This is the end...and a beginning!

Hello.

This is the last time you’ll receive an automatic update when something new is posted on dwellingunderafriendlysky.blogspot.com. This is not because I’ve given-up blogging. Rather, I’ve moved.

It wasn’t a physical move, but a move from the Blogspot platform to a Wordpress website. A few weeks back, I hope you received an email from me describing that move. At that time, I provided a couple of ways in which you could respond to this change:

1. Do nothing. We part as friends and you’ll have one less email in your inbox on days that I blog.
2. Resubscribe. To do that, go to http://chrisdeman.com and use the “Follow via Email” box or “Subscribe via RSS." You’ll see both options on the right side of the homepage.

To those who have already joined me over at my new site -- thank you! I am grateful that you'll be with me as we discover God's affection for us in the commonplace. If you haven’t yet resubscribed, join us! There’s plenty of room.

There’s a fresh post on my new site. Check it out!

All the best.

~ Chris

No Frosting, Please

A little can be a lot. Especially with friendships.



For a long time, I was a friendship skeptic. A disbeliever. A scoffer at those who’s experience testified to the uncommon gift of true friendship. The kind that is resilient and long-lasting.

Now I believe.
 
Through triumph and trial I’ve come to understand that real friendship wraps itself around authenticity. A simple but elusive qualifier, an authentic person is honest about themselves — with themselves, and with others. They know the pull of dark things yet strive to offer what’s genuine and true. Positive and gracious, they live with quiet, unassuming confidence. They resist doctoring their persona and crafting facades.

They’re unfrosted.

From my unfrosted friends I reap a bumper crop of relational nourishment. Together, we tend and till the soil of our souls. We gently receive what’s true of the other. We share and laugh and celebrate success. We also, with compassionate authenticity, pull from one another the brambles of pride, pity, and selfishness. Linked by commitment and love, we stumble and gallop and skip and slide and occasionally stand still on our predestined pathway. A troop of pilgrims, we are, bound by a sticky grace infused with divine elasticity.
 
Over runny eggs and mediocre coffee, during spontaneous sidewalk conversing, through sandwich shop dialogue woven with 80’s tunes, and when seated side-by-side in the red dirt of Kenya, my desire is to be an authentic, patient, unfrosted friend.

To my few, my unfrosted few!

“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.” ~ Aristotle

Christmas in Kibera

Christmas tunes monopolize my playlists. Dietary restraints have been temporarily lifted. And although behind schedule, we’re processing through our collection of holiday movies. Christmas is a wonderful season of tradition and celebration.

Not quite three weeks ago, my family was focused not on Christmas, but Kenya. We were completing a two week adventure that included stops in Nairobi, Thika, Naivasha, Kijabe, Kilgoris, and the Maasai Mara. It was a spectacular journey that filled us with stories to ponder for a lifetime.

We also spent time in the Kibera slum community. Home to hundreds of thousands, Kibera is a startling place. It is tragic, sad, and perplexing. Yet, emanating from a simple mud-walled Kiberan structure was the sweet aroma of hope, joy, and worship. Enveloped by physical hunger, our souls feasted on the richness of redemption served to us by a humble pastor, his family, and Kibera children they love as their own.

Kibera and Christmas. God is with us -- all of us.

Let us be hasty to laud the breadth of Christ's mercy and grace.

Merry Christmas!


** Below are reflections on Kibera I noted while in Kenya. **

——————————————————————————-

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”” ~ Isaiah 52:7

Shuffling step-by-step, the distant voices ricocheted and crescendoed along the narrow walls of mud and sticks. One hundred voices, conjoined with the rhythm of clapping hands and amplified music, presented the welcoming prelude. Anxious but expectant we entered the 20ft square room that snugly held its occupants, but proved helpless against the jubilation.

It was the sound of Good News!

A mouse, roused by the happy gathering, emigrated safely along a rafter. Beneath the tin panel roof, greetings, introductions, and recitations came in confident procession bringing both physical and spiritual warmth to our dwelling. With passionate unity, children testified to the Shepherd of Psalm 23, claiming by faith the promise of protection, provision, and peace. They recited Isaiah's words of deliverance by a Wonderful Counselor. They lifted high the name of Jesus.

Creativity blossomed in small hands that firmly pressed crayons to paper. Craftsmanship found expression through the weaving of colored thread. Entwined in those twists were happiness, gratitude, and friendship.

We shared a communal meal and prayed for each other. Our brief time of life together with the children of Kara Kibera, their pastor, their "mama," their teachers, and their caretakers drew us into the beauty of a holistic development of mind, body, and soul. We received a vision for restoration, born from the hope of redemption. It was wonderful.

Yet we live in tension.

The perplexity of disparity. The need for solidarity. The responsibility of knowledge. The call to be faithful.

But there is Good News, and He is alive in Kibera!

“And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” ~ Luke 2:10–11

70

Good memories are never emptied of their treasures.

November 6 would have been my father’s 70th birthday. Below is an edited repost of reflections on a favorite memory that shapes my present fathering.

I am a grateful son.

----------------------------------------

Bumblebee Pilots
(originally posted Sept. 4, 2014)

Side-by side we sat in a Chevy Chevette.

In a cemetery.

Two men. One confident, one scared. A teacher and student. A father and son.

Tree-filtered breezes meandered across the bright yellow hood and through windows hand-cranked fully open. The yellow, contrasted with the deep-space black, vinyl interior invited active imaginations to view us as pilots of a man-sized bumblebee. A masculine carriage, it was not. At the time, I cared not a bit about a car that was yellow – or bumblebees.



I was under siege. Pinned-down by cascading failures strung together with a thread of terror. I could not master the dance between the brake, clutch, and accelerator. Stooges, those three. Starts, stops, and stalls were their shtick. A humiliating assembly of cyclic failure – which I didn’t find funny.

I succumbed to a pattern of resets, struggling to gain ground toward acquiring stick-shifting fluidity. With each restart, I’d longingly gaze at the root-heaved asphalt that lay in sun-speckled tranquility. I yearned to cruise those curvy paths among the gravestones, deftly marching through the gearbox. But that required a skill I did not have. And in that moment, thought I’d never obtain.

Amidst that battle between man and machine, my passenger-seated father was calm, fully immersed in saintly patience. Woven between the whine of an over-revved engine and the chatter of mistreated gears were phrases of gentle instruction and well-timed encouragement. Over and over, my father renewed his commitment to my success. He was fathering me in the truest sense. I felt his love.

That scene from my 16th summer is a highlight, still vivid in the present because of its ongoing effect. I am now the father in the passenger seat – literally, and metaphorically. It’s a seat that is revelatory. It has brought forth some of my finest, and most despicable behaviors. It has frustrated and agitated. It has made me laugh, wonder, celebrate, and cry. It’s a seat that demands a great deal – day after day.

Life demands many things. How we engage our compulsory duties is a strong indicator of who we are, what we value, and how we grant our trust.
 
Recalling my rough road to mastering a manual transmission brings to mind this quote from Thomas Watson: "To do duty without love, is not sacrifice, but penance.” (All Things for Good, p.88) My father had a duty to teach me how to drive. But in that necessity, he chose love. He went beyond himself, releasing control and trusting God with the risks.

Many times I have wandered into loveless duty. I’ve found it a debilitating snare of fruitlessness. A joyless enduring pockmarked by missed opportunity.

But each day is ripe with new mercy. Today’s relational intersections are divinely crafted opportunities to extend grace and kindness. To give, not just because we should, but because we want to.

Just like my father, on a breezy afternoon, in a car the color of sunflowers.

The Field

Yesterday’s yesterdays jumble and pile.


I wake,


and walk — 


again.

I shuffle with leaden legs in numbing rhythm, 


rousting a sacred cloud that accompanies


my tracing of Hope’s path.



Spent flora, trapped in brittle nests


offer silent tribute to


by-gone seasons of life.



With dulled eyes skimming 


the frustrated landscape,


I plant with wobbly resolve.

And wait.



I return


to this Field of Promise


a beggar — 


again.

Dank grayness surrounds me; 


I’m chilled —  


from the inside out.



Hushed tormenting sameness


tensions my faith


toward thinness.



A violent tumult of


what is, what isn’t, and what should be


usurps all cognition.

Dear God, Sower of this Field —

 
Wrestle life from


the starved soil


of this bewildered soul.

Rake, pull, tear, and burn


my prideful thatch.



Plow the deadness


into furrows of grace.



Water and Light, 


come nourish my anguish.



Release in me a joyful submission


and patience’s fruit.



Call forth a sprig of green.

For tomorrow I’ll wake, 


and walk to this Field again.