Ears to Hear

I have been experiencing clogged ears on and off this summer, related I think to my sinuses. It’s not painful, but the clogging makes it hard to hear people. It can be comical on a day when I hear out of only one ear. Lorraine does her best to try to remember which side of my head to speak to. And then there’s the wonderful morning when I wake up and can hear without the clogged ear syndrome, clear as normal. Ahh, relief. Just normal hearing from both ears feels remarkably good.
 
Hearing is a good thing. God gave us ears. With them, we hear great pieces of music, books on tape, words of love from those closest to us, the preaching of the Word of God, or necessary instructions from a boss or coworker.  Maybe it’s because of sinuses, or maybe it’s helping Alta get going on the deaf ministry, but I’ve been thinking about hearing and listening.
 
A recent article in Forbes magazine explains two counterproductive things people do when they listen to others.
 
The first is listening for new information. That sounds fine on one level, but it undercuts the person speaking to you.. It’s like scanning an article online looking for content you don’t already know. You aren’t really reading just as you aren’t really listening.
 
The second is listening to hear whether the person agrees with you. Usually, people tend to tune out a person they perceive as not agreeing with them. We tend to listen only if we perceive the person to be in agreement with us on whatever issue is being discussed.
 
The author of the article calls these “self-focused goals” and claims that such approaches lead to a shorter attention span and a failure to truly connect with the people with whom we speak. Though common, lazy listening can have dire consequences in the workplace.
 
The Forbes article quoted a study that found that a group of doctors facing lawsuits listened to their patients description of their symptoms for an average of eleven seconds. This in contrast to another group of doctors with zero lawsuits whose average listening to their patients was greater than three minutes. Malpractice and people leaving a doctor’s care worse than when they started—not exactly an endorsement to superficial listening.
 
Proverbs 18:13 warns us: “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.”

This kind of thing happens to all of us—we listen but we don’t hear.
 
We’re the distracted parents who say yes to our child’s request without realizing that we just agreed to a birthday party at Disney World for said child and his ten closest friends.
 
We’re the ones in the Sunday service who take notes during the sermon, and we look down and see points one and three. What happened to point two? That’s when thoughts of lunch took over and our listening went on pause.
 
Or we’re the ones sitting across from close friends as they pour out their hearts, only to glance up from our phones and say, “Sorry, what was that again?”
 
What about during small group prayer time, and you lose track of what requests have been prayed for and what ones are still unchecked—and you are the leader.
 
Bad listening examples abound. Listening is important when it comes to the workplace as the Forbes article warns, but it’s especially crucial interpersonally and in the church.
 
With the people around us, we need to both listen and hear.
 
I’ve been making excuses in this area, blaming my bad listening on this multi-tasking texting scanning scrolling speed-reading age in which we live. It’s true. We have more good excuses for not listening than ever before in history. That sounds convincing, don’t you think? It's just the age in which we l ive.
 
When Jesus says in Matthew 11:15, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” I know he’s talking about people listening and hearing the truths he’s preaching.
 
But there’s something else going on with the family of God. What happens when we stop listening to “the least of these”? Or what holy and wonderful things might happen when we do listen?
 
“Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Life Together. “It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him.
 
“…Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too.”
 
If God can use our ears to hear the heart of other people, how can we be deaf to the call to listen to one another?
 
As I begin a new season of church life, I want to listen better—to the kids in Kindergarten, to the people praying, to the people I’m praying for, to the pastor preaching, to my wife. I want to listen to them as I want to be listened to myself. I want to make good use of the ear God has lent me to hear as he hears from those in need.
 
God guide us to be a community of slow-to-speak people who hear and listen.
 
“Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.
Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors” Proverbs 8:34, 35

Movers and Stayers by Lorraine Triggs

712, 131, 121, 441, 507, 1n225.

This string of random numbers is not random to me. The numbers are the house numbers of addresses where I’ve lived, beginning with my childhood home: 712 South Kenwood Ave, and ending with our current house number in Winfield. And I am well below the average number of times Americans move in their lifetime, which is 11.7 times.

Ellen Barry, writing for The New York Times (July 17, 2024), featured a study of adults in Denmark who moved frequently in childhood and concluded that “adults who moved frequently in childhood have significantly more risk of suffering from depression than their counterparts who stayed put in community.”  It also found that income—whether high or low—didn’t make a difference if you didn’t move in childhood. “Being a ‘stayer’ was protective for your health.” Frequent moves cost social capital, and one of the biggest costs is community.

Just watch an episode of House Hunters International. The new homeowners will wax eloquent about their new home, the view, proximity to restaurants, and then admit that it has been hard to find community and make friends. After one such episode, I said to my husband. “That wouldn’t be our problem. We’d find a church right away.”  

As followers of Christ, we are “stayers.” According to the Apostle Paul, we are fellow citizens, members of the household of God, being built together into a dwelling place. We are a body. We’re partners, brothers and sisters. We’re rooted in him. Talk about being a “stayer.”

As followers of Christ, we are also on the move. From Abraham to John on the Island of Patmos, Scripture pushes us beyond the here and now to the now and ever shall be, world without end.

To get from here to there, we need to be like Abraham. He was a mover. Though unsure of his destination, he was more than sure of the One who promised. We need to be like Abraham and his descendants who acknowledged they were strangers and exiles on the earth—not stayers because “people who speak thus make it clear that that are seeking a homeland.” (Hebrews 11:14) The writer of Hebrews continues pointing out that “if they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.” (11:15)

And that’s the tension we experience as “stayers” and “movers,” between our status as strangers and exiles and our longing to return to the good old days. The good old days might not be as calendar specific as we think, but instead reflect our longing for days when tears or pain or regrets didn’t intrude on our lives.

My husband points out that these longings are fitting longings for strangers and exiles on this earth—longings that reflect our heart’s desire for that better place, where tears are wiped away from every eye, where pain and mourning don’t exist.

And those good old days, the former things we yearned for on this earth? They will have given way to the new heaven and new earth, where we find our homeland and settled rest, “no more a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at home.” (“My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” v. three.)

But like a stayer at home at last.

Unnecessary Sacrifice by Wil Triggs

Our first year of wedded bliss was surprisingly wonderful for Lorraine and me. Looking back at it, we agree that we dated for too long before engagement (about three years) and then our engagement was also too long (nine months). When we finally became husband and wife, it was great. After the stress of planning the event and moving our two homes into one, we were relieved.
 
Relieved, but still kind of new at this marriage thing and a lot of stuff just happens by trial and error. So, imagine my surprise and dismay when I looked over at Lorraine during a worship service one Sunday and saw her crying. It was a happy time in church. The children’s choirs were singing. It wasn’t the part of church where crying was more or less a normal response.
 
Uh oh. Had I done something wrong? Back in year one I thought that most of the time if she was upset, it was my fault. I have since come to learn that there are many reasons for tears and things like that are not always my fault.
 
I put my arm around her and did a little seated side hug. She composed herself and got one of those little lace embroidered handkerchiefs out of her purse and wiped her eyes. And we continued in worship.
 
“What happened?” I asked her when we were in the car, headed home.
 
“I miss my girls,” she said. “I don’t know any of them up there singing.”
 
When we married, Lorraine read somewhere that it was a good idea to take a year off serving and just focus on each other. We agreed to do that. We sacrificed our service to help assure a good footing in our marriage.
 
Dumb idea. We should have known that not serving was not a good fit for us.
 
Looking back, I think maybe it wasn’t a sacrifice at all, but a selfish inward focus. It was just the sort of thing one of those wedding magazines might feature.
 
So when  someone reached out with a new idea to reinvigorate a ministry. He invited us to take part in it. We were surprised to hear from him and to think that we might be able to help start something new. We repented and added service back into our lives.
 
Being married is a wonderful thing, but it didn’t take the place of Lorraine befriending and teaching the girls. For us, it wasn't an either/or kind of thing. That’s why the tears came as she looked at the girls singing in choir—she missed her midweek time with them.
 
We didn’t need to sacrifice service to assure a good marriage or our love for one another.
 
In fact, we’ve found serving in the church helps our marriage. When we give to others, we and our marriage grow stronger. Our lives are better when we serve. Sometimes we’ve served as a couple. Other times individually. When we give our time to other people in the church, we are better people for the service.
 
Lots of people know us as kindergarten team leaders. We’ve been doing it for a long time now. It’s such a privilege to help. Thanks to parents who allow others in the church to help point their children to Jesus. Yes, it’s the responsibility of parents to be the primary teachers of their kids, but when we serve in little ways in Kids’ Harbor or in STARS, we experience the community of church in ways unlike other parts of church life.
 
Nothing takes the place of service. It's in our DNA as children of the heavenly Father. Just as we love because he first loved us, we serve because "even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45) 

And his is the only sacrifice that's necessary for salvation and service.

Let's Make a Deal by Lorraine Triggs

I am a fan of summer camps.

Though my husband didn’t venture off to camp as frequently as I did as a child, he did attend music camp. As part of the closing program, the camp would bestow an award for camper of the week, an award my husband mocked . . . until he won it. The best award I managed to snag at my church’s camp was the trophy plaque for the cleanest cabin, but it was a daily award and my cabinmates and I had to relinquish it twenty-four hours later.

At the youth camps I attended, the awards stakes were higher. The very first day of camp, the camp director announced that a male and female camper would be crowned Mr. and Miss Camp (insert camp name) at the end of the week. The staff would be on the lookout for campers who showed Christian virtues—you know, love, kindness, purity, and let's not forget athletic prowess, popularity and good looks.

Putting aside my teenaged pettiness and envy, it struck me then as it does now that handing out awards for Christian virtues seems a bit at-odds with, well, Christian virtue. There’s something transactional about it. If you do this, I’ll do that for you. If you're this way, I'll reward and applaud you.

We hear echoes of transactions in the garden and the wilderness: If you eat the fruit of the tree of life, you won’t die. If you bow down and worship me, I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world and glory. The first Adam accepted the transaction; the second Adam didn’t need to. His already was the kingdom and the glory and the honor.  

It’s hard to shake our progenitor’s affinity for transactions, and we carry it over in our prayers and expectations of what God should do for us. If I pray enough and work hard, then God is obligated to do what I want. Imagine the blessings and answered prayers we could amass in the here and now because God would keep his end of the bargain we made with him.

But we aren't really playing "Let's Make a Deal" with God. That's not how God works with us. it's impossible for us to ever keep our end of whatever deal we might imagine to get God to do every single thing we want.

It should be very good news for us that, far better than keeping his end of the bargain, God keeps his promises, and is “a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Nehemiah 9:17)

In her book Keeping a Quiet Heart, Elisabeth Elliot writes: “Heaven is not here, it’s There. If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next. God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we so keenly long for.”

And any blessings and answers to my transactional prayers give way to the reality that God has blessed me, and you, with every spiritual blessing here, and there.

Made By Hand by Wil Triggs

I read an article last week called “Make Something With Your Hands, Even if it’s Hideous.” In it writer Jancee Dunn quotes Dr. Michael Norton saying that when we create something we “feel a sense of confidence and a sense of mastery that is really hard to get sometimes in other places.” Dr. Norton is a business professor at Harvard, and he’s making the circuit for his new book The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions. Dunn suggests making things, even simple things: salad dressing, refrigerator pickles, origami birds or pianos or boxes.

The advice is simple. Don’t be too serious about this. Have some fun. Taking the time to make something is good for us. Such activity lowers stress and boosts happiness. The article goes on to say that the act of making can be healing and healthy for the maker. It describes a frame decorated with shells that a person has held onto for decades. Apparently, it’s not a thing of beauty but is a sort of symbol of a time and memories from the past.
 
As great as it is to make something, I find that the making becomes even more rewarding when we don’t clutch things in our hands but extend open hands to others and give them away.
 
Something special happens when making and giving combine. A gift that’s baked or grown or painted or cooked feels especially personal, coming from the heart of the giver. It’s not the same as ordering a gift from Amazon and having it shipped. Any gift should be appreciated, but handmade makes a difference.
 
Amazon doesn't carry Julia’s Ukraine votives. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Julia brought yellow and blue votive holders she had made to our small group for us to take home. I pray when I see this jar with the yellow and blue insides.
 
Or Kathryn’s cards. She designs a card for any occasion—birthday, Christmas, thank you, ArtSpace, many others. I’m not sure how many, but they are one of a kind. You can’t buy Kathryn cards in a store.
 
There’s Lorraine’s baked goods—shortbread, cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin cookies. Her savory gifts are also handmade treats: roasted vegetables, one of her many potato dishes. And from her garden, bundles of lavender, hanging upside down to dry.
 
Think of the personal element and enjoy—jelly that tastes like summer, candles that smell like Christmas, baked goods that appear on the counter at work.
 
When Ed showed his handmade bench in our recent art show, he wanted people to run their hands over it, touch it, feel every groove, with every swipe leaving more grooves in the seat to touch. The shape was handcrafted in ways you could feel.
 
Jesus is creative in and well beyond our creativity, and Jesus was always giving: wine where there was water, fish for empty nets, healing for disease, the ability to walk on water instead of drowning in it, words of truth that have stood the test of time and changed the world for good.
 
Where there were fears and doubts, he made mud for eyes and gave sight to the blind. The garden, the torches, the ear he healed, the nails, the wood, even the grave. He made everything.
 
Jesus calmed storms, cast out demons, stopped the bleeding. He invited Thomas to touch his wounds, to feel and know the gift of his broken body. Jesus cooked breakfast on the beach. His hands held and holds all—from the foundations of the world to the darkest corner of my heart to the foundations of our faith.
 
His body and his life and his words—ultimate gifts profoundly personal for every one of us.
 
Besides making the whole universe out of nothing, God shaped dust into human form and breathed life into it. Our bodies—every one of them made by God. No clones. Twins, sure, but all different and beautiful. Remarkable healing powers in many ways built right in. I think sometimes I’m just renting this house I’m living in. And then with blood and nails and death in another’s body not mine, God creates something new, but not just a thing. In giving away everything, even life itself, his Son makes a people, his people altogether new.
 
As we enter into each other’s lives in tangible gifts, we echo in microscopic ways what Jesus has done and is doing. He incarnated to become one of us. He gave people tasks—drop your nets on the other side of the boat, fill the jars with water, take the boy’s lunch and share it. Then he died, rose and ascended—his whole life a kind of gift. Then comes the Spirit, yet another gift, giving to us even more ways to serve one another and the people around us, prompting people to go and share the good news.
 
We receive. We make. We give away.
 
Love, the real and genuine and eternal kind, is made by hands, his and ours.

Trouble Free by Lorraine Triggs

Every family has a pyromaniac, and I am not one.

Fourth of Julys find me gingerly holding a sparkler that a pyro-friendly relative has lit for me nor do I crowd the gravel driveway impatiently waiting my turn to set off Target fireworks. For a date-specific holiday, the Fourth of July somehow morphs into an entire week of festivities as neighbors set off their stash of fireworks on July 5, 6 ad nauseum.

Our dog is the one member of the house that shares my July Fourth angst. He remains on high alert from the first hiss-boom-bang of fireworks to the last. He paces and whines, looking for refuge but refusing any we offer—laps, crate, favorite toys, blankets. My dog finally settles down around Bastille Day. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for us, we don’t live in France.

When it comes to angst, I am more dog-like than I care to admit.

You would know it, but life's fireworks scare me. When day turns to night and the booms start going off, I grasp for toys, blankets, inconsolable with the booms going off around me. I want to run away and hide, put a blanket over my head.

At the first hint of disappointment or distress, I go on high alert, expecting more to come. I pace as I whine, “It’s not fair, Lord.”  I jump at every alarmist statement on social media, as I look for refuge and rest in all the wrong places, people and things. If I hold a dogged devotion to rest as the cessation of trouble, I miss out on both rest and refuge.

I read Matthew 11:38, and eagerly accept Jesus' invitation to promised rest, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  OK. I can breathe now. But in John 16:33 Jesus promises that we will have tribulation in this world. So, which is it?

Both.

It’s in him we have peace, and that precedes the tribulation in John’s gospel. On the same night that he would experience his deepest anguish, Jesus said to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. (John 14:27)

Nor should our hearts be fooled into thinking that we can manufacture refuge from tribulations. If a simple move to another state would keep disappointments at bay, then I say move away. If Ikea sold easy-to-assemble fortresses, I would load up as many that would fit in our car for a block party of sorts that keeps troubles where they belong—outside my fortress. I want all the rest and no tribulations.

But that’s not what Jesus promised. He promised not to leave us as orphans. He promised to make his home with us. He promised the Holy Spirit, and to that promised peace in John 14:27, Jesus made sure we knew that it was “not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

Instead of a devotion to a trouble-free life, may my devotion be to a trouble-free heart that is

Resigned, submissive, meek,
My great Redeemer’s throne;
where only Christ is heard to speak,
where Jesus reigns alone.
from O for a Heart to Praise My God, Charles Wesley

Summer Theater, Winter's Tale by Wil Triggs

There’s a drama going on in our yards, and I’m not talking cicadas. The curtain goes up and the sun shines down like a spotlight on some amazing performances.
 
A just-picked tomato, fully ripened on the vine in the back yard. Add a bit of salt. Don’t leave it on the counter to sit at room temperature. Just eat it. Like an apple or plum. The meaty warmth, the tangy sweetness balanced with the pinch of salt.
 
The English pea. Pull its little zipper to open its jacket and the peas spill out magically. Put them in the simmering water and when they rise to the top, they are done. Add your favorite herb if you like. Let their heat melt a bit of butter. Sweet jewels of the earth.
 
Just weeks ago, they were seeds, little ones you could barely make out as they fled your hands free-falling onto the burrow of earth that then covered them like sleeping bags and tents keeping the kids warm in their backyard sleepover. Rain comes, then sun, a spotlight on the stage, shining on them, time to act, don’t forget your lines or the blocking. Again, and again. Here they are today—lettuce leaves, brilliant greens with hints of yellow green and a streak of burgundy that suggests blood but is nothing really, just a touch of color to fill your salad bowl, a canvas on which you can paint other colors—carrot, tomato, parsley, pepper.
 
What are the little black dots I rush by as I mow the grass? When I’m done, I go over to investigate. Black currants in two places. These new hedges are not big enough to bear much. Tiny blackberries in another. Their canes quite old, many years hidden in the shade growth of a makeshift meadow. They hide in cool and verdant shade. These few fruits release their juices and natural pectin with the help of a little sugar and a bit of flame. No need to worry about canning; there’s just enough here for a piece of toast—here today, gone tomorrow.
 
Last week a friend gifted us with an onion from his garden. Better than Vidalia, he said. We took it home and added it to the evening chowder of summer corn, tomato, potato. No tears upon cutting it. The onion was sweeter than you could imagine.
 
The leeks have a long way to go. They aren’t even as thick as a number two pencil at this point. But they will thicken with time. Something to look forward to in the fall or even the winter. They’ll stay alive even through snow and ice, heartier than I could ever be, but I have only to wait. Maybe I’ll harvest on my birthday week in December, and we’ll have one of them in our potato leek soup. This is something worth waiting for.
 
God routinely takes a little seed and transforms it into whatever, a bunch of lettuce you can trim leaf by leaf and it keeps giving more. A little seed, dirt, rain, sun. Voilà. There are so many varieties, more than we could ever imagine . . . a vine of cucumbers, multi-colored radishes. Think of the crazy vine of tomatoes that tastes like nature’s candy, carrots in the many colors of Joseph’s coat, just-picked beans filled with natural flavor, so many shapes and colors. What’s God going to come up with next?
 
What about people?
 
The dead of winter, people stand frozen, like statues of hate and sin, lost. Maybe these are people I don’t like. People I can’t stand. People not like you and me. People who think they’re better. Maybe they are and that’s why I don’t like them. People I know are worse than I am. I might want to act like weeds, choking out new little sprouts or blocking the sun when the little sapling is just getting started.
 
I need to find refuge from those misguided thoughts. Repent. It’s hard to tell what a seed is going to be when it’s just a seed. We need to have faith that growth and change and hope is all around us because it is God who is doing the work in people even more so than what’s happening in my backyard garden.
 
Perhaps the Lord of the harvest wants to use us as part of the dirt, sun, water regimen that transforms from seed to plant to amazing harvest. What can we say? What might we do to be a part of the theater of transformation God is producing and directing as we plant, water and weed in the solstice of his ever-loving Son. He will surprise us as he uses us, transforms us, as he grows and changes the garden of his goodness and life that’s all around us, a tragedy that becomes a comedy, a stone statue in the garden come to flesh-and-blood life.
 
Like Hermione . . . 
You gods, look down 
And from your sacred vials pour your graces 
Upon my daughter's head! (Winter's Tale Act 5, scene 3)
 
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! (Psalm 34:8)

No Thank You by Lorraine Triggs

In their quest to expand our childish palates, our parents established the “No, thank you” portion rule that we followed when guests at other people’s homes. The guiding principle behind the rule was unfailing politeness. If an unfamiliar dish was passed to us, or worse, a familiar dish that bore no resemblance to the real thing, we were to take a very small portion to taste, without the drama of gagging, spitting or commenting. That was it. If the host passed the dish again, we were allowed to say, “No, thank you” and keep passing the dish to the left. Even when a host was insistent that we have “seconds,” we could stand our ground. “Oh, no, thank you.” 

The good news is that I’ve put away my childish palate. The bad news is that I deleted the comma. In the theology of grammar, my plate is now full of no thank you portions. These portions are the bits and pieces of my life that I never wanted and didn’t ask God for, so if you don’t mind, thanks, but no thanks—really no thanks.

It’s tempting to take the easy way out and blame these so-called dark days for my thanklessness, but that wouldn’t be fair to the dark days. I discovered that unlike revenge which is said to be a dish best served cold, no thanks portions are best served cold, hot, warm, room temperature. It doesn't matter with this a steady diet that feeds my memory of all things gone awry, and my forgetfulness of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.

It's time for a change in diet, one that feeds on words sweeter than honey, words of life and beauty, words that David wrote in Psalm 31:21, 22: “Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. I had said in my alarm, ‘I am cut off from your sight.’ But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help.”

I practically choke on the no-thanks portion stuck in my heart. David was thanking God in the besieged city. Perhaps the real miracle isn’t the rescue from attacks, but the wondrous steadfast love of the Lord that shows up—not on the other side of the city or in a different place altogether—but right there in the alarm, in the pain and in the trouble, and transforms thanklessness into thankfulness.

Lately, I’ve been so focused on the no thank portions in my life, that I have forgotten another portion which David described in Psalm 16:5: “the Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.” A cup that overflows as goodness and mercy follow me all the way to a feast, where the host welcomes me "no more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home."

I'll have seconds on that. And thirds.