since there's nothing new under the sun

i swear that i do a) have my own thoughts, and b) listen to something other than nickel creek. but these lyrics from "doubting thomas" say it today:

What will be left when I've drawn my last breath
Besides the folks I've met and the folks who've known me?
Will I discover a soul-saving love
Or just the dirt above and below me?

I'm a doubting Thomas.
I took a promise,
But I do not feel safe.
Oh, me of little faith.

Sometimes I pray for a slap in the face.
Then I beg to be spared cause I'm a coward.
If there's a master of death, I bet he's holding his breath
As I show the blind and tell the deaf about his power.

I'm a doubting Thomas.
I can't keep my promises
'Cause I don't know what's safe.
Oh, me of little faith.

Can I be used to help others find truth
When I'm scared I'll find proof that it's a lie?
Can I be led down a trail dropping bread crumbs
That prove I'm not ready to die?

Please give me time to decipher the signs.
Please forgive me for time that I've wasted.

I'm a doubting Thomas.
I'll take your promise.
You've always kept me safe.
Oh, me of little faith.

"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" (mark 9:24)

literally

new life from ruins (or so they say)

what he said

despite what i just said, i cannot blog from where i am. some things don't belong "out there".

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel his claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be--or so it feels--welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?

I tried to put some of these thoughts to C. this afternoon. He reminded me that the same thing seems to have happened to Christ: "Why hast thou forsaken me?" I know. Does that make it easier to understand?

Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not, "So there's no God after all," but, "So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer."
[...]
They tell me H. is happy now, they tell me she is at peace. [...] "Because she is in God's hands." But if so, she was in God's hands all the time, and I have seen what they did to her here. Do they suddenly become gentler to us the moment we are out of the body? And if so, why? If God's goodness is inconsistent with hurting us, then either God is not good or there is no God: for in the only life we know He hurts us beyond our worst fears and beyond all we can imagine. If it is consistent with hurting us, then He may hurt us after death as unendurably as before it.
--c.s. lewis, a grief observed

i'm planning to blog my way through this book, by the way. it's all there. really. no need to write anything else of my own.

(and also despite what i said here, a quote from someone else is all i've got. sorry.)

regarding anonymity

i wrote this post about a month and a half ago and couldn't decide whether to post it, which is funny, considering the content. i decided i would.

i had a moment this past week. a moment when i decided to shut this blog down. it had nothing to do with this blog, per se, but with another blog, and actually another, too. you see, somewhere along the way i developed the unusual habit of following blogs of sick people, most frequently sick or dying babies. (this is not a habit i recommend). but it starts with one recommendation--hey, you'd like this blog; this blogger is like you; her kid's like yours--and so i follow her blog. then that blogger mentions another blogger's sick baby; a click, and i'm a faithful follower of hers, too. and one blog leads to another to another to another. it's addictive, at least for me. maybe, at least, you can see how the habit builds.

it's a little like reality tv (which is scary), a little like a virtual support group (perhaps even scarier), a little like an online prayer team (more defensible, perhaps), a little like avoidance of my own life (no comment). and a lot unhealthy, i think, at least for me, at least most of the time. i have enough of my own work of mourning to do, i think, that i don't need to lose sleep crying over other people's sick and dying babies. and as for praying for them, well, i can't say i'm all that faithful to do that. so much for my defense.

back to my moment.

this week, for the second time (and this time much more dramatic than the first a few months ago), one of "my" blogs was revealed to be a scam. one of "my" sick-and-dying babies who was so sick that she died never really existed. it's a long story. but the short of it is that in the process of outing the scammer, several (apparently) good and decent bloggers, mothers themselves of sick-and-dying-and-deceased babies, were dragged through the mud.

i am not linked with any of these "celebrity" bloggers. though i might have been, if i had ever gotten around to sharing a link like so many others do--hey, i'm like you; you'd like my blog; my kid's like yours--and like i've sometimes thought i'd do. that is the way to drive traffic to one's blog, after all. right?

which got me thinking about anonymity. and blogging. and blog traffic and comments and links and who reads this stuff, after all.

it's been a long time since i've been anonymous. if you've followed this blog and perhaps even found your way here from there, you'll understand why. lots and lots of people have walked through the last three and a half years with me and my family, through the last six months with me in my grief. the most obvious (and incredible) result of this opening of my life has been an unreal outpouring of love and support. if you've read that other blog, you've gotten a taste of the tremendous blessing it has been to share my life with so many. and there's so much more beyond what's recorded there, so much more than i'll ever realize, even.

but one thing this journey hasn't been is anonymous. and i confess that there are times when a little anonymity might be okay. true, sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name (sing it), but sometimes it's nice when nobody does, too. in my life, that doesn't happen all that often anymore.

since i've continued blogging, you'll understand that i have obviously not chosen anonymity after all. but this week's blog scam and the junk that surfaced along with it got me thinking: why, indeed? why take the risk of sharing? why expose the cracks?

i can't say for sure.

what i can say, though, is that if i don't expose the cracks, i won't have help filling them. isolation works well for a little while...that is, until i want to share a laugh. or a tear. or have a little help filling a crack. or gain a little perspective. or learn something.

i don't know why you read this blog or any other, for that matter. i have no plans to go hunting "traffic", no desire to ever join the ranks of the celebrity bloggers. but i won't shut it down either, i think. i won't pretend the cracks are completely sealed, and i won't hide from the risk of inviting people in.

hear me say this, then (now, again, while i really am saying it, as i not infrequently back away from it): you are welcome here (again), in my story, in my life.

back (and back to blogging soon)

"Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule."
--frederick w. robertson

praise song from the aegean

from the ends of the earth

from the depths of the sea

from the heights of the heavens

Your Name be praised

from the hearts of the weak

from the shouts of the strong

from the lips of all people

this song we raise, Lord

throughout the endless ages

You will be crowned with praises

Lord most high

exalted in every nation

Sovereign of all creation

Lord most high

be magnified

i see the depths of the sea.
i am at the far end of the earth, farther from home than i have ever been.
i have never seen skies so high, stretching from the vast horizon of the sea all the way to the heavens.
i cannot count the stars in an uninterrupted sky, though they loom so large I could almost touch one.
if only i could climb the mast, perhaps there i could reach.
perhaps there i could join in the music of the spheres, join in the heavenly chorus of the angels.

higher than the mountains on all sides that just barely avoid scraping the stars from the sky.
higher than the azure blue sea, filled with secrets of creation, is deep.
higher than this end of the earth is far from home.

Lord most high. Your Name be praised.
from the lips of all people.
from the spray of the sea.
from the roar of the wind.
from the roll of the waves.
from the shimmer of the stars.
from the sear of the sun.

be magnified.

with the promise of tales to come

“When you're safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home."
--thornton wilder

"There's nothing half so pleasant as coming home again."
--margaret elizabeth sangster