Posted on by Lois Stephens

Table of Trust

The LORD speaks, “I prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies”.  So, I pull out a chair and take a seat at the table.  I mean, what else can I do?  And I eat.

* * * * * * *

In 1888, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “Out of life’s school of war—what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”  This aphorism has been quoted, paraphrased, and parodied by people throughout the world since.

Yet 2,000 years before, a young shepherd boy and giant killer, who will later become King of Israel, said it this way: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”, delivered as a poetic praise to G-d.

The symbolic table of trust—an inexpressible mystery that transcends my limited understanding. My enemies become bread at the table of trust. I eat the mystery, no matter how difficult to swallow. And I am stronger because of it.

Love & Peace,

Author’s note: When I refer to “enemies” I am not referring to people, but the enemies of my soul. I understand all too well, that at times, my greatest enemy is myself.


“We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us.”

Walt Kelly

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Holding Hands With Strangers

Driving along the rim of wild, navigating a backcountry road in Maine, I embrace the solitary.  Content in the fellow-less firmament, holding hands with nature, I enjoy an awareness of simply being.  Until …

A stranger walking the road ahead.  Who is she?  Why is she here?  And the biggest question of all … do I stop to ask if she needs help?  Fear would say no, but a greater faith speaks. 

“Hello there. Are you okay? Would you like a ride?”

“A ride would be much appreciated.“

By the rim of the wild, I could not turn away from the tears in her eyes, so I left my fellow-less firmament to hold hands with a stranger that day.

“What’s your name?” (it seems the right thing to ask).

“Amy”, she replies (a name I know means beloved and dearly loved).

She tells me her story:  a broken-down vehicle, miles to hike to her wilderness camp, eight passerby and not one willing to stop.  A sad lament of rejection, loneliness and fallen faith in her fellow man; I cringe. 

I silently entreat the light of God’s love to shine upon The Beloved’s discouraged heart, as we drive the distance to her rustic camp and deliver her safely at tent’s door.

Days later, in a serendipitous moment, we meet once again at the local town store. 

“It’s you!  I was just telling my family about the kindness you showed me.”

Amy the Beloved’s face shines with renewed faith and hope in her fellow man because of one small act of kindness.

Something happened that day in the wild, when I did not turn from the tears of another but made the decision to hold hands with a stranger. 

Could it be that holding hands with nature, in the wrap-around presence of the loving Creator God, brings an awareness of a deeper spiritual connection we have with all of God’s creation? An awareness that empowers me to hold hands with strangers?

Holding hands with strangers is rarely comfortable, especially for an introvert like me. Yet I have to believe that the reward for doing so is exceedingly great.

Love & Peace,

I think we need to do some deep soul searching about what’s important in our lives and renew our spirit and our spiritual thinking, whether it’s through faith-based religion or just through loving nature or helping your fellowman.

Louie Schwartzberg

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

The Holy Bible

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The Courage of My Convictions

Some days I pick up The Good Book and it’s a surgeon’s knife. 

The story begins with Daniel, a young nobleman taken by force into captivity in Babylon, sometime around the year 600 BC.

Daniel, serendipitously chosen to be trained in service to the King, is assigned a daily amount of food and wine from the King’s table. However, Daniel resolves not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, considered ceremonially unclean according to his faith. And even though refusing the King would likely cost him his life, Daniel stands firm in the courage of his convictions.

I lay down The Book. The two-edged knife-words cut deep… “the courage of his convictions”.   

The probe digs deeper still: when have I demonstrated the courage of my convictions?  The confidence to do what I believe is right, even though other people may not agree or approve? 

I tend to capitulate far too often in order to keep peace (many times sacrificing my own inner peace in the doing).  Yet I have stood firm a time or two in demonstrations of the courage of my convictions, albeit with shaking knees.

“My mother always taught us that if people don’t agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them.  But if you’ve listened to them carefully and you still think that you’re right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.”

Jane Goodall

For me, those demonstrations of the courage of my convictions have resulted in my greatest life lessons.  Yet I suspect, albeit with shaking knees, that more opportunities await just around the corner. 

So I pray that I might first listen well. And then, if need be, I pray for the courage of my convictions.

Love & Peace,

“But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.” 2 Timothy 1:7

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Flexible Boundaries

A new box of crayons—the smell, the colors—pure joy.  Each one perfectly wrapped and marked with glorious names like forest green, aquamarine and azure blue.  With coloring books spread out in front of me, I sigh.  Yes, a perfect sigh of contentment and bliss.  It doesn’t get any better than this, UNTIL …

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her.  Sister number 1.  The perfect one who can do no wrong.  I can’t help myself; I have to look.  Her picture doesn’t look like mine.  I avert my eyes but like a bad train wreck, I can’t help but take a look back.  I sigh.  Not the earlier sigh of contentment and bliss … for my 5-year old ego was deflating fast.

Her coloring page—magnificent beyond compare.  Every color selected with care, complementary hues harmonizing throughout. But here’s the thing that really stood out:  She outlined every color with a solid black line in a way that made her picture look, well … like beautiful stained glass.  Sigh.  (Do I hear the angels sing?)

So, what can I do but try it, too?  I dig deep for the lonely black crayon (unused and still perfectly sharpened) and carefully, I trace a solid black line around every color on the page.  After way too long, I sit back on my knees to admire my “stained glass”. And, sigh. No contentment–no bliss; and definitely no angels to be heard.

******

Give me flexible boundaries—no hard, black-lines for me, please.  Joy, freedom and creativity flow best when I’m free from the opinions of men.  It’s not easy—especially as a person of faith (everyone has an opinion when it comes to religion).  But I choose not to hide behind a stained-glass life when it comes to living my faith.   

“Come now, and let us reason together”, says the LORD to me (as good and as bad as the next).  And we talk together outside of man’s stained-glass (so easily shattered by stones).  You see, it’s easy to manage sinful behavior safely hidden behind religion’s confines.  But what if instead we learn to manage our freedom outside of those safe black lines?

Love & Peace,

“Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Isaiah 1:18

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No Regrets

Eyes wide open.  A rude, unnatural awakening.  A bad fall, not out of sleep but into wakefulness. 

Mind racing desperately to grab hold of the finely-woven dream threads now quickly unraveling.  Please God, help me remember. 

A thin thread of a man’s voice reading a book, a really good book, a best-seller-kind of book.  A familiar voice, one similar to the voice of my own thoughts, yet not my thoughts, now gone.  Completely forgotten.

I remember only one thing … I am the protagonist of the forgotten book.

**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****

Later, as I ponder this nighttime parable, I’m reminded of Lucy in the Chronicles of Narnia.  Lucy reads a magic book and soon discovers that the right-hand pages, could be turned; the left-hand pages could not.  As much as Lucy tried, she could not remember all the wonderful things she had read, and she could not turn back the pages of the book to read it again.

When Aslan, the great Lion King of Narnia and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea appears, Lucy asks him,

“Shall I ever be able to read that story again; the one I couldn’t remember?  Will you tell it to me, Aslan?  Oh do, do, do,”

“Indeed, yes, I will tell it to you for years and years.”

Like Aslan, the great Lion King (the God-character in the storybook), there is One Above (or should I rather say within) who is the author of my life book.  One who has been telling me my story for years and years. 

As long as I have breath, I live page by page, unable to go back for there is no use in that.  I’m speaking of the regrets, the whys and the what-ifs.  For as Aslan explains, no one is ever told what would have happened.

So, I’m learning to live a life of no regrets. It takes trust, it takes faith, it takes loving myself. And that kind of love comes only from the Author of my book, who will be telling it to me for years and years.

I may never know what a different ending holds, and even if I did, it may not be what I expect, which is why it’s best I get rid of all regret.

Lois Stephens

Love & Peace,

“… looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, …”. Hebrews 12:2

Posted on by Lois Stephens

What do I do now?


Having recently hiked in the North Woods of Maine, I’ve come to an important realization.  Life often leads me just a few steps beyond my own mental reservations and self-imposed limitations.  So the question now remains… what do I do with this illuminating information?


I guess I’ll just jump. Take the proverbial leap of faith. What do I have to lose, really? Except my attitude, my opinion, my plans, my reputation, my ego … all in exchange for the discovery of TRUE LIFE.

“For if you choose self-sacrifice and lose your lives for my glory,
you will continually discover true life.
But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves,
you will forfeit what you try to keep.”
~Jesus Christ

Posted on by Lois Stephens

The Mystic Embraces The Poet

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“She writes like a poet with the heart of a mystic”, states one well-known author of another.  The words tug at my heartstrings–those melodious tendons said to brace the heart.  I brace myself, and I imagine …

If only those words were said of me,

My heart would sing an unchained melody!

With unbroken rhythms of truth & grace,

I’d find myself in my happy place!

 Just kidding.  Not really.  LOL.

Searching for my singing heart’s motive, I ask the question, “What is a mystic anyway?”

I read the definition: “One who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.”

For me, that definition is … close but no cigar.  Yes, I know, a rather every-day idiom to employ by a wannabe mystic such as myself, but please, allow me to explain!

The expression, “Close but no cigar” originates from the practice of fairground booths handing out cigars as prizes.  The phrase would be said to those who gave it a good try, but did not win the prize.

My faith is based on the radical belief that the Word behind all words in scripture has been made flesh.  That flesh, a man named Jesus, is Truth.  He’s the prize I get to spiritually apprehend; the full manifestation of All Truth that extends far beyond “my truths”—my human reasoning and intellect—and leads me into the higher realm of All Truth.

So I’m running my race for the prize—the prize of apprehending greater dimensions, not of truths, but of the Truth.  In the taking, the mystic embraces the poet within and something of value, something of worth, something life-giving appears.

In the taking, I center not on what is true about me, but what is Truth about me.  I choose the Way of Truth that brings Life, and I win every time.

~

Writing for me becomes a dialogue with the Spirit of God.  My heart’s response to scriptures whispering through my spirit.  This dialogue flows from John 14:6, “Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth and the life …”  May the dialogue continue in you… Love & Peace.

 

Posted on by Lois Stephens · 6 Comments

Mizrach: The Place of the Rising Sun

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“Where sky and water meet, Where the waves grow sweet, Doubt not, Reepicheep, To find all you seek, There is the utter East.” ― C.S. Lewis

Mizrach – a Hebrew word for east.  It literally means the place of the rising sun.  I have no doubt that my eternal heart compass orients to the east—the place of the rising sun.  How about yours?

Up before dawn, we dress in silence and head for the Explorer.  We make our way up the winding Summit Road, to the top of Cadillac Mountain—the first place to view sunrise in the United States.

A rock invites me to have a seat (yes, rocks do speak, … well, sort of).  So I do, and I wait, with eyes wide-open to sky’s still-dark border at the waters of Frenchman Bay.

Earlier in the week, a friend gives me a gift—a Hebrew tallit, named P’nai by the artisans who designed it.  (I am told that the Hebrew word P’nai translates to “the blue points of light” in English.)  I lay the tallit across my lap—heart engaged in prayerful meditation, in unison with the heavens above.  I am lost in translation—drifting among the morning stars singing in chorus.

In a twinkling, I’m back, just in time to catch sight of the most magnificent fiery-red orb emerging.  The tallit upon my lap literally absorbs the chaste white rays and mysteriously glows with the radiance of the sun.

And then, something extraordinary … with sky perfectly clear, and no clouds in sight, a rainbow appears behind me.

Reflected light before me; refracted light behind.  I am surrounded in a prism of light:  wrapped in Creation’s very own tallit … in Mizrach, the place of the rising sun.

One more mountaintop experience to add to my life journal.  An experience not meant to teach but to transform.

Love & Peace,

” …The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”  Psalm 19:21

*The photo was taken by my husband, as I was otherwise engaged drifting among the stars and gazing into mysterious glows.  He also caught the rainbow behind me, otherwise I would have missed it completely.  Thank you, dear husband.  You know me so well. 

Posted on by Lois Stephens · 3 Comments

Just because I’m unique, doesn’t mean I’m different

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i am uniquely made, a one-of-a kind design
yet i choose not to believe that i’m different;
the moment i believe i’m different from my brother
i begin separating myself from the world that God loves;
and no one can be a relevant voice in this world
without community & love for one another.

“So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.” Geneses 1:27

Posted on by Lois Stephens · 1 Comment

egomaniacal abyss

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“How can it be, not all about me!”
”How can it be, not all about me!”
Over and over and over again,
I hear the vain cry of humanity…

Then suddenly, in the midst
Of this egomaniacal abyss
The sound of Christ’s heart of humility…
“Oh, how can it be, not all about me”?

And I am undone.