pondering Mama Maggie Gobran and my own tough calling

Mama Maggie Gobran impacted me most of all, not just because of how she lives among and serves the poor children of Cairo, but because she literally seems to know God - in a mystical way.  She spoke both of silence and solitude and of the necessity to read the Bible through cover to cover, every year of our lives.   But here, I will simply share her words, at least the ones I wrote down:

Anyone who will carry the fragrance of eternity must start by wearing the dark veil of death.


To be elegant comes from inside.  To be elegant is to love.  To love is to give and forgive.


Go'd promotion: leave the best and brightest, go to the poorest of the poor. Who are the poorest of the poor? They are always the children.

Among them the Creator is hidden. The is mystery with the poor.


How to have a pure heart and get to know the Almighty:  complete silence.  The silence is the secret.  To be in silence is to be fully inside your own self.  Discover a taste of eternity.  The kingdom is within.


Silence your body, to listen to your words.
Silence your tongue, to listen to your thoughts
Silence your thoughts, to listen to your heart beating
Silence your heart, to listen to your spirit
Silence your spirit, to listen to The Spirit


In silence we leave the many to be with The One.

When she was finished speaking, Bill Hybels spoke about tough callings - he specifically talked about Jeremiah. I was undone as I thought about the toughest calling I have before me right now:  our youngest daughter.  Adopted at age 5, she is a gift - a joy - and a challenge.  There are so many times we feel completely lost as to what is best to do.  It was good for me to think about that in the context of a tough calling.

At break, I sat with my notebook to journal... I will share some of it here, though it is personal and was never meant for others to read.  I do so because I'm being obedient to the very thing I believe God is calling me to do:  not just write, vulnerably write.

From my notes:

I keep hearing the call to write, but I want to DO (like Mama Maggie) ...

"Write."

And so of course I say yes.  Yes, but... Sell all I have, move, serve, feed, love on ... I could do that!  You know I could, and you know I would.  Just say the word.

(silence)

But that is not the word.  The word is SPEAK.  SHARE.  TELL.  I've been hearing it for months now.  The word is WRITE. 

And so I say Yes.


Make the world new through the words You give me.  They feel like nothing real or tangible or helpful.  Sitting in a coffee-shop with a laptop day after day, while children literally starve for both food and love? 


"Mary is starving for love. Love her. She is your tough calling. That is enough.  Your other children and your husband, love them.  And write.  Write about that.  The world needs you to write about that."

Will anyone read it?  Will it matter? 

"Luke 1:37  nothing is impossible"


This is a sacred time.

 Later that day, as we broke for lunch, I heeded Mama Maggie's advice and found silence.  It was golden.

wrapping up the global leadership summit

I've now written a series of posts in response to my experience at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. I did not include all the speakers, not because some were not engaging, but for the simple reason that I didn't write down much while they spoke.  Seth Godin, for example, was fantastic, but he spoke so fast and showed so many pictures that I found it was better to just sit and listen, rather than try to write things down.  My takeaway from him was, "Go be yourself and make something happen". The interview with Michelle Rhee was fantastic, but again I found myself wanting to simply listen rather than note-take.  I plan to read her book soon, though, and joined her group StudentsFirst.  Henry Cloud had us create a thought-provoking chart on how to deal with different types of people, but that is not something I can easily create on the blog (my tech skills are a lot more limited than I let on).

To wrap this up, and to make sharing easier, I'll conclude by linking to each post here.  I'm glad to hear that at least one person has enjoyed this review of all that I took in at the summit (shout out to you, Joshua! see you at Dr. Beck's place!)

Links:
pondering meeting my maker (the summit opened with a surreal version of Awake My Soul)
pondering what I heard (on having ears to hear)
pondering wild goose and willow creek (comparing the two experiences, with a Hybels at each)
pondering Len Schlesinger and The Help
pondering Cory Booker's parents
pondering samaria, sexual orientation, and gender identity
pondering Mama Maggie Gobran and my own tough calling
pondering humility with John Dickson
pondering nakedness with Patrick Lencioni
pondering the future with Erwan McManus

(someday I'll learn how to organize this blog more efficiently. for now, thanks for bearing with me)

pondering what I heard at The Global Leadership Summit

The Global Leadership Summit was amazing. I am humbled, truly humbled, at the hesitancy I felt at attending. I am quite foolish at times.

I assumed it would mostly be about how to have a bigger church - something I have zero interest in. Hear this now: I. WAS. WRONG. Very wrong. This summit was FANTASTIC. I can't imagine having not gone. I'm so thankful my church allowed me to go, paid for me to go - I'm humbly grateful. It will be a while before I've processed all I gleaned from the various speakers, but for now I want to focus on one aspect: having ears to hear.

As this summit began I offered up an open heart and open hands, and I asked for ears to hear. Now, God knows me. He knows my history. He knows I fight cynicism about certain things. He knows my language, and He knows how to break my barriers down. And over the past two days He continued to bless me with little gifts, treasures that were specific to me and kept my ears open.

I've already shared about the Mumford and Sons song yesterday. That, frankly, would have been enough. But this morning's opening scripture was my favorite passage from Colossians 1. I was trying to stifle a huge grin while my friend knowingly poked me from behind.

Later in the day, I found myself broken and spent after listening to Mama Maggie Gobran talk about the tough calling. With my head in my hands I gasped when I heard the team begin to sing yet another song I'm intimately familiar with, a song that's been set to "repeat one" often the past six months:

All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come up from this ground at all?
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

Hearing songs and passages that have been uniquely instrumental in my life lately ... it felt like whoever put this summit together had their finger on the same Pulse that I've had mine on. And that was an electrifying feeling! I don't know if I'm expressing it well, but it's incredibly affirming to realize "I'm not the only one" and "maybe I'm onto something after all". Such revelations blow fresh wind over the burning embers of your heart.

Finally (and I hope to expand on this more later), the last speaker made it clear - as if he'd pulled out a prescription pad, scribbled out words straight from God, and handed to me - that my role in making the world better, in literally creating the future, is to write.

It's that simple.

I asked God for ears to hear and I asked Him to speak.

He did.

"Write the damn book already!"

"Yes-sir!"

So with a shout out to the boy in the WAY too tight pants, I hereby declare myself a ditch digger. My shovel is a pen. Or actually (though less poetic), a keyboard.

*post-script ... to top off the past couple days of God-gifts, there's a fullish moon shining brilliantly above our backyard tonight. which you'd appreciate if I told you my moon story. but I've gotta save something for the book :)

pondering gratitude in a not-right world

It's that time of night, where the heat has finally caught up to the chill. I wake to pull off my long-sleeved pajama top, which has become unnecessary, and glance at the clock as I lay back down: 2 AM.

Sleep eludes me. I crawl out of bed, stumble in the dark to dress, and step outside. Here in Gordonsville, Va, where we are enjoying a mini-vacation, the stars shine with brilliance against the truly dark sky of the countryside.  I gaze as long as I can stand the cold, then head back in to the warmth of the cabin.

That's when I remember, with a pang, what my son had said earlier in the day:  "It isn't right".

We were in the historical district of downtown Charlottesville. I'd watched him hand a man a large hot coffee with cream and sugar, pet his dog for a moment, smile and say, "I think he really loves you!", then walk back toward me.  We took a few silent steps together, then he heaved a loud, heavy sigh and exclaimed,

"It isn't right.  It isn't right for him to be out here like that. People shouldn't live outdoors in the cold. People should have homes that are warm, where people love them."

I stopped walking.  My other son, his younger brother - who had been watching and listening, too - stopped, as well.  I looked them both in the eye.

"You're right.  Listen to me:  YOU. ARE. RIGHT.  What you just saw is wrong.  It shouldn't be.  It has to stop, and it's up to YOU (looking at both of them) to stop it."

They both gaped a bit, but I continued,

"Your generation has to fix this. You have to make them care enough to make it right. My generation has a few who care, but most are content so long as it's not them sitting with their back against a cold brick wall.  In fact, if more people sitting out in the cold means they get more stuff, all the better.  It's wrong.  Look at me:  MAKE IT RIGHT!"

Out of the corner of my eye I could see my husband talking to our girls, as well.  The boys' little sisters were getting the same message.

I then comforted my son with information I could only hope was true, that the man would sleep inside tonight.  That people from a shelter or a church would care for him, as our family has done multiple times through Room at the Inn.  But inside I wondered... he didn't look like he'd had a chance to clean up in quite a while.  I doubted he was willing to leave his dog behind, or that shelters allowed him to bring it along.  As I looked back, his dog was licking his face;  I felt sick at the thought of such a choice.

Back in my warm cabin, I think about the man and the coffee and the dog and my son.  I go to the restroom to look in the mirror.  3 AM looks rough on anybody.  I have bags under my eyes, my unwashed hair is matted to my head ... how long would it take for entropy to take over, leaving me indistinguishable from those on the street?

Weeks?

Days?  

Someone once told me my problem is that I feel guilty for what I have, that I am ashamed of my success and status in the world.  Was he right?  I don't know, maybe.  Is it wrong to feel that way?  I'm not convinced of that, either.  I'd like to think that I'm grateful, but what does that even mean?  Often, when people express gratitude, it sounds a lot like they are saying, "I'm glad someone else is suffering instead of me".  Is it so wrong to feel that none should suffer?  To not be satisfied?  Is that ingratitude?  I hope not.  I don't know...

I think, again, about my son.  It wasn't a question for him.  It wasn't something he was pondering. He'd made a decisive statement,

"It's not right!"

Turning my thoughts back to him brings a hopeful reminder.  I recall how, a couple of years ago, I'd attended the Global Leadership Summit.  What I'd found most inspiring about all the speakers was a central thread each one had in common.  From Cory Booker to Mama Maggie, they'd all expressed some version of the same story:

"My parents worked hard and made sure we had everything we needed.  But with that, they instilled in us a calling, a challenge, a holy duty - that to whom much is given, much is required.  You are blessed, to bless - we have given to you, so that you will go make the world better for others."

And they'd done it.


I crawl back into bed, grateful ... Yes, that I'm not leaning against a cold brick wall.  Yes, that I have a bed to crawl into and someone to share it with.  Yes, that my children are healthy and safe and warm and fed... but also immensely grateful that the challenge is taking root in their souls, and for the hope it brings, that - because of them - the future will be more "right" than the present.