IL Pozzo - At Rest by the Well

The Tuscan hillside of Villa il Pozzo: a luscious grove of silver olive trees and red Chianti grapes.

Il Pozzo - "the well" in Italian. A place to be refreshed and renewed: daily, weekly, ...anywhere along the journey when one stops for rest.




The Villa il Pozzo in Tuscany was a place of refreshment, renewal, and rest for me and Geoff this past May.

During one of our evening walks together this week, Geoff wistfully recalled this once-in-a-lifetime vacation experience. As we walked, we savored the memories: the cuisine, the scenery, the art, the culture, the beauty. All the wonder and delight that had filled our inward cup to overflowing.

Tucked behind the villa between the two watchtowers, our cozy apartment provided a welcome retreat after each amazing excursion into medieval hilltowns.

Quaint, charming, and amply supplied with gracious character, Villa il Pozzo was a well from which we drew all week long.





Now that school and work are back in full swing, Italy truly seems a continent away. But my heart was there long enough to learn that it needs a "well" experience more often. My marriage needs it. My kids need it. My life needs it.

Today is Sunday. The Sabbath for Christians. Sabbath means "rest." Since my husband and I serve in Worship Ministries at our church, Sunday is rarely a day of rest for us. I am often more exhausted physically after Sunday morning than I am much of the work-week.

But I also am aware of how my soul is refreshed and renewed as I fellowship with believers and participate in corporate worship. And as I listen to the Word through the mouthpiece of my spiritual leaders. My perspective is placed back on the eternal. My focus adjusted to a more other-centered vision than the one I naturally wake up to.

My daily challenge is to find moments to rest by The Well throughout the week. To rise early and drink deeply every day before the curtain of the everyday dramas rises to its opening act.

My ambition is to seek out moments to rest long enough by the well that I am renewed and restored, not just briefly satiated. That is my goal for the coming months.

"Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

Read the Directions!

My teenage daughter bought a new phone this week. She got a great deal on a high-tech phone with features none of our phones have ever had. Within minutes of her purchase and without reading any directions, she began taking pictures with her phone, sending text messages, and customizing her ringtones. If it had been me, I would still have been trying to figure out how to make a call or answer one.

But she is not yet afraid of learning by trial and error. (We've had to cancel one phone number because she accidentally activated features we did not enjoy paying extra for!) But aren't we all a bit like that? Give us the "need to know" info.--right now. Don't bore us with the details or ask us to read the directions.

That is, until something goes wrong. Or it doesn't work right.

I've searched my entire house for the directions to the vacuum cleaner--after it wasn't working properly. That neat little package of instructions usually gets thrown into a drawer (if kept at all) in all the excitement of a new tool, toy, or appliance.

At the start of a new school and work year, I have decided to read the directions. Before something goes wrong. I am carefully reading (err...at least skimming) student/parent handbooks, course syllabi, teacher hand-outs, and endless school forms.

I have been searching for spiritual direction as well. Something to start the year with. God has been gracious to provide two tangible sets of instructions for me this week. One in Paul's final instructions to Timothy and one in Proverbs.

2 Timothy 2:22 (NLV)
"Run from anything that stimulates youthful lust. Follow anything that makes you want to do right. Pursue faith, love, and peace, and enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts."

Proverbs 21:21 (NLV)
"Whoever pursues godliness and unfailing love will find life, godliness, and honor."

These words spoke to me in a few specific ways. I have been desiring a specific blueprint for my life, I guess. Something concrete to focus on, the way I focused in on my graduate work. Paul told Timothy to "follow anything" that made him want to do right.

It was a good reminder to me that God is concerned about who I am while I tend to be more concerned about what I do. Performance is a strong driver for me. And it can be a chain.

I have been pursuing godliness and hoping that unfailing love would be an outcome. I have been rather disappointed that my love sometimes fails over the most trivial of circumstances. The proverb above states that I must pursue both.

It is a great encouragement that the verse also says that the pursuer of godliness will find godliness. It is not a hopeless pursuit!

As I continue my journey to live spiritually in the everyday dramas of my life, I have some directions:

"Follow anything that makes you want to do right." (run from the rest)

"Pursue godliness AND unfailing love."

"Pursue faith and love and peace."

"Enjoy the companionship of those...with pure hearts."

If you are tired of learning by trial and error. Of finding out your mistake the hard way. And you have been humbled and broken enough to admit it...then join another humbled hard-head and read the directions!

With love--Becky

End of the summer reflection: the challenge of the everyday

My summer reading (Nouwen) has been quite reassuring. And perplexing at the same time. It seems that living spiritually in the everyday is much more difficult than in the set-aside sacred.

For example, when do you feel more holy, more devout? When you are having your devotions, praying fervently, and/or participating in the church service or a ministry to others. Right?

But what about when you are washing dishes, mowing the lawn, running errands, paying bills, changing dirty diapers or the oil in your car?

How about when someone pulls out in front of you? Takes your parking place? What about when your check book accidentally bounces? Or your children forget, it seems, everything you tell them, almost every day?

Oh, I really feel spiritual then! (I try to claim "righteous indignation," but it really isn't righteous at all.)

If any of this is remotely familiar, then you understand that living spiritually in the everyday can be very difficult.

This summer, I have set aside extra time for prayer, meditation, Bible reading, Bible study, contemplative readings. I have become a student of Bible teacher Priscilla Shirer, of Mother Teresa, Brennan Manning, and Henri Nouwen. All respected, some revered, for their spiritual wisdom and godly living.

But I still find myself just as easily peeved at annoying drivers, just as impatient with loved ones, and just as frustrated with God's timing as when the summer started.

I want so much to live spiritually. Without having to check myself into a monastery. Or, um, a nunnery. And that brings to me Henri Nouwen's revelation during a seven month sabbatical at a Trappist monastery in Genesee, New York in the mid 1970's.

In a lesser known work, Genesee Diary, Nouwen records his daily activities living temporarily as a Trappist monk. He did not intend to become a monk, but he wanted to have spiritual direction from the abbot there; and he wanted to enrichen his spirituality without the demands and distractions of teaching, traveling, and ministering.

What he found to his dismay was that in spite of a spiritually healthy environment with assigned manual work (helping in the bakery or quarrying rocks from the creekbed), daily spiritual lessons, and helpful counsel from the abbot, Nouwen struggled to live spiritually in the simple everyday.

He attended all the scheduled religious, liturgical activities. He observed extended times of prayer and fasting. He faithfully and transparently explored all his words, attitudes, actions, and reactions. Practiced confession. Repentance. Still, he found himself restless at times. Sometimes agitated over little things. Basically, sinful. Not spiritual.

In short, the time away from his usual busy schedule only served to heighten his human condition. Or at least his awareness of it.

In a similar way, I guess I have been on a brief sabbatical of a sort this summer. No graduate school. Not working. Recovery from minor wrist surgery. Two kids busy with camp.

And I have been reminded of my sinful condition. How desperate I am for God, just to live spiritually, in the everyday. I am reminded of how many other passions compete for my one true love, Jesus Christ.

It is tempting to measure one's spirituality by the extent of one's devotional life, the level of service to one's church, or even the desire to walk faithfully with God. It is humbling to realize that the real measure is in the everyday: how I respond to others' sinfulness and how I respond to my own.

Comparison shopping

All the school moms know that it is that time again: time to do back-to-school shopping! Here in Alabama we will enjoy a holiday from state taxes on all school supplies this weekend. Friends of mine are planning to hit Walmart at 10:00 pm and head for the registers at midnight, just as the sale begins !

Wisely, we all do comparison shopping. It is, of course, the best way to stretch our dollars and get the best value for the money. And with gas prices soaring (ours jumped 10 cents yesterday), we are more motivated than ever.

I personally think it is much easier to comparison shop for school supplies than for school clothes. Comparison shopping between filler paper, glue, and #2 pencils is less complicated by personal style preferences; but still, choices remain: should we buy college-ruled or wide-ruled? Glue sticks or regular Elmer's? Colorfully painted pencils or standard issue #2 pencils? Hey, can we use mechanical pencils instead?

As wise as it is for us to comparison shop for school supplies and other material necessities, God has been showing me that it is NOT wise or godly to practice comparison shopping when it comes to valuing people and relationships. Or when I try to estimate my value to God.

Why? Because God is NOT a comparison shopper! He does not place value on us according to the quality or quantity of our achievements or whether we meet His high standards.

And it is a good thing, too. When He searches the earth for those who are righteous enough, he declares that there is no one righteous--no, not one. (Romans 3:10; Psalm 14:2,3).

My protest began then: why did God choose Noah then? Or David? Or any of us?

When God surveyed the earth during Noah's time, people had so corrupted themselves that God was sorry He had made them and decided to destroy them and start over. Only Noah "found grace in the eyes of the Lord"(Genesis 5:6-8). God chose Noah to build the ark.

When God rejected Saul as king of Israel and sent Samuel to the family of Jesse for a new king, it certainly looked like comparison shopping on the surface. Samuel thought so. Samuel confesses in his first book (I Samuel 16:1-7) that as he observed the sons of Jesse, he would have picked the oldest Eliab right away. God had to speak clearly and decisively to Samuel to lead him to His choice, David.

And what about us? The apostle Paul (whom we would never have considered a candidate for the Gospel when he was Saul, persecutor of Christians) sheds some light on this in I Corinthians 1:26-31.
"Remember, dear brothers and sisters that few of you were wise in the world's eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish...despised by the world...things counted as nothing at all..."

Why? Verse 29 says, "so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God."

Hebrews 11 explains that Noah's faith made him right in God's sight, not his rightness. Noah was not free of the corruption of his world, even after the flood (Gen. 9:20-28). He became shamefully drunk after settling in to the new life God had given him and his family.

All too well we know the failure of King David: adultery with Bathsheba, the murder of her husband Uzziah (II Samuel 11). He also failed as a father by not dealing with Amnon's rape of Tamar which lead to Absalom's murderous revenge and rebellion.

These three individuals (Noah, David, and Paul) and their stories reveal that God does not comparison shop (as we do) looking for value or bargains or good investments. But He does make choices: he chose Noah to build the ark; he chose David to be king of Israel and produce the line of kings from which the Messiah would be born; and he chose Saul on the Damascus road to be Paul the Apostle.

Yes, Noah had faith. And faith pleases God. David had a heart for God that man could not see by looking only on the outward appearance.

But Saul only had misplaced zeal. Why him? Why us?

The answer comes to us from God by way of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Chapter One verse 4 says that long before the world was made, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy. Chapter Two verses four and five say this only happened because of His great mercy and grace--nothing we did or accomplished. Verse eight: it was a gift.

Wow! God's love for me is not based on how I measure up against anyone else. How I measure up to the perfection of Jesus. How good or loving I am today or any day. God's love is constant, unchanging, unwavering, everlasting, boundless, abundant, and free.

He not only would pay ANY price for you--He already paid the ultimate price for you: on the cross.

His love for you is so great: He would line up and wait for hours or days, even a lifetime, to see you and have you near. He would give you the shirt off his back and the blood in his veins.

You are the object of His greatest affection. You are His bride, redeemed from the enemy, ransomed at great price, and He longs to make you pure and holy so you can enjoy perfect fellowship with Him, a spiritual intimacy that exceeds all earthly relationships.

As Paul writes in Ephesians 3:18,19, "may you understand just how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love (for you) really is...though it is so great you will never fully understand it.
Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God."

So when you comparison shop for school supplies this month, remember that God loves you so much, that you are always His first choice.