Listening

Unedited, unscripted writing on the word “listen.”

Stumped me.

Befuddled me.

This over-preached word… with so many clichés… all true, all good, all noble.

Yes, we should listen more than we speak. We should seek the deeper meaning behind the words we hear. We should stop what we are doing and really listen to our children.

But what can I write about it that hasn’t already been powerfully written?

Except that listening makes us hypocrites.

Okay, only in a slight way… but it struck me that in order to be listened to I must stop listening. That thing which I want… to be deeply heard… can only come when I stop doing it for others.

If even for a moment.

And when I listen… I allow someone else to be heard at the expense of my own being listened to. Or of anyone else being listened to.

What does that mean for us? Should we stop listening and somehow thwart our own desire to be heard?

No… because what a precious gift it is… to be given and to receive, this thing we call listening.

But it can also be a snare… one that silences us when we should speak… and one that can cause us to silence others when it is their turn to be heard.

What an opportunity for putting others before ourselves, sacrificially loving them enough to delay our own gratification to be heard.

What an opportunity to be good coaches and friends in helping others to share the “listening” space as well. To lovingly come alongside and model that a good conversation, where both people are heard, comes with turn-taking and sharing. Yes, those basic Kindergarten lessons come back to haunt us adults, even in the way we use our ears and hearts and minds on behalf of others.

So am I a hypocrite when I speak to be heard? Only if my own longing overpowers my ability to also listen to others.

Am I a hypocrite when I listen to an endless stream of another’s thought, when I also wish to be heard? Maybe not a hypocrite but perhaps a bad friend. Some people genuinely don’t realize when they monopolize a conversation and inhibit the other from their same desire… being heard. Listening to someone without gently coaching them through good conversational practices might be more “comfortable” in the moment, but often dredges up resentment, feelings of avoidance (for future conversations with this person) and allows them to continue living on in ignorance of what makes a good conversationalist.

Listening involves the sacrificial act of putting another person before yourself, another’s desires before your own, and actively loving them with your ears, heart, and mind.

May we strengthen this practice and find it given generously to us as well!

 

 

The Song

What do I write about a song?

That thing which moves my entire life, lifts me from pure carnality to spiritual actuality, freeing me from the constraints of worry, stress, anxiety, fear. Those chains that would tie one to the core of the earth, scrunched and pulled and weighted.

The hardest places for songs to birth, and yet, the most necessary for freeing the captives and healing the diseased.

Song.

Tune and melody and harmony, synchronized in unified voice and strain, a trinity that transcends all that would cage it, loosing the locks of everyone around.

This is song.

More than just music and words and carefully penned notes.

Song is when the depths of spirit and soul collide, quake, and burst into the realm of known, flying on wings of emotion poured, propelled by the breeze of deliverance, shouting its freedom to the world.

Even songs of pain, brokenness, devastation, anger, envy, loss… all a liberated cry from the womb of its author.

A cry that resonates with the brokenness, devastation, anger, envy, loss… the pain of everyone imprisoned… lifting them from their prison and giving voice and melody to what is too hard to say… where words alone are inadequate.

Song lifts us higher and higher, until we lift our eyes and find the eyes of the Composer.

The great Maker and Creator, who sends His song throughout the earth to heal, free, rescue, pull-out, deliver.

The Song that began in eternity, past and future, with our names in the chorus and His purpose in the verse, sung boldly, confidently, powerfully.

The Song that won’t be silenced.

It lifts my head, wraps me in a melodic embrace, makes my cacophony beautiful… somehow.

Bids me come and take up my stand… as musician? As soloist? As choir member? Each has a place in the song of Glory, sung not just with training, ability, or skill… but with passion and hope.

The Song of the Redeemed.

Comfort – 5 Minute Friday

Comfort.

The word floods my mind with a collage of images.

Images and voices.

Voices that swoon and croon and call and plead and promise… and guilt.

My heart quiets and a soft smile settles with images of great reading rooms with large cozy chairs, overlooking the ocean. The sea breeze caresses my face, wisps of hair dance in the ocean’s song, and I am lost in a book, only drawn back to reality by the call of a seagull or the crash of a wave. A contented sigh.

Comfort.

I can doze in the warmth of the sun’s gentle rays and awake to cool in the ever-reaching waves. Laughter and joy and peace wrap around and I’m soon back in the arms of the chair, book in hands, world faded into another.

This is my “happy place.”

But then the guilt… all of the “comfort” foods that promise happiness in the moment, heartache (and bellyache) in the next. Guilt over the millions around the world living (if we can call it that) with little to no food, water… dying of things I take for granted. Guilt over the complaints I give a cold-sore when people say less about their own starvation, decaying body parts, children dying of preventable and treatable diseases. Guilt that my life as a believer in Christ should not be filled with comfort, but of perseverance, tribulation, endless hard work and long-suffering, sacrifice… exhaustion for the Cause. His Cause. Guilt that too much pleasure shouldn’t be for me and how can I even dream such things?

Then a gentle voice speaks:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Matthew 11:28-29

When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

Psalm 94:19

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

 

And truth, though my thoughts are so small in comparison, overwhelm my guilt and fears.

And the comfort comes.

Not through sea breezes or oversized reading chairs or worlds created by authors…

but by that voice.

The voice of Truth that overwhelms all shadows of guilt and fear.

That speaks peace and comfort into everything I can’t understand.

Quiet heart.

Soft smiles.

Contented sigh.

In Broken Places- Book Review

I have the great privilege of reviewing another great work of art by Michèle Phoenix.

In Broken Places was previously published as Shards of Shell by Dog Ear Publishing, but was picked up this year by Tyndale House (to the benefit of all, if I don’t say so myself!)

The back cover of the books gives a snippet of who Michèle is and why she writes what she writes. But just a snippet.

Born in France to an American mother and a Canadian father, Michèle Phoenix is an international writer with multicultural sensitivities. A graduate of Wheaton College, she taught writing, music, and theater at the boarding school for missionaries’ children she attended as a teenager. She currently works for Global Outreach Mission as an advocate for “third culture kids,” helping them transition back to North American culture and educating stateside churches and missions about the special needs of this people group.

The missionaries’ school mentioned here refers to the one in Kandern, where I currently live. My husband teaches grade five at this school, Black Forest Academy, where a portion of the story In Broken Places occurs.

In fact, I teach the Creative Writing class the Michèle once taught.

In Broken Places follows a young women, Shelby, as memories and fear of her troubled childhood come back to trouble her present. Shelby has to decide whether “ashes” can be made beautiful in her own life, or whether to flee from all the things that trigger her trauma. In a moment of courage, Shelby decides to move across the world with her new four year-old daughter in order to start life afresh. She takes a teaching position at a missionary school, Black Forest Academy, in the southern Black Forest of Germany. Here she comes face to face with the ways her past can strengthen her… or forever maim her from enjoying everything good in her life.

This is a story of overcoming deep and painful struggle.

The weighty plot elements are driven by loveable, relatable characters. A number of the characters brought the faces of people I know to mind… the everyday people in my life. This made me realize just how “normal” these characters are… and how their quirks, flaws, strengths… are all part of our general life stories. Or of those we know.

The style of writing is artistic, with a flow that keeps it “real” but also intelligent. The voices are distinct, each with their own bit of humor, which helps to lighten a difficult topic. I love Shelby’s brother, Trey. I’ve always wanted a Trey in my life. Always. But that’s more about me (and perhaps a post for another day, called “Phantom Big Brothers). Regardless, Trey is a sidelines hero and, though Michèle didn’t originally plan him as part of the story, he convinced her of his place, and rightly so.

As you can imagine, I enjoyed this book with great bias. I could picture everything… the theatre practices, the town, the hikes in the woods to nearby castles. When a local village was mentioned, I smiled. When Shelby grappled with transitioning to a new culture (both that of Germany and that of the missionary community), you would’ve caught me nodding my head in agreement, or chuckling at how Shelby’s experience, at times, was such a mirror of my own.

It’s not a fast-paced book (though it is a fairly quick read). It’s not filled with catastrophic possible world-endings or mass destruction of millions (or a handful) of people. The energy that keeps the book moving forward is simply that of a wounded, traumatized person trying to understand life. When twists and turns threaten to rock the carefully controlled stability, fear of re-opened wounds, or propagating and repeating history, and of losing control, take front and center stage. Because you love the characters and care about their journey, you keep reading. Isn’t that why anyone ever keeps reading? Because you care? Well, when you read In Broken Places, you will care a lot about Shelby, Shayla, Trey, Scott, and a handful of others.

Even if you have no connections to Kandern, Germany, or even teaching-as-a-missionary life… this is a great book. If you are someone who has fears, obstacles, a past you don’t want to repeat… this book is for you. You’ll relate deeply with Shelby’s process. You’ll cheer for her… and as I found, in essence, your cheers will be as much for your own journey as hers.

You can purchase the book at Barnes N Noble, Amazon, and a handful of other places which you can find here. You can also get a digital version from either of those places. Now get reading!

Brave

The brave man is the man who faces or fears the right thing for the right purpose in the right manner at the right moment.

- Aristotle

Fingers hover over the keys… hesitant to begin. To move them freely, to allow them access to the world of letters arranged in particular orders, stringing together thoughts, beliefs. To create and invent worlds and lives, all with reckless strokes and unscripted tapping.

This is a brave task.

To unlock the muse from the cage, to loosen it and watch it rise on wings and stretch out the kinks of confinement… this is to welcome the deepest fears made real. The tragedies that stories are made of. To step into the recesses of mind, open prison cells, torture chambers, and carefully guarded tombs… to turn on the light in the darkness of these cobwebs and faded flaws. And then to let fingers fly.

Bravery.

A writer is a brave soul, desperate for relief from the pressures of the worlds within, pressing against the bone and marrow as an en-wombed child kicks and squirms to make room and eventually, escape. Fear presents a new option. Keep it light; keep it shallow. Don’t go to the scary places of the soul and write from there… too painful, too out of control, too scary.

That writer never changes. Never grows. Is never brave.

But the one with the trembling key, twists it in the lock, opens the door… overwhelmed by the possibilities of dancing skeletons, screaming terrors, and freed tormentors, the stuff that makes story raw, believable, true.

The stories we love… come from behind locked doors. Only the brave open them. Open them to listen to the stories of their enslaved. No matter how painful, how tragic, how terrifying. We let them talk and we take notes.

This. Is. Brave.

That book you love? It’s author wept, agonized, pleaded, and grieved as the characters sang their tales, weaving them into the very flesh of their author. Not just pen on paper. Soul made flesh, the hidden made public, a distant whisper given a face, a body, a home… a life. The characters sigh in relief, weight lifted with burden light. The writer carries it now.

No wonder we are morose. So melancholic. We bravely enter the jungles of the uncreated, chopping at bush, blood flowing from our injuries, to tell the urgent story that no one else can tell.

We are brave.

To be brave means that you’re strong and not afraid of something that’s really scary.

-My five year-old son, Corban

The Jump

I’m living a dream… or maybe it’s a nightmare. The one where you are going along, doing your dreamland business… when suddenly you slip, slide, or fall off of a cliff, a bed, a chair… whatever.

But you’re falling.

And the dream has complete control, as random and irrational as it all seems… and you just go along with it.

It feels like real life.

Mostly.

But I’m awake.

And yet I’m still mid-jump somehow. As if I’ve missed the first part of my “dream” and have awoken in the middle of this terrifying adventure.

Sailing over a chasm that should never have been meant for my leap… just my admiration.

But there’s no time to stop and think about whether this is rational or justified… or even real.

I’m in the air… and I need to get to the other side.

Down can’t be an option… but there it is, filling the space beneath my feet and imminent death.

I hope this is a dream where I can fly…

Except it’s not a dream and I can’t fly and my feet have left the edge…

Have you had those days? Where you wake up mid-leap? Something has dropped into your life that is so unexpected, so sudden, so life-changing… that before you know it, you’ve jumped.

You’re in… and you have no idea how a moment can change so much.

My arms are flailing, my feet are reaching, and the ground seems ever so far away… and I’m not even sure when I jumped. But I know why.

As much as my mind races through all the shouldn’t be’s and couldn’t be’s… they still are.

And I’m still in the air.

And I look down and see this:

And how grateful I am… that when I look down from leaps that have my heart terrified and my fears out of control… I see Jesus.

And it’s okay if I don’t jump far enough or high enough or good enough… because He’s my bridge.

My safety net.

My solid ground.

He whispers, “This is not a dream,” and holds and weeps and wipes away the tears, shuts down the fears, and cradles this grown woman in the comfort of arms that can only be found when you’ve leapt into them.

SCBWI Euro Con Scrawl Crawl through the French Revolution

Sarah Towle (Founder of Time Traveler Tours and author of Beware Madame La Guillotine!) and I

I’m still reeling over all of the incredible information that was given to us at SCBWI’s first-ever European Conference in Paris. I’ve had the opportunity to share about some of the actual conference… but the pre-conference Scrawl Crawl deserves a post of its own.

So here we are!

I arrived in Paris with just enough time to find my hotel, drop my stuff, and Metro over to the Scrawl Crawl meeting place at the Palais Royal. (Yes, I just used “metro” as a verb).

But first, just what is a Scrawl Crawl? SCBWI provides a great description: 

An event where individuals create something speedily drawn or written [scrawl] that is inspired by their creativity and observational powers as they go from place to place [crawl].

This event is designed to get you and your fellow children’s book writers & illustrators out of the house/studio/office for a day and spend time being creative together.

photo by Kirsten Carlson

In the garden of the Palais Royal I reunited with writer/illustrator friends I’d met last September. I looked forward to spending time with them again.

As if that perk wasn’t enough, I was privileged to meet other excited writers and illustrators, adding to my “collection” of new friends in the writing world of Europe.

Then an unexpected highlight… two students from my Creative Writing class showed up! They were home on Spring Break and joined the Scrawl Crawl, taking the opportunities to write and sketch seriously, to my delight. I loved spending the day with them.

Back to the Scrawl Crawl. We were fortunate and honored to have Sarah Towle guide us through the French Revolution through the eyes of Charlotte Corday. Sarah is the author of Beware Madame La Guillotine! – both in iBook and an app. The tour was so much fun… it totally opened my eyes to a piece of Paris I had never seen or known before. Her app, as she describes it, is a “historical story-based mobile tourism app of Paris for teens, tweens, the young at heart: The World’s 1st StoryApp iTinerary.”

What a brilliant idea!

So we began at the Palais Royal, the birthplace of the French Revolution. We envisioned life in this bustling center of 1793 Paris… where passion was fueled by other like-minded world-changers. We followed Charlotte into the shadows… to the shop where she purchased the kitchen knife she would use to kill Jean Paul Marat… her hope unshakeable, that his death would end the violence tearing apart her nation and people. We paused in the shade of the trees and arcade (not from the sun but from the freezing cold and intermittent rain) to sketch inspired images or write whatever ideas came to mind. I did a combination of writing (until my ink began to run in the rain) and photo-journaling.

Sarah Towle guiding us through the French Revolution… with the Conciergerie in the background (former royal palace and prison)

We followed Charlotte on her hunt for Jean Paul… passed the Starbucks for hot chocolate … then ultimately to the bridge that overlooks the Conciergerie… where Charlotte was held in prison for Jean Paul’s murder… and eventually beheaded. Again, at this beautiful site on the bridge… with the Eiffel Tower in the background and the setting sun coloring our world in hues of yellow and orange, we stopped and scrawled our ideas.

The Eiffel Tower in the background, with the sun setting on the Seine River.

Amazing.

What a great idea for a Scrawl Crawl. Or any ‘ol day in Paris. I’m not sure which I enjoyed more… hanging out with Sarah, following Charlotte around 17th century Paris, spending the day with my students, rubbing shoulders with talented illustrators and writers, or the waves of disbelief that would find and smack me with “I can’t believe I live four hours from Paris!”

I’m going to end with a special “treat.” I rarely (okay, just about never) share things I’ve written (other than the blog-writing itself). BUT, below you’ll find something I quickly scrawled as we walked around the Palais Royal Gardens… just having learned of Charlotte and her life-giving search for freedom. Clearly, I never would have written this without the journey with Beware Madame La Guillotine! A Revolutionary Tour of Paris. Enjoy!

Dying for the cause that saves

One life for many

To return to nobility and dignity and righteousness

and end terror’s reign on humanity

And old tune, a new voice sings it

A cry for justice…

justice bridled to peace and mercy

But peace is violent

in attaining its reward

Sacrificial blood

Heart pumping for change

A change that will end another heartbeat

Willingly

Gladly

Here the river splits

One heart silent…

the other silences death, beats eternal.

© Marcy Pusey, 2013

The Scrawl Crawl group in front of the Louvre.