Every once in a while I come across a book that leaves me, I wouldn't say new or changed, maybe just blessed.  Where the vastness of its story and the depth of its meaning can't be absorbed, or even quite understood, with just one reading.  And the beauty of the thoughts and language in A House Like a Lotus left me close to tears.  It is one of those books

" "Lo, now we must sing Saranam," His voice was breathless, and he looked to Millie, who started singing. 

In the midst of foes I cry to thee,

From the ends of earth, wherever I may be,

My strength in helplessness, O answer me,

 Saranam, saranam, saranam.

 

Make my heart to grow as great as thine,

So through my hurt your love may shine,

My love be yours, your love be mine,

Saranam, saranam, saranam.

 

"What does it mean, 'saranam'?" I asked.

"Refuge," Norine said.

"God's richest blessing," Millie added.

Krhis said, "There is no English equivalent."

Frank laughed.  "There doesn't need to be.  Saranam says it all, loving, giving, caring."

Omio said, "I think it is like a Bakian word which mean that love does not judge."

Vee added, "Love is not love which alters when alteration finds." "





(Blurry photos at my friend's cabin)

 

My head is so full, I forget what I've been told the moment the speaking ends.  I can't seem to let go of weights I have no business carrying, weights that aren't my responsibility.  And they crush and paralyze, speaking lies of laziness and inadequacy.  It's scary how the dragons you thought were dead come back, or maybe they just had children you didn't know about.  The words that were said and the preasure that was placed now have ghosts that are harder to fight then they ever were before.  And I suppose that makes sense.  For they slip into your mind, pretending to be thoughts of your own, and they root so deep you're often unsure if you're fighting ghosts... or yourself.

"And thinking about life as a journey reminds me to stop trying to set up camp and call it home.  It allows me to see life as a process, with completion somewhere down the road.  Thus I am freed from feeling like a failure when things are not finished, and hopeful that they will be as my journey comes to its end.  I want adventure, and this reminds me I am living in it.  Life is not a problem to be solved, it is an adventure to be lived." -John Eldredge

 

 

Last week my sister and I went back out to camp to help with a few meals for a retreat that they were hosting. 

 

Do you have a place that feels like home?  Maybe even more like home than home does?  That's how camp is for me.  There are so many poignant memories on what feels like every square foot of the place that it almost hurt to be there.  But at the same time, it filled me with joy.  A joy that shouldn't even belong, if you look at it realistically, but it was there all the same.  Of course I felt like crying, turning around and expecting to see people that aren't even in the state.  Sure I was hearing the ghosts of songs from the dinning hall, worship practice from the pavilion, shouts from the field... even though the whole place was silent... silent in the way only falling snow can be silent.  It was strange how natural it looked blanket down for the winter, the lake frozen over and snow collected on the tether ball, but I think it's because the beautiful Spirit never leaves, even after the kids and summer staff are gone, it's just waiting and blessing those who stop by.   And that's why the joy meets you there, even when you want to cry, even when it held everything you wanted, and everything you had to leave.