Tomorrow, another one of my kids turns 13. (Golly, I am getting old.) I’ll let you in on a little secret. One of his friend’s moms and I decided to share planning a small party for both of our sons together–because it turns out neither of us likes planning parties.
Birthdays seem to require a sudden push of adrenaline, past the normal working-mom-with-four-kids schedule. (It is no doubt a sign of my lack of margin.) So far, I don’t know that my kids have had a birthday that didn’t feel special. (Gosh, I hope not.) But days before, I’m always like, Shoot. I really need to do something!
Because of course, I remember my own 13th birthday. Teenager? Yes, please! It felt monumental. I was on top of the world.
So y’know. I can’t really phone in my son’s birthday. It’s not like I can say, Do you really need to feel special this year? Or could we just have a movie night and call it good? And with how much I adore him, of course I’d never want to.
My point is this: Busyness and life are a slow, draining drip away from the moments that matter.
What’s Burning
Which is why it was good, as I settled in with Ruth Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership (LOVE!), that she spoke of burning bushes. She watches a Moses tucked away in the wilderness for years.
[Moses] looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight.” (Exodus 3:2-3)
Barton observes,
There seemed to be a cause-and-effect relationship between Moses’ willingness to pay attention and God’s willingness to speak….
Do I have enough give in my schedule to be able to turn aside and pay attention when there is something that warrants it? Could it be that I am moving so fast that I do not have time to turn aside and look?
….The burning bush was, after all, a most ordinary object that became extraordinary because it was on fire with divine activity.
It’s paying attention, I know. It’s creating space to notice God’s presence and action, the ways God is surprising me and working out of the ordinary. It’s making time to celebrate and watch in awe at what is growing before you.
As a secondary example, Barton presents Jesus’ disciples who walk (obliviously) with him on the road to Emmaus, and then break bread with him. Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?
What We Miss: Something’s burning
For me, this means discarding some of the stereotypes I’ve cast upon God in the last two years amidst some…spiritual alienation, for lack of a better term. Despite many analogies in my mind involving darkness, I have never been without light to see my feet in front of me. (Someone once pointed out that when God says Your Word is a light unto my path, a lantern often illuminates only the immediate next steps.)
Despite my own identity crisis in this time–and at times feeling as if God were further away–he has continued to burn in my life, so to speak. God has been steadily working in my children, in long talks with others, in a ministry to the homeless, and even in this little blog.
These “bushes” may not be bonfire material. But if I’m praying Show us Your glory, I may need to turn aside to acknowledge what is sacred and set on fire by God around me.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned,
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees, takes off his shoes–
the rest sit around and pluck blackberries.
The son we will celebrate tomorrow (I have paused typing to hatch a little plan of happiness) is the same one who begs me to come to a window when a fox is running across the yard, and who looked up the name for the African birds swooping into our trees. In ways small and large, his life has seemed to say, Don’t miss Him, Mom.
So tomorrow, we will stop and see and celebrate.
Like this post? You might like
Memos to myself: On the dangers of overcommitment
The True Cost of Overcommitment
INFOGRAPHIC: Ideas to Take Back Your Sabbath
INFOGRAPHIC: Simplify Your Schedule (in Time for the School Year!)
