I remember a friend, a young mother, with three children under the age of seven, saying to me (also a young mother with four children and a busy husband), “I just wish someone would tell me when I’m doing a good job. What I really want to know is that I’m not raising juvenile delinquents!”

This lament—of not knowing how we’re doing and suspecting we may be doing it all wrong—is felt by many who are plodding through the shifting sands of family life. We have a haunting sense of our own inadequacies in establishing good family-systems. And the truth is, when we think we may be doing pretty well, many of us don’t have anyone who says to us, “You know, you really are doing a good job raising those kids.”

About 30 years ago, several major universities launched research projects to discover what made healthy families healthy. Thousands of families in the U.S. and across the world were carefully studied. The cumulated data was eventually shared in a National Forum on Family Well-Being sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services. At this time measuring tools were established to help family professionals (including parents) recognize the traits of healthy families.

The traits are as follows:

1.    Healthy Families Have Good Communication
Good communication results from a loving relationship between parents. The healthy family:

a.    Listens and responds rather than listening and reacting (reacting: projecting one’s own feeling and experiences; responding: empathizing with the other person’s feelings).
b.    Develops patterns for reconciliation (including having a good sense of timing for heated discussions).
c.    Controls television viewing.
d.    Recognizes nonverbal messages (lack of eye contact, mumbled messages, etc).
e.    Places importance on intensity and spontaneity in conversation rather than on propriety.
f.    Recognizes turn-off words and put-down phrases (a comment made in jest to one person may be an insult to another) and works on eliminating hurtful words and name-calling.
g.    Encourages individual feelings, independent thinking and uniqueness.

2.    Healthy Families Spend Time Together
Times spent together are both planned and spontaneous times, serious and fun times. The healthy family:

a.    Allows themselves time to play and relax, time to dream without guilt (laughter causes remarkable physical relaxation—humor banishes the tightness and severity necessary for anger).
b.    Prioritizes activities:
   -    Why do we want this activity?
   -    What will it replace?
   -     Will it affect our life together?
   -    Is it worth it?
c.    Values table time in conversation—the dinner meal becomes an important   part of the day (activities that infringe on this time are discouraged).
d.    Maintains a balance of interaction in its time together (discourages cliques among members while still encouraging individual members to spend time together).
e.    Doesn’t allow work and other activities to infringe routinely on family
time.
f.    Occasionally participates as a unit in activities chose by individual members—other members compromise even if that activity isn’t their choice.

3.    Healthy Families Encourage and Affirm One Another
The parents have good self-esteem and pass this on to their children by:

a.    Expecting family members to affirm and support one another.
b.    Realizing that support doesn’t mean pressure (to succeed, look good, win, etc).
c.    Giving genuine approval and support to help children develop good self-
esteem (rather than being concerned about causing them to become conceited).
d.    Maintaining a basic positive mood.

4.    Healthy Families Deal Positively With a Crisis
Children learn to solve problems by living in a family that solves problems. parents give children the hope and conviction that “when things get tough we’ll be able to cope.” The healthy family:

a.    Expects problems and considers them to be a normal part of family life.
b.    Develops the skill of knowing when a problem is a problem (doesn’t become overly concerned by annoying events).
c.    Develops a skill for identifying potentially serious problems and tackling them early, which helps avoid a crisis.
d.    Allows give-and-take in negotiation—if a problem concerns the whole family, everyone gets a chance to speak.
e.    Possesses high initiative for helping itself, but isn’t afraid to reach out for help from support groups or professionals when facing a problem too big to handle alone.
f.    Stands together in bad times as well as good.

5.    Healthy Families Have a Commitment to the Family
The husband and wife share a consensus of important values. If parents aren’t committed, neither will children be apt to be committed. The healthy family:

a.    Treasures its legends and characters—the past is preserved and passed on to future generations.
b.    Honors its elders and welcomes its babies—all the seasons of life are appreciated by others.
c.    Makes a deliberate effort to gather as a people—strong families enjoy being together and make any excuse to do so.
d.    Views itself as a link between the past and the future (family members don’t end with death—deceased members are discussed so others feel acquainted with them) and instinctively warns individuals to reach out and hold other members for as long as they have the privilege.
e.    Cherishes its traditions and rituals, thus helping the family members celebrate life and one another.

6.    Healthy Families Have a Religious Orientation
A question to ask each other: How are you doing spiritually?


How frequently, when I teach on these, parents respond by saying, “That’s just common sense. We could have listed those ourselves.” That’s true. Yet when the academic community and the social services community link their research to the efforts of family specialists, it is a comfort to know that our common sense is basically valid.

These common traits gave concerned parents specific areas where they needed to improve; but the indices of well-being also allowed parents to pat themselves on the back and say, “Hey! We really are doing well—here, here and here!”

Sometimes, when you’ve got a house full of kids, and you’re wondering how you’re going to make it through the days, it’s a good idea to pull out this list and say, “Hey, we’re not doing all bad here. In fact, we’re pretty good at some of this.”

Intriguingly, most of those research studies begun 30 years ago listed a spiritual orientation as one of the common traits of healthy families—healthy families have some kind of spiritual life together. This trait is not such a big surprise to those of us in faith-based communities: Establishing healthy families, after all, is one of God’s Big Ideas.

As you consider how you’re doing if you are in the middle of the parenting juggling act,  make a point of taking time to hear God say, “You really are doing a good job!” Then invite Him to be the Teacher who helps you truthfully evaluate where it is you need to improve. You may discover that He is a better Family Counselor than you ever dreamed.

No, despite those momentary fears, you are not raising juvenile delinquents.

Karen Mains
KM2-61

About Karen Mains:

Award-winning author Karen Mains continues to write new content for her Christian blog, "Gettin' Thru the Day." Through her Hungry Souls ministry, she serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and has started teaching a mentor-writing class.

Karen and her husband, David, have been in religious communications for decades—radio and television and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy, Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. David is completing a manuscript titled Revelation for My Grandchildren, and he and Karen are considering if this should be made into a fourth Tales book, Tales of the Revelation.

Karen is also developing a two-day training event for those interested in becoming Silent Retreat leaders, and the Global Bag Project is developing a template for Bag Parties in a Box.

This baby, our eighth grandchild, is round.

His mother had the stomach flu last night, so I received an early-morning call of desperation from my son, the father. “Mom, can you watch Eliana (aged 29 months) and Neeham (7 months) while I teach class this morning? Angela really needs to sleep. I’ll be done around 1 p.m.”

Fortunately, I have the kind of work where I can set my own hours, and while waiting for the little ones to be dropped at the door so their father could rush off to teach his Spanish class at a nearby college, I decided I was not going to try to do anything else but just play with them.

I took off Eliana’s pink winter (fake-leopard-trimmed) coat, got her started playing with the toys from the cupboard that holds stacking blocks and magnetic-footed circus people, plastic spiders in a plastic jar, easy puzzles, a big container of farm animals, and the inevitable stack of books.

Then, I stripped the baby’s brown bear snowsuit off and lifted him out of his carrier chair. My goodness!—he’s a heavy chugalug. If you hauled him around all day, there’d be no need for weightlifting exercises! “Was Jeremy this big?” I asked my daughter at a recent family gathering; she is older than her brother and seems to remember more about my babies than I do. Granted, Jeremy weighed 10 lbs., 13 oz. at birth, but did he have these thick thighs and rolls after rolls of leg fat? “Oh, Mother,” Melissa recalled, a little disdainfully (Where was my memory, after all? She would never forget such pertinent information about her children!). “Don’t you remember? Jeremy was a chunk. He was every bit as roly-poly as Neeham. You used to call him Buddha-baby.”

OK. I’ll take her word for it. Today, I tested Neeham’s sitting-up abilities. Pretty good, although his weight does tend to make him roll forward or sideways. But for the most part, the back muscles are strengthening and his balancing ability is balancing.

Two months ago, I rushed (as the result of another emergency call—Jeremy and Angela could not quite match their work schedules) over to the house to filled in for that intermediate hour where the parental tag-match didn’t work. Neeham took one look at me, crumpled his mouth into a huge pout and began to wail, What? You’re abandoning me to this lady? Who is she? What does she have to do with me? Does she do milking? Where are you going? Wha-a-a-a-a-a-a. He was not to be consoled and wept himself to sleep. At that point, I decided I obviously had not been spending enough time with my youngest grandson.

So today (after some corrective measures in between), when he came to my house, with a sister happily stacking soft Beanie Babies on all the bookcases shelves she could reach, Neeham and I played in the sunshine that was falling this winter day on the dining-room rug. Oh, now we’re friends. Everything this lady does is funny. He chortled and chuckled over my blowing air into the crevice of his neck. He thought my ah-boos were hilarious. When I changed a diaper, he pulled his feet up to his mouth (how do babies do this?), and I couldn’t resist the temptation to roll him on one side, then back on the other. Freed from garments, he kicked his toes in glee, laughing all the while. His round bald head, the darling butt baby-bare; everything was ovoid. This was pure delight to me. Now diapered, he sat on my lap on the couch where I tested his standing-straight propensities. (“Biggie boy. That’s a biggie boy!”) Soon, cuddled in my arms, his mouth latched onto his thumb and the sucking commenced. In no time, he was sound asleep. I pressed my nose to his fat cheek—nothing on earth like that baby smell.

What a happy morning. By this time, Eliana had systematically progressed through her caravan of play—first the Beanie Babies, then the farm animals set to standing by the fireplace, then the books, etc. I carefully placed the baby in his carrier and sat my granddaughter on the kitchen counter. She demanded an apple: “Ap-pop.” I sliced and peeled one and fed her tiny bits. Eliana is being raised bilingually. She looked up at the plates hanging on the soffit and said while drawing circle with her hands, “Círculo.” This word I knew, and think she is impressive making her way in both early Spanish and early English. Obviously, I’m going to have to come up to speed with some basic Spanish myself if I’m going to understand her.

The children’s father came home at the time promised; now the baby had wakened and Eliana was asleep on the living-room couch. “Your daughter’s diaper was so wet, I had to take off the onesie. It was soaked.”

“Oh, I know, Mom,” he said with a grin, scooping them both into car seats, spreading the pink winter coat over the daughter and the brown bear suit over his son. “We are just really bad parents.” And after thanking me at least four times, he and his carload were off.

Stepping back into the now-quiet house, I picked up all the scattered toys. This familiar pickup routine only takes me a few minutes. Really, I thought, I should have thanked my son. I’d had an exquisitely happy morning and had loved the fact that Eliana is content here, loves to play with the toys, sits on my kitchen counter, eating like a little bird the tidbits of apple I popped into her mouth. How great is it to know that my grandson no longer puckers and pouts and howls when he is left with me.

It occurs to me that this is one of the primary ways of getting through the days. Find something young, babyish, and enter into play. Borrow babies from a friend if you don’t have any—they’d all love a break! Serve in the church nursery. Pick up a couple kittens; dangle a string or push a ball of yarn their way. Stop at the chicken incubator in a nearby farm in the city and take time to watch the tiny beaks peck their way out of the shell, wet feathers eventually fluffing themselves under the heat of the lamps, then little chicks waddling about, bumping into other chicks.

There is something about going back to the beginnings, something about being near newness, close to fresh starts, something about rediscovering origins. Everything is tactile with babies. We hold, we nuzzle, we press our face against their skin; we pinch and tickle and pull at their soft cheeks. We give our fingers to be grasped in their tiny fists. We place them on our tummies and nap while they nap. We crawl on the floor chasing after them; we catch their ankles and roll with them protected in our arms as they chortle with delight. This sensory interaction is some of the closest connection we adults allow ourselves. It is healing all around.

Once during an extremely stressful time in my husband’s life, he spent every Saturday morning with our first grandchild, then a toddler. They ran errands together. He would pick her up and, in these days before car-seat laws, buckle her into the front passenger seat. Her little legs were too short for her knees to bend over the edge, so they would stick straight out, gym shoes pointing up. To the bank they would go, to the post office, to the drugstore. Often they’d get their hair cut in the same salon, and always, afterwards, they would buy sugar cookies at the bakery on the same block and eat them while driving home. This happened week after week. I often thought that Caitlyn, by just being so adorably new and by just being eager to go on errands with “Papa,” probably saved his life. I am serious.

How lovely that babies are given at a time when their grandparents are in the aging process.

We are watching the film How to Eat Fried Worms a lot right now with our 10-year-old grandson Elias. Evan Almighty is another kid favorite. Right now, both these films never seem to grow old to them. I love to hear my grandchildren laugh. I promise you, if you can get back to the beginnings, back to those who see the world the ways that you have forgotten to see the world; if you can rediscover the origins, you will make it through the days. And if you can find a baby who thinks everything you do is funny, you are most blessed.

After all many things in life renew themselves, day always comes after night, the seasons are on a yearly rotation, the earth goes again and again around the sun. Old friends come back into our lives. We celebrate the holidays every year. Some things always come around again. Death and resurrection are renewable. It is all “círculo.”

Karen Mains
KM2-60

About Karen Mains:

Award-winning author Karen Mains continues to write new content for her Christian blog, "Gettin' Thru the Day." Through her Hungry Souls ministry, she serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and has started teaching a mentor-writing class.

Karen and her husband, David, have been in religious communications for decades—radio and television and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy, Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. David is completing a manuscript titled Revelation for My Grandchildren, and he and Karen are considering if this should be made into a fourth Tales book, Tales of the Revelation.

Karen is also developing a two-day training event for those interested in becoming Silent Retreat leaders, and the Global Bag Project is developing a template for Bag Parties in a Box.

For some reason I made a beeline to the church kitchen. My husband was the guest speaker for the Raitt Preaching Series at Trinity United Presbyterian Church in Santa Ana, CA. He preached Sunday morning and Sunday evening, then three times (the same message in the two morning sessions), once at 6:30 a.m., then at 9:00 a.m., then in the evening at 7:00. Perhaps, it is because I have been a pastor’s wife, and in the ministry all our married life, that I appreciate the hard work (and often un-thanked work) of the people behind the scenes. I wondered who would be taking care of the continental breakfast so early in the day.

“Hi! I’m Karen Mains. Just wanted to see what was goin’ on back here.”

My attention was immediately grabbed by the slices of oranges being arranged on trays. They were juicy and ripe and almost red-orange in color. “Oh, oranges!” I exclaimed as though no one else in the room knew what they were.

“Yep,” said the gentleman slicing the fruit. “They’re navel oranges. They’re from our trees. Help yourself.”

Shamelessly, I began snarfing up the slices, almost as fast as he could place them on the trays. Now, fresh citrus fruits in California are commonplace. Ripe fruit drops from the trees in fields and over backyard fences, and the harvest is so plenteous that wind-fallen grapefruit and lemons and oranges may just rot on the ground. But for a Midwesterner who is used to imported fruit, picked too early, shipped by trucking routes inland, I am aware that we rarely eat citrus at the height of their ripeness.

The wife piped up, “Oh, we make fresh orange juice too, but most of it was drunk in the 6:30 meeting.” I realized these new friends, both in their lively 70s, had English accents.

We chatted about the qualities of different oranges—they have 13 trees on their property!—Seville, navel, tangelos, and Valencias. And somehow, we got onto the topic of making marmalade. I had spent a Saturday last year experimenting with a whiskey-marmalade recipe. We three agreed we loved good marmalade, but my new friend made it clear that the preserves in our American supermarkets were too sweet—not “tart enough.” Certainly not as good as the British variety. I heartily agreed—English marmalade is exquisite—a good enough reason to travel overseas!

“Do you know how marmalade began?” queried the citrus-grower, still slicing oranges. Marmalade, legend has it, was a chance invention. Some time in the 18th century, Mr. Keiller, a grocer from Scotland, acquired a load of Seville oranges when a ship was driven ashore by a storm. His wife, Janet, experimented with recipes, added sugar (Sevilles are very bitter) and invented the chunky orange marmalade that became Scotland’s own. The preserves sold so well that it soon became a staple of every breakfast table in the land, and the name of James Keiller & Sons is still associated with it.

David, my husband, preached in those early sessions, and I was proud of his command of the Book of Revelation and of his great gift of reducing the most complicated of passages to their essential meaning. But I made sure I didn’t return to the guest house where we were staying without transcribing the marmalade recipe that lodged in this man’s mind onto a scrap of paper I found in my purse. Here goes:

British-like Marmalade

Take one large lemon, two white grapefruit (not ripe, because there is more pectin in the skin), and seven Valencia oranges (which must be very sweet).

Slice them, leaving on the skins and instead of water, combine all with the juice of one orange. Add 3/4 cup sugar if you like a tart taste; one cup if you like it sweet. Boil everything down for about 5 hours, stirring occasionally over a low heat in a five-quart pan until the contents are 25% reduced.

Stir in 5 tablespoons (we’re guessing here—I’m thinking it may take more like 1/4 cup) of whiskey or Grand Marnier. Let the ingredients sit for one-half hour to cool.

While still warm, spoon into sterilized jars (use any leftover jam and jelly jars). You do not have to add pectin because there is pectin enough in the skins and the juice. Screw on the tops. Cheerio!

Without a doubt, one of the great gifts of life is meeting enchanting people, people who carry on a kind of romance with life. People who enliven rooms just by being in them. People who open doors and show you intriguing vistas you have never seen.

I’m an introvert and it takes a little effort for me to strike up conversations with strangers. My natural default procedure is to be politely withdrawn and to stand back observing, but lately, perhaps due to the aging process, I’m not so shy, and I’ve met the most surprising folk. Everyone is fascinating (well, actually, some people are boring—they just haven’t reached their fascinating potential yet), but truly evolved personalities strike matches in the soul, stimulate the minds of their listeners, arc high in the back-and-forth swings of discussions, love the world. Finding them is worth the few who make your eyes roll back into your head.

For instance, my new marmalade friends. Although retired now, the gentleman was an aerospace engineer and worked, among other things, on the project that developed Teflon for the space program. After retiring, he helped some ailing friends with their produce truck farm (“The loam of the San Joaquin Valley is 12 inches deep in some places,” he informed me). He sold the produce in local farmer’s markets, which make fresh vegetables and fruits straight from the fields available year-round. What an intriguing second career!

Are your days a little dreary? Well, winter months in Chicago can certainly become wearying. We have had cold weather and snow on the ground since November (it is now February 9). I will be returning home in two days. I think I’ll find me some interesting people.

“You like being here with these folk,” my husband said to me, noticing my liveliness. “I do,” I responded. “They have been wonderful to be around. Did you know that orange trees have three blooming seasons in a year? There are oranges on the trees now that ripened in June. There are oranges on the trees that are just beginning to ripen. And there are blossoms for the ones that will ripen this summer!”

This is one of the ways for getting through the days. Find people who are bearers of light. Learn from them.

Karen Mains
KM2-59

Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains is beginning to build distance-learning opportunities, teaching wannabe writers how to be better at their craft. She is offering telementoring conference-call training twice a month for eight months. This current cycle is filled. If you are interested in future cycles of training, the Web site www.KarenBurtonMains.com is being built to facilitate this effort. We invite you to check it out for announcements of future classes.

About Karen Mains:

Karen Mains and her husband, David, have been in religious communications for decades—radio and television and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance and Tales of the Restoration. David has been working on a manuscript titled Revelation for My Grandchildren, and they are just beginning to brainstorm if this should be made into a fourth Tales book, Tales of the Revelation.

The north edge of Phoenix still has vistas that remind the viewer of what this desert was like before population sprawled. No matter where I am, I play a little game: I try to imagine what the location must have been like before man casually and all too carelessly began tramping across the terrain. For instance, where I live—Illinois—what was the geography like before the forests and prairies were hewn away to make place for farmland? What was the swampy shoreline like that breached Lake Michigan before Chicago began to rise in her concrete and multi-storied splendor?

The parents were off vacationing in Florida, the grandkids had gotten themselves off to school, and I, on recess from grand-parenting, took off looking for a Starbucks where I could access a Wi-Fi connection. Suddenly, in the distance, beyond Interstate 17, beyond the shapes and forms of the new shopping mall, I could see a patch of what looked like twenty-or-so pillars of light ascending into the morning clouds. Rains had come to Arizona, and the morning horizon was crowded with billowing harbingers of more storms on the way—but light going up!—I must be seeing things.

That’s strange, I thought, steering myself around the unfamiliar streets. What would make light appear to be shining up? I am trying to discipline myself to pause in the daily run of things when these sudden instances of beauty catch my attention, but morning traffic pushed me along.

By the time I had turned off  35th Avenue onto Happy Valley Road and was driving east, the direction of the pillars of light ascending to the heavens, they were gone. This was a matter of three minutes. In just a flash of my life time, I had spotted something magnificent, something I had never seen before and will probably never see again. The grey morning without the startling pillars of light was still beautiful framed by the roiling clouds, their edges shot with rising-sun silver, but I had seen this beauty before—I am from the Midwest, after all, where rainy days and storm clouds are common. I was haunted all day by the thought that I hadn’t paused to drink in the holy metaphor of these pillars of light no matter their cause—the earth sending up an ethereal sculpture of praise for the drought-parched land finally receiving drenching sustenance.

I should have stopped the car by the roadside, opened the door and stood gazing at this phenomenon with nothing to distract my attention. Were there beacons set into the land that Phoenix uses for special days of commendation and I had witnessed an early morning test? Were there atmospheric conditions, just right at that moment, so wind and air and moisture could produce a light show from the desert floor? Like many, however, I suffer from a common human failing: My personal agenda sets my path. Consequently, I am prone to miss exquisite moments of sublimity.

Jesus, frustrated with the denseness of many of His followers, pronounced an analysis that has been common to mankind throughout the centuries, “You have eyes to see but do not see…” I want to be a see-er, someone who is not negligent in observation, someone who is not rushing so much that wonder is abandoned. I want to become habitual in stopping, in looking, in attending. I want to have eyes that see.

I should have gotten down on my knees and raised my hands to the heaven, prayers of praise and worship rising from one human devotee there on the desert roadside in the same way the pillars of light rose to the sky. I should have breathed in the rain-blessed earth. I should have listened to the cry of the still-wild things and known myself for an intense fraction of time in harmony with all things that be, lifting my head to the graying, looming skies, my soul crying Selah!
 
Noticing is one of the better ways of getting through the days. If we do not turn to see, we all too often plod, the soul heavy, not knowing that the pillar of lights are shining skyward.

Karen Mains
KM2-58

Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains is beginning to build distance-learning opportunities, teaching wannabe writers how to be better at their craft. She is offering telementoring conference-call training twice a month for eight months. This current cycle is filled. If you are interested in future cycles of training, the Web site www.KarenBurtonMains.com is being built to facilitate this effort. We invite you to check it out for announcements of future classes.

About Karen Mains:

Karen Mains and her husband, David, have been in religious communications for decades—radio and television and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance and Tales of the Restoration. David has been working on a manuscript titled Revelation for My Grandchildren, and they are just beginning to brainstorm if this should be made into a fourth Tales book, Tales of the Revelation.

The tangle of computer cords under my desk kept grabbing at my foot when I left to pull things from the copier, or to attend a meeting. I kept warning myself, Better take care of that, Karen, or you’re going to be sorry.

And I didn’t—take care of it. And I was sorry. The cords finally got a good grip around my ankle and plunged me facedown to the floor, which I hit hard with my right knee before going prone.

I really wrenched that baby. I limped for weeks and took the stairs like a two-year-old, and moved carefully even during the unconscious moments of sleep. Just when I thought the knee was healing, a small sideways motion would wrench it again. Some days I could take the stairs like an adult; other days, I’d be doing the two-step shuffle again.

Bending my knees to kneel was agony, and getting up after carefully maneuvering myself to the floor—to look under the couch, for instance, or to scrub up some kitchen spills—was a prophecy to me of old-age days to come.

So, before taking myself to the orthopedic office (I’m avoiding the medical community these days until our government lands on some kind of healthcare solution), I went back to CURVES. Would this gentle, but regular, women’s exercise rotation strengthen the muscles that were not holding my damaged kneecap in place?

Sure enough, just after a week, I was taking the stairs without pain. My knee felt much, much better (though a little seemingly innocent twist had me shuffling up and down the staircase for a day). Although improved, I’m learning that I regret it every time I feel frisky. Kneeling is still tricky.

As a side effect, CURVES exercises are also working out the sore arm and shoulder that threatened to freeze up on me—a holdover, perhaps, from the days when I lugged suitcases through the airports of the world. Years ago, a doctor diagnosed it as “luggage elbow.” Unfortunately, this was one of the physical annoyances I seemed prepared to live with, so I am pleasantly surprised with this secondary improvement.

The point of all this is that some falls are not falling down—even though our first trajectory seems to be floorward—some falls are really falling up!

I have no choice if I don’t want to become increasingly crippled but to do my exercises. My goal is to get in an hour a day. I’m not thinking about losing weight—which I need to do—or looking good—although that would be nice. I’m thinking about something even more basic—being mobile.

Now the interesting thing about just-being-mobile-exercises is that there are all kinds of side effects. My 46-year-old daughter announced that one of her goals for this year is A Severe Self-Care Regimen. That was a viral thought waiting to be caught.

As long as I was being virtuous in keeping my three half-hour CURVES appointments per week, why didn’t I just go on and add all those nitty-gritty little should-do’s that swirl around in my noggin, crowding out the more important ideas? What would that include?

•    The 7-minute workout morning and before bed that claims to be “the ultimate energy workout.” Two summers ago, I bought a mat for a yoga class (for ages 50 and up) that got cancelled. Now I could use it.
•    The steam machine with a face mask for opening pores for cleansing—hidden away on a closet shelf—was resurrected for weekly sessions.
•    Walgreens’ Alpha-Hydroxy Face Cream for Aging Skin and Walgreens’ Moisturizing Face Cream for Dry Skin (I can afford these). I use them morning and night along with the Wal-Mart-brand Equate Daily Renewal Cleanser (“with gentle microbeads that unveil youthful, radiant skin”).

Oh, you get the idea; my fall down, contrived by a colluding set of computer cords, has really been a fall up. I, a woman not given much to regimens of any kinds, am finally putting into place a self-care program I should have begun 30 years ago!

It seems to me, as I look back on my life, that every downfall has its upfall component. If I hadn’t totaled the car, we wouldn’t have discovered we could do just fine with one vehicle. If we hadn’t lost our business, we wouldn’t have learned to enjoy our marriage in these later years of our lives—because we wouldn’t have had enough time. You get the point.

This has been a good exercise for me—thinking about my downfalls. Perhaps you might want to start a list of your own. Excuse me, though—while you consider that, I need to do my morning 7-minutes (the ultimate energy workout) on the purple exercise-mat, which is spread out on the carpet, right by writing desk. It’s all about feeling good (“stress-free and vibrant, not tired and anxious,” i.e. book-jacket copy). And I certainly want that.

Karen Mains
KM2-57

Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains heads the spiritual-mentoring ministry Hungry Souls (www.hungrysouls.org), which is offering an eight-month teleconference training for Wannabe (Better) Writers. This mentor-writing course begins Thursday, February 18. The curriculum will concentrate on Personal Memoir Writing and will meet twice a month by phone for an hour each session. For more details, fees, assignments, the curriculum and how to enroll, go to http://www.hungrysouls.org/events.php. You must register by January 31. Inquires can be made at info@hungrysouls.org.

Hungry Souls is also offering the new "Listen to My Life Mapping" Listening Group as well as two 3-Day silent retreats for 2010.

Karen is also developing a two-day training event for those interested in becoming Silent Retreat leaders, and the Global Bag Project is developing a template for Bag Parties in a Box.

Karen Mains is also continuing to write new content for this, her Christian blog, "Gettin' Thru the Day."

About Karen Mains:

Karen Mains and her husband, David, have been in religious communications for decades—radio and television and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance and Tales of the Restoration. David has been working on a manuscript titled Revelation for My Grandchildren, and they are just beginning to brainstorm if this should be made into a fourth Tales book, Tales of the Revelation.

We have been snowbound here in the Chicago area for the last three months, since early November. Now, being snowbound is different than being housebound. We can get out and get around. In between snowfalls the roads cease to be icy—but the layer of white that covers our yards has been slowly growing since before Christmas without a single thaw.

“How much snow do you think we have?” my husband asked one morning as we were pulling the car out of the garage. We both estimated that there was at least 12 inches sitting on the flowerpots, which winter over in the garden. In the snow banks where the plows dump, the excess snow is higher, of course—three to six feet high. We are living in a white-on-white world.

For many northerners this presents difficulties. Even though we’ve had a fair share of sunny days, a series of overcast days, another storm that dumps three to six inches can make people weary of winter—it’s just hard to drag yourself through the routine, donning warm extra-thick stockings, a sturdy pair of boots with good treads on the soles, layers of sweaters and wool vests and down-filled jackets, and gloves—how many pairs of gloves do we go through getting in and out of cars? (My goal this winter has been to not lose a single pair.)

Then sunshine-deficiency syndromes take over, vitamin D starvations, which set off physical lethargies that for some folk, tumble into depression. Skin dries in the heated homes, even with digital thermostats automatically turning down the temperatures when we’re working or when we’re sleeping. A warming spell (39 degrees today after weeks of single-digit readings) tempts us with the possibility—maybe we’re done with the worst of it!—but no, in our heart of hearts, we suspect we probably have a few good snowstorms still to come.

Yesterday, one of those bright sunny days that glisten on the white, where the sunrises and sunsets are exquisite, I looked out the back window to see if we needed more seed in the feeders. There were six bright-crimson cardinals on the ground, on the feeders, flying in and out of the bushes. Red birds are beautiful in every season, but in winter, on the snow, when the days have been dull and are for a moment bright and the months ahead are still long—they are breathtaking. One bird would have been enough—but six!

The prize-winning poet Mary Oliver has written this in her book Red Bird:


I guess my responsibility for getting through the winter is to luxuriate in the moments of beauty that “fire up the landscape” of these long months. Next time six red birds come to the feeders, I will stop what I am doing, put on my boots and scarf and down-filled jacket, walk quietly to the back-yard bench, slowly sweep off the 12 inches of snow and sit. I will breathe in the fluttering molecules which must be speeding through the air with all those wingtips beating. I will put my head back and take the deepest sigh I can possibly take and thank Providence that the cardinals, symbols of flying hope, come to my feeder and wing through my spaces. Without snow I would not know this moment.


I hope I have another chance.

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains heads the spiritual-mentoring ministry Hungry Souls (www.hungrysouls.org), which is offering an eight-month teleconference training for Wannabe (Better) Writers. This mentor-writing course begins Thursday, February 18. The curriculum will concentrate on Personal Memoir Writing and will meet twice a month by phone for an hour each session. For more details, fees, assignments, the curriculum and how to enroll, go to http://www.hungrysouls.org/events.php. You must register by January 31. Inquires can be made at info@hungrysouls.org.

Hungry Souls is also offering the new "Listen to My Life Mapping" Listening Group as well as two 3-Day silent retreats for 2010.

Karen is also developing a two-day training event for those interested in becoming Silent Retreat leaders, and the Global Bag Project is developing a template for Bag Parties in a Box.

Karen Mains is also continuing to write new content for this, her Christian blog, "Gettin' Thru the Day."

About Karen Mains:

Karen Mains and her husband, David, have been in religious communications for decades—radio and television and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy, Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. David has been working on a manuscript titled Revelation for My Grandchildren, and they are just beginning to brainstorm if this should be made into a fourth Tales book, Tales of the Revelation.

A feeling of dread is a good indicator that something is not right in the day. We dread going certain places. We dread meeting with certain people. We dread certain kinds of work. Sometimes, we even dread waking up.

Dread is a good reason people narcotize themselves. We use drugs, waste hours in pursuits that have no meaning but anesthetize dread, lose ourselves in pleasures that are often harmful.

What we need to do is begin following the dread thread. What is it we are feeling? When do we feel it most? Is there any thing we can do to avoid feeling dread that is not self-destructive? Is the feeling of dread becoming a habitual default place I go? How can I take responsibility to change the dread habit?

After examining these elements, another series of questions are also helpful.

When is it we don’t feel dread? What people, which activities, what kind of work, and what kind of days give us happiness, make us feel positive and give us hope?

Then, we need to change the balance as much as it is in our power to do so.
At least, I can try to load my day with events and people and places that restore my soul and fill me with peace. For me, living in the western suburbs of Chicago, I can walk in the Morton Arboretum or fun over to Cantigny where the flower gardens seem to grow larger and more beautiful each year. Listening to a favorite musical artist—Chopin always enchants; his short piano works don’t demand high listening skills from me—helps me love my life.

Play—learning to play again—is the venue I’m experimenting with and finding a satisfactory adventure that defeats dread when it attempts to lodge in my soul again.

Stuart Brown, M.D. has conducted over 6000 play histories with people from all walks of life—serial killers, Nobel Prize winners, celebrities, public servants, and ordinary everyday folk—from that life study he has written a book titled Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. In the book, he maintains that it has been proven humans are genetically programmed to play—more than any other creature (although studies have captured all levels of life in play activities, from amoebas to polar bears).

What happens to humans who dutifully or unintentionally program play out of their lives? What becomes of those of us who feel play is “a waste of time”? Dire things, it appears. Brown writes, “On one end of the spectrum, I studied murderers in Texas prisons and found that the absence of play in their childhood was as important as any other single factor in predicting their crimes. On the other end, I also documented abused kids at risk for antisocial behavior whose predilection for violence was diminished through play.”

When adults find time for play, the world lightens (dread takes a holiday). “When we get play right, all areas of our lives go better. When we ignore play, we start having problems. When someone doesn’t keep an element of play in their life, their core being will not be light. Play gives us the irony to deal with paradox, ambiguity, and fatalism. Without that, we are like the Woody Allen character in Annie Hall, who says, ‘What’s the use? The sun’s going to blow up in five billion years anyway.’”

So, as your following your own dread thread, check out your capacity to enter into joyful, healthy, distracting, soul-renewing play. See what it does to dreadfulness. See if it’s an aspect of life that will help you get through the days.

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains is currently getting ready to begin a mentor writing project involving teleconferencing. She will be offering an 8-month, twice-monthly, one-hour-each training program on writing personal memoirs. For more information, e-mail karen@hungrysouls.org. This program will begin in February of 2010.

Hungry Souls is also offering the new "Listen to My Life Mapping" Listening Group as well as two 3-Day Retreats of Silence for 2010.

Karen is also developing a two-day training event for those interested in becoming Silent Retreat leaders, and the Global Bag Project is developing a template for Bag Parties in a Box.

About Karen Mains:

Karen Mains and her husband, David, have been in religious communications for decades—radio and television and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy, Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. David has been working on a manuscript titled Revelation for My Grandchildren, and they are just beginning to brainstorm if this should be made into a fourth Tales book, Tales of the Revelation.

Somehow, growing up, I totally missed the popular-music culture. “That’s your era, Mom,” a son will say to me. “Don’t you know who this is?”

No, I don’t know who it is. Between birthing and raising four babies, helping my husband plant an inner-city church in Chicago, taking young adults who needed a place to live into our home, and launching my own professional writer’s life, there simply wasn’t time to become an expert in pop music. Ask me about the civil-rights movement; ask me about the economics of poverty; ask me about building churches around the gifts of the laypeople or about creative worship philosophy; ask me about child-rearing theories; ask me what I read during my own young adult years (a lot); ask me about the mystical writers—I can hold my own on any of these topics. But truthfully, I wouldn’t know The White Album from Purple Rain.

Church music?—well, my father was head of the Music Department at Moody Bible Institute. It would be an understatement to say I was overexposed to sacred music. Classical music?—my husband and I have loved the world-class Chicago Symphony, and, when we have any money, have held season tickets. We enjoy the intimacy of chamber music and are supporters of the Orion Ensemble. We have profited mightily on long car-drives, listening to CD’s from The Learning Company; right now, we’re playing The History of Classical Music.

Finally, in my sixties, I am attempting to rectify my pop-music ignorance by listening to “Greatest Hits” and “Best of” albums. Recently, I’ve enjoyed Van Morrison’s Still on Top. In fact, this Sunday on the way to church, I was captivated with the seeming religious progression of his lyrics. The album begins with Gloria, Here Comes the Night, Brown-Eyed Girl, then eventually progresses to In the Garden with its amazing invocation of praise to the Trinity. What caught my attention most, however, perhaps because I have been thinking about this blog, was Stranded.

The writer is “stranded at the edge of the world,” and this is a succinct expression of the ennui so many feel caught in the “hustle and hustle” of modern life. We don’t know where we are or why, there’s no one to “give us the time of day,” and “every day, every day” we’re stranded.

All great artists, and Van Morrison’s biography seems to indicate that he is considered to be a truly great artist, voice the inner anguish and distress of our common humanity. This is one reason I need to listen to their music: What are these people saying? For whom are they speaking?

You may be one of those folks who is having trouble “just getting through the day.” If so, think about this (a thought that has been deeply medicinal to my soul during rough passages—really rough passages): There is nothing you have experienced that literally hundreds of thousands haven’t experienced before you. This thought doesn’t trivialize my anguish; instead, it comforts me. While being stranded at the edge of the world, between “the devil and the deep blue sea,” I am not alone. Others are familiar with this pain, this cessation of desire, this lostness.

Not only is there comfort in misery, but hundreds of thousands of others have found a way through the desert, through the wilderness, through the vacant lots, through the sour soil of living. Listen to the music and you will find this thread.

Morrison, on this one album, takes us through “the dark night of the soul” in Tore Down a la Rimbaud, to “can’t stand up by myself; don’t you know I need your help” in Real Real Gone, and to the lyrical moment of recovery, of finding one’s self again in The Healing Game—“Here I am again, back where I belong … back in the healing game.”

All great artists face periods when the music stops, the words go, the inner vision is blackened, the math no longer makes sense. Van "The Man" Morrison, the mystical, the magical, searching ever for “a certain quality of soul,” has known them well.

Once, at a younger time in my life, when I had exhausted myself and was real, real gone, I listened over and over, for six months, to the music of Chopin, until finally I was back in the healing game, inner-city ministry. Perhaps if you’re in one of the stranded places, at the edge, the precipice, with nowhere to go, your soul will find some peace in the music of those who know, have been there, and can sing forth that message of comfort in commonality.

We have been where you are; we have survived. Life is good again. Stay with us.

Karen Mains
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Karen Mains is the Co-Director, with her husband, Dr. David R. Mains, of Mainstay Ministries. She leads silent retreats, is a spiritual coach to thousands who have followed the Mains’ ministry through radio and television broadcasting and their writings. Karen is the award-winning author of the “Tales of the Kingdom” Trilogy, and is now crucially involved in a team that is creating a microfinance for women project in Kenya.

Years ago, it was the season of life when I found myself sitting in the audience of the annual spring Kindergarten Circus for the morning class. My granddaughter, Joscelyn, was part of the Elephant Dance—the last act after the Tightrope Walkers, the Seals, the Strong People, etc.

Now I had been informed of this event, but when my answering machine yielded a charming invitation from Josie the night before, I decided that no matter how busy the schedule, I simply had to be part of the audience. Of course, it was a delightful morning, filled with performing children and adoring parents and exhausted teachers.

I was a little concerned, however. Josie was part of the last act and dressed in what looked to be a very warm elephant outfit. She and her two partners had to sit in the front row under hot lights and wait for a whole hour for their turn.

“Weren’t you hot, Josie?” I asked after I had praised her for her remarkable two-stepping little dance with the other Elephant kindergartners. Pushing up her floppy elephant trunk, she shook her head up and down. “Well, maybe,” I whispered, “you could take your elephant costume off now.” She did so did immediately, with smiles and a sigh of relief.

“I’m so sorry Papa couldn’t come, but I’ll tell him all about it.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” she replied, taking refreshments from her mother’s hand. “You were here and that’s what makes it so very special to me.” Then it was my turn to melt.

Coming home, I began to build an analogy in my mind (I am a writer, after all). Isn’t much of life like the Kindergarten Circus? Everyone else comes first, doing their tumbling and fake weightlifting and rigged magic acts, and we’re sitting in some front row somewhere in a hot, uncomfortable costume, waiting for our turn to do our little two-step. It begins to seem inappropriate, or silly, or long. Then we realize that Someone is in the audience—Someone who has come just to watch us do whatever it is we do. We scootch around in our uncomfortable costume (whatever role life has assigned us), move the wrong way, correct ourselves, get back in step with the other dancing elephants.

But it’s all okay. God has come to be with us, to cheer and applaud, to wave from the audience, to say to our hearts, “I’m so very proud of you.” None of the inconveniences really matter. Nor does the fact that other people have been watching their children and don’t care that we’re hot and long-waiting. God is here. That is what makes everything so very special. “The LORD himself watches over you!” Psalm 121:5a, NLT.

Now that is a truth worth dancing about (even when life’s a little hot).

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

This is a terror to me: Sometimes I become so preoccupied that I forget certain appointments that are on my calendar—particularly the phone appointments that require no physical space and are only a notation on my Day Runner, my desk calendar and my kitchen calendar. (It’s not as though I don’t try to remind myself. I keep hearing my husband asking in disbelief when I confess that, once again, I’ve something on my schedule. “Do you write this down in your calendar?” he asks. Well, writing it down isn’t the problem; checking it with serious regularity is.)

So, I am, consequently, often having to make apologies to friends and acquaintances. “I’m sorry, I forgot” always seems so lame. And despite all the working years I’ve accumulated in a lifetime, and despite the fact I pride myself on being a conscientious Christian woman who doesn’t disappoint, neglect or inconvenience others, I’ve never really had a personal secretary to sit on this flaw in my personality. How I envy those movie moments when some important CEO is reminded that he or she has a conference call at 10:00, a luncheon appointment at 12:30. Briefing sheets, research reports—there they all are—at hand, no wonder he/she is an apogee of efficient living.

One week, having more than its weight of sorrow, I missed a spiritual telementoring call—embarrassment again (I am the spiritual telementor). This poem by Elizabeth Rooney had been sitting on my desk all week, but it seemed an appropriate message to include with my abject apology. I include it in this blog. It is a reminder that missteps are part of the dance of life—they are often the way we learn establish a rhythm, looking humiliatingly awkward as we do so. For me, missteps are a way of developing the rhythm of humility.

Opening

Now is the shining fabric of our day
Torn open, flung apart,
Rent wide by Love.
Never again
The tight, enclosing sky,
The blue bowl,
Or the star-illumined tent.
We are laid open to infinity,
For Easter Love
Has burst His tomb and ours.
Now nothing shelters us
From God’s desire—
Not flesh, not sky,
Not stars, not even sin.
Now Glory waits
So He can enter in.
Now does the dance begin.
—Elizabeth Rooney

Each day that we practice being in step with God is preparation here on Earth for the day when the dance will never end. Pray for me. I always spend a little time praying for whomever reads these little messages. (Pray that I will remember to keep my appointments so I will be practiced at keeping the Final Appointment!)

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

One Saturday morning, about 6:37, I popped into Panera Bread in St. Charles to pick up 54 individually packaged salads for the women’s retreat that Hungry Souls, the little ministry I head, sponsored. It was called “Summer Slowing for the Soul.” I could tell by the face of the woman behind the counter that she had no clue as to the whereabouts of 54 salads. Nor, after hunting around, did she have an order for them.

“Look,” I said to her, imagining what a shocking beginning this might be to her workday. “We’re not going to sweat this. Fortunately, I’m early. So I’ll just have a cup of coffee, read the paper, and if I get out of here around 8 o’clock, we’ll still be OK. I don’t want you to be upset. I too have been known to be prone to human error.”

That was an understatement.

By the time I left Panera Bread around 8:10, I’d been plied with free coffee, a huge imprinted sack with sourdough rolls, and to make up for their error, three gift certificates worth $18. I thought I had conducted myself in a kind Christian manner. Several people in the long line waiting for morning coffee particularly complimented me on my calm approach.

I did not question myself one moment, until later in the afternoon, after 52 women had successfully slowed their soul in the spring sunshine at the Catholic Retreat Center nearby, and I had hauled all the “props” back home. It was then my husband, ever the pragmatist, asked, “Are you sure you went to the right Panera Bread?”

Pure panic set in. Sure enough, there was a message on my answering machine: “Uh, Mrs. Mains, this is Mitch from Panera Bread. We’ve had your order for 54 individual salads ready since 7:00. It is now 9:00. Will you please call me?”

I certainly AM prone to human error. I had ordered from the wrong store, and I didn’t have a clue which of the 12 in my area had been stuck with 54 individual salads that were not paid for. Thank God I’d had the charity to be kind to the shocked woman who rallied her staff to fill my order.

Now I had a choice. The deed was done. I hated to think of paying an unnecessary $143 from my retreat earnings of $525. But I had obviously misstepped; what did the dance with God require of me now?

If you’re dancing with God, you have to keep dancing even when you misstep. I spent Monday morning calling Panera Breads until one manager (in Geneva) said, “Yep. That’s us. Fifty-four salads—20 Asiago cheese; 16 Fandango; 16 Chef’s Salad with chicken.”

“Well, I want to make this right. How much do I owe you?”

“Oh no, lady,” he replied. “We just mixed them in with the lunch-crowd orders. The problem isn’t with you (I knew it WAS with me); the problem is with the other management team. We’re trained to call the other stores if something like this happens; they didn’t do that.”

I couldn’t believe it! How had this reprieve come my way? I was free to go misstepping another day. (Hopefully, I would remember when making another phone order, to inquire as to location.)

Once a friend said, “Grace is God giving us enough time to get it right.” If that isn’t melody for the soul that is out of step, I don’t know what is.

For me, my daily life dance lessons seem to go on and on. Listen to this, another melody:

“But everyone knows you are obedient to the Lord.
This makes me very happy.
I want you to see clearly what is right
and to stay innocent of any wrong.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” Romans 16:19-20.

Keep dancing.

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

Three blogs ago, I remarked that when we learn to look for God and find Him in the circumstances of the everyday, we can become breathless with how frequently He extends His hands to us, pulling us close, and twirling us in the dance that is stepping with Him.

Four categories help us to find God in the everyday. These are:

1.  Any obvious answer to prayer.
2.  Any help to do God’s work in the world.
3.  Any unexpected evidence of His care.
4.  Any unusual linkage or timing.

What is the God Hunt? The God Hunt is anytime God intervenes in our everyday lives, and we recognize it to be Him.

For instance, when I was clearing out the Annex building across the street from our office on Main Place in preparation to sell it, I discovered that a vacant building shows all its flaws. I was dreading taking on the responsibility of hiring repairmen, painters and contacting a realtor—all time-consuming responsibilities I suspected might fall on my shoulders.

Driving from home toward our main office, I kept seeing a huge commercial “For Rent” sign posted on the street of one of the neighboring office buildings. How will anyone even see our little “For Sale” sign when we put it up? I thought.

Two days later, David received a phone call from someone interested in buying the Annex, which despite its need for repairs was a lovely Colonial-style brick building. “We haven’t even contacted a realtor!” I exclaimed. “The inside still needs cleaning! The outside has to be scrapped and painted! How did they find out it would be for sale?”

It seems the woman who called David had pulled into the parking lot of our neighbors with the HUGE “For Rent” sign. She thought that sign was posted on our property. She called the phone number, realized her mistake, but that neighbor told her he thought our building would be for sale and gave her our phone number. We showed it with all its flaws on a Monday afternoon, without a realtor and without an appraisal.

In short time, we reached an as-is agreement and sold a broom-cleaned, vacuumed empty building in need of repairs to Union Local XX. I had been mourning the loss of my office in the Annex, the downsizing of our staff, the closing of our radio studio, the loss of our living-room-like planning space. I was allowing all these impossible improbabilities (not to mention the weeks I had been sorting and clearing) to overwhelm me.

Without even a little, innocuous “For Sale” sign, the building had been sold. Through this odd set of circumstances, God said to me (in that inwardly persuasive sort of way He has), “You know, Karen, I can take care of this stuff you’ve been wasting your energy worrying about.”

Obvious answer to prayer; unusual linkage and timing; unexpected evidence of His care—it’s all there. “I spy!” “I spy God!” It is easy for us, humans with myopic vision, folks who would all too often rather drag their feet during trying circumstances than to lift them to life’s rhythms (all life’s rhythms—dirges as well as festival hymns) to miss even these big God-events, let alone the diminutive occasions.

Remember, if you seek for Him in the everyday, you may become breathless with how frequently He twirls you around.

“Seek me and you will find me if you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.” Jeremiah 29:13.

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

One week, several years back, I spent a great deal of time on my knees. I wasn’t at prayer; I was cleaning the kitchen in the Mainstay Ministries office building. Because of an economic downturn, we were consolidating our office space, moving from the Annex building across the street, which had a kitchen of its own. But before I could combine that kitchen with our existing kitchen in the main office, I needed to empty and clean one kitchen, and rearrange the sadly neglected space in the other. That entailed moving the Coke machine and the refrigerator, cleaning under them, dumping and sorting the clutter that gathers in communal spaces, reposition the eating tables, storage cupboards, ditching junk and scrubbing every inch. Hardly what I would call dancing moments (I have been looking at dance as a metaphor for living in God’s sacred rhythms).

Now all this effort was complicated by the fact that somewhere in all this, while leaving my daughter’s house I took a misstep, twisted my ankle and fell to the ground. Since it was closer for me to crawl to my car by the curb and much less humiliating than scooting back up the walk to her front door, I drove off not knowing whether I had broken anything. At least I could drive.

Amazingly, after icing my foot and elevating my ankle, I was able to meet grandchildren that night at the movies (using my father-in-law’s cane, which I kept, fortuitously, when we cleared through the remains of his estate). By Sunday I was walking without it; by Wednesday I was back to mopping floors at the office on my hands and knees. This, however, was accompanied by moans and groans since during my misstep, I had also scraped my left knee like a little kid falling off a bike, and in order to get up I had to maneuver the right ankle (which had the funniest bruise—large and dark, clothing the whole joint like a 19th-century gentleman’s spat) just so. I’m sure our staff thought I was trying to gain their sympathy and attention. (Of course I wasn’t, though it does seem to me that some of them might have given me a hand, crippled as I was and as unpleasant the task.)

All the while, pressing onward in my private war against aesthetic criminality—I don’t mind living without much money, but I hate disorder and ugliness, which often happens in office places where there is no police-warden type to keep the material things in
shape—this little phrase kept nudging my thoughts: “Do you understand what I have done to you?” These words are spoken by Christ from the Gospel account where He washes His disciples’ feet. “If I then, the Lord and Master have washed your feet, you must wash each other’s feet.” John 13:1-15.

So I wasn’t dancing. I certainly wasn’t praying, but I spent a week at 370 South Main Place in Wheaton, Illinois in a kind of foot-washing season. Next on the list was clearing out and cleaning the women’s bathroom (we were condensing five bathrooms from the two buildings into two bathrooms in the remaining building). And just to make sure that I didn’t lose my battle against aesthetic crime, I stopped and clipped magnolia blossoms from the yard of the Annex we had sold. I arranged them in two glass vases for the office kitchen tables. Beauty is persistent; it will make its way up through the ashes—the debris of economic collapses, the rubble of neglect and negligence, but perhaps that is because it is also nurtured at the cost of someone’s willingness to serve.

“Do you understand what I have done to you?” No, none of us will ever understand, but spending time on our knees scrubbing up everyone else’s mess isn’t a bad place to start. This knee-work is akin to the stretching exercises ballet dancers perform at the studio barre—bending and stretching, bending and stretching. There are no pirouettes, no pas de deux of any merit until the dancers have done the secret labor of knee-work, exercises that make the muscles flexible, the body lithe and the limbs graceful.

Missteps, uncomfortable as they are, dangerous as they might be, can bring us down. And from time to time, that isn’t always a bad place for us to be.

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

One day some years ago, I got locked out of the house—for the whole day! The day was warm—a truly rare spring moment. By 5:30 a.m. I was in the yard, raking leaves and fallen twigs off the garden beds. For a dedicated gardener, after a long winter, this can create a state of total absorption (dare I say bliss?).

I had originally doled out to myself two or three hours of labor before I went to work on the writing project assigned for the day, but at 9:00, when I went to wash my hands and clean up, I discovered that one of my housemates, the last one out the door (adult son or husband) had left for work, tightly locked up, and with no thought for the fact that I was tucked blissfully into the back garden. I was abandoned in the world with no keys, no cell phone, my hair wild, my jeans smeared with mud and clogs clotted with clods of earth.

The neighbor next door was gone, same for the one in back. I decided to walk to my son and daughter-in-law’s house about one mile away. It was a great day for walking, although my garden clogs were not designed for trekking, and when I arrived at their house, I discovered they were not a home. The whole world in West Chicago, Illinois appeared to have been seduced outside by the wondrous (70-something degree) weather. So, I waited a little—just in case they showed up—then turned around and walked back to my own yard.

Suddenly, it struck me: Maybe the very best way I could step in harmony with God, who is, after all, the Master Gardener, would be to submit to reality and just spend the whole day outside, putting as much in order as my energy would allow and my muscles could stand.

Consequently, I enjoyed an absolutely wondrous gardening day and got a huge head start on spring chores. Nine beds were raked, hoed, weeded, cultivated and trenched; garbage pails of leaves were dumped in the woods for compost. And as far as my own comforts—I had taken two Aleve tablets before stepping outside, and there were bottles of water in the garage, as well as the woods nearby for any emergency physical contingencies. I simply needed to devote myself wholly to this unexpected set of circumstances.
 
Sometimes (have you discovered this?) God does for us what we will not do for ourselves. One of the daily ways I note his intervention is to find Him through any unexpected evidences of his care for me. Can you picture this scenario? The God of the Universe says, “Oh, it’s going to be a remarkable gardening day in the Chicagoland area! Let’s lock all the gardeners outside (including Karen) so they can have a perfectly happy day without feeling guilty.” Then I can hear all this chuckling and laughter in Heaven. What a divine joke! God gave me, at least, the very thing I wanted most and would not have given to myself. He locked me out.

Sometimes we are so earnest, so locked into schedules and events and appointments and responsibilities, we don’t take time to dance. We can’t find moments to waltz. God is planning this little improvisational moment in our lives, but He can’t get our attention. Is He locking you out of anything? Does He have something else in mind for your day, your season of life, your years ahead? Do you think?

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

Dennis Sherbeck was a temporary employee; he worked as our audio engineer and sound editor for our daily radio show, The Chapel of the Air, which broadcasted daily over 500 outlets nationally. Usually, the Sherbecks served as missionaries to Pakistan, and Dennis worked with us when home on furlough.

After I sat in my husband’s office one morning, I felt I had been neglectful in not getting better acquainted. He and his wife, Diane, recounted the Sunday morning when they had been leading worship in a church that was bombed by extremist followers of Islam. Six were killed that morning and many others injured. “Normally,” they explained, “we sit on the side where most of those who died sat, but this Sunday morning, since we were in charge of the service, we were sitting up front.”

Though even the recounting of this memory brought back intense feelings, which the whole family was still dealing with, the Sherbecks nevertheless added, “We had many remarkable God Hunt sightings.” The God Hunt is a spiritual game we taught to our own four children, then to thousands of radio listeners, and finally included in several of our 50-Day Spiritual Adventures, a church-wide spiritual growth event.

They told of the attack on the grade school their 11-year-old son attended, how the terrorists were delayed in their plans and arrived 15 minutes after the children had all been called back into class from recess on the playground. They told of the Pakistani Christian worker who hurried to escape but couldn’t climb over the high fence behind the school building. Suddenly, two men wearing long white robes came and said, “Let us help you.” One kneeled so the fleeing worker could stand on his back; the other boosted him over the barrier. When he turned to thank them, they were gone.

It occurred to me, as David and I listened to these remarkable stories, that in this world where death seems to be rising at the hands of lawlessness and increasing militarism, that we need to know (and teach our children, our grandchildren and others) how to find God in the everyday.

The God Hunt is a simple practice that yields profound results. “Seek me and you will find me if you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” proclaims the prophet Jeremiah on behalf of the Lord. Jeremiah 29:13-14a.

Let’s concentrate in the next few blogs on learning to go on the God Hunt—a kind of spiritual quick-stepping (in light of the dancing metaphor I have been employing to open our thinking about stepping into God’s sacred rhythms) that makes us aware of God’s daily activity in our lives. When we learn to intentionally seek for God every day, we can become breathless with how frequently He extends His hand to us, pulls us close and twirls us around.

The first question we must ask is: Am I looking for God in my everyday world?

The second question we must consider is: Am I finding Him?

Karen Mains
KM1-25

Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

It seems to me that a great deal of 18th- and 19th-century English literature has to do with matronly women persuading eligible young men to invite eligible young women (and some not so eligible) to dance. Think of Darcy (popularized now in the PBS television series and also in film), that arrogant aristocrat so deftly imagined by Jane Austen in her classic Pride and Prejudice. When Darcy, at a country dance, is asked to comment on the local beauties, particularly Miss Elizabeth Bennet, he haughtily replied that she is “passable.” Not a great start—later in the story, he asks her to dance, only to learn the “passable” young woman had overheard his judgment!

Having been raised in a conservative religious background that frowned on social dancing, I have no personal history with this kind of social invitation. However, since literature, film (think of Dirty Dancing) and stage (this summer we saw Bernstein’s musical, West Side Story, and loved the scene where a well-meaning community organizer brought opposing gangs together on the theory that if they danced together they wouldn’t fight with each other), I think I understand that dancing with someone else is all in who is doing the inviting and how the invitation is given.

Perhaps it would be good to remind ourselves of some of these scenes in the vast body of creative work that chronicles all these invitations to dance. Perhaps it would be good to think about the last person to invite you to dance who you wanted to invite you to dance.
Then, think about the invitation that God is extending to those humans with whom He is choosing to partner: Shall we dance?

Perhaps this poem might help your meditation. Who is it who is inviting you to dance…?



When He invites you to dance, what will you say to His outstretched hand?


Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

In a conversation with some Greek Orthodox friends, one of the women, a theology student used this phrase to describe the nature of the Trinity. “Ah, yes,” she said, knowingly. “Perichoresis koinonia.” Perichoresis koinonia? … I had never heard of this. My Reformation, Protestant, Anabaptist background had obviously left me with some holes in my theological understanding.

A word-search explained things. Peri- is from the Greek word for “around,” and is also the root for the English word “perimeter.” The English word “choreography” (literally, “dance-writing”) is from the Greek choreia and graphe. It is also related to the Greek choresis, which means “dancing.” Koinonia is the Greek word meaning “fellowship.” The whole phrase—perichoresis koinonia—means, literally, “dancing around.”

In a sense, the Holy Trinity is the first dance troupe! More amazingly, we humans are invited to step into that sacred dance, to keep step with the Holy Three as they are in step with one another.

I believe we humans long subliminally to enter that joyful circle—to be part of an encircling embrace in which we feel (at last) that we truly belong.

So how do we get to that place where we begin to understand that we are “dancing around” (in step finally) with God—with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?

Here are a few of the rules I am trying to learn in my own daily ‘dance’ practice.

Those who learn to dance with God must understand these basic dancing concepts:

1.  A dancer must want to learn to love being a part of the holy dance.

2.  A dancer must learn to accept the invitation (in daily and weekly practice) to the dance.

3.  A dancer must understand that there will always be missteps, that as far as holy dancing is concerned, we are all novices.

4.    All must work at becoming proficient at stepping in time.

5.    Good dancers must learn to let go and follow.

6.    It is important to realize and continually remember that this is not solo dancing; it is a tandem exercise.

7.    Eventually all great dancers learn to let the dance take over.

8.    In time the dancer becomes the dance; and the dance becomes the dancer.

Just to give you an idea, here are a few of the “dance” steps I have practiced already this day: When I wake in the middle of the night, I turn my spirit, gently and quietly, to prayer. This is a quiet soft-shoe step that reminds me that God is not sleeping, that His love is nearby, and that my concerns are His concerns. This morning, early, I read a chapter in the devotional book I am reading. I wrote, as I do often twice a day, in my prayer journal—I placed all the activities and plans of my day in his hands. All of this took place before 5:30 in the morning.

A whole day stretches forth in which to keep step with Him—this day and the next and the day after that.

But first, do you want to join the perichoresis koinonia? Do you want to step in time with the Ones who are beyond time?

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

Much of my life has been spent in the publishing and communication industries. I’ve written about 24 books (actually, somewhere along the line I stopped counting. I keep thinking of that sardonic comment by Francis Bacon—was it Francis Bacon?—“of the making of books there is no end”). If I haven’t been writing my own books, I’ve been party to the making of published materials. I’ve discovered that there is a cycle in publishing that has driven me, frustrated me, disciplined me and helped me. Well, I’ve known this cycle exists—I just never have thought about it in terms of one of those rhythms that is integral to what I do.

Probably every profession has a similar rhythm that is party to its unique essentiality—but this is the rhythm with which I am most familiar. Let’s look at it for a moment; let’s think of it as a way of “dancing with books.”

•  First, someone comes up with what they hope is a great idea.

•  Second, a proposal is ventured.

•  Some publishing committee looks over the proposal and decides if this is a good project to print.

•  The author is notified.

•  If the green light is given, the author begins to gather more ideas, to organize the patterns of this book for its future published life.

•  Creative ennui comes calling. (It’s a really big project and hard to start!)

•  The editor phones, sends an e-mail, writes a note: “How’s the book going?”

•  Time to get serious: now the hard work begins. (Would hate to have to return the advance; it’s spent already.)

•  Writing and rewriting—two chapters, four chapters—oh, halfway there. (Why did I ever start this? When will it be over?)

•  Finally, the manuscript is done and sent in with pride in accomplishment.

•  Agonizing silence from the publishing end. (Maybe a postcard that says, “Manuscript in house. Will be in touch.”)

•  That dreaded bibliography still needs doing.

•  Revision: oh, agony. More work!

•  Finally, the revisions are completed. A CD is sent or an attachment via e-mail.

•  Waiting during the copyeditor’s interim.

•  Finally! Cover designs and back copy to check, pages from the copy editor, editorial proofs (bluelines; hopefully with no changes).

•  Then months of silence.

•  At last! A box or package lands at your door. There it is!

•  The book.

This is a sophisticated rhythm that happens almost identically (with a few variations) every time I put a book out into the world. Indeed, at every point of the “book waltz,” I find I am dependent upon God to help me step in time to the project well. All work routines can be transformed into rhythms; that is part of what I mean by “dancing with God.”

Why not try to list the rhythms in your life? Is there a rhythm in the seasons (not just the passing of days but the celebrations, work habits, and activities of the seasons)? Are there rhythms in your family gatherings? Do you know how routines can be transformed by God? What steps can you take to make that happen?

Karen Mains
KM1-22

Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

I had no idea that the colorful foliage on the poinsettia plants is not the flowering part of the plant. They are actually leaves that start out green, turn color, then change back to green again.

Did you know this?

My husband, David, surprised me one year by taking me to a poinsettia show sponsored by a nearby greenhouse at the Cantigny Gardens. Though I order poinsettias every year, I was amazed by what I didn’t know about them!

First, there was the fact that what I thought were the flowers were really the leaves, called bracts. Then, there was the bit of information that the true flowers are the little berries in the middle of the bracts, called cyathia. We were taught not to buy poinsettias when the cyathia has begun to bloom (sprouting little yellow flowers). I had never, ever, checked the little yellow buds for over-ripe maturity.

Poinsettias originated in Mexico and were discovered by Joel Poinsett, a Southern plantation owner appointed in the late 1820s as the first United States Ambassador to our border neighbor. But it was a community of Franciscan priests, settled near Taxco in the 17th century, who found the bright red plants blooming naturally on the slopes during the season of Advent in December. They used it to adorn their Nativity celebrations.

What fascinated me most in our informal lecture was the rhythm of growth native to these lovely plants. (These series of blogs are considering the rhythms that occur naturally in our living and in our spiritual experience—and how “out of step” most of us feel, disconnected from any kind of natural rhythms). The colorful bracts resort back to green in late winter, are severely pruned, planted outside when the temperatures are above 65 degrees at night, watered thoroughly (they are thirsty plants), then repotted in early summer, pinched to make them bush-like, cultivated with nutrients, and the bracts begin to turn color again in late October or early November. This growth cycle occurs year after year.

Have you been thinking about natural (and sacred) rhythms?

This rhythm of the life-cycle of the poinsettia is one that I put on my collector’s list. The Cantigny greenhouse was lush with rows of color, deep crimson plants with variegated leaves, salmon poinsettias, whites, new hybrids—it was a glorious display. Yet, more remarkable to me was the fact that they were all living according to some divine dance God had built within their genetic structure.

What a marvelous thing is this gift of life we have been given!

Are you one of the many who feels like you can’t get your life into any kind of lasting rhythm?

Think about a green poinsettia. Have you ever seen one? Step into a greenhouse sometime this season and look at the rows and rows of poinsettia colors.

“God has made everything beautiful for its own time” (Ecclesiastes 4:11a). I believe that the internal structure of creation, the very microcosm of it, is a mirror of the whole of life, of a way of living God intends for His creatures—humans as well as vegetable. What are we missing? How are we misusing this natural order, particularly if we don’t know anymore that it exists? What can be done?


Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.

We’ve been traveling a lot this year: France with a group of 16 “pilgrims” in October/November 2008; Hot Springs, Arkansas for a Christmas week just with my husband and myself; Phoenix in February 2009 for a working trip with my eldest son and a visit with the “Phoenix” grandkids; three weeks in Kenya in March 2009 for filming regarding the Global Bag Project; two weeks cruising up the Eastern Seaboard and down the New England Coast with grandkids; a week at our annual Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada with 22 friends who are theatre aficionados; a week in the British Virgin Islands as guests of our son-in-law’s parents; then David (without me—thank God) taking off for Kenya for more filming!

I keep hearing myself saying, “I’m not home long enough to get into any rhythm.” This morning, while talk with my adult daughter on the phone, she said exactly the same thing, “I keep getting interrupted so frequently, I can’t strike a rhythm.

It seems to me that, without knowing it, many of us are trying establish some kind of cycling regularity in our days, our weeks, our months, even in our years. We need this outward harmony in order to protect and nurture an inward harmony.

Intriguingly, Christianity is really built on establishing these kinds of rhythms—I time, in daily living, in devotional life, in our worship and friendship. There is a kind of sacred dance available for all of us who feel “out-of-step” in this disjointed world with its scary multitasking responsibilities. Many of my friends, sincere Christian women, comment on this in our Hungry Souls Listening Groups. They say, “I can’t catch my breath, I’m so busy.” “The world (the pace, the schedules) are moving so fast.” “The demands are so daunting.” They are expressing this feeling of not being able to get back into some kind of rhythm.

So let’s examine the “dance” that is life and see if we can discover any ways to be more “in step” with it. Let’s begin with reading Scripture. Many of us fail in keeping a rhythm regarding this primary tool that grows our Christian lives.

One book that has revolutionized my approach to prayer integrated with Scripture is The Word Is Very Near You: A Guide to Praying With Scripture by Martin L. Smith. I highly recommend it. Let me begin “dance classes” with two quotes taken from the book.

“It is one thing to say that prayer is a conversation with God. It is another thing to say that God begins the conversation. But it is yet something else to say that God is a conversation. … Our prayer is not making conversation with God. It is joining the conversation that is already going on in God. It is being invited to participate in the relationships of intimacy between father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is an eternal dance already in full swing, and we are caught up in to it. Prayer is allowing ourselves to join the dance and experience the movements, the constant interplay of the Persons of the Trinity.”

“In what follows we shall concentrate on the single issue of incorporating into our lives a rhythm of meditative prayer. I find the word ‘rhythm’ attractive. For some people the word ‘discipline’ has overtones of unyielding regulation and stern subjection of spontaneity, but rhythm belongs to all organic life. Without rhythm there is no beauty; without rhythm there is chaos. Unless we take responsibility for the patterning of our lives others will dictate to us how to live. In spiritual life we are not striving to subject our lives to a rigid scheme. We are seeking to find those rhythms and patterns which allow each aspect of ourselves to have its rightful place in life and its proper share of our energy. It is absurd to pretend that in the chaos of our secular environments and under the schedules imposed by our work and responsibilities this quest for balance and rhythm can be anything other than a very demanding one.”

NOW, TRY TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION:

Am I stepping in time to God’s sacred rhythms?

My prayers for you are that you will begin to dance! I pray that we will all “get back our rhythm.”


Karen Mains
KM1-20

Other projects involving Karen right now are: Working with teams of Christian women to design Retreats of Silence, in both 24-hours and three-days formats, through the aegis of Hungry Souls. Developing hospitality initiatives that train Christian men and women how to use their own homes in caring outreaches through the Open Heart, Open Home ministries. Launching the Global Bag Project, a worldwide effort that markets sustainable cloth shopping bags to provide sustainable incomes for bag-makers in developing nations. Researching the impact of listening groups while overseeing some 240 small groups over the last three years. Experimenting with teleconference mentoring for Wannabe (Better) Writers. Designing the Tales of the Kingdom Web site.