Wish List

If by saying that all men are born equal, you mean that they are equally born, it is true, but true in no other sense; birth, talent, labor, virtue, and providence, are forever making differences.

Resolved to live with all my might while I do live, and as I shall wish I had done ten thousand ages hence.

~both quotes by Johnathan Edwards

You haven't lived, until you've put a $250 book on your wish list. Actually, it is a set of TWO books...hard cover...classic...


Nevermind. Not everyone will understand.


No, I don't expect to actually receive this set of books, but to know they exist is exquisitely bittersweet.

This is the "blank Bible". It is the collection of a lifetime of thoughts on Old and New Testament Scripture, by Johnathan Edwards. The entire process, from concept to publication, is fascinating (well, to me) and you can learn about it here:





Enjoy the bittersweetness of adding this jewel to YOUR wish list! (Many thanks to my friend Dan Bowen, of "Life on Wings" for making me aware of it.)

Tangible Proofs of a Tangible God

Ps. 86:17 Shew me a token for good; that they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed: because thou, LORD, hast holpen me, and comforted me.

There have been days I have needed tangible proof. Thoughts are the intangible currency of my life, they are my art form, rather than concrete things such as houses or drawings or bread baking or paintings or my fingers touching an instrument, physically bringing forth a melody. As a writer I live in my head, out of my head, and from my head, and I am seemingly forever in deep thought. It is exhausting, sometimes.

And on rare occasions, my deepest thoughts and beliefs, even about God, are too abstract to satisfy even me. Even me....who normally finds a mere thought, when it is a new and a great one, to be completely enthralling. It is comforting to know that, when I am needy and worn out from believing in things my eyes cannot see, my God is perfectly willing to show me a token of His great love for me.

Proof. That is what that Hebrew word "token" means. The Bible is full of the mention of tokens from God's heart to man's weary spirit. The sun and the moon are tokens of His faithfulness. Proof. (Ge. 1:14) The rainbow is a token of His forever mercy. Proof. (Ge. 9: 12-17) The blood over the doorposts was a visual token, illustrating future redemption. Proof. (Ex. 12:13) Taking one day a week to rest and contemplate the things of God is meant to be something tangible, that anchors us - something we can return to, week in and week out, and discover God afresh. Proof - lived out every single week. If only we would. (Ex. 31:13, 17) Everything from a scarlet thread, to rocks in a river, to the fringe on a garment; they all were God-given tokens to humans who cannot dwell for very long in an abstract reality.

The incarnation is the Ultimate Token. Word became flesh and lived with us. Jesus said, after His resurrection, "Touch me. An intangible doesn't have flesh and bones like you see I have!"

Down through the corridors of time and eternity, those words find me. They find me where I am, flailing and trying-too-hard to believe in all the words I am reading, in all the true-truths that fill my brain. God invites me to touch Him and see for myself. No - He doesn't just invite me. He pulls me to His heart, takes me in His arms, and pulls from His bottomless pocket a token.


A house to live in.

A puppy to love.

A letter from a friend.

A breeze on a hot day.

I have a list of very personal and tangible proofs, as real and as visual as blood on doorposts, and the fringe on the garment of a priest. You should also have a list. If you don't have one, start one, today. My list is long. Many of the tokens on that list have come in answer to prayer, and I am encouraged and invited and commanded to pray for things I need. Yes, things! Things I can see, and things that others can look at, and see that God has, indeed, been very good to me.

Another list you should have is the list of tokens, for yourself and for others, that you do not yet possess. Some call it a "prayer list".

Justice is a thing. Bread is also a thing. Justice and bread are visible tokens to those that are given them, and a source of great pain to those who do without them. Those are our two examples, illustrated by Jesus, two objectives of insistent, incessant prayer. Bread for the body. Justice for the soul.

We can cry out for tangible proofs, to a tangible God.

He will show us a token for good.

Morning Has Broken ~

Here is what is new in the Atchley-late-summer garden...or, relatively new. Not to sound trite, but these are small harvests of pure pleasure to me:

Finally, after planting these by seed, months ago, the first blossom appears just this very morning...I had given up hope of this Morning Glory ever blooming. Isn't that how hoping in God is? The results, to quote Pilgrim's Progress, are always "longer than you wish, sooner than you think."

Candid shot (really!) of just a few of my Tools of the Trade...I snapped this just after planting some pots of rudbeckia this morning. Better to plant late, than to plant never! Hmmmmmm...isn't that also the way hoping in God is?

Apples, growing just alongside the stump of a plum tree. A plum that had to be cut down, years ago! A surprise blessing, from what seemed to us the sadness of long-ago storm damage.

My "reading girl" statue - through a mist of heirloom cherry tomato plants, whose harvest is, as of this week, full-force!

The last of the patio tomatoes. Not so "full-force" anymore.

Hand-made, "primitive" style tables, created by our retired neighbor, just for us, in our firepit outdoor "living room".

This week's newest sunflower! See the bee? (photo by Hannah Atchley)

Apples from "our" tree. Well...this tree is five steps away from the Atchley property line, and my retired neighbor Earl lovingly insists that we pick as much as we want, anytime we want. So yes. The tree is "mine". This harvest of apples is my harvest. A better batch of fried apples we never tasted! It so rocks to be me.

About a month ago, we wondered where our hummingbirds went. My husband, who loves to watch them, prayed out loud, in front of me, "Lord...please send our hummers back." Now, we have a Hummingbird Sighting every two minutes. Not even lying. They are everywhere, and fly disarmingly close to us, at all hours of the daytime. (photo by Hannah Atchley)

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Our Mammoth-variety (we are growing about four different kinds!) of sunflowers finally opened their faces two weeks ago. Here is one of them. (photo taken by Hannah Atchley)

The Boys of Summer...

Nobody on the road,nobody on the beach.

I feel it in the air,the summers out of reach

Empty lake, empty streets,the sun goes down alone.

I'm driving by your house, though I know that you're not home...

And I can see you, your brown skin shining in the sun

You got your hair combed back, sunglasses on, baby

And I can tell you, my love for you will still be strong

After the boys of summer have gone.

Some things you can never have back. I used to complain (a little) about the full yard I seemed to have, every summer, for almost as long as I can remember. Our summers here at the Atchley House could have easily been entitled, "The Summers of Boys". Boys in the yard, boys in the trees, boys in the cul-de-sac, and the steady bounce-bounce-bounce of perpetual basketball games.

But school has started this year, already. And for the first time, I realized....this was it. This was the very last and final installment of the Boys of Summer.

For they are all becoming young men.

The tears flow, sudden and unexpected, like a summer storm, even as I sit here typing. My oldest boy has already faded away from the summer scene, having worked full time when school let out, for a couple of years now. Next summer, my youngest, I am sure, will be working full time - doubtlessly saving his money for the coveted Teenaged Ride.

I know. It is a different take, a different perspective on the classic Don Henley song. Lyrics and art can be pliable like that, sometimes. They can be re-interpreted. I won't hear the "Boys of Summer" in quite the same way, ever again. Summertime will never be the same, either. It will have to be re-sung and re-interpreted and re-invented...the lyrical beat of sunrise and sunset, and hot days, and no school, and popsicles will someday apply to future grandsons.

Freckled faces, dark tans, plastic sunglasses from the Dollar Store, water hoses full force, and all the shouting that somehow has changed from tenor into bass. It will vanish, and is vanishing before my eyes. I've never been one to be maudlin. I move from one season into the next rather seamlessly, compared to many. But oh, what I wouldn't give to be able to convince myself that the Boys of Summer - my boys - will still be out there in the sun, young and fresh faced and innocent....forever.

They will live on that way, in my heart. In that mother's heart of mine that aches, sometimes.

Oh yes. "I can tell you, my love for you will still be strong...after the boys of summer have gone..."

One of Life's Joys ~

This is our puppy. Two pounds of fuzzy fury, named Rambo. He's a silver teacup poodle, and has, with a sweep of his paw, changed the tenor of our household since he came. My manly husband melts into a smiling boy, each afternoon as he comes home from work. Rambo fills the void left by small children, who used to crowd the glass door every day when daddy came home. Now they are grown, and almost always gone when he drives up into our steep driveway. Our youngest son Isaac might be home, but he no longer squeals and jumps up and down, arms waving, yelling, "Daddy's home!!!"

He's going on sixteen, you see.


But the puppy senses when dad is on his way to home and hearth. I guess it is the daily phone call I get, "Hi Beautiful! I'm on my way home. Need anything?" (No lie. Every day. I am a blessed woman. It so rocks to be me!) Rambo must be able to observe and understand my voice and tone, whenever it is Tim, telling me he is headed this way. That itty silver bit of soft fluff will always skitter to the front glass door, and watch until he sees the old green mini van pull up.


Then, he jumps up and down, twirls, and barks loudly. There's no way around it ~ he has to be saying, "Pappa's home! Pappa is home!" That is not a stretch, nor is it overly imaginative. That is pure fact. It is a fact that never fails to put a smile on my husband's face, even on the worst of days.

In the words of a pastor's wife friend of mine, from rural Virginia, who met Rambo not long ago....(imagine a soft, southern drawl):

"This doggy's a gift from God."
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"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
~Abraham Lincoln

"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace."
~Milan Kundero

It Is GOOD To Be Me...

(my daughter Hannah, and her boyfriend Justin)

(Hannah and Sarah-opening gifts from loving grandparents-matching diamond necklaces)

I am still savoring the memory of a long dinner table at Carabba's (a chain restaurant, Italian, full of darkly stained wood and twinkle lights, with a wood burning pizza oven)...

...fourteen family members crowding the table in the back room we had reserved - each one laughing, each one loving the other. I felt brimful of joy, celebrating my twin daughters' 21st birthdays. We toasted their past, present and future, just by being there, in the moment, with them. We finished a long, lingering dinner with birthday cake, gifts, and hugs all around. What a season of Harvest I am in!

The character "Nacho" in the movie Nacho Libre said, "It sucks to be me!" All personal fears and healthy introspection aside - it is so fantastic to be me lately! I don't always like what I see in my own heart, and I want to pull every weed that threatens to make me barren and unfruitful. But that is only because the fruitful places are so, so satisfying. I want more of this rather charmed, blessed-and-highly-favored kind of life. It certainly has never "sucked" to be me.

I sit here, wanting to convey the very opposite of Nacho's sentiment, fingers poised over the keyboard searching...I've been wracking my brain to think of one word, a verb, that can mean the opposite of "sucks". Why is it, our English language can come up with negative slang like that, but there is no ready, tongue-in-cheek, joy-filled phrase I can quickly grab, to tell you how utterly sweet my life is these days?

It "glories" to be me.

It "shines" to be me.

It "smiles" to be me.

It "sparkles" to be me.

??

In the end, only one word comes to mind. A word that my teen and twenty-something children would identify with. It would not be the word I would choose - I'm far too artsy. It takes zero creative genuis for a middle aged woman to speak the language of, and partake in the frenetic activities of the upcoming generation. That requires no sense of hard-won personal style. It takes no unique spark whatsoever - you simply follow the lead of your children, all in the name of "relating to them". I can find more thoughtful, delightful, creative and appropriate ways of relating to my children, ways that do not blur the lines between youth and the seasoned elegance of age...

And relate we do, my children and I! We are close, even though I'm no Facebookie. I have a Facebook page. I promise you, however, that there is a large difference between my Facebook page, and that of my teenager's. They don't look anything alike. I don't send pots of virtual herbs, or little buttons, and accept no applications, so don't feel badly if you never get a virtual trinket from me. In addition, something inside me feels sorry for anyone, of any age, who "rates" a friendship, as in "who is the coolest" . My fifteen year old does it, but even my 21-year-olds find it a tad bit pathetic. Ranking precious people in your life, is a sad concept for a twelve year old to ponder, much less a grown woman. A Mother in Zion would never. I watch over my youngest children in the Facebook/Myspace world - it is the real reason I even have a presence there. Life is not all about "Me, Myspace, and I".

So it is with a sense of reluctance I borrow some Young Slang. It is the only word that, honestly, really fits what I am trying to say:

It so rocks to be me!

Well, it does. If you have a better word, do suggest it. Being me is the best, because patience is having her growing-up work in me. I have no need to be younger, richer, or better than the rest. Patience does make you "mature and complete". Henri Nouwen said “...patience means willingness to stay where we are and live out the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.” I am learning to love life as God gives it. THAT is why it rocks to be me.

This present season, this present day, this very moment comes to me "trailing clouds of glory"...brand new, baby-fresh. This season, once passed, will be personal history, with only the memories to mark it. This day, once the sun sets, will consist of random impressions, neurons firing in my brain, recalling scent, emotion, flashes of sights and sounds. All that will be left of this day are words written in a journal, and a blog entry. This day will also leave behind the fruit of every word I spoke from the time I awoke, till the time I go back to bed. "May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord!"

I will never live this day again. It contains a gift or gifts that God intensely desires for me to open and learn from. Most of His gifts are educational, in some fashion or other, even the seemingly frivolous gifts like puppies and cherries. No one else can live my life with me, experiencing this blessed and favored thing called "being me". No one else is in my skin, no one else but God Himself is, in reality, part of the fiber of my spiritual being. So if I don't tackle this day's joys as they skip past me, who will taste them, touch them, see and hear them?

It rocks to be me. I am so grateful for these present moments. God is good. Tell me....does it out-and-out rock to be you? You ought to know it! Believe it. Live like it.

A Childhood Game

"Sheila Atchley - take three giant steps!"


"Mother, may I?"


"Yes, you may!"


Remember that childhood game?


A nameless fear has been gripping me of late. It is the fear that some situations will never change. That a relationship will never change. That a child will never change. That I will never change.


There, I said it. I named the fear. And the light that naming the heretofore nameless brings, dispels the darkness.


I always see my weaknesses and besetting sins in all their disgusting glory. They are as plain to me as the hair on my head, as near to me as my own beating heart. And I am afraid of them. I am afraid I will never change, never be the mother I dream of being, never make any progress, not even when I see so vividly exactly where I want to go.


I do see where I want to go. Sometimes I get glimpses of the Sheila Atchley the Father is designing. I see she whom the Father is still busily creating, and I want to BE HER, to the depth of my whole soul. I want to be her right now. Oh, how I want to change.


But I want it to be simple. I want the progress to come lightly and easily. And instantly. In reality, my distance is usually covered inch by tear-soaked, will-relinquished inch. Change comes too slowly. Fear taunts me, telling me that, sure, I will finally change - but one month, one week, or one day too late.


Once in awhile, though, there comes a Fresh Wind. I read, just today, that wind is "hope on wings". Once in awhile, there is a Real and Present Grace. I hear the voice of my heavenly Father - warm, inviting, having all the time in the world to give to just and only me:


"Sheila Atchley! Take three giant steps!"


"Oh Father....may I?"


(could it be true? three giant steps, instead of one wretched inch? can I really wake up tomorrow, and be different? will I really see transformation in this area of my life?)


"Yes, you may!"


And suddenly I am able. Yes I may, and yes I can, and yes I DO! Because He loves me. Because He is still holy. So the gnawing fear that makes my stomach feel like a stone, dissolves. Tense muscles in my forehead and face, soften.


Three giant steps are enough to bring peace. For now.