Pumpkin Problems

I love autumn.  I’m not certain if it’s the fog, the falling leaves or the frenetic squirrels but the season makes me happy.  Despite the return of the rains, the moments of sunshine are frequent enough to make fall exquisite in my part of the world.   We trek to local farms to sample fresh apples, cider and view the pumpkin harvest. Speaking of which, did this year’s crop not produce some of the biggest pumpkins you have ever seen?** Of course, when I think of the harvest, with its back breaking labour and cornucopia of heavy root vegetables, I hope the next generation will be able to work hard and enjoy the bounty the land provides. This ironically, is exactly what those adorable little freeloaders will do this week, as they venture outside to harvest sugar infused treats from their neighbors.  

Children everywhere will gather in teams, armed with pillow cases and set to canvasing urban landscapes.  They will walk, perhaps hundreds of feet, climb stairs and will press buttons with chilly fingers.  When this has been accomplished, functional adults will pick up treats and drop them mercilessly in their sacks, and the children will then forget to say thank you and turn into the darkness, to repeat this action until their parents gather them up and drive them home.

Yep. It’s Halloween again.

If you have the gift of discernment you have deduced I have a complicated relationship with Halloween. It’s most likely a Christianese thing. A spiritual incongruence that I can’t get around: what do Reese’s peanut butter cups, a vast array of oversexed adult costumes and pumpkins on door steps have to do with each other?  Where else can a desperate desire for community and a good time manifest in a society where community has moved into a realm that isn’t even physical?  It’s all rather peculiar.

As far as traditions go, jack ’o lanterns have never been my favourite thing.  The pumpkin part I love, but carving those critters is next to impossible.  The internet is filled with brilliant people who carve majestic orange masterpieces: politicians, Marvel characters and movie sets.  Utterly astonishing, some are jolly clever. How they do it is a mystery, though I expect they aren’t using a dull steak knife and a cheap plastic saw from the dollar store.  That could be my problem.  This year however, I hit a new low.  I thought if I shared it with you, you’d feel better about yourself as a person and maybe your life in general.

To start with, I like the white pumpkins.  They might not even be real pumpkins, I have no idea.  Maybe they are a gourd – nope, internet says they are a pumpkin variety.  With that out of the way the next confession is that I often carve my pumpkins (white) into owls.  This year something went slightly sideways.  The trip to the patch was lovely but very busy.  Post patch-visit, my pumpkin sat a week in the garage without being carved.  That wouldn’t be a big deal except it discoloured and became a speckled, albino pumpkin.  When I brought it inside to carve, I was disappointed and tried to scrape off the mildew spots.  That was a bad idea because those spots instantly started to weep moisture.  Something about this was super discouraging and slowed me down, resulting in the children getting all the good carving knives.  It was about then, with my pox-plagued pumpkin, that I decided that I would just put candle eyes on my jack’o lantern and call it good. 

That was a really bad idea.

Not because it wasn’t easy to carve, because it was; but the end result was sort of awful.  The eyes went in easily enough but when lit it looks like my pumpkin is weeping wax tears.  It’s truly damnable.  Burning the tea light eyes resulted in severe burnt-on eyebrows, which my youngest tried to fix by washing one off, which makes it look like pumpkin face lost an eyebrow (which he did) to fire ( which he didn’t. )  I don’t think I have ever failed at holiday crafts quite like this one.  I’d be impressed with myself if my children weren’t so horrified.  Strangely, I’ve developed affection for this woe begotten fellow.  My family’s only hope is that it rains so badly on Halloween that the tea lights are blown out and no one sees it. This is unfair considering I was only doing the best I could with my appalling attitude and lack of enthusiasm.

In order to deflect attention from myself, I thought I would ask how your heart attitude is these days my friend?  Because I wanted to remind you, if you heart isn’t in something, the end result will be some form of ugly. However, if your heart is invested in your actions, the results can be stellar, doesn’t matter if we are talking pumpkins or people.

So I’m praying this week, for myself mostly but I’ll bring you in on it, that our hearts will be malleable.  That for love’s sake, we will rally and invest our best, so that the return isn’t outright horrifying.

Be safe, stay away from open flame,

xoxKaren

**No idea why I write sentences like this.  None whatsoever. 

Hungry for the Lord

This is a nice picture of creation which is better than me lying on my kitchen floor.

I reached up and to the right of my head, feeling in the dark for my phone.  Finding it, I hit the home button and was met with a blinding screen that seared the time, 3:19, to the back of my retinas. I switched my phone off immediately, scooted to the left half a foot and was instantly rewarded with a new patch of cool against my cheek.  Doing the math I calculated I had taken approximately 40 mins without managing to get myself a glass of water.  Pretty pathetic considering water was only 25 feet from my original starting point on the couch. I sighed and rolled over, bypassing lying on my side and choosing my back as a satisfactory resting place.   I spent another feverish quarter hour looking up at the light fixture before I set to praying.

“Hi Lord.  It’s me.  On the floor, in the kitchen.  Fever.  Don’t want to be stupid but could seriously use some help getting water and back to the couch.  Unless it’s time to call for some help, then perhaps you could help me with that?  Everyone’s sleeping.  Clearly you know that but maybe someone could come down?  Sitting up is the goal right now; an ice pack would be awesome.  Thank you for ice packs.  I really like them… and linoleum.. it’s cold.   I like lino.  You did a good job on that stuff.” I went on for quite some time, in my feverish, delirious state, before I managed to get a glass of water and return to the couch where I was spending the night.

Yes, a time for prayer and fasting had come into my life and in case I haven’t told you before, it doesn’t come easily for me. 

The internet is a modern sensation where you can find information on anything.  Anything that is, unless you are a Christian who finds fasting difficult.  The web is filled with successful people who are devoted to fasting.  Intermittent fasters, weight loss fasters, keto fasters, detox fasters a whole slew of folks who are enthusiastic about the process of fasting and what it does to their body.   Many of them flounce off to fancy places to fast; they wax poetic about enemas, fiber supplements and lemon water.  They are knowledgeable about the outer work of fasting and what the process involves and that would be wonderful if I was in the same galaxy as these people but I have a serious confession to make. 

I’m not in their league.

Our fasts weren’t even comparable.  When they spoke about the amount of energy they were experiencing, I was napping on the couch in order to make it to 7pm.  When their mental clarity increased at day 5, I just felt mental.  When they felt renewed peace and well-being radiating from the universe, I was up at 3am begging God for a right heart that might experience the peace that passes understanding.  I was sending my friends texts like #ifyouwereacookieIwouldeatyourfeetoffandnotevenfeelbad.  What kind of person does that as a survival strategy? 

Looking for support I scoured YouTube for the “reluctant faster”, “fasting for losers – (but not the good kind of losing)”, “fasting for the incompetent” and every time I was struck by the same fact: spiritual fasting has almost nothing to do with an outside work.  Because in truth I could care less about lemon water, what I want to know “is God sovereign above all things and how do I hold onto the peace he provides?”  Or, “is God truly sufficient? And what am I supposed to do if I find myself in opposition to his will?”  So many things I want to know are not about fasting; they are about the supremacy of God and my attempts to come to terms with His rule. 

In other words, fasting in response to the Holy Spirit is all about the heart and the internet doesn’t have a lot of videos about that.

So I wanted to encourage those of you who feel like you are in a battle when everyone else you know is at a banquet.  When people talk about their amazing fasts and share the quilts they produced during that time, with each stitch loving sewn in place by a heart that is hungry for Jesus, I just want to run screaming from the building.  When I fast I walk the neighborhood and pick up garbage.  That is the limit of my creativity.  Oh, and I cried when I saw the Canadian geese flying south, but that was because I knew they were going to find better snacks farther south and I really wanted to eat a sleeve of Ritz crackers.  It is difficult when those who share a culture with you are on an entirely different page, they speak of a feast and you are in a famine.  It is an isolating and lonely place to be.  I remember sitting in a group taking prayer requests.  One woman mentioned how thankful she was that God supernaturally removed her doubt regarding her struggle to have a family; which would have been wonderful if it didn’t completely run at odds to the woman next to her, who chose not to share about her struggle to view God as good after her battle with infertility. 

Sometimes, faith is a battle and finding the battle hard doesn’t make you a wimp, it means you are a warrior.

Blessedly, the bible has a great deal to say to those who find themselves in a struggle.  Whether the warrior is unsuccessfully making use of the disciplines of the faith, or standing on their last legs like the characters in Helm’s deep, the Creator of the Universe sees their battle.  Run the word “battle” through a concordance and fill up on the support you lack. Your friends may love you but they can never understand you like He can.

“For not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them.” Psalm 44:3 esv

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Psalm 34:19 

So I am praying for you this week my friend.  Especially if you have been given news that makes your heart tremble or sink, and if you are fighting against panic and anxiety.  Praying that you would come to know that if you belong to God, He will deliver you because he is faithful, not because of what you do right or wrong. 

Praying for you to hold until the victory arrives,

xoxKaren

P,S.  I have 3 friends who are quilters and I love them.  They are ridiculously gifted and kind women, and I resent their ability to sit still and produce beautiful things.  

Ticked Off

Hello My Friend!

I have been sick as a dog this week and so I thought I would repost a piece I did when I started my blog many years ago.  I hope your week has been better than mine and I will hope to find you next week.  
Be kind.
xoxK

Part of my heart resides along Canada’s rocky eastern coast in the fair province of Nova Scotia.   Nova Scotia is a beautiful place with a population of amazing individuals who have sea water in their veins and sticky feet that prevent them from being blown off their rock into one of the three surrounding bodies of water.  They are a hearty and courageous folk.  My heart is attached to the life of a thirty-something mother of three that I met about thirteen years ago.  Our lives quickly fell in step and since that time, she has been family.   Being Brinn’s spiritual Mum has never been an easy assignment, but it is one that I have taken as seriously as my own walk for over a decade.  She has a passion for life that is matched only by her expectations of life in general.  If I had to attribute a life statement to this eye catching gorgeous brunette it would be something akin to, “if you can’t fix it by prayer, blow it up and try again.”  It is a continual source of joy, amazement and outright fear that I have played a part in her walk with the Lord.

Brinn is a fully functional adult with a grown up job.  As a nurse, she has seen and experienced many strange and stressful situations.  As a disciple of Jesus, she has walked thru many dangers, toils and snares.  She knows how to pray and how to navigate the world with a violent passion.  This force was stopped in its tracks a few months back by a most minuscule and unexpected foe. 

The nursing mother has a myriad of enemies: influenza, lack of sleep, laundry, ineffective nursing pads, gravity and vomit.  Brinn had not slept for about three days.  All of her children were recovering from a nasty cold, except the little one, who had developed  pneumonia.  A trip to emergency had elevated her stress levels and a wicked case of mastitis had dulled her sense of humor.  When her husband had to leave for a trip to Scotland, my sweet friend was holding on to her sanity with her eyelashes.   When her youngest child came back from daycare with a tick in his hair, my dear friend blinked and clear lost her mind. 

Ticks are not large creatures and the fact that she found the arachnid while nursing her littlest poppet, speaks to her attention to detail.  Brinn could easily have removed the offending insect, she had done performed much more demanding tasks at work.  But on this day, she was a completely exhausted, overwrought, lonely, sick Mummy, who momentarily lost her capacity to reason.  She panicked, hopped around and set herself to praying.  When she told me this on the phone, I sipped my cup of tea and laughed.  Prayer first!!  I had trained her well.  The tick however, was clearly an unrighteous pagan who would not come in agreement with her prayers, nor detach itself from her child’s head.  There was more prayer anda bit more panic.  Brinn had to come up with another plan.

Plan B included telling Jesus that she was going to go outside and look for help.  Outside…..in small town Nova Scotia…..in the middle of the day…..to find someone to remove an atheist tick from her baby’s hair.   The minute she told me what she had done I screamed.  The thought of her trolling the streets, completely overwrought looking for help did not meet my expectations of wise behavior, but I had been 4 time zones away and she didn’t ask me.

Once outside in the empty street she set to praying, “Help Lord, please help….”  There was no one about, so she modified plan B and started going house to house knocking on doors in search for a hero. 


After some minutes and no replies, she saw a couple out for a walk.  Brinn didn’t hesitate; she gathered her brood and headed after them.  “Excuse me,” she said approaching them, “have you lived here a while?  I have a problem.”  She went on, “my little guy has a tick in his hair, I don’t’ know how to remove it, my husband is away and…” at this point she broke down completely and started sobbing hysterically.  “You didn’t!!” I gasped in disbelief as she was recounting the story.  “I did!” Brinn declared laughing.  “But what did they do?” I yelled, trying to envision what on earth a couple was going to make of such a scene.  “Well,” she went on, “they were very nice.  The man said he knew exactly what to do.  He took us to the house and went and got these great tweezers.  He took the tick out of his hair and his wife…”  “What did she do?” I asked, trying to imagine what was coming next.  “Well she went into the kitchen and made everyone ice cream cones.  We just hung out in their yard eating ice cream.”  “You have got to be kidding,” I said more to myself than to her.  “Yah,” Brinn said pleasantly, “God sent them.  They were super sweet.”

And so Dear Friend,

Are you at the end of your ability to cope?  Were you doing a fabulous job enduring until “one small thing” has finally caused you to come to the end of yourself?  Have you, like my sweet Brinn found yourself utterly outclassed by the situation before you?  Cry out to your God.  He hears you and He will come to your aid.  Even if you have to stand on an empty street until help arrives, hang on, help is almost there.  Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.  Psalm 34:19  The Lord will come to your aid.  He loves you.  He will deliver you at the right time.  He will arrive to help you.  And if you are very lucky He might just be driving an ice cream truck.

Make sure to check for insects before you come indoors,
KB

Happy Birthday Gregory

Weeping might last through the night, but joy come with the morning.
Psalm 30:5

                                                              

I was half way down the bric-a brac isle, between the ornate egg cups and jalapeno salt shakers when he came toward me.  My nose caught his approach before I realized his trajectory. A jolt of adrenaline, and I turned my body automatically pointing my shoulder at his approaching form, and arranged my keys in my hand just in case I needed something sharp.  He stopped several inches too close.  “I’m Gregory.” He yelled, by way of informing me.  “Today is my birthday; would you write Happy Birthday here?”  Gregory handed me a spiral ring binder and a black pen.  I blinked.  I wasn’t processing quickly enough for Gregory, who waved the book and pen at me in order to move me along. 

I took the book and winced, bracing myself so I didn’t back up; countering my human instinct to withdraw from the smelly, unfamiliar stranger.  Things were moving a bit too quickly.  Juggling my keys, I grasped the book and managed to scratch, “Happy Birthday Gregory. From Karen” on the lined page.  He took the book back and held it close to his face.  “Your “e” is really messy, could you fix that please?”  He passed the book back to me and pointed to the offending letter.  “Sure I can, sorry about that,” Was my halfhearted reply as I sized up my handwriting coach. 

Gregory was in this 50’s, brush cut grey hair, hands stained by tobacco and excrement, dirty clothes and nice grey eyes, that hinted toward a world that existed only in his head.  “That’s better,” he took back his book.  I stood looking at him, not sure what to say next. I didn’t want to be rude, but as a well marbled little female, I’m not trained to socialize with strangers. I suddenly regretted not drawing a flower on this birthday note.  He looked at me.  “I go to church.” 

“Do you? So do I.” I countered.

“Really? Then will you pray for me?  I’m having a bad day.”  Gregory, seeming to understand some rule about prayers and body placement, moved very close to me but tipped his head inches from mine, much like a child leaning over to receive a blessing.  Somewhere in my head I observed that I was having a very strange interaction with Gregory. Things seemed to be moving very quickly and I was in response mode.   I offered up a quick prayer on my behalf first.  “Well Lord, I have nothing for Gregory, but I can pray, he got me on a good note there.”  And I stood, with Gregory, whose eyes were closed and his hands and book clutched to his chest.  I stood relaxed, as I took a while in the bric-brac isle, and prayed for this man named Gregory, whose birthday it may or may not be, but who understood loss and what it was like to be despised.  I suddenly wished I had markers in my purse. 

I finished praying and without a word, Gregory walked away.  I stood there starting, when suddenly he darted back.  “I need something else,” he shouted, I noticed his eyes were teary.  “I’m having a crisis.  I hate Everett.  I don’t want to live there.  I don’t want to die there.  I want to move. Can we pray about that?”  His volume was loud, and he was too close again and then tipped his body over to pray.  Bewildered, I agreed and I prayed again.  I prayed for a man who had no resources, no ability and little agency.  I really prayed.  How I wanted the Lord to come and touch this life, to give him good things and to ease his suffering.  I wanted Gregory to walk out of that junk store straight into the arms of Jesus so that he could help.  I finished praying and opened my eyes.  “Thank you.” Gregory said and then darted off.

I stood there for a while, as other customers walked by, trying to compose my thoughts.  I continued to walk the isles when Gregory reappeared yet again to ask me to rewrite my name.  I did so, and as I handed the book back I wondered why I didn’t just try rewrite the whole thing with nicer writing.

I left the store 20 minutes later without bumping into Gregory.  Stopping to buy the girls a drink, I scanned the street for Gregory, wishing I could buy him a milkshake on his birthday.  Wishing I had more to give to someone who obviously occupied the lowest caste my society afforded.  Wishing I was better equipped, better prepared and just a better person who could do more. 

And so this week, I was wondering if you might join me in praying for Gregory.  For a man who finds himself where he doesn’t want to be, living a life that is difficult.  Praying for many of those who are in similar circumstances and that by God’s grace we might do more than just scribble a note in their book as they stand by awkwardly waiting.  That we might take the time to write a note of hope, embellished with all the kindness God has lavished upon us.

xoxKaren

PS my brother in law or sister took this photo, they were in Malawi.