Lisa notes

He Still Wears Flesh

By LisaNotes December 15, 2022 Jesus, My stories 31 Comments

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I’ll just say it. Her house scared me.

Jeff and I had volunteered to help Hope pack (not her real name). She was downsizing from her 3-bedroom house where she’d raised her family to a small condo in Tennessee where she’d live alone.

But something stood in the way:
her tons of stuff.

In the living room we stepped over clothes, empty boxes, frames, etc., to see the mattress she’d pulled to the floor. Her bedroom was no longer habitable because all the piles, so she’d been sleeping here instead.

I was overwhelmed. I walked to the son’s bedroom, who’d moved out months ago, thinking this room would be easier for me to pack. It wasn’t. His suits, his school notes, his collections were still crammed in every available space.

Jeff brought me a box and said, “Don’t think; just fill.”

We asked Hope about donations. Could we bag up outgrown clothes and donate them to a thrift store or to Manna House?

But Hope said no. She wasn’t opposed to giving them away (she had a big heart, I could tell), but she wanted it to be personal. She wanted to see faces of those who could use them before she’d let go. Until then, she’d keep them to herself, not risking their misuse from others.

I understand that. It’s hard for me to let go of my stuff, too. What if I’ll want it later? What if my kids might sometimes need it? Or my grandkids?

Until I picture a face of someone who needs it now.

I imagine an Hispanic mother sifting through the grocery carts of clothes at Manna House on Wednesday night, picking up the jacket I put there. I can see a needy man asking for a shirt to wear to a new job, and giving him one of Jeff’s donations.

Jesus saw the faces.

So he poured himself, the Spirit of Logos, into flesh, into something that could be seen, felt, heard. And for 33 years he wore it well.

But then took it off.

He moved out of his flesh into ours.

He’s willed his feet, his hands, his words to us to wear for him. He sees our faces, imagines our future actions, purposes our giving in his name, even knowing we’ll misuse the gift or forget to use it altogether at times.

Now is our turn.

Because the Word is still flesh.

We’re to touch with it, talk through it, go to others in it. This flesh, it’s for showing up in. To be worn well until it’s worn out.

Back at Hope’s, I finally gave up packing and just listened to her instead. She had a story behind every item she was hoarding and she needed someone to hear it. I kept her in the kitchen so Jeff could pack elsewhere without interruptions.

When we left her house a few hours later, I could see little difference. Yes, there were now more boxes taped and labeled, but there was so much more to go. It looked hopeless.

I later heard Hope got moved. She’d rented storage buildings to house her extras—Christmas decorations, coffee mugs, musical instruments, novels, boots. All in boxes. Not being used. Not being fleshed out.

The Word became flesh to be worn.

Put him on. Live him out. Wear him well.

* * *

How can you wear his flesh this Christmas? Share in the comments.

revised from the archives

When the Power Goes Out—Do You See the Contrast?

By LisaNotes December 12, 2022 Compassion, My stories 28 Comments

We’re in the bedroom watching Auburn basketball on TV. The first half is almost over. Auburn is losing.

We begin to feel hungry. It’s about 5:30 p.m. It’s Saturday, our pizza day, so Jeff walks into the kitchen to preheat the oven. He pulls the frozen pizza from the freezer and lays it on the pan.

And then?

Total darkness.

All light disappears. The heat pump is silent. The basketball game is gone.

I reach for my phone (mentally noting that the battery is at 26%) and click on the flashlight app. I stumble into the kitchen to find Jeff. Together we look out the window to see if the neighbors have electricity.

The whole neighborhood has gone dark in our small Alabama community.

/ / /

The woman keeps her phone fully charged at night when possible. She needs it to work so she’ll hear the air raid alarm.

Living in a war-torn city in Ukraine, she’s stopped planning for the future. Her goal is to survive another day, this day, maybe with electricity, maybe not. Maybe with running water, maybe not.

Central heating and the internet are now luxuries she once took for granted. But not now.

/ / /

Jeff and I wonder what we’ll do for supper now that we can’t cook. We decide on salads. 1-2-3 we quickly open and close the fridge to grab the lettuce, cheese, ham, dressing.

I now have candles burning and a real flashlight to navigate the house. It’s enough light to open the crackers from the pantry and get ice from the freezer for our drinks.

We retreat back to the bedroom and close the door, trapping in the heat, hoping it’ll stay warm enough for the duration of the outage. The low tonight will be around 52 degrees F. The bedroom is at 70 now.

candles

/ / /

The surgeon in Kyiv understands the importance of the operation. He and his staff have prepared themselves and the patient. But with no electricity, it won’t be optimal.

Nonetheless, they begin the surgery.

Several attendants in masks and scrubs point their phone’s flashlights to shine on the patient.

The work goes on.

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/ / /

I use wifi to check Facebook on my phone. Our neighborhood FB group is currently active: Are you without electricity, too? Does anyone know what happened? Did you hear the sirens shortly after it went dark?

No one has answers.

Jeff and I finish our candlelight dinner. We hotspot his iPad and find a YouTube comedy show to watch.

In the dark we snuggle under the covers and laugh at the jokes by the comedian.

We comment that maybe the power should go out more often.

/ / /

Waves of missiles rise through the air, targeting Ukraine’s energy grid. Many more Ukrainians—millions now—are without power as the season’s temperatures continue to drop.

Without their energy infrastructure, homes and businesses and hospitals and schools cannot function.

Basic needs cannot be met.

The coldest winter months are still to come. . . .

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/ / /

Two hours later . . .

Light! Heat! TV!

In another blink of an eye, as quickly as it went out, the electricity whirs back on. Everything comes back to life in our house.

We have to reset our microwave clock, our TV internet, and recharge our phones. I return the candles to their shelves.

I plug in my laptop. Jeff checks Twitter. The Auburn basketball game is over; they lost to Memphis 72-83.

We still don’t know what caused our power outage.

But we no longer have to worry about it.

* * *

Oh, the contrast. {sigh}

Share your thoughts in the comments.

When You Don’t Want to Wake Up

By LisaNotes December 5, 2022 Discrimination, Encouragement 5 Comments

Is It Worth Getting Out of Bed?

I hear our little guy stirring in his crib. We are babysitting our 1½-year-old grandson for the weekend.

He is awake now.

I walk into his room and smile. He stands up. I tell him I am glad he is awake, that he can get out of the crib now and play.

But instead of letting me lift him out of the crib, he sits back down. He keeps looking past my shoulder.

I know what’s happening. He’s waiting for Gramps to get him out of bed instead of me.

I’m not (too) offended. I’m certain he loves me, too, but I’ve seen the special connection he has with Jeff, his Gramps. They toss balls inside the house, play with toy trucks, and make loud animal sounds together.

So our grandson is fine with staying in bed a few extra minutes if it means Gramps will show up soon to play.

When you don't want to wake up

Wakefulness Can Be Hard

Waking up and getting ready for the day isn’t always easy for us adults either. Sleep is sweet. We temporarily disconnect from our real-life problems. Waking up means facing reality again, which can be hard.

But wakefulness is where we’re meant to live.

I spent time on Zoom last Saturday with a group of Racial Equity Buddies. They are people committed to deconstructing racism in our country.

As we talked, I kept hearing this voice in my head: Stay awake.

It wasn’t because I felt lulled to sleep by the conversation. Quite the contrary. The dialogue was lively and engaging.

But as a middle-class white female, my temptation is to stay in my comfortable bed, dreaming sweet dreams, not wanting to wake up to the harsh realities that exist in our world.

Yet staying asleep isn’t an option if we’re called to love each other, to advocate on behalf of the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised, and to support each other when we need help.

Waking up means taking off the blinders, seeing both the good and the bad. Awareness is necessary before change can happen.

What’s Your Alarm Clock?

After the Zoom meeting was over, I wondered about my internal alarm clock of values. What wakes me up? What keeps me awake? What can motivate me to care about fighting racial injustice and other disparities in our world?

For me, it’s other people. People are my alarm clock. They are my wakeup call.

  • They are the wide variety of voices and experiences different from me that I hear in books and videos.
  • They are the people similar to me except for skin tone as we catch up in person over a stack of pancakes.
  • They are the ones who talk to me each week in the midst of lives trapped in poverty due to systemic hardships I have never faced.
  • They are people already out there during the work day in and day out, allowing me to follow along behind them.

The divinity embedded in other people connect with the divinity embedded in me.

I need them all to help me stay awake. To look up and listen. Then to look in and seek change.

Staying asleep and remaining oblivious may feel comfortable during the night, but it’s not healthy during the day. As one of our group members stated on Saturday,

“Silence and complicity and complacency have no place here.”

The pull is strong on a daily basis for me to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my eyes, and turn on another episode of The Office. And I do those things at night when it’s time.

But when it is day, my task is to find ways to stay self-motivated to do the work. I want to remain awake to love the people God loves, to do the things God has for me to do, even though I do it poorly, one baby step at a time.

Awake Is Love

Our grandson sits in the crib a minute longer. He listens and watches me as I chat with him. He finally understands that Gramps isn’t coming this time, unconsciously knowing it’s more advantageous to let me get him out of bed than sit indefinitely until Gramps can.

He raises his arms to me, and I lift him up and out. His day has officially begun. We laugh and play and eat breakfast together.

This is being awake. It can be work. Sometimes it’s hard and I want nothing more than to go back to sleep.

Yet being awake is also good. Very good.

Awake is being aware. Awake is being alive. Awake is being love.

Do you wake up to an alarm clock? What’s your motivation to get up each day? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Do You Look Good For Your Age? 4 Tips to Fight Ageism
—Grace & Truth Linkup

By LisaNotes December 2, 2022 Discrimination, Grace & Truth Link-Up 21 Comments

4 Tips to Fight Ageism

Is This a Compliment?

“You’re how old?”

I tell my friend my number. He says he can’t believe it. He says I look great for my age.

Is this a compliment? Or not?

I’m conflicted.

I assume nobody wants to look older than their age in our culture.

But do we need to look younger?

What Counts As Old?

If you’ve tried buying a birthday card for anyone over age 29, you’ve seen all the “old age” cards, the “over the hill” slams, the “old geezer” jokes.

But who is considered old?

It depends.

By life expectancy standards, you’re “old” when you’re within 15 years of dying.

Both my parents died when they were in their early 70s, so if I follow their pattern, at 60 I’m already technically “old.”

But if were a woman in Japan, where a 60-year-old woman is expected to live to be 88 (it’s 85 in the U.S.), I wouldn’t be considered “old” until I am 73. (See this chart for how many years, on average, you have left, depending on your current age.)

We don’t want to die young, yet we don’t want to get old.

More conflicts.

Fear of Aging Is Cultural

In This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, Ashton Applewhite writes,

“Fear of dying is human. Fear of aging is cultural.”

Maybe it’s not old age itself that we fear.

So what do we fear?

  • Getting sick. 
  • Feeling more pain.
  • Having limitations.
  • Becoming dependent.
  • Losing our memories.

But these things are not the same thing as aging. Getting older is, well, just getting older.

Granted, the difficult things we fear do occur more often with age. But not always and not necessarily. And hopefully we’ll not be alone to deal with them if/when they do occur.

4 Tips Against Ageism

To avoid being ageist (discriminating against people because of their age, whether younger or older), here are a few tips.

1. Give compliments about the trait, not the age.
When you compliment someone, don’t connect it to their age. Instead of saying, “You’re so young at heart,” say “You’re fun to be around.”

2. Avoid addressing people with cutesy names.
Not every older person (or person of any age) appreciates being called “Sweetie” or “Young lady.” Unless you know someone prefers it, don’t do it. It might feel degrading to them, even if your intention is good.

3. Accept age as you do other traits.
Age itself should be neutral, just as skin tone, height, or eye color should be neutral. We don’t need to be blind to it, but we can stop discriminating against it.

4. Associate with people of all ages.
Don’t assume you only have things in common with people of your own generation. Mix it up.

By becoming more aware of the ageist things we think and say, we can eliminate some of the bias against olders (and youngers). After all, our goal is to keep living, thus joining the crowd of olders (if we’re not already there), and we don’t want to discriminate against ourselves.

Every Age Has Purpose

I just had a milestone birthday last week. I’m still struggling to adopt an improved mindset against ageism. I hear the negative voices in my own head about getting older.

But I’m at least becoming more aware of the ageist stereotypes I’ve been duped into believing. That’s the first step out of them.

Because as long as I’m still here, whatever my age and however I look, I want to live my best life, even with boundaries that may develop over time.

God designed each of us to live with purpose—to love others and be loved by others. We can do this at any age.

Yes, we may (or may not) have to shift the way we travel or shop or care for ourselves as we age, but that doesn’t mean we can’t live fully, with meaning and joy.

If it happens again that someone tells me I look good for my age, I’ll still say thank you.

But I might reply back, You look good for your age too, whatever age that is!

How do you feel about your age? Share your thoughts in the comments.

I’m linking at these blog parties

Grace & Truth Featured Post

You may have already asked yourself this question that Jan asks on her blog: Why has God allowed me to live so long?

Read all of Jan’s post to hear her insights and gather your own.

“Why Have I Lived So Long?”

Review the rules here about adding your most recent Christian Living posts and how to be the Featured Post. Visit all four hosts social media here or websites here: Maree Dee, Lisa notes, Lauren Sparks, Tammy Kennington.

Now Let’s Link Up!

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Click here to enter

On the Blog—November 2022

By LisaNotes November 30, 2022 Archives No Comments

Here are brief summaries and links to posts on the blog, Lisa notes, in November 2022.

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See previous months’ archives here