Poetry Series: Week 8

After writing the previous post, I'm in a miracle-y sort of mood :)

Ordinary Miracles
by Erica Jong

Spring, rainbows,
ordinary miracles
about which
nothing new can be said.

The stars on a clear night
of a New England winter;
the soft air of the islands
along the old
Spanish Main;
pirate gold shining
in the palm;
the odor of roses
to the lover's nose. . .

There is no more poetry
to be written
of these things.
The rainbow's sudden revelation--
behold!
The cliché is true!
What can one say
but that?

So too
with you, little heart,
little miracle,

but you are
no less miracle
for being ordinary.

[This last stanza is my favorite!]

Miracles by Robert William Service

Each time that I switch on the light
A Miracle it seems to me
That I should rediscover sight
And banish dark so utterly.
One moment I am bleakly blind,
The next--exultant life I find.

Below the sable of the sky
My eyelids double darkness make.
Sleep is divine, yet oh how I
Am glad with wonder to awake!
To welcome, glimmery and wan
The mighty Miracle of Dawn.

For I've mad moments when I seem,
With all the marvel of a child,
To dwell within a world of dream,
To sober fact unreconciled.
Each simple act has struck me thus--
Incredibly miraculous.

When everything I see and do
So magical can seem to me,
How vain it is to seek the True,
The riddle of Reality . . .
So let me with joy lyrical
Proclaim all Life a Miracle!

What I learned at camp:

Miracles happen.

I spent last week at another camp, which is a ministry of our Lutheran synod. The theme of the week was "Cross into the wilderness", about how God leads you through the wilderness -- whether it's a physical, emotional, mental or spiritual wilderness! -- and gives you everything you need to face challenges. Our group went on a four day "overnight". We all got massive hardcore hiking backpacks and were allowed to bring ONE extra shirt, ONE extra pair of shorts, a few pairs of dry socks and a sleeping bag. That's it. No toothbrush, no deoderant, no clean underwear, no pillow, nothing soap-related, etc. We filled our packs with 4 days worth of food, cooking/camping gear and gallons of water and set off. Theoretically, we were supposed to hike about 3 miles a day. We'd spend each night at a different campsite around the perimeter of the camp property (in the midde of the woods, of course).

Well, we got lost. A lot. We'd hike a mile or two only to find we'd been going the wrong way, so we'd have to backtrack to our original starting point (so we'd have hiked about 3 miles already with nothing to show for it) and THEN hike another three or so miles to the actual site. We had no tents, only two supremely large tarps. We'd tie a rope between two trees and throw a tarp across it and stake down the corners to make a tent-like structure, then we'd put the second tarp inside and sleep on top of that. But the ends were open, leaving plenty of room for rain to blow in.

There were no bathrooms, obviously, so we went to the bathroom in the woods. We had one roll of toilet paper which had to last 13 people for 4 days, so the counselors rationed it. And, you weren't supposed to use the TP for peeing -- "That's what leaves are for!" announced our counselors gleefully (we glared at them). This might not be a problem for the guys in the group, but it was slightly more uncomfortable for us girls. THAT was an experience.

Oh yeah, and it rained the entire four days. Not just mere drizzling, mind you; we're talking torrential downpours and thunderstorms and wind whipping it into your face. Now, I LOVE rain. I am a big fan of doing crazy things in the rain (I've gone to outdoor concerts in the middle of a tropical storm, gone boating in a thunderstorm, I go running and/or dancing in the rain fairily often, etc, etc) and for the first three days, I was honestly loving the whole camping in the rain thing. I mean, yeah, within an hour of leaving we had no dry clothes; it wasn't exactly fun to sleep in a drenched sleeping back and wet socks are rather uncomfortable to hike in, but I was still loving it, despite the circumstances....but by day 3 I'd had it. We all had. We were sick of each other, sick of being wet, sick of hiking, sick of being lost, sick of the whole experience. We begged our counselors to let us just go back to camp and skip the last day of the overnight. We were miserable and complaining and rather peeved at each other.

They were adament, though, that we stick it out and not go back to camp; at least, not yet. We could handle one more day, they said. Especially since the theme was about trusting God and doing things you thougth you couldn't do.

We disagreed. Eventually, they compromised. Since we couldn't seem to find our final campsite, they agreed that we'd circle around and stop back at the camp (briefly) so everyone could get some dry clothes. Then, miraculously, my counselor, Kathryn, pulled some strings and got permission for us to stay in a building on the edge of camp property called the Old Lodge. It was old, creaky, leaky, smelly and falling apart, the windows and doors didn't quite close, but it had a roof and four walls and we were thrilled. We hiked out there and for the first time in three days, the idea of being dry was within our grasp. Our moods improved drastically with just that thought alone!

But it gets better. Some other counselors, hearing how miserable we'd all been and how rotten our overnight experience had turned out to be, surprised us. They came out to the Old Lodge with hot chocolate, cake, ice cream and other goodies and had a surprise party for us, which was just so unbelievably sweet and wonderful and unexpected that it made some of us girls (yes, me included!) burst into tears!

Here's my favorite part. Our Bible story for that day was the one about Moses and the Israelites in the desert during the Exodus. (See Exodus 16) They're at the point where they've been wandering for awhile and they're hot and tired and cranky and running out of food and just plain miserable. They're all complaining to Moses that it would be much kinder just to admit defeat and go back, because it was just cruel of him to keep them out there to suffer. So Moses appeals to God on their behalf and God blesses them with manna and quail to keep them going.

I absolutely love the parallel between that story and our own notorious overnight experience. I love how similar they are -- just like the Israelites, we campers were miserable and tired and cranky and fighting with each other and begging our leaders just to admit defeat and take us back. And Kathryn appealed on our behalf and God turned things around so we had a slightly warmer, much drier place to stay for our final night and some excellent "manna" (cake!) and "quail" (ice cream!). In the end, our group, who, just 5 hours earlier had been hating each other, had a great final night of our overnight -- we all stayed up really late, singing and talking and actually bonding instead of fighting, and it was a pretty awesome experience! (I actually think that story would make a pretty good sermon. I'd like to write a sermon about it, if I can find the time.)

I love the fact that this is a real-life example of how the stories of miracles in the Bible are TRUE! I know a lot of people (me included, sometimes!) look at these unbelievable stories of God taking awful situations and working miracles in the Bible on a grand scale, and it can be awfully hard to believe sometimes. We often look for huge, incredible miracles in our own lives, things that copy the Biblical accounts exactly. And if we don't see water turning into wine right before our eyes and lepers being cleansed after going for a swim...if what we see doesn't meet our expectations, we tend to decide that these stories are really nothing more then mere fairy tales -- great stories, but they don't impact our lives.

But I'm sure you've heard stories of people with cancer being MIRACULOUSLY cured (could these be today's lepers?); people without food finding themselves the recipients of some kind of charity or aid...might this be current examples of God working miracles in TODAY'S society?

See, our overnight experience proved to me that miracles DO indeed happen! Sure, bread and birds didn't exactly come raining down from the clouds, but God took a situtaion and performed a miracle. Maybe the problem isn't that there's a lack of Old Testament-scale miracles in today's world -- maybe the problem is that we're expecting to see things exactly as they happened before, rather then looking for miracles in the context of today's society.

Look for a miracle today! Expect a miracle; watch for a miracle; look for God's intervention in your life. You might be surprised :)

Blinded by the light...

My brother has been walking around the house for the past two days, randomly bursting into choruses of the song, "Blinded by the Light". I'm really not sure why, quite frankly. I didn't even know he liked that song. In fact, I didn't even know he knew that song existed, let alone knew the words to it.

Actually, I don't think he does honestly know the words to it. Because he just keeps singing the same line, over and over and over and over again, getting progressively louder at each repetition. "Blinded by the light...Blinded by the light! BLINDED BY THE LIGHT!! BLIIIIINDED BY THE LIIIIIIGHT!!!!!"

(Have I mentioned that the singing gene just doesn't seem to exist in our family? Apparently it wasn't just me it skipped. My dear brother didn't have any luck in that category, either. *sigh*)

And when this chorus met my ears for about the 7,402nd time, I realized that maybe, just maybe, this was something bloggable ( < new word. How much fun is that to say? Bloggable bloggable bloggable!)...that maybe there was a way to tie it in to today's post. It's worth a try, right?

While listening to the radio the other day, I heard a story...hopefully I can remember it:

A hurricane ripped across the coastline, pouring intense amounts of rain down on the inhabitants. Cities were flooding, the water was rising and people were crying out for help. One man climbed on to his rooftop to avoid the rapidly rising water in his house. He looked up to heaven and called out, "God, save me!"

The man had loved God all his life, and truly believed that God would reach down and save him from this disasterous situation. He watched for God's hand to come down from heaven; he listened carefully so he wouldn't miss God's voice when it told him what to do.

As he was listening so intently, a rowboat floated by with a neighbor in.
"Do you need some help?" shouted the neighbor. "Climb in my boat!"
The man on the rooftop shook his head. "No, thanks!" he yelled back. "God's going to save me!"
Rowboat man shrugged and rowed away.

Well, the flood waters continued to rise and rooftop man was growing impatient. He thought maybe God hadn't heard him the first time, so he called out again, even louder, "God! Save me!!"
He stared up at the heavens, watching and waiting for the moment when God would come and save him from the floodwaters.

While he waited, another boat came by; this one even bigger then the last. Half a dozen people sat in this boat, but there was still plenty of room inside. One passenger held out a life vest.
"Hey there!" called out the passenger. "You need some help? Here! Take this!"

But rooftop man shook his head and held out his hand. "No, thanks!" he shouted back. "God's going to save me, you'll see!" The people in the boat shrugged and headed off to another rooftop.

Now, the rain had started up again and the situation wasn't exactly getting any better. Rooftop man realized that God better hurry up and do something here. He was getting pretty nervous. "God!" he called out again. "Please, God, please save me!!"

The waters had almost reached the top of his roof. The man danced around anxiously, on his tiptoes, knowing that his miraculous rescue would come any second and not wanting to miss it.
Unfortunately, he was interrupted by the sound of a helicopter.

The helicopter came closer and the man heard a voice coming through a bull horn say, "You there! Hang on! We're sending you a ladder!"
"No!" the man shouted back as loudly as he could. He shook his head again to prove his point. "No, that's OK! God's going to save me!"

Looking rather surprised, the helicopter folks nodded and shrugged and moved off to go find another person in need of rescue.
Well, a few moments later the flood waters had risen so high that they swept the man off his roof. He tried his best to swim away, but in the end, the current was too deep and he drowned.

When the man got to heaven, he said to God, "God!! I've loved you and served you all my life. I've been a faithful follower of your Word. I trusted you to save me! I cried out to you and you didn't do anything! You ignored my prayer, God! Why didn't you save me??"

God raised his eyebrows and looked at the man. "Are you kidding me?!" he said, surprised. "I tried! I sent you two boats and a helicopter! What more did you want?!"

In this story, the man was so sure that God was going to save him. He had this expectation that God would do something totally, incredibly, earth-shatteringly amazing in order to complete the rescue mission. The man was expecting a huge-scale miracle! He was waiting for the hand of God Himself to reach down and save him; he was waiting for God's voice to command the waters to recede. The man cried out, "God, save me!" and trusted God to do so. The only problem was that he was so focused on the powerfulness and miraculousness of God, that he missed the smaller miracle right in front of him.

He was blinded by the light, so to speak. This man believed so strongly that God could and would make unbelievable, inconceivable miracles happen (the "light") that he was unable to see that sometimes, God delights in using the ordinary to do extraordinary things.

The point is that sometimes, we get blinded by the light, too. We get so caught up in reading Bible stories about manna falling from heaven or angels saving people from fiery furnances or the mouths of lions being closed that we forget about the everyday miracles, too.
The thing is, God provides for our every need. If we need it, he's already got it taken care of. He hears every single one of our prayers. And he answers them -- often in ways that we wouldn't expect.

We need to make sure that our expectations don't interfere with our vision. It's great to believe that God does amazing things -- He certainly does! But don't let yourself get so caught up in the extraordinary that you miss all the incredible things he does on a smaller scale.

The most amazing thing God's done in my life? Bringing my best friend into it. There were no lions, fiery furnances, voices from Heaven or manna falling from the sky. In fact, the very first time I met my best friend, I hardly even talked to her. It wasn't an extraordinary day by any means; it was a picnic. But it was the start of the most amazing and important and incredible and yes, miraculous friendship I've ever experienced.

Is there something in your life right now that you are praying for? Are you waiting for God to answer a prayer? Be careful that your expectations of HOW he is going to answer don't interfere with your realization that he HAS answered it.

Don't be so busy waiting to hear God's voice that you miss the rowboat and the helicopter right in front of you. Sometimes God might give you an incredibly obvious answer to an incredibly complicated situation. It's easy to overlook the everyday answers to prayers -- the best friend who called to say Hi when you were feeling low, the brother who started singing obnoxiously when all you wanted to do was focus on writing a blog post, the dog who barked continously for you to take him for a walk so you could enjoy a gorgeous day...

Be ready and waiting for the ordinary AND the extraordinary. If you EXPECT God to do great things, He will. But beyond that, you've also got to be looking for these BIG things -- sometimes in the smallest of places. Don't be blinded by the light of God's greatness -- let his light illuminate things you might have otherwise missed.