On Friday, as I was spending the day pulling my sermon for Sunday morning together, a news story popped up on my computer screen. I did not call forth this story—it actually interrupted my Web research—and I almost erased it, but then noticed it was about the traffic sinkhole that opened up in the small town of Seffner, Florida, taking out the bedroom where a young man, Jeff Bush, age 38, was sleeping.

Sometimes (most of the time) the sermons we preach to others are really the sermons that we should be listening to ourselves. In the sermon I gave in our church, using the life and music of Johnny Cash as a springboard for thoughts about repentance (Lent According to Johnny Cash), I mentioned this quote from R. D. Laing:

The range of what we think and do--
Is limited by what we fail to notice;
And because we fail to notice--
There is little we can do to change
Until we notice how failing to notice
Shapes our thoughts and deeds.

Admittedly, this quote has to be read several times to understand what the little saying means, but it is profound in its potential impact.

Failing to notice (or neglecting to pay attention to) own motivations, character frailties, or inner knots is a human default. We don’t really want to know what it is we don’t want to know about our selves.

Lent is a time set aside by the early church fathers (and mothers) as a 50-day period to notice, to consider our own souls, to self-reflect on the error of our ways, so that we can develop the capacity for self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is the goal of any introspection, and when we reach it (finally and often with some kind of agony), one of the byproducts is the capacity to notice what we have not been noticing.

No matter how old you are (I am 70 years of age), this process never ends. And because I preached a sermon last Sunday on this process, I have been asking myself, “What is it I am still not noticing?”

Since I have taken a Lenten vow not to watch television for these days leading up to Easter, I’ve also diagnosed the reason for too much time spent as a couch potato is the fact that I am fatigued by 3:00 in the afternoon and just holding on until I can go to bed by 9:00.

A friend sent me to her kinesiologist, and we began the process of discovering at what points I am nutritionally and chemically deprived that might contribute to fatigue, why I am not sleeping well, and what is causing the cycle of allergic reactions that plague me all through the year. To put it simply—watching too much television is only the presenting problem. The causes of the afternoon and evening fatigues that overwhelm me are rooted somewhere in the intricate balance and imbalances that make up the sum total of human entity.

It has been an intriguing journey, and I am popping all kinds of supplements morning and evening, but a month into this experiment, I am feeling better. I’m paying attention. I’m looking inward. I’m definitely noticing.

“That it may please thee to inspire us in all our several callings,
to do the work which thou givest us to do, with singleness of heart
as thy servants, for the common good.
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.”

—The Book of Common Prayer

The e-mail messages for this trip to the Dominican have been flying in flurries; there is so much to remember and to do. Copies of the film script need to be made in case we misplace our work scripts, and there may be a reason for other people to look them over. The shoot list, a schedule of must-get shots, needs to be prioritized and sent to the videographer; a day agenda of where we will be shooting and when must be compiled. The translator who volunteered to help needs to be contacted with information as to when we will need her. (Nothing complicates an out-of-the country shoot any more than the film team and the principals speaking different languages.)

David coached me on making sure we hit the bottom line of the script. My adult children, many who are involved in media—film, video and television—reminded me that this is a visual medium. Content is important they said but if we don’t get enough B-roll, there isn’t enough to work with in the editing room and the project is left with way too much talking heads.

I e-mailed Dr. Bibiana MacLeod, the Regional Coordinator for MAI in the Caribbean, and said, “Two days out from departure and I am getting the nervous-jervies; I am certain there is something major that I am forgetting.”

Phone call from the videographer: “Say, Karen. Are you sure we have reservations at this hotel? I’ve called and e-mailed, and they say they have no record of our names, and the hotel is full for the night of our arrival.” We both had visions of arriving in Santiago, gathering our luggage (including two carts of video and sound equipment), finding a taxi and arriving at the hotel, only to discover they indeed had no room in their inn and we would have no place to stay. Our couple on the ground was working in Cuba, to return shortly before arrival. Another e-mail to Bibiana for translation.

Last week I was worried about getting myself from the airport at night in a taxi, a woman alone in a mostly strange city. Then Paul and I compared arrival notes, discovered we were taking the same American Airlines flight from Miami, and that the three of us—videographer, audio guy, and myself (general gofer and untried director’s assistant, as well as script doctor and script editor) could take one taxi together to the hotel that we didn’t know whether or not we were booked into!

E-mail from Bibiana: “Not to worry. (Bibiana is an Argentina and speaks fluent Spanish.) I talked to the desk clerk (calling from her home in Canada). He has rooms for the three of you under my name.”

I don’t know why I can’t remember this; it seems as though I forget it every day (every day). God does not abandon us ever, not when we are in pain or sorrow, not when we are ecstatic with celebration, not when we are confused by chaos, not when we are lost or on standby, not when we travel.

Our flight to Santiago, Dominican Republic, went smoothly. We sailed through immigration control, picked up our bags, were waved through customs. Then we saw familiar faces at the gate where those long lines of family and friends and drivers waited to meet and greet all who disembarked from Flight 4537 from Miami.

Our translator had come to find us along with Hiram DeLeon, our contact on the ground who speaks about as much English as we speak Spanish (maybe more, which is not a lot) and without whose services this film project could not be a success.

Help me not to forget, Dear Lord, that You are always waiting at the gate to greet us, in the loving guise of people who sincerely care about doing the compassionate thing. Help me not to forget.

I spy God!

Five hours early in Miami for my scheduled departure flight, I went through the rituals of checking myself in (why can I never remember how to scan in the code on my passport?). I loaded my bags on the scale, then remembered to ask if I could have my American Airlines Frequent Flyer number added, since the card eluded my last-minute search as I was leaving home. Since I had such a long layover, I thought I might try the Ambassador Club Lounge, and the American Airlines Web site said I needed to show my number to purchase a day-pass for $50.

Now, I have never stayed in an airline private lounge in my whole collected history of air travel. The long trip home from California, however, and the prospect of a year of standby travel, convinced me that the better part of valor would be to just consider a one-time membership.

When I started for the security line after the attendant added my numbers, I realized that not only did I not have my baggage claim ticket (terribly important, since my suitcase would sit in the bowels of the Miami International Airport for some five hours before my flight was scheduled to embark), I did not have a boarding pass. Instead, I was holding an odd paper that didn’t even have my name. When I went back to the counter, the attendant issued me a new boarding pass and dug around in the garbage, looking for the old one she had torn in half. There, on the back side, was my claim ticket—with the all-important numbers and codes that make it possible to track lost luggage all over the world.

I wouldn’t have gotten very far in the security line before I discovered the loss of a boarding pass, but I might not have remembered by then that I needed the claim check, and the check-in counter attendant might have moved on to another position, complicating any need for hide-and-seek through the garbage. Airline personnel hear so many laments that most of them turn kind of a world-weary eye on the complicated explanations or excuses of frustrated and less-than-their-best distressed passengers.

At any rate, I thanked God for His traveling mercies and reminded myself that He is perfectly able to jog my thinking when He needs to.

While walking through the airport, I noticed how empty the gates and hallways were at 11:00 in the morning and decided that if I found a recharger port, I would sit there and power up all the batteries I was carrying—my computer, my cell phone and my Kindle—instead of trying the private lounge. Sure enough, I came across an empty gate, an empty port—and it was right beneath the third floor, glassed-in Ambassador Lounge, with all its comfortable guests eating and drinking and working, who were gazing down at us.

I couldn’t connect to the MAI public Wi-Fi and decided to try the Ambassador Lounge’s free-access network connection. Sure enough, there was my e-mail; I sent messages and I received messages. I spent a profitable afternoon, felt productive and even virtuous. Travel and accomplishment—the best of both worlds, and I didn’t even have to pay for it.

Perhaps I would use the $50 to get an airport massage—for the five-hour layover I had before I flew standby on the trip home to Chicago. I wondered if I could include that in my list of traveling mercies.

I spy God!

I noticed one of the young moms—part of the group of us signed up to go standby—herding three kids, two teens and a preteen, at the gate where we were waiting to see if any of us would make it out on the first plane that left from San Francisco to Chicago. Her little group did not make the first plane, nor the 6:55 morning flight. At the next gate she was offered space if they wanted to split up, “No way,” she said, with her kids echoing her comments. “We’re going to stick together!”

Waiting at the 10:30 flight gate, I noticed that her standby party of four were called for first-class seats. A cheer of delight went up from them. Standing nearby, she smiled at me. “Well, that was worth the wait.” We started to chat, and I asked her several questions about flying on these passes. The first was: How do you get your name up to the front of the list?

“Oh, don’t even try. There’s a seniority system in the airlines. The longer you’ve worked, the higher your name goes on the list.” Well, that was a help. It spared me all kinds of fruitless effort.

Do you sign up for several flights yourself? “You’re not supposed to, but sometimes I do,” she admitted.

She talked about taking planes to less-busy airports, then flying on to busier destinations of choice. “We’re actually on our way to Paris for the weeklong vacation.” We all remarked on how much we loved that city. Their intent was to spend a day in Chicago, then go through London and take the Chunnel to Paris. A friend had said to her, “Oh, no. You should fly to Frankfort. We have plenty of flights that go there. Then you take the train back to Paris.”

I began to realize there was a whole lore I needed to learn regarding traveling standby.

“How are your kids with all this?”

“Aw, they’re used to it.” Actually, I hadn’t seen the typical sighs, raised brows or rolled eyes that generally signal, “These kids have had it and are beginning to mount a rebellion.”

“No,” she continued. “They’ve learned to roll with the punches, be flexible. We just think it’s a great adventure.”

After my name was called for the same flight, I thought some about this bright and eager woman. Actually, much of life is like flying standby. We think we have a ticket that will enable us to travel where we want to go, but really we’re just waiting in line until a space opens for us. The door to some jet-way opens. Opportunity presents itself suddenly; we can choose it or lose it. Our name has been called—or not. We can roll with the punches, become extraordinarily flexible, or we can gripe and complain, whine and lament that the travel through the days has not gone as we expected.

I decided that for this entire year of traveling standby, with no guarantees that I would actually get on the winging toward where I was trying to go, that I would adopt this woman’s and her children’s attitude. It’s an adventure. I will choose to trust that the Lord will get me where He needs me when He needs me to get there. And if my name is not called, I’d believe that the timing was all under his control. But I would keep my eyes open as to what kind of alternate travel scheme He might have in mind.

I determined that I would learn to work in the airport, on crowded airplanes, that I would force myself to use the Kindle my daughter gave me to cut down on the amount of books I haul from the to-read pile. I vowed I would learn to do more on my 4G phone than just make and receive calls. This way my travel time would be productive, and I would just leave the journeying mechanisms up to God.

This morning I signed in for the first flight to Miami. There was lots of room on a rather small plane; I had two seats to spread out in. I’ve written three blogs, counting this one, am powering up my Kindle, have called the office four times and left work for the staff, am carrying out communiqués via texts, have navigated the Miami International Airport, going through the parking lot from Terminal G to Terminal D, rather than around the walkway—a much longer jaunt while hauling a suitcase, briefcase, coat and purse. I still have another three hours to finish tasks, have lunch, and get myself to gate D4 for a 5:40 flight, meet the rest of the film crew, then take off for the Dominican Republic, where we are scheduled to land at 8 o’clock this evening.

Traveling with God is always an adventure, whether it is because you have a reservation or are going standby. I’ve decided I’m just going to live in that reality. Let’s see what amazing things He does with me and this standby pass.

I spy God!

The next morning, Saturday, February 16, was still the beginning of the President’s mid-winter break for San Francisco area schoolchildren, and the early planes were just as crowded as the night before. My name on the standby list for the first flight was behind at least 11 other travel-wannabes, so I quickly suspected I would not make this flight either. The next flight left at 6:55—didn’t make that one. The 8:20, once their sign-ups were posted on the overhead screens, looked pretty bad as well. I began to think I wasn’t going to make it home at all that Saturday. With each stage of disappointment, I kept phoning my husband, who was prepped to pick me up at O’Hare, “Didn’t make it. Next flight leaves at such-and-such a time. Will call you if I get on.”

Determined to be more proactive, I waited at the gate of the 8:20 flight. By this time, we rejected standbys were beginning to form a union of sympathy and humor. I noticed when the standby names were called. Again, I had actually moved down the list from 11th place to 12th. An African-American woman caught my eye. She was stylishly attired and accompanied by a strong, hulking young man who I took to be her son. There was some conversation. The attendant motioned to the young man. His name was posted on the public list: JON.D. All those names posted overhead are abbreviated to their last-name’s first three initials and the first letter of the first name. I was “MAI.K.” Thinking that by some miracle I might get on this very-full flight, I eased closer to the podium. At least I would be nearby if there was one last seat. The rejected standby list of names had already been rolled over to the 10:30 flight—mine included.

The presumed mother was making a decision. I gathered that she had a ticket, but her son, this big hulking young man, was on standby. It appeared there would be no place for him. Perhaps if she decided to take the next flight, there would be room for one standby, and I would be in place. However, moved down the gateway, and I heard her instruction to the attendants. “He won’t be able to find that gate by himself. You hear me? Promise that you will make sure he gets to that gate. Do you promise?” They nodded their heads “yes.” But I felt like there was something hesitant in their response. Mom was gone; the door was closed.

One look in the hulking young man’s eyes, and I could tell that he was confused. His mother was leaving him, and he didn’t know how to get to the next gate. “Oh,” I volunteered, “I’m on standby also. Let’s you and I walk to the airport together see if we make that flight.” One of the attendants gave me an unspoken look that could not be interpreted as anything other than, Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

“I am brain-damaged,” he said as we took the motorized walkway. “I get lost in airports.”

“Well, I know what you mean. Airports are very confusing.”

I asked him his name. It was Devron—“JON.D.” His mother’s plane probably hadn’t left the gate yet, so I suggested he call his mom and tell her that “a nice lady [was] going to help [him] find [his] plane and make sure [he] got on it if [his] name was called.” I actually wondered a little why that attractive lady didn’t step down. I could sense how torn she was going on.

Sure enough, both Devron and I (and another standby grandma, going to babysit a grandson) made this next flight. By this time I noticed the scar around the shaved hairline of my new friend’s forehead—some kind of either accident or surgery had left it. I became quite certain that the reason I’d missed the last seat on the last plane out to Chicago last night was that I was supposed to be standing at the 8:20 flight so that I could help this young man going forward. I suggested that he text his mother that he had made this plane and what the flight number was so she could track his arrival.

Since I was in the last row of the airplane, I made sure Devron would wait for me so we could walk together to the baggage claim. When I disembarked, however, he was nowhere to be seen. I concluded that his mother had waited at the gate to meet him. That’s what I would have done.

At the baggage claim, Devron pointed me out to his mother. “That’s the lady,” I heard him whisper. And I realized why she had seemed so torn and why she had not stepped down. She was pushing the wheelchair of another gangly young man. I’d noticed him, but he had boarded with early-boarding group provided for disabled. I imagined that the woman had gone ahead to get him settled and come back for her other son, who was flying standby. Now I understood why she was so torn and why she had not chosen to take a later flight. This was a mother with two sons.

I thought I had missed the last seat on the last flight to Chicago last night in order to help this young man, Devron. I actually missed that last seat to give aid and comfort to his mother.

At the baggage claim, she came over to thank me. “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied. “Devron is one great hunk of a guy.”

I spy God!

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

 
This week Karen is in the Dominican Republic directing a film shoot for Medical Ambassadors International. She would appreciate your prayers as you read these blogs. Filming in another country, on a low budget and without knowing the language can be tricky indeed. Shoot crews are well aware of their need for God’s help. Thank you.
 
In small things do we see His hand. I need to fly into the Dominican Republic, go through immigration and pick up my baggage. I am scheduled to arrive at 8:40 in Santiago and will probably complete all the arrival complications by 9:30. Then I am supposed to make my way to the curb, through a crowd of milling Dominicans who are waiting for family and friends, find a taxi, ride off into the approaching midnight with this cabbie stranger and direct him to the hotel without my knowing a modicum of Spanish beyond “Ola!” and “¿Cuál es su nombre?” (“What is your name?”)

Today, however, five days before I am supposed to depart, I was working up a day schedule for the shoot. When I entered the arrival times of the crew, of myself or of the principles, I realized I was scheduled to arrive in Santiago about the same time as the videographer and the sound man.

“Is there any possibility that we will be arriving on the same plane?” I shot off in an e-mail inquiry. Sure enough, the two film guys and I are scheduled to fly out of Miami on the same flight.

I praise God for His manifold loving provisions, for His care. Today (I am writing on Ash Wednesday), the Scripture read in the liturgy this morning reminded me:

The people: We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.
The liturgist: That it may please Thee to inspire us, in our several callings, to do the work which thou givest us to do with singleness of heart as Thy servants, and for the common good.
 :    
The people: We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.
The liturgist: That it may please Thee to preserve all who are in danger by reason of their labor or their travel.


Male companions in a taxi for a night ride is a small thing, but I am not so small before the Lord that I am not worthy enough to be a recipient of His loving care.


I spy God!

Dick Ryan, the director of InterVarsity’s outreach to art students on campuses across the country, arranged for me to be part of the team that seeks to encourage professionals in art-related fields to mentor these young and eager creators. So the last week of January, after traveling in Mexico and then going on with my husband to visit sites for a film shoot in the Dominican Republic, I arrived at Armerding Hall on the campus of Wheaton College, with an active allergy that had been blasted into my system by the pollen, smog, car emissions, etc. that settles in the valley where the city of Santiago rests and doesn’t go away.

It was a wonderful day, and the lectures, conversations with other professional mentors, as well as exchanges with the art students, reminded me how little of this I have right now and how much I miss and need it. I also spent eight years of my life serving on the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship board of directors, where I learned to know and love many of the IV campus staff. How wonderful to be interacting again, even briefly, with these young adults who’ve given up careers that could have been much more profitable financially in order to dialogue with and introduce Christ to the students in our country’s university systems.

At the end of the day, we were led in worship by a young man who played the harp. I have actually never seen this before—praise and worship music backed by harp music. He explained that all were welcome to bring their art discipline into the worship experience. Papers had been hung on the walls for those who chose to paint or draw. Musicians were invited to bring their instruments or voice to the platform and join in. “And if you dance, please feel free to dance in the aisles or up here with me.”

It took a little while for the arts students in the audience to warm up to the idea, but eventually some began working on the papers on the walls, a young woman took her violin from its case, and in time many of us were content to sit in our seats and join in the worship in our own way.

This whole Saturday, due to my very active allergy, I went through the schedule with a box of tissues in one hand and a pocketful of cough drops. As much as I enjoyed the day and luxuriated in the company of people with similar passions, I really needed to get home, dose myself with Nyquil and go to bed.

I noticed a young woman quietly dancing in a doorway. I could see her out of the corner of my eye, but she was hidden from most of the rest of the audience. Suddenly, a tall young black man stepped onto the stage and started to tap dance out his artistic discipline, turning it into worship. We all were electrified. He was beautiful; his movement was exquisite and holy. He had brought his tap shoes in case this opportunity presented itself.

The day ended with a prayer of blessing given by Michael Wilder, the Dean of the Music and Art Conservatory at Wheaton College, and then another prayer by myself.

Oh Lord,
Help these people to be true;
True to the vision of what You have meant them to be
And are helping them to become;
True to Yourself who is creating in them more than they
Could ever have dreamed or imagined;
True to others, with a kind of integrity that respects
How You have made us all different and unique;
And true to the community of the world into which
You seek to help us pour out our gifts and peculiarities.
Help them to be true.
Help them to be true.
In Christ’s name,
Help them to be true.

This prayer was designed on the spot as I was watching that young man tap-dancing during worship, being true to what it was God intended for him to be.

I went home, took Nyquil, hooked up the electric heating pad and went to sleep, but I was better in my soul because of that day, because of the arts professors and the InterVarsity staff and the eager students and because of one lovely young man dancing before the Lord.

I spy God!

Through the extraordinary generosity of a friend who has been a long-time supporter of our ministry, we have paid off the last credit card debt that accumulated when we launched the Global Bag Project in 2008. We opened a home equity account to pay for purchasing portable camera equipment that works best in developing countries so that we could record the stories of the bag-makers. The $30,000 loan would also enable us to capitalize the start up of this idea to help women lift themselves from beneath the poverty line.

Great ideas being what they always are—more difficult than originally imagined—we weren’t able to do much more than keep up with the interest payments.

However, this friend’s gift, divided half between a 2012 donation and then half at the beginning of this year, enabled us to pay off all credit card debt, finish off the home equity loan, and pay back a small loan given to us by a ministry that seeks to help new businesses that specialize in microenterprise ventures, which is the nature of the Global Bag Project.

I can’t think of a more eloquent example of grace than this kind of donation given so freely and so cheerfully. Simply, God has paid off our debt. He and His Son agreed that an ultimate sacrifice would be made so that we would no longer have interest payments to make, and that we would also owe no more money. Sometimes I get used to this story of redemption, but being in ministry all my adult life, where we have been dependent for our very living on the generous offerings of not only friends but strangers, reminds me, quite frequently, of the joy, the exuberance, the wonder of having my debts paid.

When I called my friend to thank her for this huge gift, she said, “Well, God has been very generous to me. I also want to be generous to others.”

In 2 Corinthians 8:7 it says, “But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.” Giving, on whatever level, is nothing more than understanding that God has been generous to us all—He has forgiven our debt—and we need to be generous to others. Dollar debt, forgiven, is an incredible metaphor for this unbelievable spiritual transaction.

I spy God!

When we went to Oaxaca, our youngest son, Jeremy, who spent his honeymoon with his wife in this Mexican state—and who runs an immigration counseling service with a high number of Mexican clients, and who teaches Spanish as an adjunct professor at Wheaton College—gave us a list of items he wanted us to pick up for him and bring home. We actually spent a great deal of our free time roaming the mercados and artisan communities looking for the things he included on his list.

The barro negro (“black clay”) pottery, at the top of Jeremy’s list, are typical of Oaxacan pottery. In fact, the Valley of Oaxaca, in which the capital city resides, is renowned for its pottery-making tradition. What is amazing about barro negro is that it is turned without a potter’s wheel. Doña Rosa, now deceased, pioneered the turning of pots on a clay dish stacked on another clay dish, which is turned upside down and cemented to the ground with a plug of wet clay. The size and shape of the pots has been expanded by Doña Rosa’s many descendants, but the means of turning the pots remains the same. With wide eyes and open mouths, David and I and our eldest son watched a pot-making demonstration where the potter turned out what eventually became a large pitcher—without the traditional wheel. The little town of San Bartolo de Coyotepec is an artisan pottery village. Here we found the black pottery requested by our youngest son who had sent us off to Oaxaca with a list in hand.

The story of Doña Rosa intrigues me because it is one of the many examples I’ve discovered of artists who have found a way to create beauty despite the obstacles of their lives—lack of training or lack of artistic resources. In fact, there is a whole tradition known as “outsider art”; people, often uneducated, often impoverished, who create amazing expressions of that God-given urge outside of the parameters of the academic or recognized artistic community. Whenever I run into “outsider art” I am reminded that Scripture tells us we are all made in the image of God. This deep need to express, to create, to form, to design—no matter how, exactly, it finds its expression, is to me evidence that those Genesis passages are true. Even if we don’t recognize that God is the Original Creator of All, this urgency to emulate—sometimes without training, even without paints or brushes or clay or fabric—the God who is the Originator is evidence enough to me. I delight in the thought of a Mexican woman figuring out how to make clay pots without a potter’s wheel, and stacking an upright clay dish on top of an upside down clay dish, throwing the clay on the stack, turning the upright plate with one hand and pressing a hole in the clay mound with her other hand, then thinking to herself, Yes. This will work. This will work indeed.

I cannot deny the existence of a God when there are so many proliferating, sometimes profligate, examples of the need, of the urge, of the deep desire to create. “And God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image.’ … So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.’” —Genesis 1:26-27.

I spy God!