice for our sins, becoming obedient to death, even such a humiliating death as the cross. 

Therefore, God has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name above every name. 

Every knee will bow to this most humble, self-forgetful King Jesus who loved us enough to think of us and our need for a Savior over Himself and what He deserved. 

Love this humble God! 

Give yourself in love to Him! 

In that love, think of yourself less and less until you forget yourself entirely in service to the ones God loves, content to be loved by Him, known by Him, then loving Him, knowing Him will be pride and joy enough to fill our needy souls. 

*I'm working through Progymnasmata exercises this summer. This is one exercise called the Chreia, a specific form of praise of an author and one of his wise sayings. 

Rubicon

Dwayne got a new, unexpected work vehicle- a Jeep Rubicon!

He took this picture while out on a local trail with a male friend from work. 

The pictures look awesome, but I'm glad he didn't take me; I'd have been quite nervous to go along. 

But I'll need to get over my nerves, because we've signed the family up for a Jeep Jamboree in September in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and the trails at the Jamboree will be like this or even more intense. 

The Jamboree is a bucket-list event, something we've dreamed of doing since we owned our first Jeep, a Liberty, A.K.A. "Libby," for the first several years of my mom-life. 

Libby was our one and only family car until we bought a second, commuter car for Dwayne, and we kept Libby until I just desperately needed a minivan for all the little kids and cargo we had. 

And I needed better gas mileage, too. 

So we sold Libby to another family. 

We definitely kept her well-maintained;  They even called us on and off for a while to tell us how much they were blessed by her, and that made our hearts hurt a little less for having give her up. 

I really forgot all about Jeeps and Jamborees. 

It's just a vehicle. 

And we were too busy paying bills and growing into and filling up even larger family vehicles for many years since. 

We didn't expect to own a Jeep again... 

But the Rubicon came as a nice surprise to us all this summer. 

I had forgotten how much fun Jeeps are to drive. 

We are so thankful for the unexpected fun this Jeep has brought into our lives. 

The girls love riding in it, too, and we often beg Dwayne to take my Suburban, so we can drive his Jeep around town instead. 

Summer of Hume

Both girls went to Hume this summer, but not on the same week!

So both girls spent a week at home along with just me all day! 

 

Adele went first with the middle school group at church. 

So while Avril was the only one home, I took her out for a day of shopping, and we had Greek for lunch.

The next week, Avril went to Hume with the high school kids at church. One of the days, I also took Adele out shopping, and we had Italian- her choice. 

Here are some photos of Avril from Hume:

 Here is a photo collage of Adele's time at Hume taken from her Smashbook page of camp photos:

 

Circe National Convention Plus Afternoon Tea

I have been blessed to attend the Circe National Conference the last several summers. 

The last two years, it was in Charleston, and since my mom lives nearby, I would coordinate my summer visit to her house with the conference. 

And the last two years, I also took my oldest daughter Norah along to the conference during the day, and I brought my husband along for the evening events like my Apprenticeship Graduation and the Paideia Award Banquet. 

But this summer, Norah needed to stay home and work to earn money for college, so I took only Dwayne instead. 

He and I looked right and left and realized we actually  had the freedom to travel together since we our oldest daughter is now an adult, so she was old enough to stay with our younger kids! 

It was a great trip, and we've already purchased tickets for next summer's conference, too. 

The day of our flight home, we had some time in the afternoon to go to tea at another local hotel in downtown Denver. 

Since I am teaching a class on tea time at our co-op this season, the timing was perfect. 

I had never been to such a formal tea time before; It was lovely! 

Updated August 20:

This formal tea experience taught me a few things and changed me in a few definitive ways. 

For instance, I am now of the mind that loose leaf tea is far better than bagged tea. 

I don't take milk in my tea anymore. 

We've purchased sugar clumps for our home. 

And now we make tea almost every evening after dinner and drink it as we read aloud.