Like fragrant oil...

Yesterday was a day that I don't know how to describe. There aren't really words, because I don't really understand the dynamics that were obviously in play around me.

I spent a large chunk of the day fighting back panic. Heart-racing, seconds from losing it, melt-down at any time, way amped up panic. Now, I'm not known as the most emotionally calm and stable person on the planet, but this was unusual, even for me. I don't think most of the people I work with had any idea, but from about noon on, my body was physically in overdrive as I worked to tamp down the panic.

And yet, in spite of all that, at the end of the day, as I was reflecting back on what had been, my mind was drawn to an odd sort of blessing with which I began the day.

A few years back, in a quiet moment, someone who at the time I hardly knew but who is now a very dear friend, poured oil over my hands, and marked the sign of the cross on my forehead in a moment of deep prayer that remains just a bit blurry for me. Since then I've seen her pray with oil in many places, and was not particularly surprised when it became a way that I prayed as well - oil poured out.

At Christmas this year, the same friend gave me a tiny sealed cylinder attached to a key ring, and a vial of oil with which to fill it. Oil of frankincense and myrrh. The fragrant burial spices presented by the magi to Jesus. I attached the filled cylinder of oil to my keys and carry it with me nearly everywhere I go.

Yesterday morning, before all the panic set in, I drove as usual to work. Instead of listening to music as I drove, I had opted for silence, and spent some time praying. My work environment can be challenging at times, and yesterday, as I parked, I paused for just a moment in my car to ask Jesus to walk with me through the day.

I have two sets of car keys, one on my main key ring, and a spare set on another ring. I'd used the spare set in the car yesterday, and my main key ring was in the pocket of my jacket. As I paused in the car to pray, I slid my hand into that pocket, encountering the keys. I pulled them out and noticed that the vial of oil attached to my key ring was strangely warm - more warm than it should have been from simply being tucked in my pocket in my cold car.

I had an immediate mental image of warm liquid pouring over me, of Jesus meeting me as I touched the warm cylinder. I twisted the top from the vial, tipping just a little onto my fingers, and quietly marking the sign of the cross on my forehead, lips, heart. Dabbing just a little of the fragrant oil on my wrist, where I knew the scent would linger through the day. And then, as I tried to seal the vial back up, it overflowed. Maybe I tipped it wrong as I was twisting it back together, or maybe I didn't, but in any case, as I rejoined the two parts of the vial, there was an excess of oil. Struck mostly by the need to mop up the excess before my keys could be returned to my purse, I rubbed it on my wrists, and absorbed the rest with my mittens.

I climbed out of my car, and headed into what proved to be a very difficult day.

And yet, simple as it seems, last night, and through today as I reflected back, I find blessing in that moment spent alone in my car. Blessing in the warmth and comfort of the oil. A reminder from Jesus in the sudden and unexpected overflow. Meaning in the scent of burial spices that carried with me through the day.

And I am grateful, that at the beginning of what proved to be a very trying day, a day full of attack and confusion and fear, Jesus met with me tangibly for just a moment. That in that moment I could nearly feel the warm oil pouring over my whole being, and not just being marked in the shape of a cross on my forehead, lips and heart. That he reminded me of his love poured over me and shielding me. Of the overflow of that love - it's abundance and fragrance.

I didn't know all those things in the moment. It's really only in looking back over the day that I realized that he met and prepared me for what was to come. But I'm so grateful that he did.

And repeat...

The gifts of God are irrevokable.

If God is for me, who can be against me?

I will hide you in the shelter of my wings.

If Jesus has something for me, it can't be stolen from me.

(and repeat.)

Panic (Self-Reminders)

I've been dealing with panic all day today.

That tightness in your chest, slightly short of breath, adrenaline pumping, I'm two seconds from totally freaking out and losing it sort of panic.

I have not been impressed to feel that rising up within me again.

It used to happen a lot. It's hardly happened in the last three years. Not since I was healed.

I had one particularly bad attack about a month ago. Two friends talked and prayed with me and calmed me down.

I've spent most of the day talking to myself. Reminding myself that certain situations, which seem to be partially inducing the panic, are things in which I just need to wait and pray.

Out loud and in my head all day.

And now by blogging (because the panic kicked up again a few minutes ago).

Reminding myself that if God has given or set something aside for me or to me, then it cannot be taken from me.

Reminding myself that even in the things I can't control, I walk with a God who offers peace. A God who stills storms. Even the mental, adrenaline rushing sort of storms.


Reminding myself that no matter the outcome of these situations, I will be okay. That I walk with Jesus, and He's not going anywhere (not always easy for me to believe, but a reminder worth giving myself anyway.)

Reminding myself of Paul's words - to live is Christ, to die is gain. So I win either way. Even when it sucks, and seems more like suffering. If I'm alive, it's Christ. If not, then I get to be with him, and tears and suffering will end.

Around the table

It was a weird day. maybe I'll write my own post later. maybe not until tomorrow.

In the meantime, I received some emails from Henri Nouwen on meals/food that struck me deeply.

The Meal That Makes Us Family and Friends

We all need to eat and drink to stay alive. But having a meal is more than eating and drinking. It is celebrating the gifts of life we share. A meal together is one of the most intimate and sacred human events. Around the table we become vulnerable, filling one another's plates and cups and encouraging one another to eat and drink. Much more happens at a meal than satisfying hunger and quenching thirst. Around the table we become family, friends, community, yes, a body.

That is why it is so important to "set" the table. Flowers, candles, colorful napkins all help us to say to one another, "This is a very special time for us, let's enjoy it!"

The Intimacy of the Table

The table is one of the most intimate places in our lives. It is there that we give ourselves to one another. When we say, "Take some more, let me serve you another plate, let me pour you another glass, don't be shy, enjoy it," we say a lot more than our words express. We invite our friends to become part of our lives. We want them to be nurtured by the same food and drink that nurture us. We desire communion. That is why a refusal to eat and drink what a host offers is so offensive. It feels like a rejection of an invitation to intimacy.

Strange as it may sound, the table is the place where we want to become food for one another. Every breakfast, lunch, or dinner can become a time of growing communion with one another.

The Barometer of Our Lives

Although the table is a place for intimacy, we all know how easily it can become a place of distance, hostility, and even hatred. Precisely because the table is meant to be an intimate place, it easily becomes the place we experience the absence of intimacy. The table reveals the tensions among us. When husband and wife don't talk to each other, when a child refuses to eat, when brothers and sisters bicker, when there are tense silences, then the table becomes hell, the place we least want to be.

The table is the barometer of family and community life. Let's do everything possible to make the table the place to celebrate intimacy.

Headline

Rome to dismantle illegal camps