Questions? Comments? Criticisms? Rude Remarks?

(Just kidding about that last one, not that you all are the rude remark sort anyhow. The post title was a catchphrase in the youth Bible study we facilitated.)

The conversation when a family gets together around the table is as important to me as the meal. In my Italian family of origin, everyone tends to talk at once and it can be a free-for-all at times, but that's part of the fun.

That sort of interaction has been limited on the blog so far due to Blogger's comment capabilities. I've also heard from a few of you that you were frustrated trying to leave a comment in the first place.

Effective immediately, the comment interface here at crumbs is now managed by Disqus. That will be familiar territory for some of you, and you can ignore the rest of this post. For the rest, here are a few pointers to ease the transition:

• Commenters can still open the interface through the "x comments" link in the grey-shaded box at the end of each post. The comments link appears between "Posted by tinuviel at..." and "Labels."
• Comments can be entered in the new box that pops up. At this writing, commenters can log in with their Google, Yahoo, OpenID, or of course Disqus accounts. Once I've enabled additional spam filtration, I may open comments to anyone to make things even easier on y'all.
• The previous "subscribe to comments by e-mail" and "subscribe to comments by RSS" buttons are still available, and RSS comment subscription still aggregates comments as it did before.
• Previous comments are being imported as I type, so no history (theoretically) should be lost.
• Lurking works exactly the same in the new system as it did before. [Smile.]
• Replies to one's comments come directly to one's e-mail inbox, and one can reply to replies via e-mail as well, with replies posting to the blog directly.
• Replying to someone's comment creates a nested conversation thread in the new system, so Crumbles can interact more easily with each other and not just with me.

Those last two points are really the goal of the transition. I'm not a fan of change, but encouraging table talk here is important to me, and as I've visited other blog friends this comment system seems to facilitate that best. If (key word: "if") we ever were to have a book club, day of prayer, or Bible study together here, a means of threaded comment conversation would be essential. I'm not saying we will do something like that, but now at least it's a possibility.

If you have other questions about the new format, please post them in a comment or contact me by e-mail and I will try to resolve the issue by e-mail or in a follow-up post. If you are an e-mail or RSS subscriber and wonder what in the world I'm talking about, you are always, always welcome to visit the crumbs from His table blog and join the conversation.

Thanks for your patience with any glitches we need to work out.

Grace and peace to you in Christ,

christina

Hope for Hungry Hearts

If you are hungry, dear Crumbles,
Hungry for hope, hungry for healing,
If empty-bellied crowds fill your prayer list,
And your only resources are a slice of moldy Swiss
Sliding off half a Saltine,
And you despair--

Come, behold the living Word in the written Word.
Fall at His feet, the place of healing.
In His hands, a fallen crumb can heal a daughter,
And a sack lunch becomes a feast and more,
Hampers full of leftovers collected
When the empty, needy crowd is satisfied.

Behold His grace, unhindered by His disciples' forgetful unbelief.
Behold His riches, enough for every want.
Behold His compassion, spilling over the boundaries of His own people
     To all the nations, even native enemies like us.
Behold Him, and feed on His faithfulness.
He is fullness for our emptiness;
He is satisfaction of our longings;
He is hope for our hungry hearts.

These glimpses of Jesus in Mark 7:24-8:21 and Matthew 15:21-16:12 are feeding my soul this today. He is the source of all my hope, for this life and the next.

Punctured and Spared

As I rode with Allen to the train station on Friday, the sun rose with such unusual beauty, a navel orange with the top of its sphere smothered in layers of pink and blue-grey.

I reached in my handbag for my phone-camera. Hmm. I searched again. "Uh oh, my phone must still be sitting on the kitchen table." Silently I prayed that God would keep me safe from any car troubles or accident, "since I don't have a way to call for help." Even as I thought the words, I realized my primary functional trust at that moment lay in that phone and the people to whom it connected me rather that God alone, and that's idolatry.* I'm sorry, Lord; have mercy on my unbelief.

The photo opportunity had passed by then anyway, and my thoughts quickly moved on to a rehearsal of the dance steps required for a full day to run smoothly. Walk, shower, vet, doctor,... Several things needed doing Friday (a) by me or (b) sooner than Allen would be able to do them Saturday afternoon (see a). With careful choreography, I could accomplish them efficiently and still have time for the necessary afternoon nap.

Allen pulled into the transit parking lot, and after a quick hug and kiss he was gone and I was in the driver's seat.

As I came around the median in the turn toward home, there it was: a long, narrow, black strip of debris stretched across my lane. There was not time to check mirrors and blind spot for a safe shift to the next lane, so I tried to evade the obstacle within my own lane, even though it just looked like a harmless strip of tire. Allen's ninja reflexes could have handled it easily. As for mine...

Front tires, clear.

Back tires,... Pfffft from the rear passenger side. It sounded suspiciously like my scissors slashing through the air pillows that cushion an online order. But maybe it's just a leak. Not flat flat.

Flappity-flappity-flappity. No, healthy tires do not flap. Pfffft went my carefully arranged choreography for the day.

So many thoughts crowded my mind as I rolled down the hill and steered into the CVS lot:

Well, Lord, You love me enough not to let me off the hook for misplaced trust. What are we going to do now?

Thank You, Lord, for prodding me to delay Allen long enough to exchange pajama pants for yoga pants. And a ball cap. Best decision all day.

Thank You that we have roadside assistance service if I can just get to a phone.

Thank You that even though Allen is on the train headed downtown and can't get back to me my dad is home today and hasn't left for their day trip. (That was the reason Allen had driven to the train to begin with; my dad, his normal carpool, was taking a long weekend and I had to keep our car for my appointment.) Three cheers for Daddy! He's the next best thing to Allen, and he knows how to change a tire. (I might, ahem, possibly know this from prior experience.)

Before I entered the drugstore to beg the use of their phone, I checked my purse once more. And twice. And three times. Nope, no phone. Sigh.

Giving thanks again for the gift of hats and ponytails and lamenting my yet unwashed face, I walked into the building and greeted the familiar woman by the photo desk. I explained I'd flattened the tire and didn't have my cell phone with me. Could I please...? "Yes," she answered, "yes, of course you can use the phone."

Checking my watch, I dialed the number my parents have had since I was in elementary school. Five rings elapsed. Oops, they must still have been asleep, but they're probably awake by now because of the phone, so I might as well...

Six, seven, eight,... a sleepy Mezzo (my middle sister) answered. No, Dad wasn't up yet. Oh, okay. Normally I would have waited, but I was still trying to get to my doctor on time, so I told her I'd call roadside assistance to put the spare on, but could she ask Mom and Dad if I could borrow the car they weren't using today?

As I stepped her through the plan a second time (I had just waked her up, after all), the employee I'd seen outside as I drove up interrupted me: "Excuse, me, ma'am? Is that all you need, a tire changed? That's easy; I can do that. Just let me finish this and I'll help you out."

Whew. Another explanation to Mezzo with the revised plan, and I'd call her back when I reached home.

Stephen, who turned out to be the store manager, had my tire changed in 15 minutes flat, the time it would have taken my dad to get to me and start the process. Already blogging the experience in my head, I started to ask if I could snap his picture and had even reached for my purse when I remembered: no phone. (Gotta be quick with me.)

Ebony inspecting Stephen's work after the car and I got home

After profuse thanks to Stephen, I drove cautiously home, where I called Allen to bring him up to speed and arranged for my folks to bring their second car by on their way to visit my grandmother. No one, it seems, thought it was a good idea for me to drive our car with the spare on (and no spare in the trunk).

To my amazement, the choreography came off smoothly, with just two steps of the dance rearranged and the nap eliminated. By the end of the day, I was as flat as the tire in the trunk, but my heart was full and singing. Through it all, so many "channels of adoration" opened up, and I tasted in at least a small way that the Lord is good, that my forgetfulness and driving mistakes do not hinder His power to help, that the strength of my connection to Him and not my mobile phone network is my security, and that sometimes His messengers of deliverance wear CVS uniforms and tattoos.

Maybe I should go back to the store and get a photo of Stephen for this post. Now, where's my cell phone?


*This may not have registered immediately except that lately I've been listening to Tim Challies's convicting analysis of the digital explosion's impact on our brains and culture and the Christian response. If you prefer, you can obtain the print  or e-book edition of his book The Next Story here or at your local bookstore.

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Monday is gone, but the opportunities for gratitude are not. Last week held so many gracious gifts from my God and Savior. Here are a few:
~His love, mercy, and humor in disciplining me
~Safety and nothing worse than punctured pride, plans, and tire
~Cell phones
~Phone numbers known by heart without a phonebook
~Stephen and CVS
~Choreography coming together
~Stamina for a full week that picked up speed as it progressed
~Allen getting the tire replaced for me
~Warranties
~Only 1 PT appointment last week and
~Dave's decision to release me to an "as needed" basis for therapy. That means he gave me a game plan to continue increasing difficulty on the exercises at home, and I don't need to return to the therapy center unless I plateau or regress. Hallelujah!
~Calling my grandmother towards the end of a lonely day and hearing her say my call made her day
~Good report and kindness from my asthma doctor
~Care packages!!! A real-life care package from my online friend Brandee

Afternoon tea a la Brandee, with Typhoo Decaf in my favorite cup

~Oatmeal cookies and pumpkin bread, yum!
~Morning Bible readings in the Gospels
~Three full inches of rain over the weekend
~Muddy paws
~Leisurely lunch visit with my parents yesterday
~Return of the monarchs
~New feathered friends at the feeder
~Sleeping until almost 8 on a weekday morning, due to an unusual work schedule for A. this week
(From the gratitude list, #1858-1879)

linking with Ann, Laura, and Jen today:

Autumn Hope

The trees are weeping

Great arid tears

Of scarlet, gold, and flame—

Mourning winter’s onset

And doubting spring will come again.

Autumns sings in a minor key, bagpipes droning the slave trader's hymn. Loss, surrender, relinquishment thrum beneath the glory of the turning leaves, the crisp cool air, the gentler light.

Even as tree limbs release their grip on summer's glory and exhalations of wind carry it down, down, down to the earth, farmers gather in their harvests, the golden glory-fruit of so many seeds of hope buried in soil nourished by the weeping of the trees.

"I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop" (John 12:24, HCSB).

Channels of Adoration

This rediscovered passage from C.S. Lewis's Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer shone a slightly different light on this Monday practice of joining my voice with the Gratitude Community at A Holy Experience:

...pleasures are shafts of the glory [of God] as it strikes our sensibility. As it impinges on our will or our understanding, we give it different names--goodness or truth or the like. But its flash upon our senses and mood is pleasure.

   I have tried, since that moment [of first realizing the above], to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don't mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I mean something different. How shall I put it?

   We can't--or I can't--hear the song of a bird simply as a sound. Its meaning or message ("That's a bird") comes with it inevitably--just as one can't see a familiar word in print as a merely visual pattern. The reading is as involuntary as the seeing. When the wind roars I don't just hear the roar; I "hear the wind." In the same way it is possible to "read" as well as to "have" a pleasure. Or not even "as well as." The distinction ought to become, and sometimes is, impossible; to receive it and to recognize its divine source are a single experience. This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. There need be no question of thanks or praise as a separate event, something done afterwards. To experience the tiny theophany is itself to adore.

   Gratitude exclaims, very properly, "How good of God to give me this." Adoration says, "What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!" One's mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.

   If I could always be what I aim at being, no pleasure would be too ordinary or too usual for such reception; from the first taste of the air when I look out of the window--one's whole cheek becomes a sort of palate--down to one's soft slippers at bedtime (pp.89-90).

Gratitude is good, commanded, right. This idea of turning all into adoration of the good God who creates and sustains it, though,...this captures my imagination and challenges me to keep growing.

What is this adoration? I think I have sipped it here and there, but reading Lewis I want to drink deeply, long draughts of the Glory, to drink until I gasp for breath. Too often the busy, the worry, the emergencies that aren't, these things drive me away and I wonder why I thirst. The Martha in me bustles busy and distracted, back and forth to the well to draw, and I forget to let the concerns draw me to His feet where I find the one good thing. I forget to drink the only water that gives life, the adoration I was made for.

It's been a quiet week, but here are a few of the Glory-shafts which have hit home. I thank God for them and aim at following them back to their beautiful source in Him.
~"The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds" (Ps. 145:17).
~grace of no medical appointments last week
~courage to call and leave a message for the friend whose phone number I so serendipitously received the preceding week
~creative minds that produce wise books
~listening to the autumnal beauty of Hannah Coulter, understanding my farm-raised, Greatest Generation grandmothers better through it
~seeing myself in the Pharisees' stubborn preoccupation with rules and systems
~God's grace and the blessing of losses to temper that tendency
~Jesus' courage to speak what He heard from His Father and do the deeds of His Father, even though He knew full well that His obedience would set in motion the opposition culminating in the cross
~e-mailed prayers given and received
~God's encouragement from a reader's note about her mom's decades of great life with lupus
~funniest sermon illustration in a long time...
~...that actually pertained to the message at hand
~laughing with others until it hurts: another sunbeam to chase
~celebrating with my sister Mezzo her paid gig in a Bach cantata next month
~God's sovereignty over weather and drought: brief, not forecast pop-up thunderstorm to end a hundred-degree day last week; splendid forecast for this week that could only be improved with rain
(still counting...#1788-1802)