Archives for April 2016

We are turning the little downstairs bedroom (which two sons have inhabited, in addition to various live-ins, my brother-in-law’s gardener—a long story—and boyfriends of one granddaughter). This space also served as my “fabric studio,” which had been set up with a sewing table, a sewing machine, a fabric art library, and an upholstered chair to settle into for comfortable hand-hemming or mending.

The rough cut siding of the room had been stained a rich wine color, the cement floor covered with red concrete paint and the long wall, which held cutouts where fish tanks once perched, had been almost covered with five signed prints given to me by a student artist when David and I were pastoring Circle Church in the heart of the inner city of Chicago. They are a little rough and unformed in their artistry, but I love them—mostly because they illustrate, from small to large, the cry of the human heart for a God to embrace, receive, overtake, and infill it. The artist, Charis Hathaway, titled the prints “Spirit Power.” But, a granddaughter, about three years of age, named them “Hep me! Hep me!” I think I like the little child’s nomenclature best.

The reason these prints move me is that at that time in my life, I was hungry for a work of the Holy Spirit that would embrace, receive, overtake, and fill me. This was during a national cycle of argument over the theological role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of humankind. There was a moving of power and miracle-working authority happening in many places in the world deemed the charismatic movement. I, a child of Baptist, fundamentalist background, knew next to nothing about the Holy Spirit, either theologically or experientially. The prints remind me of that hunger—something given to me that came from outside of my capabilities or design. The eventual climax of the art—the last print and the largest—beautifully conveys to me the desire and the satisfaction of that desire that God worked in my life during those years.

I am reluctant to sell these five prints—they hold such personal meaning—I’m not sure anyone will want a whole wall or a stairwell-full of swirling lines and longing that impressionistically represent “spirit power” or mankind’s need to be “hepped”. They are beautifully framed; my daughter and I agree that framing pictures and paintings with design ability is one of my gifts. With all the moving that is going on, I will not have a place for them. So today I am praying, Lord, find them a home. Find them a home.

 

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Seeing takes time… National award-winning and best-selling author Karen Mains writes out of decades of ministry filled with pains and joys. Known for her authentic and passionate voice, Karen, through the Hungry Souls ministry, serves as a spiritual friend to Christian women and men.

From church planting in the inner city with her husband, David, to national media broadcasting and telecasting, to serving on international boards, Karen brings a perspective on life informed by rich experience, motivated by tenderness, expanded by national travel in over 50 countries, and in an always surprising dialogue with those whose stories continually move her. Seeing—she has learned—hard-gained wisdom takes time.

To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

To learn more about Karen as activist, writer, and thinker, please click here.

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Travel files—a treasure trove of memories

Our deadline to be out of the Mainstay Ministries offices is April 1st of this year. This means books have been packed, files have to be cleaned, out-of-date storage records need to be shredded, boxes need to be taken to Goodwill, good metal desks need to find a home, the office kitchen needs to be broken down. My daughter, Melissa, has swooped up the white cabinets and the screen and the microwave and the hot plate for the little apartment in her basement. Our son, Joel, is taking the half-size refrigerator for his basement bar area (serving sodas and fruit juices). And, we are wondering, in the middle of all this dislocation, if we are going to make it on time.

The goal is to clear out our finished basement, move the furniture from there to our daughter’s home, settle what is left from the office down there. This requires changing phone lines, setting up computers, deciding on printers, and overseeing the general planning that goes on with this sort of a move. It is unsettling, wearying, dislocating (I can’t even fine my office Bibles). But, there are advantages.

First, we will save $800 a month in rent. Since we left our national broadcast some 25 years ago, where we had a donor list of some 35,000 people, now some 400 faithful friends regularly underwrite our support. Of course, our staff is smaller, our operations are not so far reaching. These donors regularly overwhelm us with their generosity. But, at the same time, many are experiencing diminished incomes. David and I certainly know what that is all about.

Second, we need to reduce the material possession in our lives. David was sorting through some file drawers in the office and said, “You know, we’re doing all this so our kids won’t have to.” I feel surprisingly unsentimental about ditching, giving away, and boxing up the material things we have lived with all these years. My goal in this ministry life has been to be able to shut the door and not look back should the Lord so require that of us. Looks as though I’ve been successful in achieving this attitude, because I certainly am leaving this office, our bedroom, the cozy basement in our home with its small guest room without much emotional regret—any regret, actually.

Third, going through all this stuff evokes exquisite memories of projects we mounted, people we loved, and sorrows we endured. Hidden away in those files are photos we had forgotten about and wonderful places we have been.

I pulled out two bins from a cupboard where they were stored. These were the travel files of trips I organized to take groups overseas. The nearby community college offered courses in tourism that trained me how to set up transportation, housing, and site and museum visits, so that I could lead a group of 38 “pilgrims” to Spain. Eventually, my sister Valerie joined me in this enterprise and together we mounted three journeys to France. David and I planned trips to Vienna during the Advent season, to Italy and to Budapest. These labeled folders held lists of travelers, brochures of places to visit, negotiations with hotels for group prices, restaurants recommended by tourism groups, and my correspondence with private guides who shared their wonderful knowledge of their countries with those who journeyed with us. The retrospective transit through those files has been an evocative journey around the world.

Reading a book on icons, I was reminded of the adult course I took at the University of Chicago on Russian Religious Thinkers. Partly, this was because of my interest in Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn. But, the recent afternoon I spent going over my class notes and re-reading the photo-copied pages provided by a very quirky female professor were a delight. I had loved the mental challenge of this study as well as the spiritual food that fed my soul from these thinkers I had never before met. Here they were now, like old friends, stored in these bins.

I guess what I would say is this: Don’t be afraid of doing the work to spare the next generation the effort of moving, purging, piling, and sorting. They will never discover the delights in those boxes and files and bins and shelves that you discover. Their experiences are not your experiences. Do the work for them, but spare the secret, hidden memories to be savored for yourself.

 

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Seeing takes time… National award-winning and best-selling author Karen Mains writes out of decades of ministry filled with pains and joys. Known for her authentic and passionate voice, Karen, through the Hungry Souls ministry, serves as a spiritual friend to Christian women and men.

From church planting in the inner city with her husband, David, to national media broadcasting and telecasting, to serving on international boards, Karen brings a perspective on life informed by rich experience, motivated by tenderness, expanded by national travel in over 50 countries, and in an always surprising dialogue with those whose stories continually move her. Seeing—she has learned—hard-gained wisdom takes time.

To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

To learn more about Karen as activist, writer, and thinker, please click here.

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One of the modern activities that irritates me some, but alarms me considerably, is that even in a restaurant, sitting around a table, a group of diners will be looking down at their mobile phone screens. Isn’t one of the pleasures of dining out to enjoy the luxury of uninterrupted conversation?

On the street, people walk in crowds, step off curbs into traffic flow, and a majority of heads are bent as folks use their thumbs to scroll down their emails. I’ve kept thinking these past years, watching all these bent necks, We are reverting to a hunched stance much like the Neanderthal man scientists tell us has been our evolutionary forbear!

In the chiropractor’s office, where I have just started treatments to correct a backward curve in my upper neck (it should be curving inward, but it is curving outward—the result of hours spent writing at my computer without hours of compensating exercises), I noticed a poster on his wall showing that the average human head weighs approximately 10-15 pounds. The upright weight of the head on the spine is approximately 12 pounds. When the head moves forward (out of normal alignment measured by the ears being straight above the shoulders), this causes extra weight thrust on the upper back and neck.

If the head moves one inch forward, that is equivalent to a 22 pound thrust. If the head moves two inches forward, that is equivalent to a 32 pound thrust. And, if the head moves three inches forward, the strain on the spine is equivalent to a 42 pound thrust. No wonder we have stress, aches, stiffness and physical discomfort across our shoulders and upper neck.

My chiropractor is hoping that the slow correction of my miss-curved upper spine will alleviate the continual sinus drainage and allergies that I seem to be tag-matching in these last years. Just when I think the sneezing and coughing cycle has calmed itself, a plane ride will set off a reaction, and I’m back to blowing my nose, taking sinus sprays and hacking at the slightest whiff of blowing dust. It makes sense: The spine is the sheath that protects the central nervous system, and if that core of essential components is compromised sending impulses to my head, a host of symptoms are certain to erupt.

So what we have in the general, bent-head population that we are becoming, is a new syndrome (remember carpel tunnel?) labeled Text Neck Syndrome, the new tech-induced body ailment. This not only causes neck pain, but influences the back and shoulders. Looking down as much as we do today actually is causing changes in the healthy alignment and curvature of the upper spine causing a diagnosable condition, i.e. text neck or forward neck.

Can we change this? Of course we can. Google “Text Neck Syndrome” and read all the articles with their suggestions as to how to correct this unnatural curvature. Will we change this? That, of course, depends upon the motivation of the cellphone, laptop, desktop tech device user.

It strikes me that the general correction for text neck involves some form of looking up, reversing the downward pose that is becoming habitual as we eat, or gather in groups, walk outside or sit in our homes. Perhaps what we need to do is lift our heads high to the heavens, throw our shoulders back, hold this posture for a while, then sing praises to the One who created us standing, standing straight, standing strong and looking to the sky at day and the stars at night—just the opposite stance from that one now rapidly overtaking our humanity—looking down, constantly looking down.

Then I would hold that posture, looking up, for as long as it takes to repeat this anthem, hopefully from memory.

Praise the Lord

Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights above.
Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his heavenly hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars.
Praise him, you highest heavens and you waters above the skies.
Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created.
He set them in place forever and ever, he gave a decree that they will never pass away.

Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all the ocean depths,
lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding,
you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle,
small creatures and flying birds, kings of the earth and all nations,
you princes and all rulers on earth, young men and maidens, old men and children.

Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted;
for his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.
He has raised up for his people a horn, the praise of all his saints, of Israel, the people close to his heart.

Praise the Lord.

—Psalm 148

This should cure Text Neck Syndrome.

 

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Seeing takes time… National award-winning and best-selling author Karen Mains writes out of decades of ministry filled with pains and joys. Known for her authentic and passionate voice, Karen, through the Hungry Souls ministry, serves as a spiritual friend to Christian women and men.

From church planting in the inner city with her husband, David, to national media broadcasting and telecasting, to serving on international boards, Karen brings a perspective on life informed by rich experience, motivated by tenderness, expanded by national travel in over 50 countries, and in an always surprising dialogue with those whose stories continually move her. Seeing—she has learned—hard-gained wisdom takes time.

To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

To learn more about Karen as activist, writer, and thinker, please click here.

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When Mainstay Ministries produced six broadcasts per week (for twenty years), taped one television show per day (for six years), mounted 137 pastor’s conferences per year, we also had our own publishing arm. Teams of pastors came into our offices to help us put together an annual 50-Day Spiritual Adventure (which some 350,000 people used yearly), and because ministers asked for it, an annual Advent preaching series. The Christmas season is one of the busiest times of the year for the professional minister and his family, so we were pleased to be able to serve. The month before Advent began, it was not unusual to see two to four USPS delivery trucks backed up to the warehouse loading dock. You can imagine how satisfactory it was to have them take off, completely filled with our product.

I’m the author of some 23-or-so books, and publishing being what it was, I rarely had the final say on a title, on a book cover, and sometimes had to negotiate about some content between the frontispiece and the bibliography back page. Although I was involved in the publishing arm at Mainstay Ministries, the nitty-gritty decisions of page size, design artist, copyright page, spine size were all up to the editorial team, so those ultimate considerations did not involve me.

The publishing world, however, has taken a huge change. This has been forced upon it by the rise of digital publishing, by authors self-publishing their products, by e-books and by the fact that even if a house does pick up your book, the marketing of it is pretty much a matter of how well the author knows how to leverage social media.

I am in the midst of republishing one of my own books. I never liked the title. I hated the cover, and I felt that when the book was published, it got lost in the publicity campaign rewarded to another well-known celebrity who had experienced some sort of conversion. My publishing house went mad for the celebrity and my little book, which their team named You Are What You Say: Cure for the Troublesome Tongue, got lost in all the hoopla. This is not sour grapes; it’s “just the facts, ma’am.” Just the facts.

Last year I re-read the book and thought, This book is about the tongue and about the way words can wound or heal. If there ever is a time, in this Internet age, for a book on this topic, it is now.

So I decided to try the self-publishing route. I’ve renamed the book Medicine for Mouth Disease: A Miracle Cure for Troublesome Tongues, found an artist to redesign the cover, rewritten the back-cover copy myself, and am slowly making my way through the vagaries of the process.

Just to give you an idea, the back-cover copy reads thus:

Medicine for Mouth Disease:
A Miracle Cure for the Troublesome Tongue

Want a sure test to determine how you are doing spiritually? Are you psychologically healthy? Maturing psychologically? If so, stick out your tongue and say ah-h-h-h-h. The tongue always tells.

Ever come home from a party (or an important meeting or a church event) and think, “I really didn’t say that, did I? What was I thinking?” A sure case of troublesome tongue disease.

The ancient writers understood that a word spoken is never just a spoken word: It is a window to the soul. Many of us discover early on that the old singsong phrase, “Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you,” is just not true. The wounds from words can last a lifetime.

So what should we do once we come to the truth that we are suffering from raging mouth disease? Mains designs a biblical treatment plan full of remedies for troublesome tongues. The results are truly miraculous in that formerly sick mouths begin speaking words of life—to God, to others and to culture.

This treatment to healthy tongues doesn’t just manage symptoms but seeks to restore life to the inner self. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” taught Christ (Matthew 12:34). Mains shows us how to diagnose the symptoms and cure the cause. You may never have another restless night caused by dismay over your own troublesome tongue.

Here’s a draft of the new cover:

It is fun to put this together, but don’t ever think it’s not a lot of work. I’m looking for a “convertor,” someone who can take the book, convert it into a file so I can rewrite some of the inside copy, then give it to an interior designer who can “flow” the chapters. Finally, the book goes to a print-on-demand house. Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t a lot of work—it is. I have to admit that I am experiencing a little nostalgia for the good old publishing days. We’re never really satisfied, are we?

 

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. In writing content for this blog, 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. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

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One of the great lessons I’ve learned from my husband, David Mains, is what it means to be diligent, constant, and persistent—in fact, David is the very picture of persistence.

It took me a while to appreciate this rare quality because my natural bent is to sprint; I go hard for two weeks, then collapse into retreat, silence, reading—anything that will help me restore. Then I sprint again. Being naturally solipsistic, I thought everyone should function the way I functioned and considered David’s “plodding” approach a little dull, frankly.

However, I began to understand that whereas David lacked a little in spontaneity (all those lists and schedules and calendars), he made up for it in constancy. During the broadcast years, as soon as one week of broadcasts was taped (and eventually two weeks of television shows at a time were taped), he would immediately duck his head and begin plotting the next regimen. I was often dragged from evening social affairs by the pre-event warning: “Remember, we have to leave early because I need to be in the recording studio by 8 o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Moving out of our offices and creating a basement workspace for our small employee team has reminded me that I (and the rest of the family) have come to admire this somewhat plodding quality of our husband /father. “Remember,” we say to one another, “David eats the elephant on the table one bite at a time.”

Indeed he does. While I’ve been recovering this year from some condition that fits the descriptions of hypothyroidism (my thyroid was removed due to cancer two years ago), he has persistently and consistently packed up books, moved them to storage, emptied small cabinets and file drawers and reminded us all that we needed to be out of the office by April 1, 2016.

After fifty years of marriage, I am comfortable with being the “spontaneous” one and with David being the orderly plotter and planner. Because I’ve been under the weather, he has risen each morning this spring before the sun is up to work for a couple hours each day clearing away the debris that occurs in a large garden that was neglected last summer, was not cleaned up last fall, and is showing itself worse for the neglect every time we look out the window. The only mornings he has missed are ones where the weather has been prohibitive.

Take the bricks that line the planting areas in the front gardens; they border the gravel driveway and need to be reset each year. Cars drive over them, snow plows dislodge them, frost heaves them. They are a headache to reset because small stones fall into the perpendicular cavities that are left when the bricks are dislodged and cause an uneven base when my husband eases the bricks back into the ground. So David does five bricks a day and appreciates it when I take time to ooh and aah over his arduous progress. This is what I mean by eating the elephant on the table one bite at a time. David is a master at it, whether he likes the taste of the elephant meat or not.

I also understand that God appreciates persistence as well. In fact, it seems to be one of the qualities He highly admires. In the Scriptures, the word used for this is “perseverance.” Romans 5:3 says, “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope…”

There are a multitude of Scriptures that talk about this; let me just quote James 1:12—“Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

I think I’ll make a further study of this word; it is a quality I need to examine myself for and ask whether I am developing the quality of being able to eat the elephant on the table one bite at a time. Meanwhile, if I need to see a living picture of persistence, I’ll just watch my husband. I’ll live and learn.

 

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. In writing content for this blog, 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. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

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Lungwort (Pulmonaria)

Over the last two summers, lungwort (pulmonaria) has taken over my garden. Lungwort is the little spring plant with the spotted leaves and pink, blue and white flowers that bloom in the spring. As a specimen plant, this early bloomer is delightful, but as a ground cover—all over the ground—it has taken residence where I did not plant it and do not want it.

However, I have let it grow—partly by intent and partly due to the fact that I have been physically under the weather for the last six months—and grow it has. My intent has been to dig out the lungwort (so named because previous generations thought the spots on the leaves looked like lungs and treated lung discomforts and diseases with this plant) and fill the wooden pathway down to the marsh at my son-in-law and daughter’s home named Turtle Creek Acres.

Neglect sometimes is an expedient strategy. In the case, the more lungwort that sprouted each year, the more lungwort took root each summer. Now there are not just solitary chipper pink and blue flowered plants waving in my spring garden, due to my physical inability to garden for two years, there are now huge mother plants gripping the soil, determinedly marking out their habitat.

David has been the determined gardener this year, leaving our bed early every morning before sunrise, to rake and haul and burn the leaves and debris and dried deadheads that have made our March yard look like a wasteland.

Yesterday morning, however, was perfect for digging—cool and damp with the threat of a late-morning rain—so dressed in my favorite gardening duds, jeans and flannel shirt over a turtleneck sweater, blue baseball cap with a Chicago Cubs insignia, thick sports stockings and plastic clogs—I attacked the compost bed outside my back door where I intend to plant tomatoes up against the brown siding and where I have been dumping my kitchen garbage all winter. Here the pulmonaria has made itself cheekily at home. But I have just the place for it, where the woods back up to the country road and stretch toward the creek and the marsh; where sandhill cranes fly overhead and families of deer rise out of the slightly foggy mornings to graze on grasses and tasty weeds.

I figure I took out 20 plants, hauled them up to McHenry, IL, where my kids live, and within two hours on a misty day, Melissa and I had settled them in along the woodland path in the verdant soil made of a mix of sand and forest dirt and rich leaf mold. Even slightly in shock, the polka-dot leaves and the jaunty pink and blue buds looked delightful in their new growing spots.

Making further plans with my daughter, I heard myself saying out loud, “You know, I think I have at least two times this much lungwort still at home waiting to be dug out.” We observed the rest of the path and envisioned what spring would look like next year, then the first thing I did when I arrived back home was go out and count the possible transplants that still hunkered down in the spring soil. Yes, indeed, there were at least forty more plants growing healthy and eager that would make a perfect addition to the Timberlakes’ woodland paths. At least forty.

One of the great pleasures of bounty—perhaps the only pleasure, actually—is the fact that we get to share it with people we love. We get to share. I wonder if this is what God feels when He looks at the greening world and the fertile soil and the exquisite landscapes and a night sky somewhere undimmed by light pollution? I suspect He is delighted to share this bounty and this beauty with those He loves.

Digging out self-perpetuating plants from my own yard and digging in some sixty to eighty plants into my daughter’s woods—what could make a parent heart happier?

 

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. In writing content for this blog, 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. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

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