Archives for January 2015

I realized this year, as I turned 72, that I have a terminal life diagnosis. It’s not as though a doctor has given me so many months to live, but it is more inevitable that my life will end sooner than later. The days that stretch out for me are fewer with each passing year, and I am determined to be intentional about my dying—or at least the circumstances surrounding my death.

Approaching age is a little like having a cancer diagnosis (and it helps in this process of being intentional that I had a brush with thyroid cancer myself last year). Let’s say I have five years left, or ten. What difference does that make in the way I live the life that is given to me?

First of all, for me, it means deciding what is the Most Important Thing for me to do with my gifts and interests and capabilities. In addition, what is the MIT to do while I still have health and a good mind? I refuse to not be prepared for death, to leave messes that our adult children have to sort through, to have bitter feelings about people in the past or in the present, or to not celebrate the ascent that death really is for those of us who are people of faith and belief.

I have a friend who is putting her funeral scheme together; she’s a musician, and the music she’s chosen sounds wondrous. I might just ask her if I can look over her funeral program, get some ideas, and adapt it for ourselves. Is our will in order? Have we given away things to family members that they will love to have? Will we have the joy in observing the pleasure we have given them with these gifts?

I am greatly convicted that I must withdraw from many of the things I love and start writing seriously again—this means five hours every week day thinking, making notes, researching and reading, then writing and writing and writing. This is the gift God has given me. I have little time left, comparatively. Scripture teaches us that we should “number our days.” And if I die without doing the work that is given me to do—as best I can—I will feel as though I’ve lived an uncompleted life.

So I took January and cleaned my writer’s study. This was no small task. There were piles upon piles. The mess had gone way beyond the “creative chaos” we artists like to brag about. My desk and the laptop computer were unapproachable. But AHA!—I have conquered it. There are just three small piles of letters and papers and bank statements I need to file. I think I’ll also dust and order the books in my writer’s reference library. Should get that done today.

February is set aside for writing as many book proposals as I have a mind to complete. The plan is to send them out to publishers and just go with any (if there are any) who will bite and give me a contract and an advance on royalties.

Intents have to start somewhere. Actions have to match the ideas. We have to let go of anything that is unnecessary or will prohibit us from achieving the Most Important Things. I turned 72 this month. I have a terminal life diagnosis.

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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I have bruises on my knees—but not from prayer. Or are they?

Last week, I spent the equivalent of two whole days organizing and storing the Christmas decorations at Turtle Creek Farm, the 18-acre piece of land (mostly protected marsh) that my daughter, Melissa, and son-in-law, Doug Timberlake, bought two years ago. Their home is a converted dairy barn, and David and I are making plans to move into the north wing sometime at the end of this summer.

The place is huge and therein lies the problem. It is simply too big for one couple and their two kids to care for without some help. I, however, am the rally-the-troops lady. People avoid me because they suspect I have a job for them to do! Well, not really—most of the time. I pride myself on my administrative gifts; I love to plug people into what serves their greatest passions. A former Episcopalian rector once said to me, “How do you do it? You get people to do for you what I never could get them to do for me.”

In addition to a big living space in the converted barn, there are horses, cats, dogs, chickens and sheep that also need to be cared for. This animal menagerie requires a barn, paddocks, a chicken coop, feeding troughs, watering buckets, an ATV to haul away manure, constant trips to feed stores for supplies, a truck to pick up the supplies—well you get the idea.

In addition, the Timberlakes moved the month that our son, Jeremy Mains, came down with an acute and rare lymphoma that five wretched months later took his life. It has been a year in November since Jeremy died, and Melissa has never really had a chance to get settled.

There is a wonderful large attic that was perfect for storing all the Christmas and seasonal decorations we seem intent on using come spring, summer, fall and winter. The problem is that the space is only 3½ feet high, impossible to stand up in, uncomfortable to bend over in—the only solution is to crawl around on one’s knees, which I did for several hours over a two-day period.

Melissa had already taken down most of her Christmas trees and stored some of the decorations; it was left to me and to Joscelyn, my 17-year-old granddaughter, who worked like a trouper beside me, to pack up all the rest—wreathes and knickknacks, box the artificial trees, strip Josie’s room and store anything that looked holidayish.

In time we had 10-15 large plastic bins, all full, all labeled, but how to get them across the large floor to the other side of the attic crawlspace when our knees were already bruised and our backs sore from hours of hunching and crawling across the floor? Exhausted, I went home—a 50-minute drive from the farm—and woke the next morning determined to finish the job.

On the patio, beneath the snow, I found a plant stand with moveable casters. David hauled the large shop-vac into our car, and I set my face early the next morning to scoot across the floor pushing plastic bins before me. When I arrived, however, another plan unfolded in the form of a long skateboard belonging to my grandson Ayden, age 14, and a sports jock at that. Together, we three—the attic aficionados—developed what we all felt was a brilliant scheme. I sat on a pillow on the plant stand and scooted myself to one station across the attic while Joscelyn took up another mobile station, vacuuming the sawdust and dirt from the floor with the durable vacuum cleaner.

Ayden, outside the attic door, loaded the long skateboard with as many bins as it would hold without tipping, then scooted the delivery device to either me (Christmas station) or to Josie who took her place at the fall station. We each would unload and stack the bins in their proper areas, then scoot the empty skateboard back to him. By this time we were all laughing. I thanked Ayden, telling him I didn’t think we could have finished without him. “Oh, that’s OK,” he replied. “It was fun.”

It was fun. I found myself comparing bruises with Josie. “Well, at least I can say I have bruises on my knees (but not from prayer).” But then who is to say what prayer is and what prayer isn’t? So many ideas do not come to life until there is intentional action. An invention in the head is not an invention in the hand. Who’s to say that crawling around on one’s knees for a couple of days because you know someone you love needs a hand is not a form of prayer? It is idea, mixed with love, becoming action. I think the Divine Organizer may have laughed at our skateboard delivery system. I suspect He delighted at our laughter. I know He was pleased that we helped one another.

Last week, I spent two days crawling around on my knees. I’ll leave it there…

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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On Saturday, January 17, as part of my 72nd birthday weekend, David and I took in Selma at the local movie theatre. Selma focuses on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s public protest about the gross irregularities of voting rights in the South and the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge as African-American protestors pushed toward the capital of Alabama, Montgomery. I sat through much of the movie with tears welling in my eyes and running down my cheeks. The courageous persistence of that civil-rights movement as it rose to resist violent, racist evil, as well as the companion structural violence, hit me again, and I was well aware that among all those church leaders who came South to join their brothers and sisters, none (or perhaps next to none) were evangelicals.

My tears were tears of embarrassment and shame that we of conservative Christian faith are so slow to join in the justice movements of the world. David and I talked long and hard about what we remembered of these years and why our spiritual leaders were so come-lately in these efforts.

The early civil-rights movement, the one that focused on non-violent, peaceful protest, was—as Taylor Branch makes stunningly clear in Parting the Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge, his Pulitzer Prize-winning series about America in the King years—a revival movement in the black churches of America. While we whites, in our conservative churches worked hard to send missionaries across the seas to convert people of other nationalities and races, we shamefully ignored or even decried the efforts of our Christian brothers and sisters to gain the freedoms that were their constitutional rights.

Take a minute on this Martin Luther King Day and let us all hang our heads in shame as an act of communal contrition.

I’ve been writing down all the references to justice in Isaiah. There are many. “For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.” Isaiah 61:8.

Taylor Branch quotes a newspaper ad placed by MLK in the New York Times during an incarceration in the Selma jail, February 5, 1965: “THIS IS SELMA, ALABAMA. THERE ARE MORE NEGROES IN JAIL WITH ME THAN THERE ARE ON THE VOTING ROLLS—”

Have you seen, are you planning to see, Selma? Have you read Taylor Branch’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece on the contemporary movements that defined race in American’s history? Do any of us believe strongly enough in anything to stand up against institutionalized evil? Are we so pietistic in our faith that none of us would risk getting arrested for resisting civil authority, propelled by some deeply held aversion to injustice? (This is one of my greatest regrets; no jail time—although my children remind me that there is still life left to me.)

A moment of silence; heads bowed. (Who has a full copy of the documentary Eyes on the Prize that we can buy or borrow? Were there any white evangelicals crossing the Bridge from Selma in 1965?)

Dearest friends, we can do better. Yes we can.

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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I fancy myself a pretty-good average, really-average nonprofessional electrician. I can do simple things like rewire some lamps, re-hang the dining-room chandeliers (well, one fell down, but it did miss David’s head). Now I leave the heavier pieces to the professionals.

But when the dimmer switch in the dining room kept falling on the floor (not the whole apparatus, mind you, just the switch), it became a nuisance. If you pressed the switch up to turn on the lights or down to turn off the lights, it would fall, roll onto the floor and defiantly hide somewhere in the carpet.

The little hook on the metal underside was broken. This meant that the whole dimmer unit would have to be pried from the wall, the screws removed, the caps twisted off, everything removed, then a whole new unit installed in reverse order—wires matched, caps twisted on, everything stuffed back into the wall hole, screws twisted into holes, and the lids snapped over the new switch.

During a quick trip to the hardware store, I happened to be in the very aisle where dimmer switches were displayed. (How often does that happen—to be exactly where you need to be when you are on a hardware-store search?) And to my great delight, I actually bought the correct replacement. It matched my old switch exactly. So I went to the main electricity box in the basement laundry room, above the dryer, pulled the kitchen-light circuit switch (this also controls the dining-room lights), tested to see if there was any live current in the wire and began to replace the old dimmer set with a new one.

At this time, my husband walked through the room and decided to give me a hand. “Are you sure the electricity is off?” he asked. I assured him I knew what I was doing (he may have been thinking about that falling chandelier) and that the electricity had been turned off. Actually, I’m not sure my husband knows where the master electrical box is!

By this time, David had taken charge of the unscrewing, cap turning, and re-screwing, etc. I, the pretty-good average, but really-average non-professional electrician, was assigned the task of finding the right size flat screwdriver and a small Phillips screwdriver, of holding the flashlight and advising from the sidelines. Actually this was a two-person, really average, non-professional electrician job, simple as it might have seemed. Someone had to run for tools, hold flashlights and advise from the side. Getting the right screws in the right holes was a little tricky. I held the casing while David found the tiny holes.

But together we got it done. Apart from snide asides, I was glad that my husband had stopped on his way through the dining room and given me a hand—well, taken over. Small tasks sometimes do go better with two workers. In fact, most of life is better when we share the chores with someone else. The prosaic becomes less ordinary when two people—a spouse or a child or a friend—help one another with my tasks.

Dishes get done faster. The table is immediately re-set. A dinner cooked together is a pleasure. Baking in the kitchen takes half the time (someone else washes up the measuring cups, spoons and cooking pans, my faulty measuring-math is double-checked; someone else stirs batter). “A threefold cord cannot be broken,” says Scripture (Ecclesiastes 4:12). Two is better than one for most of life’s mundane activities, and it is also two-thirds of the way to being a cord of three strands.

Now, we need to insulate the crack between the two front doors. I can feel the cold air seeping through. I wonder when David will mosey into the hall?

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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Sometimes when prayers are answered, God displays what I think is a sense of humor. Before Christmas, one of those yellow-tipped corncob-holders slipped unnoticed into the garbage disposal. What a grinding racket it made! Our oldest grandchild, Caitlyn Mains, was visiting from Indiana Wesleyan College where she is a senior, and as this age set generally seems to do, she brought her boyfriend, Jake, along with her.

They were making an out-of-the way stop at our house in Chicago Friday through Saturday before they returned to Indiana by way of Valparaiso, where they were guests at a college friend’s wedding.

Oh, Lord, I prayed, help us to get that stupid thing fixed so we don’t have to pay plumber’s bills. The disposal was no longer grinding; now it was jammed.

Jake, the boyfriend, thrust his hand into the disposal to see if he could dislodge whatever was causing the distress. He had already pulled out some broken yellow plastic pieces, so we could determine a corncob-holder was the culprit. Of course, by this time, the electric current had been disconnected.

Now, I must admit, I admire a man who is not afraid to stick his hand into another woman’s garbage disposal. It indicates resolve; it hints at a person who considers himself a fixer. It reveals a fearless approach to coming up with desiccated potato peels and onion skins.

By this time, I was standing hunched over Jake’s shoulder, holding a flashlight into the dark hole of my sink’s disposal unit.

“See,” said Jake. “See that pin there.” I could see nothing. Jake had detected a small metal rod—the tine of the corncob-holder. “Just hold the light a little longer.” With no little effort, the metal pin was dislodged, the electricity was switched back on, and the disposal made its normal chawing-away sound.

Jake became my hero. I recommend this tactic for any boyfriend attempting to win approval from any grandmothers. In fact, since he’d just saved me $120, I offered to pay one of his applications to physical-therapy school.

However, after Christmas, the garbage disposal acted up again. This time it ground and moaned and just stopped. I prayed, Oh, Lord, help me to get that stupid thing fixed so I don’t have to pay a plumber’s bill. I, however, am not a woman who is much daunted by garbage-disposal collapses.

I even know where the key wrench for the garbage disposal is stored. Hoisting it from its place in the shadows under my sink, I poked the end into the hole and turned the mechanism until it jarred free. Some little yellow plastic pieces were probably jouncing up and down in the cavity. Then I found the little button on the left-hand side bottom of the disposal, pressed that, and voila!—we were in business. I threw away some food that was past its time in order to grease the cogs.

On Sunday, however, I whizzed into the kitchen, making last-minute preparations for guests who were coming home with us from church. The garbage disposal was clicking off a high pinging sound. The cold water from the faucet just sat in the sink. Prayed again: O Lord, help me to get this darn thing fixed so I can serve company and not have to pay a plumber’s bill. Should we take our friends out for dinner? What restaurants were nearby and open? I decided that the food was prepared, just needing to be warmed. We would bring our friends home; they’d understand. After all I still had one working sink.

Friends came. Food was great. Conversation better. We laughed about the comedy in our life, shared our sorrows, reconnected. David and I were both glad we hadn’t decided to eat out. The fire in the fireplace, the Christmas settings still on the table, the lingering to talk as the afternoon went on were all worth a little inconvenience. We left the dishes for a while and went upstairs to take a nap.

Coming down to clean up, I finally stuck my hand into the bowels of my recalcitrant appliance and felt what appeared to be a small juice glass in its mouth. Determined, I hauled and leveraged what turned out to be a half-pint canning jar out of the dark enclosure. Turned on the water, turned on the electricity; everything worked like a charm. No grinding. No moaning. No pinging.

And I thought I heard that small, still nudge that we can never really be sure about, See. You prayed about this one, two, three times. Just want to make sure that you attend, take notice and understand that I care about a housewife’s laments and other things like plumber’s bills.

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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We love the Christmas and New Year’s letters we receive in the mail. Mostly, we pile everything to read after Christmas, keep the envelopes in case addresses need to be changed, and then we settle by the fireplace to catch up on friends and distant family.

This letter came from Sylvia Lovett (who was in our Moody Church youth group in Chicago more than 40 years ago). She writes about two of her sons who were traveling in Europe.

Matt and Ian were traveling in different parts of Europe and planned to rendezvous somewhere in the town of Prian, Slovenia to go climbing. The day before they were to meet, Matt was in Venice, Italy. Overland, the trip to Slovenia entailed bus, trains, taxis and the possibility of being stuck at the border. The trip across the Adriatic Sea was only two hours, but he had missed the weekly ferry. The closest town Matt could get was the ferry to Umag, Croatia, Slovenia’s neighboring country. Arriving in the sleepy coastal town, he found a taxi driver willing to take him across the border to Piran. As Matt was deposited in the town square, his next thought was to find Ian. They had no meeting point, phone contact, or Internet connection. As Matt picked up his bags and looked around, rain started to fall—and there was Ian, leaning against the corner of a building. He had been waiting about 10 seconds.

Now these kind of divine encounters happen all the time in our lives, but most of us don’t pay much attention to the fact that God has planned rather remarkable meetings. We run into an old friend we haven’t seen in years and that person has the key to open a door we didn’t have the key to open. We’ve started to attend a church we were part of decades ago. Every Sunday we bump into people we’ve known and loved. It has been kind of a grand homecoming or an unplanned reunion.

Last Sunday we shared a meal with friends—he had started in Youth For Christ when David, just home from seminary, had been commandeered by national headquarters to funnel former high-school club members, now attending Wheaton College, into directing clubs in local school. They, newly married, he and his wife had attended the church we planted together on the West Side of Chicago. When they left after our Sunday meal together, we basked in that warm glow that always comes from connecting again with former friends.

However, these meetings are often un-dramatic and can be easily taken for granted. We need stories of extraordinary encounters in far off places to cause us to think, Wow! That had to be of God!

The truth is that most of our connections are divine appointments. We never know which strangers we meet will become friends. We don’t know who it is nearby us who needs that word from us so casually extended. I recently read of a couple who felt impelled to talk with someone seated beside them in a restaurant. The conversation turned to spiritual questions and answers. The stranger went away seemingly unmoved and unchanged. However, a gentleman sitting in another nearby table paid his bill in preparing to leave the restaurant. He paused at their table and said, “You have no idea what your discussion has done for me. I came in here troubled and heart-sore, wondering where God was in my life. Forgive me for listening so intently, but everything you said to that man was exactly what I needed to hear.”

We are at the beginning line of a new year. Remember, won’t you, the two brothers finding each other in Prian, Slovenia, both traveling from different parts of Europe, without cell phones, or an Internet connection or a designated meeting place, looking up in the rain and discovering that they have arrived at their destination within ten seconds of each other. Now that’s a story.

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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Roethke was one of the great American poets. Toward the end of his life, James Dickey, another great American poet, wrote, “Roethke seems to me the finest poet now writing in English. I [say] this with a certain fierceness, knowing that I have to put him up against Eliot, Pound, Graves, and a good many others of high rank. I do it cheerfully, however. … I think Roethke is the finest poet not so much because of his beautifully personal sense of form … but because of the way he sees and feels the aspects of life which are compelling to him.”

One of the writer’s disciplines Roethke developed was to record his thoughts and impressions in a series of notebooks, some 200 in all. “I am always working,” the poet declared, and indeed, the jottings of striking ideas and conversations was constant for him. In his biography of Roethke, The Glass House, Allan Seager estimated that only three percent of the lines of poetry in the more than 200 notebooks were ever published.

In short, Roethke, though he also taught writing to college students, with whom he had a love/hate relationship because teaching kept him from writing, nevertheless achieved that envious condition known as “the writer’s life.”

This has been a dubious achievement for me. I too have a series of notebooks that record some of what a re-reading of them has convinced me are rather self-conscious efforts. The writer (me) observing the wannabe-a-serious-writer (me)! The difference? My efforts have gaps of years—sometimes five years or more. They’re interesting in a journalistic sense—to me at least—as I’m reminded that I have attempted but never been able to achieve that enviable state for the writer; a writer’s life.

In fact, my writing study at home is a neglected no-man’s land piled with disorganized order (I know where to find everything—HAH!). Every time I enter that room, I am reminded of Roethke’s words, “A mind too busy is no mind at all.”

In fact, I have two home studies—one for writing and personal involvements (speaker’s files, travel information, medical records, books on the creative process and pertinent devotional literature), archives of my prayer journals, and my own published materials.

The downstairs study is the household filing system. Gardening information and warranty records are here. The basement bookshelves hold volumes on fabric art, cookbooks, maintenance information, artistic endeavors, art criticism, and shelves of the volumes I loved in my childhood.

In addition, I think about our own Mainstay Ministries; also the world-health organization where I now serve as a board member; the Global Bag Project, a micro-enterprise effort some friends and I started to help vulnerable women in Nairobi secure sustainable income; Hungry Souls, the spiritual-growth laboratory another group of friends and I designed to test tools with the participation and input of live bodies. There’s a whole office that exists to house the desks and drawers and files of all these enterprises.

Obviously, something has to go. Yesterday I picked up the black-and-white school notebook labeled “Morning Pages” and continued praying about those things I must pass on to other folk so that I can do the work given me to do. I open the page randomly to…

February 23, 2004 (Sunday not in church.)

This is a “being” day, not a “doing” day. Things for “being” include:

• Reading and copying out quotes from Robert Capon’s “Supper of the Lamb”—such lovely thoughts on being attentive.
• Walking in the garden in my knee-high boots—amazing green things sprouting; some beds almost ready for raking. Callie (my dog) dancing beside me.
• Listening (with notes) to Bach’s “Mass in B Minor” (the Credo); lovely.
• Reading Adam Zagajewski’s “Without End.”
  

  A Flame

  God, give us a long winter
  And quiet music, and patient months,
  And a little pride—before our age ends.
  Give us astonishment
  And a flame, high, bright.

• A walk on the prairie path with David and Callie—a beginning.

Obviously, I have too many “doing” days in my life with lists and desks and files and drawers. In order to regain the writer’s life I desire and do what God is placing on my heart, I must have more “being” days. I must attempt to achieve a mind not-too busy. And I must make sure there are no more ten-year gaps in my writer’s notebooks. This is the work of this next year, 2015.

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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This Christmas was full of the older grandchildren coming and going. The difference between young-adult grandchildren and the grade-school grandchildren is that the older, college-age kids bring their boyfriends and girlfriends along. Our granddaughter, Caitlyn Mains, came before Christmas along with Jake Vogel, her steady. Then Landis Mains arrived at O’Hare at 5:00 a.m. on Christmas morning, having taken the red-eye from Phoenix. His girlfriend since high school, Caitlyn Bell, accompanied him.

I find it is important to me to put myself out when these kids come our way. What I am doing is warming a glow on their memories. This year, my adult children and I decided we wanted a quiet Christmas. But I made sure the Christmas table was set, the tubs and pots outside were filled with greens and winterberries, and the red Coleman lanterns were hung along the walk to the front door. I spent a mild afternoon (one that was supposed to receive the three to six inches of snow, but was 45 degrees instead!) making sure the wooden stars and more evergreens were arranged beside the mailbox across the street.

And I made sure the velour sheets (a luxurious sleeping experience, believe me) were on the guest-room bed, and that the plaid flannel sheets were on the twin bed in the spare room in the basement.

On Christmas Eve I served our traditional crab and cheese fondue.

Christmas dinner was English rib roast and Yorkshire puddings with brown gravy, white root vegetables—turnips and rutabagas and small white potatoes and round onions and parsnips—boiled slightly then browned in the oven.

After several leftover meals, all the remaining roast and vegetables were turned into a meat-and-potato hash and an egg-and-cheese strata. Delicious. The dirtied dishes, glass and silverware get washed and put right back on the table. Fortunately, I have enough cloth napkins to replace those that have been used. I’ve even discovered that Orange Greased Lightning removes the stains on the cream tablecloth. This way, we are ready for the next festive meal. The centerpiece stays on the table the whole month, and the work of setting the table after each meal is expedited—clear; wash; clean; dishes back on the placemats.

Why is this so important? A hallway table filled with the glass crystal collection. Greens in the pots. Wooden stars made from pallets by the mailbox. Red Coleman lanterns lit on the walks. It is important because beauty massages the rough places of the soul. Lights say, “Welcome, we’re glad you’re here.” The set table says, “We’re ready for you, and we’re glad you’ve come.” Velour sheets on the guest-room bed say, “Rest and be still. Sleep deeply.”

Well-cooked meals say, “Be fed. Nourish your body and your mind. Know that we care about your well-being. Be healthy and flourish.” When beauty is created and made available for the sake of others, it not only blesses, it is God-like. We are replicating His lavish, extravagant, gasp-inducing ways in the world. And we give it away, like He does, to the ones we love.

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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I can’t count the number of angel wings in my lifelong collecting that have been broken—there are so many. Through the years, most of the angels have been gifts from my husband. So breaking one is doubly disappointing to me. The beautiful white bisque angel—part of a duo—lost a wing, which was stored away until David (who has become a Master Gluer) could repair it. Unfortunately, the wing also disappeared, so I have a beautiful angel now woefully hiding in the tissue paper of a Christmas box.

When I set the angel Gabriel (which David gave me) on the coffee table beside the Advent wreath, I thought, Well, here’s one angel at least with two sound wings. Usually, he is stored carefully in the china cupboard. Most of the angels are safe in their protective environments, but that is not what beautiful things are for—they are to be seen, to be enjoyed, and in the case of the angels, to act as reminders of the unseen real.

When I placed Gabriel on the upside-down crystal bowl, I felt that slight nudge—Better make sure that is secure. It’s in a place it could be easily bumped. Gabriel survived the Christmas festivities, but not because I paid attention to this inward nudge. The game night was a different matter. Everything had to be removed from the table. The next day, when I put the Advent wreath, the basket of Christmas books, the filigreed-cut metal lanterns, the candlestick AND the angel Gabriel on his crystal tower, the same nudge came again: Better make sure that is secure.

This time I actually thought of a scheme to do so—a glass plate on the upended crystal-bowl stand would give Gabriel a more secure place to rest.

But before I could do so, I jogged the wreath, which jogged the crystal bowl, which jogged the angel who went falling/flying toward the fireplace. Sure enough, one wing lay broken in two pieces on the carpet.

Before Christmas, I had another nudge. We need to replace the downstairs windows; they no longer open and close, and some of the glass is cracked. Anderson Windows ran a promotional campaign that if there was a snowfall in the Chicago area (as measured at the weather station in O’Hare airport) of 2.5” or more by Christmas Eve, the windows (some $7,000 worth of them) would be free.

I have FREQUENTLY been sorry (as in the case of angel wings) when I didn’t pay attention to such nudges, so I went ahead and signed up for new windows (which will be replaced on January 17—what are they thinking?—in Chicago?). We forfeited the $230 for signing up that day for a very lengthy contract spelling out the terms of receiving free windows if it snowed in Chicago on Christmas Eve. Anderson had covered themselves by taking out insurance so if it snowed, everyone would win. I reasoned that I would rather regret losing the $230 sign-up fee less than the $7,000 replacement cost.

Praying for this felt difficult since Christmas Eve is a high travel day on roads and airports and in buses and train stations. If the nudge was from God, then it was simply a prediction of what the weather would be in the days ahead, so I left the outcome to Him. I must admit, when the weather reports indicated there would not only be snow, but a snowstorm, I felt vindicated. What a great story about obedience this would be. Weather watches and warnings were issued and ran in orange banners across the bottom of television screens and in the online weather reports. The prediction was for three to six inches.

Sad to report, there was not one single snowflake that fell in West Chicago (where we live) or at the O’Hare Airport regional weather station.

I still haven’t come to a conclusion on this. Did I do the right thing?—was the nudge I felt more of a gambler’s guess? Then what about the broken angel wing warnings and all those other times I’ve been sorry I didn’t pay attention?

Perhaps one day I’ll have a firmer feeling about all this. It may not be important when I reach heaven, but I would like to have a serious conversation about the ephemeral nature of interior nudges. For right now, I’m certain that angel wings are perilous things. Pay attention.

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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