"how can the Christ come from galilee?"

dear emily,

when did you last have your theology messed up?  you know, when it feels like
someone has roughed up your hair and smudged around your makeup, only it's
your heart?   can you imagine how the jewish people must have felt when Jesus
said, "if anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink."  what?  were they
even allowed to drink that sort of thing?

about like some republicans.   you mean Jesus isn't a conservative?

Jesus isn't confined to any of our shallow classifications, because He
supercedes them.   the huffington report recently featured an article intended
to encourage christendom.   one of the chief points emphasized that we need
to go a little easy on our Jesus talk.   Jesus seems to cause terrible offense
when we raise the subject.

i was huffed that someone would tell me when i can and can't speak the Name
above all other names.   but then, i pondered the matter.   maybe we are
guilty of saying, "Jesus" flippantly.   it is one of the quagmires of the kingdom
that while Jesus is the sweetest name we know, and we have been urged to
call Him 'friend,' He remains the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

who ever was allowed to call any other king by his first name?  "good
morning, henry."

anyway, i thought of some loose Jesus talk boundaries:  baby christians
could limit it to 'please and thank you' until they know Him better.  the rest
of us could use His name sparingly unless in reverence or cases of extreme
need, obsessive devotion, ecstatic gratitude, hopeless affection, hilarious
joy, delightful adoration . . .

love,
lea

painted lady

dear emily,

my precious daughter in law and i were watching crazy utube make-up
tutorials last night.    don't do it!   they are completely addicting, kind of
like bill gothard chalk talks but without the spiritual lesson.

anyway, the next morning i thought i would try to follow the make up guy's
tips.    i was hoping for jennifer aniston, believing for judy dench, but landed
on bozo the clown.   my face was a lovely orange shade of pretend, my eyes
were as dark as the zombies my friend brenda likes, and my mouth was 'nude'
as death.

the moral of the story:  color glows best from hearty souls not painted faces.

love,
lea

ps.   "and Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his
finger . . . if any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw
a stone."  john 8:6,7

the rise and fall of the united states empire

dear emily,

when i flip through the channels and pass by a "housewife" series, i have
conflicting responses.   my first inclination is to speed up, as one crazy lady
with gigantic green manacles will be screaming at a terrifying woman in an
enormous diamond collar.   who would subject herself to watch such horror?  
there is a perfectly good sci-fi channel for that.

on the other hand, it is somewhat intriguing (from a strictly anthopological
stand point) to realize that our curiousity about their inane lives is probably
the final signal of our nation's downfall.   when the apes take over, they will
display these housewives in cages as a lesson of our demise to their young.  

not the tea party.   not obama care.   snarling housewives.

love,
lea

"for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.   live as
children of light."  ephesians 5:8

you may have a heart of gold - but so does a hard-boiled egg

dear emily,

i had the frustrating experience of peeling a dozen eggs this week.  one
stubborn shell kept grabbing chunks of its nutritious 'white', no matter
how carefully i plied.   in agitation, i chucked it down the disposal.  that
was satisfying, until i realized i had just thrown the baby out with the bath
water.

many of my friends had counsel for me.  "pour a little salt in the boiling
water . . . pour some baking soda in the water . . . boil for 5 minutes . . .
boil for 20 minutes . . . let cool water run between the shell and the egg
after boiling . . . only use old eggs."

if i could have run cool water between the shell and the egg, then i could
have removed the darn shell instead!    why would i want to eat an old
egg?   and, how did i get to be such an old egg without knowing how to
peel them??

in many ways i am like those pesky eggs.   i hold onto my shell with such
tenacity that my very skin and muscle seem to peel away with its removal.  
thankfully, the Lord has put patient people around me who, hopefully, will
not throw me down the disposal.

love,
lea

"love is patient, love is kind . . ."  I corinthians 13:1

poetry

dear emily,

this year i became a poetry reader after a lifetime of devouring books.

at first, i considered poems like the vegetables on my plate.    "eat your
vegetables first and get them over with."  i realized that my own words
would be richer if i read the condensed, perfectly chosen bites of great
poets.    i hoped that sweetly written phrases like, "oh good, old brown
earth" (browning) would soak into my dry, crumbly soil.

now, however, i inhale these poems, because they are as addicting as my
daughter's roasted broccoli with garlic, red pepper, and parmesan.    when
i savor a delicately seasoned refrain like, "twilight comes to the little farm,"
(carruth) it nourishes the hunger i didn't even know i had.

i pray that along with eating healthy doses of scripture,  my crusty shell
will become good, old brown earth, yielding its own crop of nourishment. 
of course, a lot of silly crops will grow there, too.    if i eat my vegetables,
i should get my dessert.

love,
lea

"the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field."  matthew 13:44

false advertising

dear emily,

my friend janette reminded me of a story i shared with her about finding the
perfect wedding dress for our daughter.    a frightening ice storm stole our
power six years ago, chasing us south to dallas for a few days.   hans stayed
home to guard and tend to the house, but all five kids left with me.

while there, we decided to do a little wedding dress shopping for the bride
to be.   she is tall, willowy, and beautiful, but no one would describe her as
buxom, a fun word to say.   buxom, buxom, buxom.   sorry.

she would pull back the curtain in a vision of glory, and her sisters would
exclaim, "oh, you look SO gorgeous!" (sigh)   her brothers would say, "umm,
a little frumpy, don't ya think?"   then the sisters would hit the brothers over
the head.

every dress she tried on was more lovely than the last, making the decision
difficult.    one of the dresses was form fitting and fitted at the top with
some kind of padded form.   the groom would have dissolved into foam on
sight.   the sisters (this sounds like a convent) and i,  "oohed and ahhed",
but the brothers . . .

well the younger, rascally brother max said, "wow, that looks awesome, but
don't you think it's false advertising?"

love,
lea

ps. "how beautiful you are, my darling!  oh, how beautiful!" song of songs 1:15

dreams

dear emily,

there is significance to our dreams.   my mother dreamed that she would
someday marry a prince, but i dreamed of becoming the next julie andrews.  
we both married princes, but there is only one julie andrews.

the truth is that i'm not really much of an intentional dreamer.    the dreams
i love are the ones that come to me during the night, the ones over which i
have little control.    i have a theory that when i don't pay attention to what
the Lord is saying during the day, He speaks to me at night.   that is not an
excuse, however, to ignore Him during the day.

"for God does speak - now one way, now another - though man may not
perceive it.  in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on
men as they slumber in their beds . . . " job 33:14,15

i pay close attention to those messages, because i think they're important.
many of them have led me away from a dangerous path and toward an
answered prayer.   some have comforted my heart that worried for a loved
one.   other dreams have simply warned, "don't eat spicy food before bed."
the trick is to decipher one from the other;  giant helpings of the bible help
with that.

recently, i heard that a great author (of course, i can't remember his name)
would write half a chapter before he went to sleep, and many nights he
would dream the next sequence in his story.

it's a great excuse to get to bed early.

love,
lea