Living as Apprentices

In my last post, I shared that I had recently done a deep dive into the statistics associated with this blog. One thing I learned was that within the last week or two 17 people had read the following post published on Nov. 1, 2014. I wondered how they had all found a nearly 8-year-old post! It is one of my very favorite memories – and posts. So here it is again. I hope it moves you as it did me when I read it again.

He was eighteen and strong and funny – and lost.  He walked into my adult high school reading class with a swagger before there was such a thing as swagger. I liked him immediately. He was ready to help (like moving a piano to the back of the classroom), but only after a wisecrack. He was willing to do what I asked, but only after he complained. He was an excellent reader so I put him in the highest group, the one reading popular, but important, novels.  We talked after class quite a bit.  I encouraged him to make the most of his potential; he deflected any compliments and denied any interest in changing his attitude or his life.

Then one spring day, he told me he was moving to Texas.  He never came back to class again. I was so very sad to lose him.  Suddenly I had an inspiration.  I sent him a note with a copy of some beautiful words by John Powell from Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?  It starts like this:

“Don’t be fooled by me.  Don’t be fooled by the mask I wear.  For I wear a thou-sand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them are me. Pretend- ing is an art that’s second nature with me, but don’t be fooled.  My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask.  Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, fear, and loneliness.  But I hide this and panic at the fear of being exposed. That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated façade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.  But such a glance is precisely my salvation and I know it.  That is, if it is followed by acceptance and love.  It’s the only thing that can assure me of what I can’t assure myself –  that I am worth something.”

I hoped for a response but I didn’t hear anything back from him. . . . until the following October when I got a letter from Houston.  He told me what he was experiencing and learning in Texas.  And then he wrote:

I still have a lot to learn about myself, but I do have more confidence in confront- ing people with who I really am – and that is me, not a mask. That’s what started this letter. When I came down here, I didn’t bring much but I did bring my book of prayer and in it the story of the masks. The first time I read it, it hit me very hard and opened my eyes to what I was doing to myself. Thank you for sending it to me. It means a lot. And you mean a lot more even if I don’t have the guts to tell you face to face.  I know God is with you so all I can say is take care.

This was more than 25 years ago, but as I re-read the letter just now, I thanked God for giving inspiring me with the idea of how to show this young man how much he was loved.

Usually, I collect the thoughts of others that inspire me into a monthly post called From my Reading. This one from Frederick Buechner is so stunning I couldn’t wait to use it. If only someone had shared this “object lesson” with me decades ago:

“If the idea of God as both Three and One seems far-fetched and obfuscating, look in the mirror someday. There is (a) the interior life known only to yourself and those you choose to communicate it to (the Father). There is (b) the visible face which in some measure reflects that inner life (the Son). And there is (c) the invisible power you have in order to communicate that interior life in such a way that others do not merely know about it, but know it in the sense of its becoming part of who they are (the Holy Spirit). Yet what you are looking at in the mirror is clearly and indivisibly the one and only You” (Frederick Beuchner)

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I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer, in late 2014. You can read about that diagnosis and about the thoughts that life-threatening disease aroused in me in the series Who Am I When My Body Fails Me on this blog. (To find it, go to the home page and check the category list for this title.) The disease has been “controlled” for nearly four years, but this summer I learned that it has returned; I will have to resume chemotherapy soon. The resurgence of this disease (and my husband’s death in October) have prompted me to think more seriously about the process of death and dying.

I have just finished J. Todd Billings’ book, The End of the Christian Life, How Embracing Our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live. Dr. Billings is a professor at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Mi where I live. His diagnosis of blood cancer several years ago prompted the writing of his first book Rejoicing in Lament. Both books are a stunning look at the value of facing and lamenting pain and sorrow and then accepting and rejoicing in the process of dying. The closing pages of his discussion of the meaning of death and the necessary process of dealing with dying give us this ringing affirmation:

“I want to join the birds and the trees and the rest of creation in the grand melody of adora- tion to the everlasting Lord. I live in hope that the frailty and decay of my body will not be the final measure of my life, but that on the final day my renewed body will lift up a voice to join the multitude in the song of praise. I sing now as one whose life is “hidden with Christ in God.” From that place of hiddenness, I look forward to the end. “When Christ who is your life is revealed, the you also will be revealed with him in glory” (Col.3: 3-4).

(Two other moving and encouraging books on death and dying are An Imperfect Life by Philip Simmons and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.)

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My “contract” with Word Press ends in September and I have been debating spending the money to “re-up.” I seem to have writer’s block more often than not and wondered if the energy it takes to write is worth the effort. One day I was on the stats page of my blog and discovered the following data.

My first blog was on Sept. 12, 2012. It was actually a statement of purpose and was all of 87 words long. Here it is:

“An apprentice is someone who is learning from a master.  As Christians we are learning from the Master, Jesus.  Our apprenticeship is life-long.  As Eugene Peterson says,(quoting  Friedrich Nietzche, of all people, who used the phrase in a very different context),  it is  “a long obedience in the same direction. This blog will suggest some stepping stones on the journey to a transformed life . . .  a life that every day looks more and more like the life of Jesus

So I have been blogging for nearly 10 years. In that time I have written 974 posts. My blog has been read by people in 168 countries (16 of which have only had one reader each.) To me the most astonishing figures came from China (432 views), Hong Kong (348 views) and Singapore (352 views).

After years of serving as a care-giver for my husband, I now have a lot of extra time. I have filled it with hours of reading, for which I am grateful. But a few months ago, I started asking, “What’s the point, God?” I am weak and ill and it seemed that I wasn’t very useful anymore. Everyone with whom I shared that thinking said, “But, Karen, you have your blog.” Those comments and this pursuit of statistics have been very useful. I’ve decided to renew my plan with Word Press. See you all next time!

This piece was first posted on May 5, 2018. Since COVID-19, the tulips have faithfully bloomed but the celebration of Tulip Time a nationally known event, has dwindled. In 2021, it arose again, bringing thousands of people ready to rejoice to our little city. But reading this blog again reminded me that God provides blessings just as spectacular when we are alone.

I live in Holland, MI, a city (population of about 33,000)  that plants 467,000 tulip bulbs – every year. We even recycle them. Residents are invited to come to three parks in early June and dig up bulbs, filling a five-gallon bucket for $10. I have read that the area surrounding Holland (which includes a tulip farm) boasts of more than five million tulips! Meandering downtown and crisscrossing residential streets when these signature flowers are all in bloom is a feast for the eyes and heart.  

This year, a cold spring has descended on Holland; it does not want to budge. The tulips are still stems and buds, the trees are just beginning to bud, and the grass is barely greening. I have been itching to beautify my balcony again with pots of colorful flowers, but it is not time yet. I went for a walk last week and found some daffodils growing by the roadside. I’ve plucked a couple of these spring beauties twice now and they are ensconced in a place of honor on the pass-through shelf right by my sink. And yet I am still impatient for more spring.

So last week I bought a small gerbera daisy and put it on my kitchen table. Two pink blossoms popped out of dark green leaves that remind me of lettuce or kale. One of the joys of this kind of daisy is that it sprouts healthy buds that you can barely see until they are several inches tall. I began peeking into the plant hoping to see a bud a few days ago and was overjoyed to discover two small  ones hiding in the safety of the foliage. 

Our culture is attached to the idea of “more is better” and complex is better than simple. Many yards in Holland feature tulip beds, but there is something truly spectacular about seeing hundreds, even thousands, in one place. However, my two daffodils and a potted daisy are reminding me that less can be better; simple can be spectacular. The delicacy of a daffodil is more easily appreciated when there are only one or two blossoms to take in. A bud in a pot of pink daisies can be a lovely miracle all by itself. My life and your life are just as beautiful and just as valuable in God’s economy as the crowds of lives that surround us.  This truth gives new meaning to the old standby: “Stop and smell the roses” – and daffodils and daisies.