Archives for July 2012

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

The Sunday morning the derecho  hit our neighborhood, I had spent the early hour on my front brick patio, which is surrounded by trees and bushes providing a cozy, sheltered corner where the birds and I find happy peace. I also have a fountain that bubbles spasmodically when it feels like it and during this Midwestern drought, I try to keep it filled and working so the birds and the bees can drink (or suck in the case of bees).

After church I looked at the blackening sky, abandoned my plans to roam around a Whole Foods market while David was in a luncheon missional church commission meeting. Oh no, I thought. I left my journal out on the garden bench. So I hurried home. This would be the second prayer journal I had lost in two months. The first one dated from January 1, 2012 to April 1 had been left in the pocket of the British American flight we took from Chicago to London in the first leg of our trip to Kenya.

By the time I had driven into the storm with its black, black skies and mounting winds I wasn’t worried about my journal at all. I was worried about the condition of our home.
In 15 minutes of passing through, the derecho did enormous damage to all the surrounding towns in the western suburbs; trees were down all over. By the time I reached home, the storm was gone, the winds had died and the sun was out. The damage, however, was left behind. The sun umbrella was shattered; I couldn’t walk in the back yard. I could only park on the garage side of our driveway. Even now, two and a half weeks out, trees are leaning precariously, two fell a week after the storm had passed and we are expecting to loose some more.

Sure enough, my prayer journal had been blown against the porch at the front of the house. Its pages were limp and sagging, the ink blurred. Yet there were still good pages, unfilled, since I had only been recording my prayers in this replacement spiral-bound notebook since May. I’ll just keep it and use it when it’s all dried out, I thought, and spread the journal open as much as possible out of harm’s way in the garage. It would remind me each time I used it not to forget that storms always come into our lives when we least expect them and that we should always be ready to face life’s imminent disasters.

A week later, I examined the now-dry journal; many pages were crumpled and dog-eared, but a friend took the journal from my hands. We set up the ironing board and plugged in the iron. She carefully and patiently ironed the pages straight for me so I could use the notebook through the months ahead. God’s work in our life goes on even when interruptions and disruptions tear through and soak our plans. I don’t want to miss a day of writing them all down.

I spy God!

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Sunday morning, two weeks after the derecho,  I walked over and talked to the boss of the Hispanic crew that was clearing away the huge (sadly—beautiful) oak felled in our neighbor’s front yard. We still had two huge piles of brush bookending our circular driveway. City workers had cleared truckloads of our windfall debris across the road, but in the spirit of making-a-good-thing-out-of-bad, I really wanted a load full of chips—after all, they had been our trees.

“So sorry to bother you,” I explained to the men who were taking a break from the hot, hot work (temperature in the upper 90’s) of sawing the oak, hauling the trunk and branch parts away, then chipping everything that could fit into the chipper. “Sure…” they said.

One of the advantages of living in a town where the population is over 65% Hispanic is that the possibilities of crews emerging with trucks and power saws and rakes in hand is ever-present. No one sits around lazily when there are extra dollars to be made (our streets were cleared way before neighboring Wheaton, where the city made a point that there was no budget for this kind of massive cleanup and asked to be declared a disaster zone. I don’t think anyone in West Chicago even thought “disaster zone” though much of it looked disastrous. First you help your neighbor, then you make your own streets clear, next you organize teams of friends and family and see how you can profit (at hugely reasonable fees) by the mess at hand.

Alex, the owner of this service, walked with me so he would be sure we were talking about the same brush piles. We settled on a fee for his crew’s services, then I showed him where I wanted the chips dumped. When David and I returned home from church and Sunday dinner with friends, the brush piles were gone and a large neat mount of mulch sat in the parking driveway. What an easy solution to one of the many problems the derecho left behind.

So this week I have been trying to stay on top of things: The insurance adjustor making an estimate on damages (he left a check that will more than cover our expenses); Alex (of the tree service) looking over the shattered limbs still hanging from trees in the back yard and gave me an estimate (covered almost to the exact amount by the insurance check); David continuing to rake the parkway and beginning to tie up bushes and evergreens still standing but leaning to the ground: land assessors measuring the 25-foot-by-150-foot lot next door and in the process marking our boundaries so we could tell the city which of their trees had fallen on our property from the easement next to our driveway. The AT&T phone guy came by and hooked up a temporary line so we would have phone service. The DirecTV serviceman came by to replace the cable that had been snapped and wrapped itself around a storm-broken downspout, then replaced the satellite dish that had been warped in the wind. The roofing company gave us an estimate on repairing damages (same amount as the insurance adjustor had written out a check for), new cleaning help arrived on Wednesday and another estimate for roof repair was given on Thursday.

No wonder my head was spinning! In the process we had company for dinner and company for breakfast, work at the office, errands to run, a refrigerator and freezer to fill again (after dumping the contents of both and cleaning them better than they’ve been cleaned for a good year).

What I want to say in all of this is that at every point we have felt God’s care and provision and timing. The tree service was at our next door neighbor’s as we were leaving for church and we could make arrangements right then. The insurance adjustor and I began talking about his father and brother who are both Lutheran church pastors—I kept feeling that he was going out of his way to be helpful to us and to give us an adjustment that would cover the damages. The AT&T and DirecTV repairmen were both extroverts, attempted to be helpful and go the second mile in repairing damages. The new cleaning help (who I need now that I am starting on strict writing schedules) was efficient and careful, didn’t want to take the extra $20 I had put into her check.

In short, we have been in good hands.

Two days after the insurance adjustor had come, we had a heavy rain (we have been experiencing a rare severe drought in Chicago land (along with about 65% of the country). Window seals leaked, water ran through the joint of the garage roof down through the framing of our kitchen door. This was not from storm damage but probably due to weeks and weeks of upper-90-degree weather with not much cooling at night.

As long as the roofers would be crawling on the roof, they might as well reseal the spots that were leaking. The estimate was this would cost another $700, which was not accounted for in the insurance adjustor’s check. The roofing repair estimate was almost to the dollar what the insurance company had paid me for roof repairs. I’d have to take that $700 out of some other part of the insurance payment. Then I remembered the adjustor had subtracted a calculated depreciation percentage that would be replaced if we repaired the roof exactly in the matter delineated in our contract. That would be about $700 more. Perfect. We really were in good hands.

God never said we wouldn’t face the results of life’s storms, but He did promise His Presence in the midst of the storms. This June 29, 2012 derecho has allowed us to test the promise, which we have discovered to be perfect through all the remarkable incidents and the available people who have stepped into our lives at the right time exactly when they were needed.

A big storm can shake up our complacencies about our own safety, but it can also convince us of the practical intervention of a God who really cares.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

The June 29th derecho that hit West Chicago, Illinois, where we live, started in Iowa, then traveled—at times with 91-mph winds—until the base of the storm, in typical enlarging-triangle fashion, progressed across several states and eventually hit the East Coast.

Path of June 29, 2012 derecho from Iowa to the East Coast

In our yard, 12 trees were violently blown down, centuries-old oaks were torn up by their roots. The power was out for five days; the landline phone was down for two weeks. One tree hit the corner of our home’s mansard roof, left an indentation, tore off shingles, smashed the gutter and the drainpipe and took out the smaller almond tree (which always blossomed in the spring but never bore ripe fruit) before crashing across my herb garden.

David and I have learned how to distinguish between catastrophes (despite our insurers’ classification of “catastrophic windstorm”) and big messes. Since the damage to the house was minimal, no life was put at hazard, and since the gardens would probably restore themselves come next spring, we classified the impact of the derecho on our personal possessions as “just one really big mess that needs cleaning up.”

It did help, however, that the e-mails that went out to our small church notified everyone that the Mainses’ place was “a disaster back there.” Consequently, on our Serve Sunday (just so “happened” it was July 5, the first Sunday after June 29) some 20-25 regulars showed up to help us dig out of the mess. Seven of the rescuers were eager men with power saws in hand (what is it about guys and power saws?).

By 12:30, the fallen trees had been cleared away, about ten truckloads of brush and debris dragged to the street, and some of our power saw crew had gone to nearby neighbors to help them clear away fallen trees and limbs.

I would have given anything for a big sign outside that read:

SERVE SUNDAY
Helping One Another Along the Way
www.JerichoRoad.org

One of our neighbors from the housing development across the street stopped to say “Hi!” several days after the trees crews had cleared the north side of the street of eight piles of brush. David was outside raking up leaves. “Word over here is you guys had some kind of party last Sunday morning!”

“Oh, no,” David said, laughing. That was a crew of people from our church, clearing us out of the mess. “What church do you guys go to?” said our friend, a church attendee. “Oh, Jericho Road Church,” David replied, explaining it was a little church in a nearby town that met in a school and believed we worshiped God in our service to one another and the world as much as in our weekly congregational Sunday gatherings.

God is often seen in our own eyes and in the eyes of the world when we show how much we love and care for one another. David and I certainly felt that love when we looked at what had been a really big mess that would have taken months for us to clear away, but had been cleaned up in about 4-5 hours one Sunday morning, July 5, 2012, by 20-25 church friends, some seven of them men with power saws.

I’m going to make sure we have some signs the next time our global-warming trend stimulates wretched weather systems and someone else nearby needs a happy crew of workers pulling together to clean up a really big mess.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

On our annual trek to the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario this month, road construction detoured us through St. Mary’s, a quaint stone town built around an old quarry some ten minutes from our destination.

Usually, we arrive at our B&B sometime in the late afternoon so that we can unpack, change clothes and meet all our guests for dinner at 7:00 at the New English Parlor. Through the years, this has become the traditional opening of our theatre week. This time, however, due to the derecho that struck our little town of West Chicago, Illinois, we gave ourselves permission to leave six hours later than our usual 6 a.m. departure.

Consequently, we drove through St. Marys around 8 o’clock in the evening, on Canada Day weekend, the national holiday that is similar to our Fourth of July. It was an exquisite transit through the summer dusk. A drowsy, happy lethargy seemed to be settling itself, like a weary housewife into a cushy chair, on the farmland. Canadian flags waved from flowerpots and from front porches and were strung across the Main Street in garlands. The vertical bicolor triband of red, white, and red centered with a stylized red maple leaf (l’Unifolié, French for “the one-leafed”) was proudly displayed everywhere.

The little stone town and the neighboring countryside through which we drove, unintentional detour though it might have been, felt as if the people and the land and the birds and beasts were taking a long companionable sigh, relaxing into the soft night as it set around us. To the left, the setting sun striated the sky with streaks of pink and azure; to the right, a round transparent full moon floated up from horizon. The green land undulated before us, maize wheat plots stitched themselves to the patchwork fields of green corn. Birds above soared, rising and falling along the gentle air currents.

As many detours do, this route through St. Marys had led us into a magical, mystical moment in time, unexpected, unanticipated, but swelling with an almost unearthly loveliness. All, all is at rest. All, all is at peace.

In his book Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspective, Leland Ryken writes about the genre of fantasy. He makes a point that fictional realism though made up does not violate what happens in the world in which we live. “Fantasy, by contrast, does not reproduce the empirical world but creates an alternate world that part of the time violates the limits or rules of the real world.” He mentions that J.R.R. Tolkein says that fantasy has an “arresting strangeness.”

Then Ryken goes on to state: “The concept of wonder or mystery is also a common theme in recent defenses of fantasy. By putting us in touch with other-worldly events and places, fantasy awakens both our longing for transcendence and our awareness that it is real. The more completely technology dominates our society, the stronger will be the appeal of fantasy.”

There have been in my life many unplanned, unprecedented mythic moments—a parentheses in time so laden with a kind of other-worldly transcendence—that my attention has been arrested. It is though I’ve stepped through a door in a wardrobe while rummaging for a warm coat and found myself suddenly, suddenly in Another World on the Other Side.

These moments convince me that there is a place, territory and a time where all, all is at rest, where the world is not torn and treacherous, where peace is palpable in the people and the animal kingdom and in the land.

This happened to me on our journey to the Shakespeare Festival as construction signs diverted us from Highway 7 through the little stone town of St. Marys, built long ago around what is now an aging quarry. Thank God for detours, for moments of living fantasy that remind us that mystery and wonder are near and waiting and truly real.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Small things delight. Small found things delight me even more.

As I was washing the labels off six old wine bottles I found in a bag in the attic, I said to my husband, “What other woman you know of would be so pleased with this kind of find? I am a low-maintenance kind of gal.”

When I cleaned and organized the attic this spring (so my kids won’t have to do it when I die), I came across a paper tote holding bottles. Glancing not very closely inside, I concluded they were bottles one of the kids (all four now adults and cluttering their own homes) had collected. I imagined those fancy little antique bottles that look great when you take a hostess gift to someone of homemade salad vinaigrette.

One of this summer projects (stimulated, I’m sure, by weeks without rain—a rarity in the Great Lakes ecosystem) has been to collect wine bottles, fill them with water, then stick the necks into those large flowering jardinières and pots that hold lovely flowering annuals. My garden is mostly shade so I plant for leaf contrast; it’s always a bonus when the perennials actually bloom.

My solution has been to find enough discarded wine bottles (clear and green for the front pots and blue for the back garden). We don’t drink that much wine, but an occasional bottle comes my way. I enjoy it—David is not much of a wine-imbiber—but mostly, I’m really coveting the bottle. I soak the empty container in hot soapy water, take a knife and scrape off the parts of the labels that insist on sticking despite the bath, then smugly fill them with water and stick it in the soil. AHAH! Ten pots down and only ten more to go. I take empty bottles from friend’s tables. I encouraged David to grab the blue water bottle sitting on the table in the Courtyard Restaurant at the Art Institute—“It was here when we came in, and it is still here as we are going. It must be a gift.” This logic seemed to convince him, knowing that I am a woman who is rabid about not paying for the small gifts that fill our days and which most of us ignore.

The bottle, a small blue bottle, just fit beneath the flap of my shoulder purse—more and more I’m abandoning lugging around those large stylish totes that seem to weigh down my shoulders.

I will say, however, that I regret not buying the 20 blue bottles I saw at the Geneva, IL, Goodwill store—What was I thinking? (I probably thought, Why buy them when you can collect them used and free?) Since then—one of those purchase that got away from me—I’ve seen bottle trees designed by sculptures who recycle that lovely blue glass in creative shapes that would have been perfect for a spot in my back yard.

As I was running out of empty bottles (and the drought was soaking up the water in the land, despite our nearness to Lake Michigan and the days were heading into record heat—who says we aren’t in a global-warming trend?), I thought about the paper sack in the attic. Soon I discovered that the bag didn’t hold fancy antique glass bottles but six ordinary empty wine bottles—not ordinary to me, you better believe it. In fact, two of the bottles were large two-quart size, and one was a plain glass salad-size. The larger size were perfect for the planters for which I had just purchased annuals—the purple ipomoea batatas ‘Ace of Spades’ and the ‘Jade Princess’ millet with its bright-green leaves and wine-colored frond and the verbena bonariensis. The larger wine bottles would salvage my new plantings from drought’s hot breath.

Everyone who comes to the front door notices the watering bottles. “Do they work?” they want to know. My answer: Some do; some don’t. I haven’t figured out why some drip their contents slowly, carefully and why some pour directly into the soil needing to be filled again within one or two days. I’ll write another blog about it when I solve the reason for this discrepancy.

The smaller salad-sized bottles are perfect for the two clay pots that hold one geranium plant each. They really dry out quickly, but since the geraniums are by the garage door, I can keep my eye on them, at least when I’m home.

How foolish we are not to see the gifts in simple things. I go for whole weeks attempting to spend as little as I can because ready dollars often prohibit me from waiting for the small gifts prepared for me by Someone who loves me and who takes delight in my delight.

There were six old empty wine bottles stored in a paper sack in the attic. I don’t remember where they came from, but I do know they were there when I needed them. How amazing. How much fun is that?

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

The hammock in our backyard is one of those tied string hammocks imported from Mexico and sold in import stores all over the country. Tied between two trees, ours has been with us since our own kids were living at home; the hammock ropes have weathered to a dingy grey, so I spruce their sad color up in the summer with bright blue pillows.

Now the grandchildren love to lie down in the hammock and swing. “Be careful. Hold on,” we warn as we give them a push, including the tradition of whacking their bottoms when the swing pattern brings them close. They laugh and cry out for more, and I wonder, How many happy children have swung up and down in the hammock?

My grandmother wrote down a bunch of notes for me with the details of her life. These are all handwritten, and when I rediscovered the file folder that holds them, I noticed she had recorded her mother taking a fall when the hammock on the porch broke. This resulted in my great-grandmother’s death. So every time we use the hammock, I check the strings to make sure they haven’t rotted as well as the hooks which hold the end ropes in a triangle. I give the trees a look-over also. How does a person know when a tree is ready to fall?

The big deal this summer is that I rigged a self-swinging rope to one tree and tied the other end to the side of the hammock. This means that the all the swinger needs to do is give that line a few tugs and the hammock will sway up and down without a second person to push it! My grandchildren think I’m brilliant. Well, I will admit to a few brilliances, although not in hammock-swinging.

Mostly, I am the person who uses the self-swinging rope—I don’t ever remember my husband balancing himself to stretch out in the hammock.

What I love about the hammock in our backyard is that it is so quintessentially a part of summer. Picnics and grilling out and bees buzzing and sun on the gardens, shade and shadow in their fleeting sequences, children being swung while their parents and grandparents sit beside in the garden chairs with cool drinks and catch up on the last week, present plans and ideas for the future. I think of my great-grandmother when I get into the hammock and of her demise, and of my demise—eventually—and I am grateful that I have lived in the joy of these summer days, that my life has stretched long enough to enjoy March, April, May and June without mosquitoes—this in Chicago where they are always rampant.

When I stretch out for short naps in the hammocks, I watch the sky and see the tops of the oak trees and notice the birds’ loping flight above our heads—all vistas I forget to observe when I am not prone.

Happiness and mortality and looking upward, summer bliss and lightning bugs and cooling nights—all this from the hammock with the bright blue pillows and the self-swinging rope. Praises be to God!

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

No matter how much the activities of the government of this country distress me (no matter who the political leader is), at heart I am still a patriot. On Flag Day, June 14, the tradition at our house is to hang the flags. We unfurl four flags on the porch, three in the back yard, and I am hoping to design a way to mount a pole on the mailbox so the flag hangs waving toward the street, not with its back mounting away from the street. The flags stay up until Labor Day, at which time we roll them, pin them so they don’t unfurl, and store them in the furnace room in the basement. (This year, two of our grandchildren, helped me hoist the flags. When done, we stood on the front path with our hands over our hearts and pronounced the Pledge of Allegiance.)

“Mom,” my eldest son made a point of mentioning. “Don’t you think you have enough flags around here?”

Actually, I can think of a few other places to hang the American flag, but since this is a private residence and not a military base, I will restrict myself to solving the mailbox design dilemma. (Can a patriot ever, really, display too many flags?)

Our house is brown, and since I had new posts made to replace the porch posts that were aged with water and weather (one or two actually swung when pushed) and had them painted a barn red, then liked that so much that I had the garage door painted in the same hue, then liked that so much I ordered two red garden benches for the front patio and added a bright-red sun umbrella, the red/white/blue flags are a satisfying accent. They proclaim that this is a house that is lived in, loved, and where happiness reins. A Hobby Lobby sign by the front door pronounces my petition: Bless This House With Love and Laughter.

The flags, flapping in the breeze, waving hello to every passerby, are my outside decorating signature. Although I have noticed red sun umbrellas popping up here and there (across the back garden on my neighbor’s deck, and here and there down the street), I don’t know of anyone else who hangs more than one American flag on their front porch, not to mention four, then three more on the back fences. (Where is their patriotism?)

I pray for my country, grieve over its decline, wonder about the American spirit, hate the rancor that has entered into our public life, ask God to give us repentance over the fact that we have often become the worst kind of power players in the world, plead for a renewal of faith in the hearts of Christians and for revival in the church. The flags, however, say, perhaps to no one else but myself, that I am thankful that I can live in this place where we still have civil freedoms (though fast eroding) and hold however imperfectly to the grand idea that all men are created equal.

My American flags are like the Buddhist prayer wheels, reminders to intercede:

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

So this Fourth of July, hoist a flag. As you do, whisper a prayer.

I spy God!

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

After two weeks of hospitality, new friends from the church invited for dinner, a young couple in ministry from Capetown, South Africa, and the Henry’s from Midland, Michigan, I experienced two “collapse days”—those icky hours when you drag aching around the house, see your schedule of to-do’s blasted by a physical ennui, waste hours watching videos because your mind is too tired to read or do anything productive, putz around—hang the guest-room sheets to dry on the line, for instance, drop into the office, run an errand for milk at Aldi’s—because you feel like you have to get something done so you can say to your husband (who’s not asking), “This is what I accomplished today.”

I wish I could remember when I am in the middle of a collapse day what I always remember after collapsing: My body is my best friend and when it feels like I’ve been going on a high-functioning roll too long with all the adrenals functioning full blast, it says, “OK. Enough. Now, I’m going to have to take you down. Your health is not going to allow for any more abuse—pushing and not stopping, few hours of sleep, over-stimulation blasting the brain neurons—I’m going to make sure you take care of yourself since you don’t seem to have learned how to do that yet.”

Why don’t I just go ahead and schedule in two quiet, non-productive days where I do nothing more but sleep and listen? My neurological system seems to require that I totally recalibrate the psychosomatic infrastructure of my being. Planning on it, scheduling it in as part of the calendar, seems to me to be a growth scheme in which I have not as yet achieved efficiency.

So yesterday, after two collapse days, I cooperated with this inner demand that I shift out of a frenetic pace and I recalibrated myself. I had a full day, but it was nothing I had to do, just everything I wanted to do. I turned on the fountain in the hidden patio by the front door and read my Bible and wrote in my journal. I read the next chapter in How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day; I noticed the chickadees (call: chee-chee che-che) had discovered the new feeder filled with sunflower seeds; I took a nap in the hammock; I ran to the resale shop and found more clay pots, two round carts with wheels for heavy garden pots and procured one free bag of bagels and one wheat grain bread (unsliced) for company coming.

I watered the garden, filled all the bottles I’ve saved, washed the labels off some, then filled them with water to stick in the dirt of the flower pots which dry out faster in hot weather such as we’re having in Chicago land. I remade the guest-room bed with the summer sheets that have that wondrous outdoor smell from drying in the sun on the clothesline. I finished a couple of articles that I only had to read partway, sitting on the glider I junked from someone’s roadside garbage pickup. I saw the red flash in the trees, pulled out my binoculars a son gave me for my birthday and sure enough—spotted a male scarlet tanager. Beside him was a red-headed woodpecker and a black and white and grey nuthatch climbing upside down along the bark of the next tree. Suddenly, I realized the little stand of wood beside our house was filled with unfamiliar bird song, so I abandoned any plans and sat in the grass with my bird-watching field guide and became enthralled with the swoop and soar of the feathers, wings and beaks in my own yard.

I hopped in the car, parked and with warning lights flashing, dashed to the pond with its encircling stands of tall grass. Here I clipped the brown beaded dock and the fat early cattails to add to the dried hydrangea heads and the allium spheres that are in the summer gnarled wood basket by the front door.

Explaining to David that I had clipped cattails on the way to pick him up from work, he said, “So you’ve had a happy day.” After 51 years of marriage, my husband knows me. Indeed, I had spent a blissful, happy day. After two days of collapse, my body had recalibrated itself and I eased out of the draggy, benumbed mental state that is a symptom of collapse absolutely loving all around me—amore mundi, love for the world—without a schedule to keep, without having to keep up my end of the conversation, with nothing to do but what I wanted to do.

Often, I am guilty of thinking that God is only interested in my “productive” activities. I am beginning to learn that He is the designer of the sinking, do-nothing, wasted/blasted days also. We need to learn to love the collapsing days because they do for us things we can’t possibly know. I just need to learn to calendar them in after two weeks of completely crazy (but productive) activity. In that useless quiet and physical languish, healthy things happen in my body and mind and soul that I will never know.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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