Love Through the End

"Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." Jesus in Matthew 24

There is a context for the evil we live in; there was a beginning and an end is approaching. With each horrific event, we are driven to sear our hearts in either fear or bitterness until, as Jesus prophesied, love grows cold. That is the end game of evil, in all its devices of killing, stealing and destroying. If we lose our love, no amount of gun control will be enough to save us. So, strengthen one another in love that endures all things. Mourn with those who mourn. Keep doing good. Love our enemies, and live like people watching for the ending, holding out for home.

"No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home, Here in the power of Christ I'll stand." (Sung beautifully by Christina Grimmie, the young woman who was killed last week and who is, nonetheless, one saved by Love)

To what do I answer?

All idolatry is slavery, because to be kept by anything less than God is to be diminished. Wise and majestic elephants jingling bells for ringmasters. Lions pacing against the glass. Captive beauty is prostitution. In my aunt’s family, typical local Chinese, the daughters weren’t called by name, but by number. My dear aunt answers to “A-sup” or “Suppie” — Number Ten. While culturally common for that generation, what an illustration of diminishment. To be counted but not named. Collected.

To be named is to be distinguished, expressed as a unique value and glory. How different God’s kingdom is; the scriptures have constant promises of our names. Jesus is forever giving his people names, even affectionate nicknames like the "Sons of Thunder" (in my mind akin to "you wascally wabbits!"). After his resurrection in the garden, he says, “Mary!” and only then she recognized him. Just prior to Peter’s trial of testing, Jesus speaks with compassion and urgency, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail…” Talk about Jesus imparting personal value and belief in an individual. Our captors never do that.

Reach

The love of another makes growth meaningful, desirable. It magically powers the effort of transformation. Take the sunflower. She pulls away from the wall and reaches for her full height, inwardly impelled in response to the sun’s favor.

I'm no longer fascinated by my expansion for my own sake, any more than my son is interested in doing fractions and word problems. What’s the point? I got my degrees and my awards, and I learned that I am, after all, still pretty small.  I’m a temporary rush of membraned energy, a phlegmy speck in an unfathomable universe of coherent complexity. I simply can’t

Purim

In the biblical story of Queen Esther with my son at bedtime. In the tale, Esther has been quite incredibly hidden within the most intimate folds of the royal Persian court, drowsed in perfect security and privilege at a time when her exiled people were a vulnerable minority in the empire. When a bitter nobleman succeeds in having the Jews slated for public annihilation, Esther’s decision to own and make public her identity, was laden with risk. Her boldness could have cost her her life with nary a blink from King Xerxes. True, within hours her immediate enemy Haman is hung on the grisly gallows he himself erected – as my son said, “That was a twist.”  But interestingly, what Esther gains from the king when she lays her life on the line is NOT peace or victory or security. Rather, she wins permission to fight on the approaching day of massacre. This is Purim. It is kind of a story about permission to fight, permission to violently break against the edicts set against you. What do you need to fight for? Who do you need permission from? Sometimes even in just asking to fight, we face death. What is worth perishing for?

Lean on Me

Life is interdependence. Each of us came into the world attached to another human being by an umbilical cord. Right now, I’m inhaling what the bushes outside my house exhaled and they’ll take in that CO2 and give me more of what I need. On Thursdays, I drop my son and a girlfriend’s daughter off at tennis; then she picks up these kids and brings my son home to my husband while I drive her daughter and mine to choir on the other side of the island. Life works better together.

Move

As a veteran human being (I was born before 1980), I accept that to live is to move. It's how well we anticipate, relish, and sometimes recover from the push and draw of this motion that largely influences our quality of life.

I have two small-sized human beings living with me. They look like my husband and myself, but they are their own giant entities. They blow my mind with their creativity, fry my circuits with their energy and push me into the turbulent unknown. They are a daily tide that I’ve learned to anticipate, ride and recover from. Three cups of Peets coffee a day, baby.

Upon the home going of Kim Darrough

The days visit us too long, too short,

like relatives with much more to say, 

unbearable and precious even as, finally, they go.

So time to spend, to sow, to change, 

floats on our hands like just picked flowers, strewn about and fancied.
Or engraved into memory by action, scented by sacrifice, collectively treasured.

Take heart. Forgive the pain, the strain.  The out of sync.

Good work and love, hand and glove, bring hope.

Tall souls, the sighted eye, and children spilling in the door for dinner.

While it is day, do what you can.

The night will come when all is rest.

Laugh hard in labor, sing quiet against the wind, till strength finds you with his kiss.

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Kim Darrough was a leader with Youth With a Mission together with her husband Kevin, having been students together at YWAM's first Honolulu training school. The Darroughs loved on street children in the Phillipines, demonstrated the story of God's mercy in India, and danced with the Uygurs in Xinjiang. They impacted thousands of people with their personable passion, humble faith, and embracing joy. Kim endured Kevin's passing from cancer in 2009 with steadfast love, after which time, she herself battled the disease with dignity and grace. What an honor to have known her and be counted a friend, and rejoicing in her reunion with Kevin. Well done.