We have moved

No, not the Shank family. Just the blog.

I have been publishing my blog on two sites simultaneously (Wordpress and Blogspot) for lo these many months. Actually not that many months. But I am enjoying the widgets and formats and community of Wordpress.com and am running out of patience with publishing in both places. It just takes too long.

So, if you're looking for my blog, just click here and follow me to the new land. Don't forget to leave comments!

Israel's future glory in Christ

God has done again what He so often does: brought several threads together for me, to show off a powerful truth. After studying Isaiah all year, after hearing stirring comments on Israel Sunday evening at my church, and then after writing a blog entry on the Jews just yesterday, I find this morning a blog entry by John Piper that puts an exclamation point on all of this. He quotes J.C. Ryle:

They are a people reserved and kept separate by God for a grand and special purpose. That purpose is to make them a means of exhibiting to the world in the latter days God's hatred of sin and unbelief, and God's almighty power and almighty compassion. They are kept separate that they may finally be saved, converted and restored to their own land. They are reserved and preserved, in order that God may show in them as on a platform, to angels and men, how greatly he hates sin, and yet how greatly he can forgive, and how greatly he can convert. Never will that be realized as it will in that day when "all Israel shall be saved." (Are You Ready for the End of Time? 137-138)

I pray that the glory of that day will not be lost on me.

maybe UNDER the table is more accurate

Today I read where Jesus called a desperate woman a dog. And I realized I am a dog too. Maybe even an anti-semitic dog.

I wrote last month about being "at the table", which of course is what Christ graciously invites us to, but I think we'd do well to remember often just how gracious this invitation is. Our rightful place, if we have a place at all, is not at the table, but under it.

The story I read (see Matt. 15:21-28) is one that on first reading can make you uneasy, as many gospel stories and parables do. It just doesn't sound like the Jesus we know. But of course we only have the verbal record. What was going on nonverbally and in the heart would probably set our objections aside immediately.

The context is this: after spending frustrating days being scoffed at by his relatives and neighbors in his hometown, scrutinized and criticized by self-righteous Jewish teachers, and hounded by the masses of miracle-followers all around the lake, Jesus "withdrew" to a town on the coast, away from the madding Jewish crowds of Galilee.

But then there's this desperate voice: "Lord, Son of David, have mercy...". At first he makes no response, but when his disciples request that he get rid of this gentile woman because of her noise, Jesus answers something strange: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

What?? You agree with them?? And you're not going to have mercy because she is not Jewish??

Well there's a whole lot of theology in his words, and a whole lot of theology in my objections. But take a look at the rest of the story, and decide for yourself what he's up to here.

She hears his response, and simply kneels down and begs (like a dog?) for help. Then he calls her a dog: "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs." Given that he has just said quite clearly that his "bread" is for Israel (obviously the "children" of the metaphor), there can be no doubt whom he is calling a dog. Even if you think of "dog" as "little dog," like a cherished little fluffball under your kitchen table, a dog is a dog.

Now, considering the state this woman is in, would you expect her to be offended? Her little daughter is possessed by a demon. She has no hope.

Her response says everything about what faith looks like. "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." In other words, "Lord, I know I am a dog, and have nothing to offer you. I'm just glad to be under the table, for whatever crumbs might fall my way."

This is exactly the kind of faith, the kind of poor-in-spirit heart, that the Lord responds to, every time. I love what Matthew Henry says about this passage: "Those whom Christ intends most to honour, he humbles to feel their own unworthiness. A proud, unhumbled heart would not have borne this; but she turned it into an argument to support her request. The state of this woman is an emblem of the state of a sinner, deeply conscious of the misery of his soul. The least of Christ is precious to a believer, even the very crumbs of the Bread of life. Of all graces, faith honours Christ most; therefore of all graces Christ honours faith most."

This passage convicted me this morning, because I know I typically have an upside-down view of who "belongs" at the table: according to my proud heart, it's first for the gentile, and then, if they're really humble and repentant, the Jew. (Those dumb, mean Jews -- who did they think they were, rejecting and crucifying my savior?) God forgive me my attitude! I even find I have this strange knee-jerk surge of anti-semitism sometimes when I encounter a face and personality that my mind instantly labels as "typical Jewish." Where did that come from?? A misguided Sunday School teacher when I was six? I hate bigotry! How did these ugly thoughts take root in me?

John Piper preached some convicting sermons on this topic a few years ago, and my own pastor referred just this week to God's intentions toward Jews, and what a glorious day it will be when finally the lost sheep of Israel will be gathered in. Piper's warnings to us gentile believers are strong and appropriate: “'It is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you' [Rom. 11:18]. People who need to be supported should be slow to boast. And a Christian is a person who has made a deep discovery: He is weak, lost, sinful, helpless, indeed, dead in trespasses and sins. A Christian is a person who by grace has wakened from a dream of self-sufficiency into a reality of dependence. Utter dependence on the grace of God. Christian, if you boast over the branches, if you are anti-Semitic and proud, you don't know who you are. Or you are not who you say you are."

As gentile dogs such as I feast on the overflow of crumbs under the table, we should be longing and praying for that day of salvation for the lost sheep of Israel, guarding our hearts against any sense of arrogant entitlement to the Son of David.

too distracted to breathe

I have delayed this entry far too long. I kept waiting to be inspired to write something uplifting, encouraging, amazing. It could be months. My life contains aggravatingly long stretches of completely uninspired days. The question is, whose fault is that, and if it's mine (which it probably is), how do I make it stop?

Logophile that I am, I have to pause a bit here and examine the word "uninspired," because I believe that language (diction) often chooses me more than I choose it, in a way. What I mean is, I could have chosen any number of synonyms to describe this stretch of days ("unexciting," "unremarkable," "commonplace"...), but what came off my fingertips is "uninspired," and I believe that word moved from my unconscious onto my computer screen for a reason that bears examination. (Word choices often do bear examination, particularly for people who think as metaphorically as I tend to do.) Here's the significance: I know consciously that "inspire" means breathe in, and I certainly connect that image (and etymology) to the Holy Spirit (spirare - to breathe), but I wasn't consciously thinking about the relation of my creative doldrums to my spiritual doldrums until I saw the word on the screen. See now, this is why writing matters: to write is to think.

Given that rabbit trails--such as this one I just took--are the stuff of life, or at least the stuff of writing, what can I learn from that little rabbit trail? Simply that it reminds me of why I started this blog in the first place, and subtitled it "Weekly musings on life in Christ." I need the discipline. To have musings to write requires reflection, and God knows I need to be doing more reflecting. And to do more reflecting requires taking time to be still. Which is exactly why I've had several uninspired weeks: no stillness.

Why? Because when a family of five takes a memorable, adventurous vacation in August, someone spent hours in April planning it (mom). Because once you start arranging flights and lodgings for Maine-Boston-NYC, big money is on the line, so you better be sure of your plans and book quickly while affordable things are available. Because Skybus pretends that all is well just two days before it declares bankruptcy and announces that your tickets are worthless (but of course you have already booked rooms for the cities you now have no way to get to, unless you re-book tickets with another airline, which will completely bust your budget). Because retrieving your money is your responsibility, not the bankrupt airlines'. Because our puppy hasn't quite learned proper respect for the invisible fence yet. And because, at the end of a solid week of all this time of pretty much full-time travel-planning on the internet (and puppy chasing), my mood and my mind defaulted to black scribble, which is the best way I know to describe that foulness of outlook, that ticked-off funk I get into from time to time. It looks like Lucy in the cartoon here. Words are just inadequate. Everything is a mess of ugly knots. Oh, and I pretty much resent everybody I know.

Remember that comment I made on the last entry about knowing that in the parable of the sower, I am the "good soil?" Well I'm still claiming that by faith, but these are the days when the Savior has to remind me of it, if I would give him just half an hour: 29 minutes to calm myself down and stop being petulant, and a minute to listen to him call me his child. But for days on end, I gave him no such time. No, I was too busy stewing about whether the owner of that awesome apartment in Brooklyn with the rooftop view of the bridge was going to e-mail me back, or if I should just go ahead and book the one in East Village, which is $100 more per night. Tick tock. Things are booking up. Better not lose this one. Maybe check one more website...

Good soil, but thorns sometimes. The seed still grows, but the fruit is limited, choked by the "worries of this life" (Matt. 13:22). Deep inspiration stops, replaced by shallow panting. Mercifully, God does not forsake us then. But equally mercifully, he also does not usually reward us with his peace until we stop bolting like a frantic deer, realize that we are short of breath for no good reason, and lie down in those green pastures where He will restore our souls, every time.

How timely that the Tozer Daily Devotional (you HAVE to sign up for this one!) yesterday said this:

Prayer: Take Time to Listen

The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. I opened my mouth and panted, for I longed for Your commandments. -Psalm 119:130-131

The Quakers had many fine ideas about life, and there is a story from them that illustrates the point I am trying to make. It concerns a conversation between Samuel Taylor Coleridge and a Quaker woman he had met. Maybe Coleridge was boasting a bit, but he told the woman how he had arranged the use of time so he would have no wasted hours. He said he memorized Greek while dressing and during breakfast. He went on with his list of other mental activities--making notes, reading, writing, formulating thoughts and ideas--until bedtime.The Quaker listened unimpressed. When Coleridge was finished with his explanation, she asked him a simple, searching question: "My friend, when dost thee think?"

God is having a difficult time getting through to us because we are a fast-paced generation. We seem to have no time for contemplation. We have no time to answer God when He calls. - Jesus, Author of our Faith, p. 46.

Tozer knew it, and I know it: when there is a dearth of inspiration, it has nothing to do with a lack of available air.

at the table

Everything I read and hear these days, Kingdom-wise, seems to point me back to the same thing: I am always on the receiving end; He is always the source.

Most recently, I have been thinking in terms of tables.

I have wanted a new kitchen table for quite a while now. Our old set was one of those Amish-built (truly -- we got it in Virginia from a Mennonite vendor) round/oval pedestal tables and sturdy windsor-back chairs. I remember being so grateful for it when we were able to buy it, and it held up well to toddler seats and school projects and a cook who isn't very careful to use hot pads under the chicken casserole (that would be me). But for various reasons, it was time for that set to go. So I listed it on Craig's List, and it left yesterday for the home of a young couple with a toddler and a baby on the way. It stirred a little wave of sentimentality, I have to admit.

This morning I was looking--for the third day in a row because it intrigues me--at the parable of the sower. I've moved on in my reading to some of the other parables that follow it in Matthew: the six "the kingdom is like..." parables. But I keep returning to that first one, and thinking about what kind of soil I am. And why. By Christ's words, I am good soil. The good soil represents those who hear and understand, those who have ears to hear. I know I am one of those. Most days I know it right down to my toes, and other days I need him to remind me. But I know it. And I know that makes me blessed, because I get to see and hear what the prophets and righteous men of old longed to see but did not, as Jesus tells his disciples. I live in the time of the law written on hearts and minds. Hallelujah!

But why did I get to be good soil?

I don't have an answer other than "because God ordained it so." But I do know that the question is one that I started asking way too late in life. I think many of us who grew up in homes where Jesus was loved, "where children early lisp his fame," who were cherished and well fed and handed every opportunity to know Christ that this world can afford -- we can easily be underwhelmed by the gospel. He weaves himself so gently and so faithfully into our life story that it takes a knock on the head for us to see how amazing that grace has been. We may even begin to take some of the credit for his being there. (We were pretty good kids, after all.)

So we do what well fed children often do: we come to the table without a word of thanks to the father who provided the food, and we retire to the couch without asking how we might help with the work of the family, and we assume that meal will always be there. And it is.

I did that as a kid at home, and so did my kids. I think sowing gratefulness in a child's heart must be one of the greatest challenges in a parent's job. The "starving children in India" line ought to work, but it just doesn't. And no matter how ungrateful your children's hearts may be, you always feed them anyway, because they are your children. Generally, they develop gratitude later, when they have to pay for their own food, or feed their own children.

So how does God work gratefulness into the heart of a son or daughter who has been fed grace from infancy? He works it slowly and faithfully, by the word and by prayer, just as He works the other marks of maturity into us. With the word open in my lap and his Spirit in my ear, I hear him say "blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it" (Matt. 13:16-17). And by his grace, I hear, I see, I understand what He means. And by his grace, I am grateful.

This week, this Holy Week, as I have the privilege of being at my Father's table again, I know that He paid everything He had for this meal, and He did it out of his great love for me.

By his grace, may that knowing keep me off the couch.

deep calls to deep

Here’s my typical formula for quiet time: Read through the passage of scripture (wherever I am in my OT or NT readings), write a short precis of it in journal, pray over it and let the Holy Spirit speak, record discoveries and questions, and then ask God to make that day’s chunk of his word take root in my life and heart. Then lots more prayer. All these people to pray for, and so little time...

But sometimes, when I need a little change, I pull out a short book I picked up at a used bookstore one time called Praying with CS Lewis. It’s a collection of meditations by Charles C. Taliaferro that combine biographical information, excerpts from CS Lewis’ writings, a reflection by Taliaferro, a related scripture passage, and then some challenges for meditation or writing or activity in response to the theme.

I did the first one (again) the other day and have been thinking about it ever since. It is called “Awakened Desire.” It explores the usefulness of wonder to our life of faith. This sounds obvious, but what it led me to is a great thankfulness for my childhood: that I was secure and free to wade creeks and lie on my back in the grass at night gazing at stars. That I had an aunt who could weave tales that would set my imagination spinning. That I had parents who took me trout fishing and camping, and who thought I was amazing when I asked weird questions like “if we can have a dream and in the dream we’re really sure it’s real life, how do we know we’re not dreaming now?” In short, I am grateful that I was taught to wonder, to be aware, to enjoy the moment. Not all children are given this gift.

And it also made me hope that I will never fully outgrow that wide-eyed amazement at life and thoughts and story. I still have, thank God, a tendency to have heart-surge moments. By this I mean a sudden awareness of something I can only describe as eternal and inutterable that completely takes my breath away, makes my eyes tear up, and makes my heart pound.

Now, I am NOT talking about the cloying “gardens just make me feel so close to God” moments that so-called inspirational poets put into so-called inspirational poetry, or even those moments of amazement such as most of us would have at a mountaintop panorama that bursts unexpectedly into view, though those are cool (the amazement moments, not the Hallmark verses). The Romantics’ concept of the “sublime” might come closer, but their association of this concept to death and terror do not ring true to what I’m trying to describe. In fact, the moments don’t even have to involve nature at all. I’ve had them in traffic, in the bathtub, in church. For me, they require a complete loss of self-consciousness and time-consciousness (which is dangerous in traffic, by the way). It’s like I have suddenly tuned my dial to a radio signal coming out of … Mars? Heaven?

Here’s how Lewis puts it:

What is universal is not the particular picture, but the arrival of some message, not perfectly intelligible, which wakes this desire and sets men longing for something East or West of the world; something possessed, if at all, only in the act of desiring it, and lost so quickly that the craving itself becomes craved. (The Pilgrim’s Regress, qtd. in Taliaferro p. 33)

Yes. That’s it. A message. A craving.

The words that came to mind when I read that were “deep calls to deep,” which I knew to be a biblical phrase but couldn’t remember the context. So, I looked it up, of course. It’s in verse 7 of Psalm 42, where David is having one of his slightly schizophrenic conversations with his momentarily tortured soul. In the chapter he is hounded by his enemies and a sense of abandonment, so he inventories what he knows to be true about God (wise man that he is), and he begins down at the Jordan and ends up in the mountains, like a geographical survey of the creator.

I have to insert here that commentators mostly explain his phrase “deep calls to deep” as meaning that his suffering is coming in deep waves, like the waterfall he mentions.
Well, maybe. But sometimes I have to wonder about commentaries on Biblical poetry. Can someone really decide conclusively what a poem means, universally? (And probably not a very poetic someone, at that.) I mean, it’s poetry! You can’t parse poetry! You have to swim around in it and see where the current takes you…this time. Maybe next time it will roll a different way. (Really! It’s okay! David’s in the Spirit, we’re in the Spirit, so it’s safe.)

Couldn’t “deep calls to deep” also suggest that as he surveys glorious creation, with the acute awareness that all poets have, he has one of those rare Lewis moments of extreme longing, when the deepest parts of him are quickened to life by a sudden awareness of the deep mystery of God’s immanence, when God whispers right into his ear “I’m here!” (See, David? I know exactly what you mean! To me.)

1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”

4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.

5 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and 6 my God.
My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

8 By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”

10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”

11 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

On naming things and people

I was going to title this "Nascent Blog," but there cannot be a more unlikely pairing of words: beautiful, ancient, rich "nascent" with the cacophonous modern monstrosity of a word, "blog."

Blah. Blech. Blob. Blog. Surely we could have coined something better. (I know: short for weblog, and Merriam-Webster's word of the year a few years ago. Still.)

Thus I arrive with snide remarks into the world of blogging.

Choosing a title for this blog was laborious. Since I don't have a specific soapbox or subject matter in mind, titling this, my very first blog, feels like titling my life.

So I thought of deriving the blog title from my name (Wendy Kidd Shank) or perhaps the meaning of my first name, which refrigerator magnets have always told me was "wanderer" -- like in the hymn "Come, come ye saints, no toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way...". The meaning rings true for me; I love to travel. If there were a name that meant "restless" it would fit me perfectly. Airliners overhead taunt me because I'm not on them. Just to be sure, I looked up "Wendy" on a meanings-of-names website and found that unfortunately there was no reference to the meaning "wanderer." Instead, I find that my name is probably only traceable to J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan," and came from a juvenile term for friend: "Fwendy." Ugh! The cuteness! Such unsubstantial drivel!

This reminded me of a couple of South Africans I once met in 1982, who gallantly took pity on me when I was wending my way alone, desperately trying to drag my heavy luggage down a walkway to make the ferry from Ostend to Dover. Over a couple of pints in a Dover pub (waiting for a train during a Britrail strike), they asked me how I liked being named after a character from a fairy tale, and why didn't I have a proper name? Their names were Peter and Tobias, so I had nothing snappy to retort. (Other than that, they were very chivalrous young gentlemen, seeing me all the way to London safely, for which I am still grateful.)

But thankfully there also exists a wonderful possibility for my etymology: "Wendy" may have pre-dated Peter Pan as a shortened form of "Gwendolen," a name my sister insists on calling me from time to time because she knows I never liked it. As it turns out, though, "Gwendolen" is Welsh and means "white ring," gwen meaning "white, fair, blessed." So I can imagine myself as a a white-ringed welsh beauty--picture Waterhouse's Lady of Shalott, but without all the tragedy. Gwendolen. Now there's a name you can stand up under. Take that, Patricia Lynn.

The truth is that alas, my parents didn't have internet to learn all of this, and I don't think gave much thought to the meaning of my name at all. They just liked the sound of "Wendy." Not short for anything, or referent of anyone. (That they didn't elect to honor a matriarch spared me more objectionable names: Leona, Alice, Mildred. Beloved women, all, of course, but any of those names would have caused more agony than the Peter Pan--er--Welsh name ever did.)

And so I claim the root name "gwen" as meaning "blessed," because it fits me. (We'll leave "white" and "fair" alone, for now.") Wend-y. Blessed-y. Fully blessed.

Now, of course "blessed" as a blog name would not only be taken already, but would also immediately portray me as a brainless religious fanatic, probably of the prosperity-gospel ilk. So as a blog name, "blessed" is out, and "blessed-y" just sounds dumb.

So I turn to something more substantial than my name: my identity. And there is not much I know more firmly about my identity than whose I am, and by whose choosing. Many, many hymns and verses could communicate my response to being the recipient of the grace of Jesus Christ, but few say it with such beautiful words and rich, watery metaphor as "O the deep deep love of Jesus" -

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o’er His loved ones, died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o’er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!
'Tis an ocean full of blessing, ’tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, ’tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!
- Samuel T. Francis

Fully blessed indeed.