Simplifying War

No parent wants meaningful public discourse and policy to come at the cost of their own child. At the end of the day I would love to see tighter gun control measures, less boots on the ground in Afghanistan, a cure for cancer and a better understanding of mental illness and the possible treatment approaches for depression; but not at the expense of Annie's life. My heart breaks for parents who champion change in their child's absence. Theirs is a job of constant heartbreak and courage.

To the parents who so fearlessly continue to give voice to the evil which robbed them of the very babies they created inside their bodies: I am forever grateful to you and forever in awe of your bravery.

You are an army waging war against enemies many of us have never had to look in the eyes. You do not quit. Your tears have run dry and your resolve has intensified. You look deep into the eyes of the enemy and you don't break your gaze.

You put on your fatigues, pick yourselves up by the bootstraps and head back into the trenches with demons no momma or daddy should ever have to fight.  And you fight.  You fight like hell.

You know better than anyone that you can't simplify war.

The enemy is there-

but the enemy is omnipresent and illusive.

You must fight on all fronts-

with weapons you didn't even know existed with offensive measures you've never even considered with strategies you never wanted to author

You are a guerrilla warrior.

Under your surge, you will engage people's minds, break their hearts and persuade them to act- not for you-

but on behalf of that picture on the fireplace of the little boy who used to ask you to play tickle monster... long before he faced real monsters.

You have seen those monsters. Better than any of us, you have seen them.

And you know- deep down in the fabric of who you are- that there is no easy way to get rid of them.

We simplify it, don't we?

As if a policy change-doctor- pill- counselor- a little more prayer- or just picking a better attitude!- would chase the monster away and win the war once and for all.

As onlookers we forget that some wars never end. Some wars are hard-fought and long-lasting. Some wars have names like "The 100 Year War." Some wars, as Pastor Rick Warren so painfully wrote about this weekend, never subside.

"In spite of America’s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided. Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, Matthew took his life.”

Some enemies are deeply rooted in the marrow.

Defeat is not that simple.

General Stanley McChrystal, the four star American general who led all U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, was recently interviewed by Foreign Affairs and asked about his role in leadership as compared to his predeccesor, General Casey. In essence- was one leader more essential to the surge in Iraq than the other? The humility and wisdom in General McChrystal's answer has stuck with me.

He said, "People tend to simplify things. They try to say, 'It was all screwed up here and then it got all good there,' or, 'This decision was decisive.' I have never found anything that clear."

Me either, General McChrystal.

He ended the interview by reiterating again that there is no one single way- no single leader- no single strategy that can precisely and ultimately dismantle an adversary.

"If you go back in history, I can't find a covert fix that solved a problem long term. There were some necessary covert actions, but there's no "easy button" for some of these problems."

Those of you waging wars unending know.

You know better than anyone that there is not an 'easy button'.

You know better than anyone the overwhelming, misguided urge the rest of us have to simplify what is not simple.

You know, in the same way that a decorated war veteran knows, that a covert fix rarely solves a problem long term.

You know torture that does not subside.

Don't Fight Alone

From a girl who fights small battles of overwhelming fear and anxiety with 200 miligrams of Zoloft, a psychiatrist, a supportive husband, yoga and prayers for mercy and a clear, calm, mind... I know first hand that I can't fight alone. I know that what I have- this obsessive compulsive disorder that leads to a barrage of intense thoughts that makes me feel terrified for NO LOGICAL REASON- has no simple fix.

I don't choose it. I can't prevent it. I don't want it. I don't understand it.  It is not rooted in reality. And there is no covert fix that makes the thoughts go away. General McChrystal said it best. There is no "easy button" for some problems.

For me, it is a multifaceted attack on a war unending. I don't simplify it and neither should anyone else.

Simplifying the enemy is dangerous. As if all enemies are the same.

As if all wars can be fought in one way.

THEY CAN'T.

The only thing historically certain and constant about any military approach to a war is this: It takes an army.

Battles are not won, lost or fought alone. Ever.

Community

So what do you need from your community?

Those around you who have no idea what it's like to fight your war over and over and over again...

No one wants you fighting alone. And we don't want to simplify a war with trite, pithy quotients. With opinions. With black and white solutions that have no bearing on your enemy. With empty grace and borrowed empathy. With intolerance and blind hearts. With battle-cry's we don't intend to proclaim on your behalf for the long haul.

We can't afford to simplify battles any longer. We are tired of losing wars and are ready to wage wars... with you, for you, on your behalf.  No matter how long it takes.

How can we walk with you? How can your friends fight with you?

Tell them. They will listen.

We will listen.

Even the Sparrows

Several months ago I met a spunky, gentle, confidant, peaceful, dying woman. Her skin was sunken and all her hair gone. She walked with the help of nurses and friends. She wore a mask protecting herself from the inevitable- but it was more out of duty than desperation.

"I have made peace with my passing," she told me with a settled smile.

She attended a free concert I performed for military families at Madigan Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington. She was the last person I spoke with that day. She loved the song, Heaven Waits for Me, and wondered when it would be available to purchase.

Without thinking, I told her it would come out in February or March. As soon as I spoke it, the truth of the matter hovered in front of my eyes and I felt sick to my stomach; ashamed that I had spoken so carelessly and assuredly about the future.

We both knew February wasn't in her future.

And yet she smiled. A deep, generous smile. And she told me:

"When I came to this place and I was diagnosed- I went outside to the courtyard to pray. While I was out there, God sent me a sparrow! Really! The Lord just sent a sparrow- and sparrow's don't usually let people touch them, but this sparrow walked straight up to me and into my hand. I got to run my fingers down his little head. He sat with me. And the Lord told me- "I, the one who cares for sparrows Debra, will surely care for you." And that's all I needed to hear. I came back day after day and the sparrow kept coming back. I was able to take a picture of my little sparrow that the Lord gave me. And I want to give it to you. I want you to remember Jenny, that our God cares for sparrows. How much more will He care for you?"

We hugged and cried and she told me how she loved the song His Eye is On the Sparrow. And I told her that I had one more show in town, and that if she were able to leave the hospital and come to the show, we would play the song for her. She handed me a picture of her tired hand with this tiny bird at the tip of her frail fingers. Annie, my three-year-old, keeps it by the window in her bedroom.

***

Two nights later, as I walked on stage to put out my set list and a bottle of water, I looked up and saw her there with a nurse on each side of her. Face beaming. Settled. At peace. Held together like a tiny sparrow thrown about in a storm.

I ran back stage a bit panicked. I had never played or performed His Eye is on The Sparrow- barring the five hundred million times I had sung along with Lauryn Hill on Sister Act 2- but I told my guitarist we had to play the song... Deb had taken me up on my offer. We quickly learned the best version we could come up with. It wasn't perfect- actually it was horribly off- but it was perfect.

Rarely have I become so emotional in a song that I was unable to finish singing it. But singing the very words of worship that a dying woman's heart was clinging to, brought me very near.

Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home? When Jesus is my portion, A constant friend is He- His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me; His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, For His eye is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me.

We hugged at the end of the night and I knew it would be the last time I would see her.

***

Over the holidays Deb sent a gift for Annie and I.

"Thank you for your kind words at Madigan Army Medical Center and especially at the church in Lacey, WA. And singing that special song to me! This was really part of multiple messages God has sent me to tell me, He will always be with me through this progressive cancer.  "His Eye is On The Sparrow" was soooo touching. Words are not enough. I wanted to send you a little something for your daughter who would love to catch a bird!"

She sent a Willow Tree woman with sparrows on her arms. Annie asked if it could be her angel. The sun falls through the cracks each morning and as I sit and figure out what to do with my life each new day, I am ever reminded that the Lord sees me. God cares. If the birds outside my window have a melody to sing and a worm to eat and a nest on which to rest their heads- I have nothing to fear. Am I not of more worth than the birds?

***

Deb fought through February and finally went home to be with Jesus yesterday morning, March 31st.

One of the nurses- who became a dear friend of Deb's- wrote to let me know.

"I thought how appropriate she would pass away on the most beautiful day we have had in the Pacific Northwest this year AND on Easter. As we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior we also celebrate Deb's transition to being with Jesus."

So tonight I announce to as many people who will hear my voice, the words which a faithful, beautiful woman reminded me to cling to. The life that Jesus Christ came to offer anyone who would choose to lay down their burdens on Him and instead take His yoke, which is easy and His burdens, which are light of soul (Matthew 11:29-30).

"If our God cares for sparrows, Jenny, how much more will He care for you?"

"Why, even all the hairs on your head have been counted! Stop being afraid. You are worth more than a bunch of sparrows." Luke 12:7, ISV

^"Look at the birds in the sky. They do not store food for winter. They don’t plant gardens. They do not sow or reap—and yet, they are always fed because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are even more precious to Him than a beautiful bird. If He looks after them, of course He will look after you. ²⁷ Worrying does not do any good; who here can claim to add even an hour to his life by worrying?" Matthew 6:26-27, The Voice

In loving memory of Deb Strand, a woman who trusted Jesus to care for her every step of the way.

Candied Carrots, Ham and Jesus

As I was listening to the radio yesterday, the station was giving tips on how to get ready for Easter. The tips included a lady with a Southern-sweet-tea accent talking about cooking up the perfect ham and candied carrots and wearing those bright pastel colors on Easter Sunday whether it felt like Spring or not!

My heart ached for more.

Don't get me wrong: I am avidly scouring allrecipes.com to try and figure out how to cook my very first ham and what the heck it means to candy a carrot. Annie has a cute, pastel-colored dress hanging in the closet and we will be decorating eggs and going on an epic egg hunt. Today I will conquer Target and every ever-lovin' aisle of spring time happiness.

But God forbid that's what it looks like for my family and I to get 'ready for Easter'.

Because that is not Easter at all. That is a celebration of spring time and American holiday traditions. Traditions which I will be the first to celebrate and uphold as magical childhood rites' of passage. Because honestly, you can hardly finish the school year and head into a summer of honeysuckle and forts, if you have not first scoured the earth for eggs and eaten your momma's ham!

Still- these are spring celebrations, not Easter celebrations.

Easter celebrations are harder. Most years I walk away sad. I know I have missed the point and not fully wrapped my heart around the journey to the cross. Many times I long for the person on the radio to tell me how to get ready for Easter because I simply don't know how to myself.

Maybe they don't either. Maybe we all don't. Maybe sometimes the best we have to offer is candied carrots.

***

So I decided to go to a Maundy Thursday service last night.

I was raised in a denomination that did not fully celebrate Lent or Holy Week. By "did not fully" I mean I had NO idea what Ash Wednesday or  Maundy Thursday was until I was deep into college! So attending a Maundy Thursday service- or- celebrating Easter for an entire season for that matter, is still slightly foreign to my novice, liturgical soul.

I picked the service I attended last night based on the sign I've driven by all week that said: Join us Maundy Thursday.

OK. I will.

I really had no idea what to expect, but this year more than any, I am searching for the fullness of Easter. So I walked into a church I've never stepped foot into, surrounded by strangers, looking for something bigger than ham and pastels.

***

If I could script out heaven, it would look like what I walked into last night. People of every race. YES!!! Lots of old white people, of which I will join the ranks one day, but they were just a tiny fragment. Every color. Every ethnicity. Every socio-economic level. Quite honestly- the weirdest, most strange collection of people I have ever encountered in a single room. Weird and strange namely because they all sat in one room together with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts for one another. They prayed, sang, clapped, hugged, wept, hoped, loved, washed one another's feet and offered each other communion.

The dynamic difference in these people so apparent, yet so palpably inconsequential, blew me away.

It felt like heaven.

We sang hymns. And songs I didn't know. The choir sounded like an army of angels. Robust and loud and soulful. I literally just listened as they led us into worship with over 10 different songs and I felt like perhaps Jesus himself was wooing me into Easter. And, in a moment of me scripting out my own little piece of heaven, we sang Whitney Houston's track 'I Love the Lord' from the Preacher's Wife soundtrack. What-what?!?! And to think, I had just texted Ryan when the choir (full of mostly middle-aged white people) came out in their green choir robes and simply said, "Uh-oh, green choir robes. Boo."

So many prejudices, dispositions, expectations and baggage- I label what I am so unqualified to label. Forgive me for my narrow-minded blindness Lord.

So there I was- with a diverse room in every sense of the word- and they were there for Holy Week. The service was over an hour and a half. And it wasn't yet done when I left. The priest sang. People prayed and offered words to the congregation. Momma Carter told us Jesus loved us. We sang the Lord's prayer and prayed the prayer of contrition and spoke the Nicene Creed and then- did a little Whitney Houston gospel- and I'm telling you- I've never heard music like that.

Often- I don't know exactly what it is I'm looking for- but I know what I'm not looking for. Cue candied carrots.

Every Easter I find myself looking for Jesus. Looking for my own journey to His cross that I might come away changed. Often I walk away sad. Too often I have walked away with only Easter eggs and a ham.

But last night I walked away with a glimpse of heaven. A resounding voice from Jesus. The unfolding of the Passover. The blood on my door that told the Lord he could move on to the next house. The act of eating. Remembering. Serving. Serving. Serving. The voice that said to Peter and says to me, "Jenny- I have to wash your feet for you to belong to me. I want to wash your feet. Sit still daughter. Remember my love for you."

As the moments ticked away for Jesus on earth- as He made his journey to the cross- He Himself taught us the way to get ready for Easter. 

Remember ME.

So whatever your weekend Spring traditions may hold- candied carrots or an Easter egg hunt at the zoo with 40,000 eggs (yes, we are attempting this)... enjoy the traditions of spring.

And then?

Celebrate Easter. The life- death- and resurrection of Jesus Christ-

Who washed our feet as He made His way to the cross and said

"remember me."

Solace and Sanity

Some people find solace and sanity in reading a good book, going for a hike, listening to music or being alone. I find solace and sanity in taking pictures of beautiful moments. Just me and my iPhone. Stopping on the side of the road. Hiking up a hill. Staring at a sunset. Memorizing the moment. Smelling it. Breathing it in deeply. Etching it deep into my restless blood. The world is full of beauty. My life is hectic. Taking a few minutes each day to look for the beauty around me settles my soul. Perspective gives birth to humility. Solace and sanity abound when the world is not so small and tightly wound around me. The whole earth whispers and boldly displays the creative, intimate, passionate beauty of God's presence- and in that alone, I find rest.  These are a few of my most recent moments of solace and sanity. [gallery columns="4" ids="2995,3000,3008,2996,2997,3006,2998,3002,2999,3004,3009,3001,3003,3007,3005,3010"]

Where do you find solace and sanity?