Tend the Softness

“Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

My father Jim has been gone now for eleven years! So hard to imagine, so full of life he always was. Just last week our daughter Sarah forwarded email conversations she had with “Opa” in 2009, when she was a confirmation student and was grappling for the first time with big questions.

Sarah writes: “I was just recently reading Exodus, and I came across a phrase that was being used continuously, and it kind of confused me. When Moses keeps asking Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, the Bible keeps saying ‘The LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.’ Why does God harden Pharaoh’s heart?”

“Boy” he responds, “You are really perceptive….I think one could say that it was Pharaoh’s pride in his own wisdom and power that hardened his heart, not only once but many times…The contests we all face in life are always between God and our own pride. We think we know better. So in that sense one could say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart because Pharaoh did not recognize God as God.”

“Think of it this way. When you harden your heart, say, against your sisters over something or other, that is your pride at work. You want your way, so you harden your heart against them. But then you get a conscience over it and your heart is softened. That is God opening you up again, softening your heart.”

What wonderful, caring, and wise words! But what’s best comes next:

“Tend the softness, the love God has planted in you. Honor God in that way, and know that even when you don’t, God will find a way to soften you up again.”

Tend the softness. Tend the softness. what a wonderful and rich phrase, like a breath prayer really. It would be easy to add another verse to the hymn, “Lord, I want to tend the softness in my heart, in my heart…” Not tend to softness, but THE softness, a particular softness of the heart that is a love “that God has planted in you.”

It is this love, this softness of heart that is as much part and parcel of an easter christian, of one who has been raised to new life with Jesus.

Dad asks Sarah a concluding question: “Does this help?” and it’s a holy wonder that it’s as though even on this faraway day he’s asking me, asking me to consider the gift of a love, of a soft heart that God is planting in me to combat my own pride.

This next Monday will be the first chance I have to tend to spring planting. As I unpack the crunchy pallets and stir up the dirt and put the annuals in their pots and planters, I will be praying, over and over and over again, “O God, help me tend the softness.” I’ll keep on with it as I water the roots. And as I watch those impatiens and geraniums fill up their pots a month from now, I’ll recover again an eager longing for the God of all love to plant that very love in my beating heart.

I want to grow in this way.

Peter Hawkinson

Tend the Softness

“Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

My father Jim has been gone now for eleven years! So hard to imagine, so full of life he always was. Just last week our daughter Sarah forwarded email conversations she had with “Opa” in 2009, when she was a confirmation student and was grappling for the first time with big questions.

Sarah writes: “I was just recently reading Exodus, and I came across a phrase that was being used continuously, and it kind of confused me. When Moses keeps asking Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, the Bible keeps saying ‘The LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.’ Why does God harden Pharaoh’s heart?”

“Boy” he responds, “You are really perceptive….I think one could say that it was Pharaoh’s pride in his own wisdom and power that hardened his heart, not only once but many times…The contests we all face in life are always between God and our own pride. We think we know better. So in that sense one could say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart because Pharaoh did not recognize God as God.”

“Think of it this way. When you harden your heart, say, against your sisters over something or other, that is your pride at work. You want your way, so you harden your heart against them. But then you get a conscience over it and your heart is softened. That is God opening you up again, softening your heart.”

What wonderful, caring, and wise words! But what’s best comes next:

“Tend the softness, the love God has planted in you. Honor God in that way, and know that even when you don’t, God will find a way to soften you up again.”

Tend the softness. Tend the softness. what a wonderful and rich phrase, like a breath prayer really. It would be easy to add another verse to the hymn, “Lord, I want to tend the softness in my heart, in my heart…” Not tend to softness, but THE softness, a particular softness of the heart that is a love “that God has planted in you.”

It is this love, this softness of heart that is as much part and parcel of an easter christian, of one who has been raised to new life with Jesus.

Dad asks Sarah a concluding question: “Does this help?” and it’s a holy wonder that it’s as though even on this faraway day he’s asking me, asking me to consider the gift of a love, of a soft heart that God is planting in me to combat my own pride.

This next Monday will be the first chance I have to tend to spring planting. As I unpack the crunchy pallets and stir up the dirt and put the annuals in their pots and planters, I will be praying, over and over and over again, “O God, help me tend the softness.” I’ll keep on with it as I water the roots. And as I watch those impatiens and geraniums fill up their pots a month from now, I’ll recover again an eager longing for the God of all love to plant that very love in my beating heart.

I want to grow in this way.

Peter Hawkinson

Holding Each Other Close

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now…It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart…” (Philippians 1)

Recently while visiting with an aging mentor and saint I was reminded of life’s most important spiritual work. This friend is and will be immobilized for some time. Asking her a bidding question about the frustration she might be feeling, she replied “Yes” and then “But….” and continued on for some time about the “But”. At the heart of it was her realization of what she called “my most important spiritual work” that she was doing from her bed. “I have time and space to join my heart to the joy and struggle of others” is what she said. She can’t get up. Her eyes make reading tough. Lots of time on her side.

She might have written a little devotion that I have earmarked for decades, from a little book that’s wearing out and packs a punch — The Art of Pastoring: Contemplative Reflections by William Martin. Though intended for pastors, it hits the nail on the head for all of us christians. Thought 43 of his goes this way:

How would you pastor if you could not speak? How would you love others if you were immobilized in bed? If you can answer these questions, you know the truth of your calling. If you can do these things, you will overcome all obstacles.

Since my visit, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I might do that work more in the midst of a busy and noisy life filled with movement and racing the clock. It’s the age old juxtaposition of doing-vs-being. Often it seems that my most important work of tending to spirit things — God’s Spirit, my own, and those who I love — falls to the bottom of my over-extended life’s priorities. Unless I am bedridden, I must be intentional about stopping, and being still, and letting my life go SO THAT I can become aware of the anxieties and burdens you are bearing, SO THAT I can hold you in my heart and prayers.

Paul says it so beautifully all ver his letters to the early church, called to be a community of care.I love his image of “carrying others in his heart”, and of “Bearing each others burdens”. Who wouldn’t run toward a community like that?

But for most of us, running through life, it’s a challenge. So join me in making time and space to care for each other in our prayers, in our hearts, and in the practical acts of caring that surely will follow.

On my way out the door, my friend asked for a list of church members and friends in large print font, which she now has. Who knows, but maybe as you read this she is holding you in her heart on this very day.

God bless us, one and all!

Peter Hawkinson