The desert has a formidable, cautionary kind of beauty.  The mountains have strong, jagged angles with a hint of threat to them in shape and shadows, and the grey, powdery desert floor combines desolation, a lack of sympathy, and a surprise of shapes and colors. We took a 4-wheeler ride out to see a ghost town last week, riding nearly fifty miles (round trip) on a ‘main road’ which was really mostly a well-traveled path down a desert wash.

I’d been warned about the abundance of rattle snakes- though it’s still too cold for them to be a real threat. I keep my eyes out for scorpions and I hope NOT to see one, ever.  No one, however, bothered to warm me about aggressive, militant cacti that might jump out and attack. Nope.  Discovered that little peril of the desert entirely in my own.  A week later, I still have the mark where one of the cholla barbs pierced through the leather of my boot and into my foot. It took about 15 minutes, two men and two pairs of needle-nosed pliers before all the little cholla barbs were safely removed from my boots. Yikes. 

Even so, it was a grand and stunning day filled with blessings and wonderful encounters.  We marveled at ocotillos green from the recent rains, an unexpected arch, at the saguaros so stoic and brave, at more wild burros, and at the freedom of unencumbered sky and wind. Though thousands have come before us on this road, we had the joy and excitement of exploring and discovering this wild place for ourselves. Even the attack of jumping cacti came with blessings: I’m told many people have a bad reaction to this kind of attack that includes swelling and pain, I just have one little mark.  And, to tell the truth, I’m thankful I was set upon by the cholla when I was instead of just a few moments earlier when I was squatting….well suffice it to say that a barb in my ankle was preferable to other places!

Joy comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Here’s one example of my joy this week: Early Friday morning Karl and I drove out to the desert and found a spot on a ridge above a ‘wash’ to watch about a quarter of a mile section of a 425-mile race.  The racers were souped-up trucks and bugs – fitted to fly across sand and rocks at crazy speeds. These are dune buggies on steroids.  Very loud, very fast. I did a little math, the winner of the race averaged well over 82 miles per hour for over 5 hours.  While that sounds terrifying, given the chance, I’d like to take a ride  –  it looked like such fun. 

Anyway, for our part where we sat, it was kind of like watching a very odd parade. The race is a timed event and the vehicles all had a staggered start, with a vehicle starting every 30 seconds, so mostly we only saw one at a time. The track called for each racer to make three laps so we saw some (not all!) three times.  For long periods of time there would be nothing to see except the sky, the quiet desert, and the hills and rocks surrounding us on the horizon.  Then we’d hear a noise and get to watch a vehicle fly by for about 7-9 seconds. 

It was more fun than maybe it sounds.  In the interims, we enjoyed each other, we relished in surveying our surroundings, and we talked with fans around us.  Thankfully, most of the people nearby us were knowledgeable – this wasn’t their first desert race – so we learned a lot and asked a lot of questions.

How was this a joyous experience?  In many ways. First, the desert.  I’m not sure I’m ready to call the powdery dust and scrubby plants populating the area beautiful, but there is a lot to see and take in.  The expanse of it reinforced for me about how big God is. The variety and heart of living things holding tenaciously onto life despite the extremes of dryness, heat, and cold give me hope and new resolve to endure the hard places in my own life. Then there’s the race.  For a day I was away from politics and intrigue. Instead, we were immersed in simple and exhilarating man vs nature, man vs machine, and man vs himself contests that celebrated all that is good and creative and adventurous in humans. We met people who were friendly and excited about their lives for the day, and unafraid. We breathed fresh, though dusty, air and felt the sunshine on our skin. It was a good day.

We are just a few days before Christmas and all through our house Christmas is glinting and chiming and sparkling, and making me merry.  I hope you can say the same. 

I am an absolute stickler for not opening ANY present early, I love staring at the pile of presents under the tree in happy anticipation.  However, I received a gift this week that wasn’t wrapped (plastic wrap doesn’t count!), and needed to be enjoyed ahead of time, and I want to share it with you (visually only, it’s too good to share gastronomically with too many people…sorry, not sorry!)

My friend Branda is thoughtful, creative, and fun, and a terrific cook.  Gather those traits together and the result this year is a detailed gingerbread fifth wheel trailer complete with wheels and tail-lights, a set of (cinnamon) bears roasting marshmallows over an open fire, a bench, and extra logs. It’s truly a wonderful accomplishment in totally yummy, edible art and a gift of smiles and love.

Have a merry Christmas week, everyone.  Take moments to give and receive the fun and joy of this special week right alongside the renewed understanding of the blessings we have because Jesus was born!

When I was little, I thought Christ was Jesus’ last name. You know, Mary Christ, Joseph Christ, and their son Jesus Christ. Of course, I eventually came to understand that Jesus is the name His mama called Him (ok, yes, it was Joseph, the step-dad who named Him as instructed by the angel). Names like Christ or Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, Son of God, Son of Man were titles given to Him by others — all true and deserved and lived up to.  Still, His mama called Him Jesus, and that’s the name I like best.  Don’t get me wrong – I love that Jesus is my Deliverer, my Peace, my Messiah, my Savior.  He is all those things and so much more. But, when I use those names instead of His given name, He is elevated beyond me.  To call Him the Messiah is to upraise Him so far above me that I can’t even think of approaching Him.  To call Him Prince of Peace puts Him in a palace where I, a mere commoner, am forbidden to go.  Son of God? Nope, I’m not worthy for sure.

But I can call on a guy named Jesus.  Jesus was (along with being fully God) human. Maybe He had bad breath sometimes, maybe he chewed His fingernails. He had to cut His toenails and blow His nose. Jesus understands being poor.  He was born in a barn, I was raised in a trailer.  He understands being sad, angry, frustrated, confused. I feel all those things. He gets me because He was human.  I get Him because He was human.  Maybe that is why I love Christmas.  Christmas celebrates Jesus’ entry into this world in a way I understand. Through Jesus I have a friend who takes me by the hand and leads me into the palace and tells me I belong.  He saved my soul and leads me into understanding how. Because of Him I am worthy.  No small thing.  Yay Christmas!!

In the novel I’m writing right now, the main character experiences something difficult.  She is young and laments to her mother, “Why did God let this happen?”  Her mother answers her saying, “I think you are asking the wrong question. It isn’t up to us to ask God why. He’s God, and He doesn’t owe us any explanations. There are other much more powerful and productive questions to ask.”

I did a quick search in the Bible. A very young Samuel heard God calling him.  He thought at first it was his teacher, Eli and he answered “Here I am.”  Later, when he knew it was God, his answer was “Speak, I’m listening.”  It isn’t recorded that Noah even answered God’s call to build the ark.  He just did it. When Saul/Paul heard and saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, he asked “Who?” A few verses later when God called out to Ananias, the answer was simply, “Yes!” When Gabriel told Mary she was going to become pregnant and give birth to the Eternal King, she asked “How?” When Jesus, face to face, called Peter and Andrew, they dropped their fishing gear and followed him.  Huh. No Whys? in that group.

I think many if not most of us have asked “Why?” in recent months.  We ask why of the government leaders, why to God, why to our lives when things are hard.  I’m realizing, though, that why is destructive.  It makes me a victim.  It makes me powerless. It traps me in anger. Starting now I’m going to make the effort to ask more enabling questions, “What can I learn here?”, “How can I be part of the solution?”, “Where can I channel my energies that will do the most good?”. Or simply, “Okay, God.”

It’s been easy for me in the political and cultural tempest we live in to wonder if God isn’t tired of us.  I’ve thought lately that I haven’t seen God’s hand in the workings of America very much in the last months.  People seem angrier, more fearful, less loving, and I’ve wondered if God has turned us over to sin for a season. 

With this attitude, we’ve been laying low at our house. I’ve been writing a lot, we’ve been doing small projects.  Nearly every day we take a walk around our neighborhood for exercise.  And that’s when I first began to notice it.  We walk in the daytime, and lately every day we walk, we notice another house sporting Christmas lights – strings of lights newly hung on the eves, wreaths and plastic Santas, old fashioned snowmen and new, air-filled scenes of holiday cheer.  Three houses on our route have ornate, 3D nativity scenes. Many, many have decorated trees in the windows. And this started well before Thanksgiving. Yes, we are new to the neighborhood, but we certainly didn’t see this many decorations up last year. We were out after dark on the day after Thanksgiving and were surprised by the number of houses throughout town who have decorated houses and yards. 

Then it hit me, maybe I’ve just been missing how God is working.  I’ve been wanting ‘high dollar’, extravagant examples of God With Us.  I’ve been looking for the equal to the Red Sea parting or the shining arrival of Gabriel or Michael announcing a dramatic act of God to reassure me that He is near.  Instead, maybe the way God is moving among us right now is to speak quietly in each of His people separately, whispering hope and stirring simple, normal hearts to spend a little more time this year on the tree, put up just one extra set of lights, do something small but beautiful to spread the joy that He offers.  One day as we were walking, a lady a few blocks over was putting up a line of candy canes to add to her already festive and fun yard decorations.  Though we don’t know her, we stopped to compliment her on how pretty her yard was looking.  She told us, “We don’t have a lot of money to give to charities and my husband isn’t well and is facing surgery soon, but what we do have is this yard and these decorations.  It’s my way of giving to our community.” 

Amen. I heard God’s voice in her words.  I see God’s love in the sparkling lights.  I hope you enjoy the Christmas season this year.  And if you drive by our house and see our outdoor lights, I hope you hear God’s voice telling you He loves you!

I’m not really a fan of compromise.  Overall, I think that compromise should be avoided.  Compromise means both parties give up something in order to meet in the middle.  There’s nothing wrong with that when the issue is a small, one-time decision like what restaurant to go to this evening, or making a lunch date instead of a dinner date since your auntie doesn’t like to drive at night. 

But when the problem is long term or ongoing, or if the issue is one of the heart or beliefs, then compromise can be destructive.  Let me share an example: my wonderful husband and I don’t like the same kind of toilet paper.  What to do? I could be sacrificial (then eventually resent it, maybe) and only buy the kind he likes.  He could return the favor when he does the shopping. That would mean, in both cases, that until the supply ran out, one of us would have a basic need unsatisfactorily met. Or, we can do what we do – we don’t compromise.  We buy my favorite brand and we buy his preference and display both roles proudly on matching holders next to each other.  No compromise, two happy bums.  Problem solved without compromise.

It used to be that “Live and let live” was the prevailing wisdom when dueling beliefs interacted.  It used to be that if you felt differently than I about religion, or politics, or child rearing, or whether to be a carnivore or vegetarian, or any of a thousand other important and minor topics, then we might have a discussion (sometimes heated and loud but a discussion just the same), then go our separate ways to continue on our own paths. We might not spend a lot of time together, but we held to the idea that you can have your beliefs and I can retain mine.

 Our society does not adhere to this model any more.  If you and I disagree, instead of showing mutual respect and walking away, we cancel one another, we attack one another (physically and verbally, privately and very publically), we do whatever it takes to shame and ridicule and hurt the other.  Mutual respect, civility, and human kindness are dead.  True tolerance and love have been replaced.  And replaced by something ugly and selfish and destructive. A person stops being a person and becomes a pariah for believing in tradition values of right and wrong.  People with common sense about health issues have been deemed selfish and dangerous.  I read the news and see how rigid and cruel we’ve become and I’m ashamed of us.  I’m fearful for us.  If you don’t like my kind of toilet paper, okay.  Go buy your own. Do not attempt to erase me over it.

As a writer, I love that the Bible says God is the Author and Perfector of our faith.  I get that. I can relate to the work He does to nurture our stories.  But today I thought of another metaphor that describes God’s role in our lives another way.

I love to bake bread.  I have since I was quite young.  I love the feel of the dough, the smell of it. I love the whole process.  Through the years I’ve learned that kneading the dough is essential.  Getting lazy or being too gentle and under kneading is always a risk which results in a flat, dense loaf of bread. There are several ways to tell if your dough is well kneaded.  With experience, a baker gets to know the feel of soft, willing elasticity that comes with dough that’s ready.  Thanks to the British Baking Show, I’ve also learned that you can check dough using ‘the window pane method’.   When the dough is under kneaded, it won’t make a ‘window pane’ when you hold it up. The dough tears and breaks apart, it isn’t resilient or strong.  When it’s just right, a baker can hold the dough up and it will stretch and give so that light shines through it but it doesn’t break. 

See the metaphor?  God is the mixer and kneader and perfector of our faith.  I don’t always like the pummeling that kneading brings, but in the end, I want to be the kind of dough in His hands that stretches and is strong.  I want to be pliable to His Will not my own.  I want His light to shine through me.  When my Baker and I are finished with this part of the process, I’m looking forward to rising!