Wherein I am sarcastic to God and God is good to me

An image of the cover of The Giant Slayer by N A Hart with a quote superimposed on top. How long would it take? A few days? Until the new moon? Could Adonai keep him in suspense for a whole season?

January 16, 2023February 3, 2023 ~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

One of my favorite moments in The Giant Slayer is when young David, having just been anointed by Samuel, who won’t tell him why, wonders,

How long would it take? A few days? Until the new moon? Could Adonai keep him in suspense for a whole season?

It’s adorable. His disbelief that God might make him wait a whole season.

Of course, it’s not nearly so cute when God is making me wait.

Back in November 2021 I was at a retreat at The Transforming Center. It was a gift to the staff and church leaders from my boss and pastor who was about to retire. And it truly was a gift. After a year and a half of doing ministry during COVID, I needed a retreat. They actually gave us time to listen to what God might be trying to say to us–like, hours, not just a token 10 minutes before a session.

One of the best things I did there was grieve: grieve what COVID stole from me, from all of us, grieve the upcoming loss of my pastor. I needed a good cry and I got it. The retreat gave me the space and time to get out of management mode so I could recognize what emotions I needed to process, and then begin to process them.

But then I sensed that God was promising me rest–not just rest for that day, but capital-R Rest. My response,

That’s adorable.

Other than those few days, I would get no chance for rest in the near future. In fact, I knew that the near future would be busier than ever. What a hilarious thing for God to promise me.

With the pastor retiring and me on the celebration committee, I’d be going full steam ahead on all the party plans as soon as we got back, and that was on top of my normal 5 part-time jobs. And then once he retired, I’d be on the transition team tasked with searching for and calling a new pastor. And the children were finally coming indoors for ministry so there was extra COVID-planning and -proofing to do. And the middle school youth group was finally going to start up. That was just what I knew. I didn’t anticipate that fewer people would return to church and that even fewer would want to come back to volunteering so finding people to do ministry things would become even more torturous. Or that the worship director and associate worship director would leave the church. That more and more and more responsibility would fall into my hands.

Jim Gaffigan tells a great joke about what it’s like having 5 children: “Imagine you’re drowning. And then someone hands you a baby.” Here’s a church-staff-coming-out-of-COVID version:

Imagine you’re doing everything normal plus extra to try to connect everyone virtually and hold the church together. And then some people come back and are so excited for what you were doing and so glad to be there, but you wind up with more to do and nothing taken away. And the thing is that you love these people. They are your church family. You know they’ve had an exhausting pandemic, too, so you don’t want to burden them or ask too much of them. So you shoulder it yourself.

I began to see that a new job could be part of God’s promised rest. The end of July 2022 I traded one part-time job for a full-time job with benefits. The end of December I left my church, my denomination, and two more of my part-time jobs (the stress of which brought me 10 additional pounds and three vertigo attacks in 6 weeks). I’ll free myself of one more tiny job by the spring, and I’ll keep one that is faith and justice related and only a couple of hours a month.

It took 14 months since God promised me Rest for me to reach the conditions that would make it possible. I am so grateful.

But here’s the thing I’ve realized: I’ve been running on adrenaline, in emergency survival mode, since the three police officers walked up my porch steps to arrest my now-ex-husband for a sex crime. Over 7 years ago. That’s why I managed COVID so well — I was already in a state of emergency, so I could just fold that in.

I know how to escape, chill out, have fun. But capital-R Rest? No idea. I had a tiny taste of it last week on Tuesday evening and I cried.

How long until I re-learn Rest? How long until I step out of the high-alert pathways? Until I no longer constantly clench my jaw, my stomach, my glutes, my legs? Until my left eyelid stops twitching? My heart stops randomly beating hard?

A few days? A month? A whole season?

That’s adorable. I think it’s going to take a long time.

‘S wonderful, ‘S marvelous

February 15, 2019February 15, 2019 ~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

A section of prairie grasses and big sky at Corkscrew Swamp in the Everglades.

Last week I did something wonderful and marvelous: at the tail-end of a polar vortex and in the middle of an ice storm, I went to Florida. It was the first time in my adult life that I’d gone somewhere warm during the winter–a glorious cliche–and I made the most of it.

Since I work four jobs, one of which takes place on Sunday mornings, I rarely have an entire day off, and I have to plan in advance for any weekends off. I hadn’t missed a Sunday since Labor Day weekend, and I was capital-t Tired. More than that, I was teetering on the edge of Burned Out. Even so, it was hard to commit to taking five whole days away. But I needed it.

Proof of how badly I needed it: I swore at my gentlest child when he objected to how I was driving when we were late to the airport. I’d never sworn at anyone like that before, and I never will again. It upset me to the very core of my being and dramatically showed me how I need to build in more time for rest and spiritual renewal so I can better manage stressors.

Once he granted me forgiveness (and thought it was funny how upset I was), I could bask in the sunshine and settle into all the new things I got to see and learn in Naples.

Like how prehistoric pelicans look. They are so pterodactylish.

A pelican with ruffled wing feathers, standing on a pier (photo by Richard Mulligan).

Ever cooler: a group of pelicans is called a squadron.

The local squadron at rest (photo by Richard).

That’s exactly what they looked like! I didn’t manage to get a photo of it, but I watched them fly low over the beach in a tight V, their big bodies, huge wingspans, and long beaks making them more imposing than other birds that fly in the same formation. And there’s just something about that folded-up neck when they fly that makes them look more aggressive. A squadron. Perfect.

Speaking of cool birds: the anhinga swims underwater to find food, poking its head up now and then to breathe. My boyfriend, his niece, and I spent several minutes at the Corkscrew Swamp watching one in a pond thick with water lettuce, squealing every time we spotted it coming up for air. Okay, maybe it was just me making the high-pitched noises, but I am not ashamed of how enthusiastic I get about things like this.

A tiny black head and neck of an anhinga poking through a thick matt of swamp lettuce.

But the anhinga has no protective oils on its feathers so it needs to dry off after it dives. Happily, this drying off is done by lengthy posing for photos.

An anhinga on a branch with its wings spread out, drying itself off.

I know, I know. The bird is a wild animal and not puposefully posing for photos, but it sure seemed that way: of all the places to sit and ways to face, it chose to face people and their cameras in a tree less than 10 feet from the boardwalk.

Of course, this being Florida, right near the bird was an alligator. According to the sign, this was a smiling alligator, but we saw no evidence of said grin.

The back of an alligator is just visible to the left of the tree where the anhinga dries itself.

Besides learning new things and seeing all kinds of wildlife (black rat snake, water moccasin, otters, limpkin, pileated woodpecker, egrets, little blue heron, racoons, lizards), we took time for whimsy. We watched two little lizards, a brown one and a green anole, and made up stories about why the green one was dancing around so much while the brown one stayed so still; we were unprepared for when the brown one pounced, but luckily the anole was, and skittered away safe and sound.

Not the green anole we told stories about.

And look at these lovely ladies in the swamp. They reminded me of debutantes in their cinched-waist dresses, so I call it the Cypress Swamp Cotillion. The tree in the foreground on the left wins poofiest skirt. At least two of those trees near the center don’t like each other at all and are gossiping about each other to the other trees. And the one in the right foreground is holding herself so straight and tall despite her low level of pouf, going for dignity instead of fashionableness, but winding up by herself. So much drama.

Nature and learning and whimsy restore my soul, but so does doing nothing. I made sure I got that in, too.

And image of a man and a woman's crossed bare feet on the beach at sunset.

I highly recommend the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary if you are in the Everglades. It’s a three-or-so mile walk, all on a boardwalk, with ample opportunities for rest, and some great viewing platforms.

I also highly recommend not waiting until you are hovering on burn-out to take a serious rest. For heaven’s sake, I’ve written about the need for people in ministry to take rest seriously, both in terms of Sabbath and vacations, but I stopped being intentional about it. Which was a mistake.

So in January I joined a gym. I February I went to Florida. What cliche thing should I do in March?

In suspense and incomplete

May 24, 2016 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 9 Comments

Only God can say what this new spirit gradually forming in you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The prayer above — that starts, “Trust the slow work of God” — has always just slayed me. There has never been a time when it didn’t speak to me about the deep things I was going through.

I have a printout of the whole thing tucked in my prayer journal, so I often return to it … when I’m using my prayer journal. But since my marriage imploded, I haven’t been writing my prayers. I’ve been praying. Oh, yes, I’ve been praying. But I let that longtime spiritual practice go. In its place, I’ve been resting.

Starting last summer, references to resting in God have come to me in waves. I did a silly post about it (Apathetic Prayer), but then they kept coming, which I experience as God trying to tell me something. So I’ve payed attention.

It’s not easy to come to God without an agenda, whether that’s a long list of prayer requests or the need for spiritual insight and practical assistance, but the truth I believe is that God loves me without any striving necessary on my part. It’s easy to get hung up on the striving, to get all into checking things off lists and feeling like I’m doing all I can to move forward, whether that’s practically or spiritually.

But for this time, God clearly wants me to rest in Him.

I’ve had some powerful experiences in prayer in the last six months. The 90-minute Garden Prayer on Maundy Thursday at The Revolution. And the contemplative prayer time at the Renew and Refine mini-retreat before the Festival of Faith and Writing. There have also been plenty of walks in the Calvin Nature Preserve when I let myself feel God’s pleasure. Plenty of times I’d breathe slowly in and out and ask God to be with me. Any word/impression I’ve received during those times has fallen into two categories: “You are my beloved,” and “Rest in me.”

So instead of berating myself for letting the practice of writing my prayers slide, I’m seeing this time as learning to experience the love of God independently from anything I may try to do to “earn” it or “deserve” it. Because God loves me. End of sentence.

It’s my way of trusting the slow work of God, and of “accept[ing] the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.” Because anxious and incomplete and impatient and suspended between old and new is definitely how I’m feeling. I’m trusting that a new spirit is gradually forming in me.

***

In case you need it, too, here’s the full prayer:

Above all, trust the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally,
impatient in everything to reach the end
without delay.
We should like to skip
the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on
the way to something unknown,
something new,
and yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability–
and it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually–
let them grow,
let them shape themselves,
without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today
what time (that is to say, grace and
circumstances acting
on your own good will)
will make them tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of
feeling yourself in suspense
and incomplete.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.

Our first job was to rest

December 22, 2015January 11, 2016 ~ Natalie Hart ~ Leave a comment

Siesta Now In Progress, by quicksandala, from morguefile.com

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them…. And evening passed, and morning came, marking the sixth day. So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day God had completed his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. (Genesis 1:27, 31, 2:1-2)

Whether we believe in a literal seven 24-hour days of creation or not, we can agree that the story of the Creation tells us important things about ourselves and about God. Typically, these verses are an argument for us to take a day of rest after we’ve completed our work.

But here’s the thing: we are not God.

God is God and we are part of the Creation.

God worked for six days and then rested. We were created, and then our first day was a blessed day of rest. Humanity’s first task was to enjoy this new creation. To explore. Perhaps to stroll with the Lord in the Garden. To commune with our Creator. Our first experience was of community, of people together who are together with God.

Our first job was to rest.

He lets me rest in green meadows;
he leads me beside peaceful streams.
He renews my strength. (Psalm 23:2-3)

God repeatedly promises rest (and its good friend, peace).

The Lord replied, “I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest… (Exodus 33:14)

Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” (Mark 6:31)

You will live in joy and peace.
The mountains and hills will burst into song,
and the trees of the field will clap their hands! (Isaiah 55:12)

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

So let’s put a pause on all our striving and rest, enjoy, commune, connect — with each other, and with the Lord. Rest was, after all, our first job.

The Parable of the Black Sand

September 8, 2015September 8, 2015 ~ Natalie Hart ~ 4 Comments

The waves come. There will always be waves.

Sometimes the waves bring lovely gifts.

Sometimes the waves are large, and pounding, and they carve away at what’s there, revealing the layers that were underneath the surface.

They reveal the black sand.

The black sand has its own beauty, but it also clings thickly, clumping in a heavy mass on my feet as I walk through it.

I can’t avoid it. Sure, I could try to hike up the ledge, but even if I managed it, I’d have to walk in the sharp dune grass that is full of ticks. I could fight the waves, but I’m not dressed for getting soaked.

So I walk through the black sand (revealing the regular sand with every step).

Here’s the thing about the waves: they exposed the black sand, but they also wash my feet clean.

And the regular sand is right in front of me. Yes, it’s gritty. Yes, there are bits of black sand mixed in. But it is the sand I love to walk in, to play in. Dare I say, it gives my soul, and my soles, rest.

The waves will come. Sometimes they will reveal darkness, and I will have to walk through it. But, even so, with every step, the light is revealed, and I trust that I will walk in the light again.