Battle Cry

September 25, 2013 By

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This morning at 2 am, I rose.  My neck was sore and my chest was tight.  There is a weariness that comes from living this life and bearing so many crosses, and our age overpowers us.  And yet the fog was clearing, and the time was near. I heard the bugle sound, which signaled not the respite of taps but the call for war, and I knew.  I knew it was time, and I stumbled onto the field next to warriors also fractured and spent.  We nodded in mutual assent, and I lifted up my arms to clasp the handle of the sword, resting in the sheath strapped with buckles to my back.  I heard the metal sing against the leather as my triceps pulled it free, its weight as much as my child with a core of steel.  I am not a man and do not have the strength of an ox, so I hold it with shaking arms.  I look to my left and slowly to my right and see the warm comforting breath of others, weapons raised, ready.  There is war paint on some, other cheeks streaked with tears.  All are waiting the call from our commander to invade, for the time is now and sleeping is done.

 

And all of a sudden I charge, not with a whisper or a bowed head.  I do not glance at the ceiling or stare aimlessly forward, but with sweat dripping from my forehead I look toward the face of God and let out a cry so piercing and deep that I surprise myself.  I stab and cut apart and I do not let one man survive. Because evil is not to just be fought valiantly, but it is to be won.  It’s hard when evil lies beside you, or is in the heart of your own clan, and worse when in your own flesh, but you cut it out and eliminate its tendrils from racing toward your soul.  Sometimes the soldiers I slay disappear on the field, fading into the rising fog, which makes it hard to see the living from the dead.

 

There are times I want to charge this hill and God says another, telling me that the plan is more intricate than I realize and that we are fighting a long, bloody war.  And there are times I lose a battle, wrestling hard for what I think is best, but it is not to be.  There is a longer road ahead, soldiers whisper at night as we regain our strength.  And I don’t understand those moments, the mystery of why.  I look around and it seems like I’m fighting all alone.  My sword grows to heavy to bear, my eyes are sore, and my ankles bow from running on rocks and gravel.

 

So I slow, and bend to put my hands on my knees.  I just need a breather.  I am so tired of courage.  And yet I soak oxygen into lungs and stand tall again, ready for another bugle call.  I’ve learned through the many years that death really isn’t the great fear: living with a chasm established between self and God is the real terror.  Prayer is a tool to root out our inner demons, and commune with God in a way only soldiers can relate.  I listen and obey, whatever way He orders.  Sometimes my prayers aren’t answered and I don’t know why, and other times they are answered in abundance.  But I charge the hill in front of me, because that’s the battle plan.

 

I don’t see Jesus as meek or mild, just a man who spoke gently with crows feet and soft, pretty eyes.  A lion is not less fierce because he’s lying in the noonday sun yawning and licking his paws.  A man who faced persecution he did not deserve, resisted the urge to prove his earthly status, had the power to move mountains, repelled the devil face-to-face, and hung on nails for what he did not do – this is power of a kind that I can only serve.  This is leadership for which I can only follow.  This is a commander for whom I lay down my very life, and fight when called.  There’s no way around the pain.  You can’t run around it or sidestep it or numb it.  You have to run right through it with swords raised.

 

This is prayer.  It is bold.  It is strong.  My fellow warriors, we have no other option but to slay evil, fight for good, and win this long war.

 

I’m not a big fan of “I’ll be praying for you.”  Mostly because I don’t believe it when people casually throw it around, and I feel it’s somehow watering down the practice by sprinkling it into most all conversations, just squeezing it between let’s go to lunch and I love your boots. And I don’t think we should all be out there praying to find the perfect red dress at Macy’s because it’s our lunch hour and we need this thing to happen.

 

But I wholeheartedly believe in the power of prayer.  I dated a Catholic once. He went to confession because that’s what a good Catholic does, like brushing one’s teeth or unloading the dishwasher.  And then there are the dinnertime prayers, sometimes out of obligation or guilt or habit or routine, thanking God for enchiladas and buttered corn. I had a talk with a girlfriend recently who said she didn’t believe God really answered prayers of substance.  Now she mostly just asks for wisdom without getting too specific.

 

I don’t have a field guide for prayer.  And in some way I think God hears them all, buttered corn and red dresses alike, chuckling at times and forgiving our immaturity. But “when I was a child, I talked like a child.  I thought like a child.  I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” 1 Corinthians 13:11.

 

I grew up somewhere between school girl and mother.  And when I pray, I take it seriously.  I yell and cry out and beg and plead very specific things, sometimes muttering the only words that come to mind.  Other times I just sit and repeat the name of Jesus like a balm to my battle wounds.   I might raise a name of a friend, or a situation that’s unresolved, and other times I write it all down and just save it in anger, like God can darn well read it for himself.  I don’t think there’s a right way to pray.  But don’t deceive yourself that it’s just empty words floating toward the night sky. Prayer is power, and answers will come.  My brothers, it’s the lion sleeping in the night.  When it charges forth with teeth baring, it slays.

 

See you on the battlefield. 

 

photo:

(three w’s)thenflickr.com/photos/ranh/270486400/sizes/m/in/photolist-pUjbC-pUjeF-pUj6j-cMzAJ1-3aJfRU-5jYhFi-vYHvP-apPf2R-6Bz3A7-4pNsMx-8S5W1d-5p6SKH-bRWztz-bD2Rvj-bUp84p-bUzjiG-bUzjnL-bUzjzs-bUziSb-bUzjvb-bUziBo-bUziL9-bUzitU-bUziVQ-bUzjCN-bUzj1u-bUzj8E-4MxcfG-bUzjHo-bUzjQ3-bUzjdN-e8xyDM-9h3LW8-93GFFe-7GYTuP-97qsCn-97qq9D-46Bmup-4iJR6Q-7FaSJz-47xnaK-pUj2t-bumETh-pUk7M-pUk4U-pUjXT-pUkaf-pUkcT-bmKeHQ-74hUTE-74dZPD/

Filed Under: Inspirational, Religion Tagged With: , , , , ,

Blogging the Bible: David & Goliath

September 18, 2013 By

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Caravaggio, my favorite painter of all time, painting David and Goliath

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I think everyone knows this story – there’s this big mean giant that keeps taunting everyone, and the Israelites are afraid of him, but young handsome David rolls his eyes like “seriously ya’ll – he’s only like six feet tall, so quit shivering in your sandals like total weasels and buck up already.” He casually walks over to the front of the line, picks up some shiny stones, pulls out his little deerskin slingshot, and hits the giant with a pebble square between the eyes. The giant falls down, David chops his head off like “that’s how I roll, folks,” and there’s probably a Jaz-Z song playing in the background.  David walks in slow-motion up to the commander, and at the end of the day he’s writing folk songs on the hillside and later becomes king.

Or at least that’s how I remember it.  And honestly, that’s not super practical for my day-to-day life.  But now that I read it with new eyes, more emerges.

So the story begins with the Philistines on one hill and the Israelites on the other with a valley between them, gathering for war.  I suppose in those days, war was a more civil affair, with no fear of chemical weapons or hidden warfare or land mines that blow shrapnel into your armpits and eye sockets, and they all just charged at each other like buffalo.  And Goliath stood out in line and taunted the men of Israel for forty days, which seems a little excessive if you ask me, like “yes yes, we know you’re a bad-ass.  Please stop it already with all that narcissistic bravado.”

But one day when David, a mere shepherd, was bringing food to his brothers, he overheard a discussion about Goliath and asked who this fellow was that kept causing all the fuss.  He was told by the men that whoever killed this man would have all sorts of cool things like money and the king’s daughter and an exemption from taxes.  Don’t get me started how kings are always passing their daughters off like trophies.

So David was pumped, because who wouldn’t want money and a fair maiden and no taxes?  Now I see how he’s able to play the guitar in the meadow.  So David went to the king and indicated that if he can fight off bears and lions while tending sheep, this arrogant prick was not going to be a problem.  He shrugs off armor – what good is that anyway? – and goes straight up to Goliath and his shield bearer.  I really want to explore more about this poor little shield bearer – did he have to lug that heavy thing out there every single day for forty days? If the fighting got super icky did he just hide underneath it like a turtle? Doesn’t that seem a little wimpy for Goliath to need a caddy?  These things are not explained.  Figures.

But here’s where I really spent some mental energy – David said some pretty strong words to this Philistine.  He stated: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

After reading that, things shifted.  I didn’t just see David as some punk teenager killing a giant with a slingshot.  He might have had the body of a child, but he had a brave heart that belonged solely to God, with a confidence that the killing of this man was a mere afterthought.  It was as if he was setting one foot atop the water and knew that it would hold his weight.  David was making a statement that the things of this world – swords and spears and harsh words and burdens and death and cancer and all other worldly things – are nothing compared to the strength our Lord Almighty provides.

God’s name would not be defiled, and the battle, my friends, had already been won.

Jesus commanded that “if you have faith and do not doubt. . . if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done.  Matthew 21:22. But rarely is such belief displayed. David believed so assuredly that with the power of God he could defeat this man that the entire Israelite army feared, and only with a stone. There was no quiver of fear from the depths of his heart, and no arrogance in his claims.  This was not about David himself, or winning money, or being tax free.  Only arrows of truth were proclaimed, and it was to be.  God had won this fight.  David was only His servant pushing that message through the air with string.

I’m bowing down today at this assurance.  That I will not be shaken.  That when the taunting begins, and a giant is yet again in front of me, I will fear no evil.  For God is with me, His rod and His staff –  they comfort me.  And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  David wrote that, in Psalm 23, because he had a personal relationship with the Father. He knew that there was nothing bigger, and no giant greater, and all those gathered will know that it’s not by sword or spear that the Lord saves, but by grace, and mercy, and love deeper than any man.

Sometimes the battles we face are not on a hillside, but in the relentless grinding of the day.  The taunting of one who hates us.  The anger at one who is shamed.  We sigh deep at the reality of cells eating at our breast tissue, or weep at the coffin of a small child that was ripped from our arms.  We keep wiping away tears in the carpool line because ENOUGH, Lord.  It’s too much, and too heavy to bear, and we don’t have any reserves left to fight.  And sometimes, we just want to lay down our weapons and curl up in a corner, unable to keep rising, and keep smiling, and keep moving.  There is only so much we can take, and we are bending under the weight of it.

So we lay in a ditch with a dusty throat, shivering in fear, unable to croak out even a prayer, and see a child walk by.  Just a boy who watches sheep.  And he says with all assurances that we are more than this.  That God’s name will be praised in all things.  That the Lord will deliver those who are faithful.  And we are paralyzed as we watch him defeat a giant, and use his own sword to sever his head, and we are in awe of such courage.  It’s then that we swallow hard, walk over to David, and fall at his feet as king.

Thank you, child, for reminding me that I am protected.  That when I wander, even though I am one of ninety-nine billion, God will not leave me to my own devices.  He will search, and ache, and reach to the depths of the earth to find me.  Who is the greatest in heaven?  Jesus placed a child among them, and preached about the lost, and the found, and the faces of the obedient, and the lowly.  And in the dust and the bloody chest of a fallen giant, I see the greatest among me is not me, but He.  I see that this child has believed, and accepted that the battle has been won, and I surrender.

Thank you, oh God, for this victory. 

 

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photo:

(three w’s)then: flickr.com/photos/ergsap/9633080076/sizes/m/in/photolist-fFf46w-fEXtHt-fEXtHZ-7K5Ub9-532XUQ-69N7De-8SikSL-bpdJED-8teVbd-6qidN1-6Qk1K8-6Qk1UX-Mh25N-6Qk24n-6Qp7Q5-5i6BER-BwEYH-fgLmmb-6mnXxg-8piu6J-8tPR7F-g1Xxj-b663Rr-4DVv3y-6Qk1En-kSF8j-9unWjj-N3juc-5yvQ6U-6Qk2nv-sxX1G-5HtV7G-a9NCgb-6Qp6Qo-dX9jfB-6Qp8bG-5JHbBC-7YKJS4-azcujL-bFAMgZ-5PvKMp-8xoWUe-dDqZW-6Qk1kn-4MiyPD-2BBeQE-62dUqo-5nWy8Z-hr5UZ-bFqZoB-51LZBc/

Filed Under: Blog the Bible, Inspirational, Love, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Battle Scars

February 20, 2013 By

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I walked to the ring with a swagger, silk brushing against my skin as my ego staggered before me, a blur of crowd voices and cigarettes and the smell of sweat.  Before me fighters had come and gone, but this one was mine.

Let’s do this life thing because I am young and I am fierce.  

But I got sucker punched in the gut, and kicked in the face, and a string of a hits I didn’t expect.  I tried to remember all the training and practice rounds, and yet my coach’s words were grey and hazy.  All I could see coming was a left hook, a little too late it seems, and I found myself falling and slipping and heading for the mat with greasy sweat streaming from my pores. I lay face down while the crowds grew, my left eye swollen shut and my chest managing to heave in and out despite the blows.  I shut my eyes hard.

Please Lord, no.  I can’t bear to lose.

But the referee declared it, and the victor was announced, and all I could do was lay there in all that deafening noise.  The mouthpiece held my lips ajar and I could hear my own labored breaths.  I couldn’t break the pattern, for my body was surviving on oxygen alone.  I stared at the side of the ring for a long while, unable to move. My eyelids shut like curtains and I thought it was over.

I’d failed so miserably, and I’ll never be able to stand again.

But after a while I drew my legs close. I turned and raised up my back like a Halloween cat and hoisted myself to a knee.  I felt the drool and sweat and blood dripping, and when I raised my head I just saw the janitor in the stands, sweeping cigarette butts and popcorn kernels and picking up sticky beer cans.  We were alone, he and I, nothing but leftover smoke and spoils. I managed to stand on my shaky knees.  Fearful of the damage that had been caused.  Of the wounds that remained.

But somehow, miraculously, my legs found their footing.  I planted my feet apart and I raised my head.  I was alive and tall, and tears mixed with sweat as I raised my right arm above my head. The janitor stopped his sweeping and stared at the display, the loser standing in the middle of the ring, one arm raised, fist-pumping the sky with a crooked, bleeding smile.

I might have broken lips and battle scars.  I may nurse bruises and broken bones.  And yet I rose.  I stood.  I won.

It’s not the one who shows off for the crowds, or who drinks champagne at midnight, or who gets to display the trophy that counts.  It’s the one who rises, and regains footing, and manages to lift their head.  It’s the ability to make it out alive and fist-pump the dirty, rotten air.

This fight did not define me.  It did not break me.  And through the tears I walked off the rink, and past the janitor, who had laid down his broom.  He clapped, and I smiled, and I knew I wasn’t ruined.

Victory, as it turned out, was mine. 

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Tough

Filed Under: Inspirational, My life, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Victory or Death

April 23, 2012 By

There is a subdivision near my daughter’s school called ”Travis Country.”  We pass by the limestone sign every day, surrounded by verbenas and turk’s caps, shining brightly in the sun.

“Who’s Travis?” she asked one morning. “And why did they name this place after him?”  Despite my various inadequacies, I felt relatively comfortable explaining who this person was that so important to our state’s history.  After all – I was born and raised in Texas.  I grew up forty-five minutes from the Alamo. If anyone could tell her who Travis was, I could.  Here was my very helpful answer:

 

 I think he was a Colonel in the Republic who fought at the Alamo.  Did he wear a coonskin cap?  No, wait.  That was Davy Crocket.  Anywho, it was either he or some other dude that met with a Mexican leader under a tree regarding surrender.  No wait, that can’t be right.  Well I don’t know his first name, honey. But I think his middle name started with a B.

Yes, folks.  That’s it.  Colonel Travis wore a coonskin cap while not dying at one of the biggest battles in Texas history because he apparently morphed his ghost-like dead self into Sam Houston and was busy negotiating a surrender.  Most importantly, however, his middle name started with a B.  Of that, I’m certain.  Well thanks a lot, small-town history teacher.  Thanks a lot.

That night, I asked my husband to better explain it.  His first response was “please tell me you didn’t try.”  What?  Why would he jump to such accusatory conclusions?  I lied and said no, even though I’m very well-versed on the subject and all.  He snickered at that.  So at bedtime,  my husband allowed my daughter to stay up late in order to re-tell the story of William Barret Travis dying in a hard-fought battle against Mexican soldiers, leading a team of outnumbered and starving misfit settlers.  He dramatically drew his hand across the bedcovers to imitate how Lt. Col. Travis drew a line in the sand, urging those who wouldn’t fight-to-the-death to walk away.  No one walked.  They all crossed that line. My daughter sat up with rapt attention.  Please don’t mention the coonskin cap, I thought as I tried to beam it directly into my daughter’s head.  I’ll never live that one down.     

The way my husband wove the tale you’d think it was a work of fiction, with William Travis walking away from a sordid past in Tennessee to find his home in this rugged new place, leading a pack of dirty men, all huddled behind a Catholic mission’s dirt-and-mortar walls.  They all died bloody deaths in the battle of the Alamo, but the Mexican soldiers finally prevailed.  “A woman named Susana Dickenson survived to tell the tale,” my husband said with raised eyebrows.  My daughter breathed in fast. What did she do? Where did she run? Why did they let her go?  The stinging smell of independence hung like fog in the air around her pink covers.  The Battle of San Jacinto.   Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.  The capture and surrender.  Gunsmoke.

I passed the sign again today and it had new significance.  It reminded me of why I live in the great state of Texas, tucked away in the hill country amidst bluebonnets and wild Indian blankets,  the soil fertilized with the blood of those who died for our right to stake a home onto this great land.  The tall, blowing grasses are moistened by their tears, and their yet untold lives whisper to me in the afternoon winds.  This state is special not just because of the stories told today, but of stories long since past.

On February 24, 1836, mere days before the end, Travis wrote to the people of Texas and all Americans in the world, saying “I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained continual bombardment and for twenty-four hours and have not lost a man. . . I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of liberty, of patriotism and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country. Victory or death.”

Thank you, William Barret Travis.  For the fight.  For the intensity for which you loved this place.   For drawing that line in the sand.  I thank God for you, for what you did for us so many years ago, and for your unyielding urge to never give up even as solders were climbing the wall and closing in. I salute you, my dear patriot.  Even if it makes people look at me funny while I drive by that sign, in my sweats, possibly talking on my cell phone, on a Tuesday afternoon.

Others might have chosen to walk away – but you?  In that dark day in March, 1836, as you breathed your last breath, you thought not of these things. You thought of victory.

Filed Under: Inspirational, Love, Texas Tagged With: , , , , ,