Category Archives: Tuesday’s Word

Tuesday’s Word: trust

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trust (n):  reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety of a person or thing

trust (v):  to commit or consign with confidence

entrust (v):  put something into someone’s care or protection

While I do keep a list of words that I might want to talk about here someday, it isn’t prioritized or scheduled in any way. What I write in any given week is what is foremost on my mind, what is resonating with me in an especially meaningful way at the time.

Right now, trust occupies that place. I’m facing some uncertainties, and it is hard to keep anxiety at bay. A few dear friends are walking through this time with me, reminding me to breathe, encouraging me to trust in the One who holds us all in his hands.

I need to remember – at times like this, at all times – that although I often feel instinctively whether I can trust a person I’ve just met, trust is not just an instinct, not a feeling.

Trust is based upon knowledge of the character of the One upon whom I rely: it is an intellectual assent, based upon evidence and experience, to his integrity, strength, and ability to do what is good and right – what is best – for me. Regardless of how I feel, I can entrust my health, my safety, my fears, my dreams, my future into his protection in confidence that He will lovingly care for me.

Tuesday’s Word: blessing

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God’s favor and protection

the acts or words of one who blesses

something promoting or contributing to happiness,
well-being, or prosperity; a boon

approbation, approval, encouragement

sanction or support

special favor, mercy, or benefit

The definitions of a blessing cover a broad range, but it seems to me that whichever way you look at it, a blessing is a gift outright. It comes from somewhere outside ourselves, beyond our reach to grasp. We can’t buy it with money or earn it with merit. We can only receive it open-heartedly, accepting it as pure grace.

Yet in the remarkable economy of God, we are somehow empowered to bestow blessings on others. Though we don’t possess the means to manufacture or ensure a boon for ourselves, we are mysteriously enabled to channel favor, mercy, and encouragement to those around us and to contribute to their happiness and well-being.

Tuesday’s Word: ritual

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ritual:  an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite; observance of set forms in public worship

Ritual was anathema in the church of my childhood. I can’t recall ever having been instructed as to why it was wrong, but I came to the conclusion that it had something to do with substituting mechanical actions for real true belief; that following any formal ritual was a sort of religion-by-rote for those who had not prayed through to a genuine ecstatic experience of the living God. At the very least, conforming to ritual would surely be limiting, confining, Spirit-quenching.

Please understand that I am not discounting the sincerity of the exuberant saints among whom I grew up; many of them did indeed demonstrate faith that would move mountains and abiding joy in the face of great hardship.

For me, though, the anything-goes-as-long-as-you’re-enthusiastic style of church meeting was detrimental, to say the least. I – the preacher’s oldest kid, no less! – was expected to beam with the barely-veiled glory of God’s wonder-working hand on my life at all times. Good Christian girls didn’t let the devil steal their shine!

My choice: deceit (or at best exaggeration) followed by guilt, or honesty resulting in condemnation.

As I grow older and continue to work through many layers of deep-seated depression, I am learning that ritual, at its heart, is neither robotic nor repressive; it is, in fact, a healing balm for my soul, a means of saving grace. It is a great comfort to lean into time-honored practices when I have no strength to forge a new path, to repeat well-worn words when I can’t manage coherent composition, to relax into the kinship of common custom.

 …ritual and symbol are as necessary to human beings as air and water. They mark us as human and give us identity…Rituals bind a community together, and also bind individuals to a community. ~ Kathleen Norris

Tuesday’s Word: mundane

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Many of you will be aware of the story of Kara Tippetts, a remarkable woman who shared her journey through breast cancer in the light of faith. Christianity Today  recently featured an article remembering Kara and her ‘mundane faithfulness’ (the title of her blog). In response, a friend of mine wondered, “Is faithfulness ever mundane?”

mundane:  lacking interest or excitement; dull

I get what she was saying. The workaday meaning, the definition that comes up at the top of the list when you Google the word, indicates that mundane is synonymous with boring, tedious, and wearisome. We view the mundane tasks of our days with distaste, either rushing through them first thing in the morning to get them out of the way or putting them off as long as possible so as not to waste the best part of the day on them. To label faithfulness as mundane will suggest to some people that it is lackluster, uneventful, not worthy of the time and effort required to practice it.

But wait. There’s more.

Some other listed synonyms of mundane are unvarying, repetitive, routine. It still doesn’t sound particularly exhilarating, but do you see what I see? These words are uncannily descriptive of faithfulness!

There’s another definition, too – one that is much more closely tied to the Latin origin of the word.

mundane:  of, relating to, or characteristic of the world
(as contrasted with heaven)

In this light, what could faithfulness be except mundane? Here, in the world we live in, the world of which we’re made – this is where we must practice the repetitive acts of prayer and care and intention and devotion which constitute the daily living out of our faith.

Tuesday’s Word: mystery

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mystery:  something kept secret or remaining unexplained; something not understood or beyond understanding

 

Baby Girl the Second likes ‘mystery’ stories these days, which leads me to musing about the disparity between the common usage and the true meaning of the word. Of course, the problems presented to the small town backyard detectives whose adventures she follows are never for a minute intended to remain unexplained and invariably prove to be quite understandable to one who reads the clues carefully. No mystery will remain unsolved for more than five pages or a 24-minute television slot, not with Tyrone and Uniqua or Encyclopedia Brown and Sally on the case. In a few years, she’ll discover that Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple are equally reliable in their somewhat lengthier settings.

I have nothing against a good whodunit, although I do wish the genre would be categorically renamed ‘detective’ literature. The problem I see is that we have reduced the – well, mystery of mystery, to the point of excluding any eventuality that remains beyond human understanding. We really believe that if we are observant and resourceful and analytical enough, we can solve any conundrum. When we do run up against something that we absolutely can’t explain, we tend to shrug our shoulders, say “It’s a mystery to me,” and turn and walk away, dismissing anything we can’t define and diagram neatly as not worthy of our attention.

During this Holy Week, this time of remembrance and meditation, I am conscious of both a desperate hunger for and a deep rest in a Presence far beyond my comprehending. God grant me the grace to open myself to the mystery of Christ:  Christ in us, Christ in me, in you, the hope of glory.

 

 

Tuesday’s Word: truth

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 truth:  the state of being the case; the property of being in accord with fact or reality

fact:  something that has actual existence; a piece of information presented as having objective reality

 

What is truth?

The question has been under examination of late in a small group of which I am part, and this past week I ventured to comment that truth and facts are not necessarily the same – only to find that I was ill-prepared to articulate to someone of a more analytical bent than myself precisely what I meant.

So here I am, taking another go at it.

Facts are concrete things. They can be tied to a place on the map, or a date on the calendar, or a documented event.

Facts are also fluid, though. They can change over time. They are dependent upon certain conditions. They can be acted upon by outside forces which may alter them.

For example: as a matter of fact, I have long, dark brown hair. Except in certain lighting, where it’s auburn. Except for the streaks that are silver. Except in old photographs of a younger me, where it’s short. And in even older photographs of a much younger me, where it’s blonde.

Truth is incorporeal. It cannot be anchored down in the same way that a fact can. It is eternal – it does not evolve or erode, despite the passage of aeons. It is consistent, regardless of conditions. It remains the same in light and darkness, heat and cold, stillness and storm.

Tuesday’s Word: icon

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icon:   a painting of Jesus Christ or another holy figure, typically in a traditional style on wood, venerated and used as an aid to devotion; or

a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something

Icons are a fairly new concept to me. If they were mentioned at all in the anti-liturgical faith tradition in which I was raised, they were cast in a negative light. My working definition of the word prior to this present decade, had I thought about it, might have been “a thing made to represent God – maybe not quite synonymous with ‘idol,’ but dangerously, wickedly close.”

It was one of my favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle, who piqued my interest in  liturgy and ritual and orthodoxy and iconography a few years ago, first through her fiction, most notably An Acceptable Time, and later in her excellent study of icons and idols, Penguins and Golden Calves, in which she says, “An icon is something I can look through and get a wider glimpse of God…saying something that cannot be said in words…It transcends our experience and points us to something larger and greater and more wonderful.”

The understanding of an icon as something that affords me a ‘wider glimpse of God’ is predominant in my awareness now in the early days of Lent.

Tuesday’s Word: intimate

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intimate (adjective):

characterized by close personal acquaintance or familiarity
belonging to or characterizing one’s deepest nature
intrinsic, essential; innermost
marked by warm friendship developing through long association
suggesting informal warmth or privacy
of a very personal or private nature
of or involved in a sexual relationship

 It’s yet another word that has been eroded by popular usage until all that it suggests to many people’s minds is a mere shade of its full meaning. In three of the dictionaries I consulted, a sexual connotation appears at or near the end of the list of definitions offered; in the fourth, not at all. Yet sadly, those of us who are blessed to have experienced the true intimacy of deep friendship and/or consecrated marriage must now be cautious in our use of the word, for fear of being misunderstood.

I find it pathetically ironic that what is glamorously marketed as ‘intimacy’ in our society pointedly disregards or even disdains the very qualities – personal closeness; consideration of one another’s essential selfhood; warm, time-proven friendship – that so many lonely souls are so desperately seeking.

 

 

Tuesday’s Word: remember

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remember (v): to bring to mind or think of again; to retain in the memory

“Remembering is hard,” Pastor Preston said in his sermon a few weeks ago. It’s a truth borne out not only by the anecdotes of his own forgetfulness; most of us have at least occasional lapses of memory, brought to our attention by the officer who tickets us for our expired auto registration, or the friend who calls to say she’s been waiting fifteen minutes already at the meeting place we agreed on last Friday. We remember, right after the smoke alarm goes off, that the cookies need to come out of the oven; we’re jolted from near sleep when we realize, as we check off the accomplishments of the day, that we forgot to send our mother-in-law a birthday card.

Ann Voskamp, in One Thousand Gifts, muses that ‘remembering is an act of thanksgiving, a way of thanksgiving, this turn of the heart over time’s shoulder to see all the long way His arms have carried us.’ This is the kind of remembering Preston wanted to direct us toward that Sunday before Thanksgiving; the practice of being mindful, of remembering how many things we forget to say ‘thank you’ for throughout the year, throughout our lives. It is good to be exhorted to recall with gratitude the many blessings we so often fail to count.

But for many people, remembering is hard in a different way, more pronouncedly during the holidays than at other times of year. The problem for them is not that they don’t remember – it’s that they do, in stark, vivid detail. In their minds, images of happy families gathering on the television screen are overwritten with mental home movies of domestic dysfunction; displays of abundance are reminders of lack; cheery music is drowned out by the roar of hurtful words whose echoes never fade.

I’ve spent more than one Christmas season in the depths of depression myself; yet, even with my experience there, I can’t give an authoritative answer to the question of how to help someone for whom this time of year is tough. One size doesn’t fit all.

Going out with friends may be uplifting for one person, while it’s just too much effort for another. ‘Retail therapy’ might feel like a trip directly through Hell for some. Being welcomed to a boisterous Christmas party could revitalize others. The bright, jingly songs that make one feel better may make another want to scream.

Practical assistance is valuable in some cases. Taking someone’s car to get the oil changed could shorten his impossible to-do list enough to give him a little breathing space. An overwhelmed mother might be more grateful than you can imagine if you would take her kids to see Santa along with yours.

Emotional support is sometimes more important. Talking through old hurts with a sympathetic listener is often a necessary step toward healing, as is feeling safe enough with someone to share secret fears and hidden shame. An answering voice on the phone at 2:00 a.m. can be a very real lifeline.

In the end, I think it all comes down to presence. It can probably never be said enough times: the assurance that you are not alone somehow makes just about anything more bearable. If you know someone who is struggling this season, making yourself available – really, truly, physically and emotionally available – to them, in whatever capacity they need, may well be the gift that gets them through.

Tuesday’s Word: vocation

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vocation:  an inclination, as if in response to a summons, to a particular
state or course of action; a function or station in life to which one is
called by God.

Two of my friends got married (to each other) last October.  They are both Californian immigrants to Texas, and I had not had the opportunity to meet most of their family members before.  The reception was a well-attended, joyful, and, shall I say, not-quiet affair.  I sat more or less invisibly in a reasonably comfortable out-of-the-way corner and made small talk with one of the bride’s connections who was sitting nearby for most of the evening.

Then the groom came over and took me to meet his sister.  It was, for me, the most remarkable encounter of the event.  Nancy shook my hand firmly, looked me straight in the eye, and asked me not what I do for a living, nor even whether I work outside the home, but “What is your vocation?”

That question revealed more about her than anything she told me about herself.  It demonstrated an understanding that a job is just something you do, but vocation is the essence of who you are.  It indicated an interest in my real self, not just my resume’.  And most importantly, I think, it articulated a conviction (which I hold firmly myself) that everyone – not just those with degrees or titles or recognized names or even paychecks – does have a purpose on this earth, a calling, a vocation.