Cave Dripped

Cave Dripped

baptism by cave dripMy husband and I were walking through the majestic underground caverns in Carlsbad New Mexico, when I felt a drop. One drop, out of an infinite number, which over time formed the features of that stunning cave.

My husband was jealous! He didn’t receive the special “cave anointing.” A baptism by water of sorts. We laughed.

Baptism by water dripsThen we came to the “Rock of Ages,” one of the most notable columns in the cave. In days of old, rangers invited tourists to sing the old hymn by the same name at the base of the column, reminding themselves like the psalmist… “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?”[i]

It’s inconceivable how many drips it took to form such a tower of rock. And even more mind-boggling that mineralized water could form something so solid, so immovable, so massive!

Cave drips start a lengthy process of formation. When the cool water of baptism touches our foreheads, something also begins. Continue reading

Enjoying Joy

Enjoying Joy

There’s a Saturday Night Live skit called, “The Girl You Wished You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party.” Cecily Strong plays the role of the girl who’s characteristically drunk and ditzy, with know-it-all opinions in a pseudo-activist kind of way. She’s looking for a fight. The “straight man” is played by Seth Meyers.

“So are you excited about the holidays?” He asks.

“Excited? I’m repulsed! All this ‘mercialism around Christmas is an outrage! It’s a trajesty! It’s like, what are we even doing?” She scoffs.

“You really seem like you’re in the Christmas spirit,” he teases.

“You mean the Christ-mas spirit? Oh right, you don’t care about Jesus because you worship Hallmark.”

“Oh boy!” He looks away.

Then she asks him what he wants for Christmas…Continue reading

Keeping Company

Keeping Company

“A great sorrow and a great fear had come into all the world, and the world was changing. Our minds were driven out of the old boundaries into thoughts of absolute loss, absolute emptiness, in a world that seemed larger even than the sky that held it.

nearness of God when we think we are alone“Time doesn’t stop. Your life doesn’t stop and wait until you get ready to start living it. Those years of the war were not a blank, and yet during all that time I was waiting. We all were waiting…moving in wide circles around our sadness.

“The pleasures that came then had a way of reminding you that they had been pleasures once upon a time, when it seemed that you had a right to them. Happiness had a way of coming to you and making you sad. How can you be happy, how can you live, when all the things that make you happy grieve you nearly to death?”

* * *

These excerpts from Wendell Berry’s moving novel, Hannah Coulter, beautifully reveal a woman’s deep reflections on life. Here she’s pining for her soldier husband in WWII, but the words touch a chord for any who have suffered loss.

What resonated with me is the “waiting” Berry describes, the suspension from living life, and how happy things sometimes intensify the sadness.Continue reading