I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33

When I hear the word assurance, in most cases today, it is being used in the context of financial, political, or educational assurances. In the sanctuary of assurances, however, blessed is always the context for assurance. Assurance has less to do with the world and much more to do with that which has overcome the world.

For there will be worldly troubles: ordinary and extraordinary troubles, inevitable and unexpected troubles. But just as assuredly as trouble blackens your life, so may peace and comfort lighten and overcome it.

For years, I have taught W. H. Auden’s poem, “Musee des Beaux Arts,” based–in large part–on Pieter Breughel’s painting, The Fall of Icarus. This is a stunning painting of a sparkling ocean, a luxury liner, a ploughman on a fertile hillside, and–last but not least–Icarus, the boy who dared to fly too close to the sun, which melted the wax holding his feathered wings together.

I remember searching the painting for the boy. Surely, he was the protagonist; surely, Breughel would highlight his fall and subsequent death in the sea. After scanning the painting for minutes, I remember actually gasping aloud when I discovered two small white legs in the bottom left corner of the painting. This, as poet William Carlos Williams later wrote in his poem, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus,” was “Icarus drowning.”

This was Icarus drowning? These were the remnants of the boy who once flew gloriously towards the sun, his father in tow? This was the end of a life? Two insignificant legs relegated to the bottom corner of a masterpiece?

As I have grown and matured in my faith, I have often thought of Auden and Breughel, of William Carlos Williams and all those who may have no assurance but the assurance that suffering has a “human position”, that it inevitably occurs when others are immersed in living, uninterested in and unaware of the fact that another’s life was being ravaged.

Musee des Beaux Arts                                                                                                                 W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,                                                                               the Old Masters; how well, they understood                                                                         Its human position; how it takes place                                                                             While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;       How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting                                           For the miraculous birth, there must always be                                                      Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating                                          On a pond at the edge of the wood:                                                                                  They never forgot                                                                                                                     That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course                                                     Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot                                                                                     Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse                   Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.                                                                                   In  Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns                                         Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may                                                   Have the splash, the forsaken cry,                                                                                             But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone                                              As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green                                     Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen                                       Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,                                                                 had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. 

At this point in my life, I would like to take Auden, Brueghel, and Williams out for coffee. Then, captive in my presence, I would like to say to them: About suffering, you are wrong. There is an assurance, a blessed assurance, that one’s suffering does not define him or her. Nor does it define the world in which we live. 

I remember having to pack my car up to leave my family’s home in Nebraska to return to my life in Wisconsin or Iowa. The night before I would leave was always filled with dreadful anticipation of the moment the following morning when, my car packed and several goodbyes later, I would round the corner and no longer be able to see my home. With assurance, however, I came to dread less, for I knew that my parents would stand outside my home and wave until I was completely out of sight. This assurance carried me to new homes in other states.

As I sit at the bedside of my father, surrounded by my siblings and my mother, I take solace in the blessed assurance of God’s abiding love and comfort. And I take solace in the blessed assurance of the hospice workers and volunteers, of friends who appear with just the right supplies, just the right words, and arms to wrap you in.

And as I watch my parents greet those who have come to see my father, to hold his hand and to tell him how much his work, his very life has meant to them, I am constantly in awe of the assurance they give to each visitor. They blessedly assure each worker, volunteer, and friend that they matter, that they are appreciated and respected. In the sanctuary of this blessed assurance, we momentarily overcome the troubles of this world: cancer, grief, and loss.

We find sanctuary in the assurance of Jesus’s words: Take heart! I have overcome the world. 

American Whimsie Dolls, Zero the Hero and Hedda Get Bedda (circa 1961), proudly displayed in my office

Warning: the pictures you are about to see may be disturbing (or delightful, if you are an oddly whimsical person like me!)

If this initial picture has not yet scared you off, read on and enter the sanctuary of whimsy.

In 1961, the Christmas of my first-grade year, I wanted only one thing for Christmas: Hedda Get Bedda. The American Doll Company produced 17 different styles of the Whimsies from 1960-61. These dolls were marketed to older kids and teenagers (some reports claim they were created for adults). Actually, the American Doll Company produced some winners–cute dolls, that is: Betsy McCall and Tressy. The Whimsies, however, were not company winners for your average doll consumer.

Let’s just say that I was not–nor am not–your average doll consumer. And Hedda Get Bedda is not your average doll (see below!)

The knob on top of her head turns to give you three different faces! Measles face (with a small hole in the mouth to insert the complimentary thermometer), sleeping face (the least offensive, according to my granddaughter), and the smiling face. For an added fee, you could buy the pajama-clad Hedda her own hospital bed. For reasons I cannot begin to explain, Hedda’s hands are claw-like. And her feet? They are much too long for her oddly-shaped body, a body that all 17 Whimsies share. To say that Hedda resembles ET is probably too kind.

My mom gave in–in spite of her reservations and a mother’s desire for Santa to bring an authentically cuter, more loveable doll–and Hedda came to live at 611 West 27th.

I kept Hedda into my adult years but lost her, tragically, in a move. One day, I recounted my Hedda tale to a group of high school students. With limited artistic skills, I attempted to draw her on the white board. As I found myself really getting worked up, I exclaimed, You just can’t believe how unique she really was! (O.K., I was giving Hedda as much credit as I could by using the word unique.)

The next morning, one of my students rushed in and reported that she had found a Hedda Get Bedda on eBay. Although I acted cool, in truth, I could not wait for the school day to end, so I could see if I could score a new Hedda. What I found when I entered the Whimsie world on eBay was nothing short of miraculous. Not only did I find Hedda, but I discovered what I had never known: there were other, more unique Whimsies!  This rocked my world.

And explained why the Whimsie line never really took off. Who would buy their kid a monk doll? A gambler? A wrestler with chest hair? A female astronaut with blue hands and feet? A hillbilly? A cleaning woman?

But I could not resist a Samson the Strong Man with a leopard singlet and a strawberry blonde moustache and chest hair. I became eBay obsessed, bidding and waiting, bidding and waiting, hoping beyond hope to score the rare, but weird Whimsies. At first, my family chided me; later, they flat-out ridiculed me privately and then publicly. Still, I bid on, determined to add to my Whimsie collection. Each day, I gave my students the latest eBay update. In time, when I had collected a slug of Whimsies, they found homes on a shelf in my classroom. (Hey, some rooms have class pets–we had class Whimsies).

When visitors came to our class, their reaction was nothing short of mouth-gaping shock and awe. Having grown accustomed to our Whimsies, my students and I could no longer see their weirdness and regarded them with the respect they clearly deserved. Visitors, however, were left speechless.

The Whimsies stayed in my high school classroom until I left, and they came home with me. During my years of high school teaching, the Whimsies inspired me to pursue more whimsy. I wrote myself letters and had school office-runners deliver them to me at the beginning of class. In these letters, I informed myself of all sorts of things, like the fact that I had been chosen to be a member of the U.S. Women’s Olympic Curling Team. I explained (to myself) that my sweeping skills had been noticed and admired, and that if–a big if–the Women’s Team were to take gold, I would go down in the history books as the oldest U.S. female Olympian.

As these letters would arrive, I would read them–seriously, ceremoniously–and react appropriately with excitement and gratitude. Students who should have known better would be pulled into the narrative, and I would look up to find their wide eyes fixed on me, their better judgement, momentarily, paralyzed.

And then the real whimsy would begin. Students researched curling and began suggesting training routines. When I bought a USA hockey jersey at Goodwill and announced that the Olympic Committee must be serious, indeed, for they had already sent me the curling jersey and were calling me up, the students cheered. And occasionally on slow classroom days, I would strike a curling pose, launching my imaginary curling stone across the terrazzo floor.

In the sanctuary of whimsy, you can imagine yourself into any world, any position you wish. You can spin an outlandish narrative that will only grow with whimsical details. And if others join your whimsy? Well, there is clearly nothing better than this. Whimsy loves company.

In the name of true whimsy, however, I must come clean before I end this post. I never could afford Samson the Strong Man; he was just too pricey. So, I did what any whimsical woman would do: I made my own. I bought another, less rare Whimsie (a well-loved doll with little hair left and magic markered-up), bought some doll hair, and whipped up my own Samson. He looks better than the original because I gave him a double-dose of chest hair.

I may no longer have my own classroom, but I will always hang out in the sanctuary of whimsy. Hedda Get Bedda, Samson the Strong Man, Freddie the Friar, Wheeler the Dealer, Hilda the Hillbilly, Lena the Cleaner, Annie the Astronaut and I will be cooking up some new whimsical adventure. Join us if you dare.

A cobalt blue glass powder box, a small yellow diamond set in an antique ring, a cookie jar without a lid, a pink Depression glass cake plate, and countless penciled or crayoned notes, folded carefully into small, obtuse shapes, letters, and poems: my keepsakes.

In a small, nondescript dish on a bookcase in my home, there are three buckeyes and one small sea shell. My husband put the buckeyes there sometime last fall, and I added the sea shell later. Gracyn and Griffin, my grandchildren, delight in taking them out and holding them. As if they were treasures of inestimable worth. And when Griffin leaves them on the end table or in the toy box, his sister dutifully rounds them up and returns them to their rightful place. The keepsake place.

Years ago, I was doing a two-day guest stint in an elementary classroom. When the teacher greeted me at the door on the first day with the words, Don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone, I admit that I entered with trepidation. I always over-plan, bringing enough writing activities to more than fill an hour session. That day, however, I ran through every activity I had as well as those I attempted to create on the fly. At home, that evening, I braced myself for my final session. I would have an arsenal of activities, engaging enough for even those with 10-second attention spans. Armed with this arsenal, I made my way to the classroom.

A five-minute warm-up spinning from Eloise Greenfield’s poem, “Keepsake,” and then I would launch into my battery of writing activities.

Keepsake                                                                                                     Eloise Greenfield

Before Ms. Williams died                                                                                   She told Mr. Williams                                                                                       When he gets home                                                                                            To get a nickel out of her                                                                                Navy blue pocket book                                                                                     And give it to her                                                                                         Sweet little gingerbread girl                                                                         That’s me

I ain’t never going to spend it.

After reading the poem, I asked the students if they had keepsakes they would like to share with the class. Patiently, one by one, each student offered up keepsakes that they hoped to pass on to their children and grandchildren: his grandfather’s pocket watch that his grandmother was keeping until he became “more responsible”; a magic fountain pen given as a gift by a friend; a frog dagger (I’m not making this up! And from a cute blonde girl with Shirley Temple curls to boot!); a Nolan Ryan autographed baseball presented to him by his mother just weeks before she died from cancer.

As each child spoke, a ceremonial hush came over the room, as if in merely speaking these keepsakes, we could all share in their great worth. What was intended as a quick warm-up ended as an entire lesson in which students wrote their keepsakes into consecrated poetry.

In the sanctuary of keepsakes, everything matters. A buckeye, a fountain pen, a childhood note, an autographed baseball. A keepsake is less an object and more a sacred reminder of what has been and what will be valued. It carries with it the essence of those who have given it. And it is this essence that moves assuredly through generations, endowing new members with the best of those who lived and loved before them.

As for me and my keepsakes, I ain’t never going to spend them, trade them, lose them, or box them up. In the sanctuary of keepsakes, you treasure them until–when the time is just right–you pass them on. With love.

I was sitting in the back of the Calvin T. Ryan Library on the University of Nebraska Kearney campus one October evening. My biology book, a behemoth olive green text, was fronting for the clandestine work of the night. Tucked inside this book was a paper back copy of Erica’s Jong’s Fear of Flying. A first person, feminist narrative, this was undoubtedly the most scandalous book I had ever read. And the fact that I was going to use it in an academic paper? Doubly scandalous–or incredibly sophomoric and stupid. Because the paper was not due for two weeks, the jury was still out.

You see, I had an idea, a burr-on-the bottom-of-your-pant-leg idea, the kind you cannot shake off no matter how hard you try. While reading the literature of plains’ women, I began to see how their struggles were not altogether unlike those of contemporary women. Would Mari Sandoz and Willa Cather hang out with the likes of Erica Jong? Would their characters eagerly confide in each other? Yes, I thought, yes.

In the end, my professor did not exactly share my passion and conviction for the idea that had ultimately spun itself into a literary comparison of Jong’s protagonist and Beret Hansa, the protagonist in Ole Rolvaag’s pioneer classic, Giants in the Earth. Although I was momentarily disappointed in the grade I received, I continued to be buoyed by the idea that had sustained me for weeks. It was, undeniably, an idea of worth. That I had yet to write it into the worth it deserved was regrettable but heroic nonetheless.

The best ideas require heroism. They demand intellectual risks that scare the bejesus out of us. They blow out the cobwebs and exhilarate us. In the end, stripped of pretense, they bring us face-to-face with what we thought we knew and what we have discovered. In the sanctuary of an idea, we can wander the earth in a moment, travel through time, live through other lives, and dream.

American novelist John Steinbeck wrote, Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. I like that. Get a few, learn how to work and live with them, and watch them multiply. As far as I’m concerned, you just cannot have enough rabbit hutches in the sanctuary of ideas. If you build a dozen, you will need a dozen more.

Years ago, I held a creative writing workshop for children. In a writing warm-up exercise, I asked a group of fifth graders to quickly fill in the blank: too many ___ are dancing on the _____. In true standardized test fashion, they responded: too many dancers are dancing on the stage–right? I mourned the fact that these kids had vacated the sanctuary of ideas, settling, instead, into the safety of right answers. Until I met with the first graders. I posed the same question and held my breath as they responded: too many moons are dancing on the water. Hallelujah! We were going to need more rabbit hutches.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart understood what it was like to be in the sanctuary of ideas:

When I am.  .  . completely myself, entirely alone.  .  .  or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how these ideas come I know not nor can I force them. 

Who can measure the worth of ideas that flowed from the man into the world’s most sublime music? And does it matter how and from where these ideas came? In the sanctuary of ideas, it matters only that they came–and came abundantly.

Tonight, as I rue the fact that sleep will come too slowly, that I will be unable to keep one idea from impregnating another and yet another, I will take solace in the sanctuary of ideas where I can commune with other late-night thinkers.

For my dad’s Barista friends

Even as a kid, I understood that coffee was cool. Over steaming mugs of Folgers, my parents and grandparents, our neighbors and friends, talked and laughed. This coffee cult was exclusive: no kids allowed. And that alone made it mysterious and cool.

It will grow hair on your chest, my granddad used to tell me when I asked if I could partake. You can have children’s coffee, a milky consolation with lots of sugar, offered up–on special occasions–by my dad.

For years, I stood outside the coffee circle, envious of its sense of community. There were faculty wives’ coffees, neighborhood coffees, PTA coffees, Christmas and church coffees. At the center of these gatherings? Coffee. Pots and carafes of glorious coffee: Arabica, Columbian, French Roast, Italian Roast, Espresso, breakfast and desert coffee. And unfolding from this coffee center were spreads of cinnamon rolls, sweet breads, cookies–some straight out of the oven–and, of course, coffee cake in all its magnificent varieties.

The sanctuary of coffee is an inclusive one. All are welcome: mug or styrofoam-cup-drinkers; storebrand or coffee-shop-drinkers; hot and black, lukewarm, or day-old drinkers; fancy-real-creamers or generic-powdered- creamer-drinkers; one-cuppers or lost-count-cuppers. The coffee covenant is just this: you can drink before you work, before you talk, before you even begin to be.

At Baristas, a local coffee shop in my hometown, my dad and his philosophy friends have been gathering in the sanctuary of coffee for years. Grab your latte, espresso, capuccino, and take a seat. Open yourselves to the talk of the day. Stay as little or as long as you wish. And leave, knowing that the coffee is always on, and the table is always open.

This is the way of coffee. It brings us together in familiar and unfamiliar ways. It gives us a reason to gather and to stay. And, above all, it speaks a universal language.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld said, You don’t really need a place. But you feel like you’re doing something. That is what coffee is. 

Exactly. You feel like you’re doing something when you’re in the sanctuary of coffee. And what could be better than that?

For John O.

There is a pregnant pause, an unintended pause, an awkward pause, a futile pause. But the most sublime pause is the pure pause of one who consciously and fully gives into someone, something, some place, or some act.

The pure pause is meditation on steroids. When thinking slows and then stops, when breathing finds its rhythms in the air, when being weaves filaments of sound and sight and smell around you, this is the pure pause.

Those who know the pure pause know porch swings and tree stands. You might find them at the end of a dock, legs crossed, at sunrise or dusk. Or sitting at a desk, pen in hand, in the presence of time’s most glorious ideas. Those who know the pure pause know the signs of its impending arrival and, when it washes over them, they momentarily melt.

In a nature column, British poet Alice Oswald writes:

If you bend a branch until it’s horizontal, the sap will slow to a stopping point: a comma or a colon, made of leaves grown into one another and over one another and hardened. Out of this pause comes a flower, which unfolds itself in spirals, as if the leaf form, unable to keep to its line, had begun to pivot.

This is the pure and perfect pause. Comma or colon, it stops us, bursts into bloom, and then unfolds itself in spirals. When we grow weary of doing, when we find it impossible to keep to our lines, we pivot in pure pause.

In the middle of a moonlit night, a just-fed baby in my arms, I have rocked myself into such commas. And my cats have occasionally purred me into such colons. Still, I struggle to punctuate my life and crave the commas and colons that appear to come so easily to others.

For I know that God waits for us inside the pure pause, His still small voice no longer still nor small here. In this pause is the center of wisdom and the eye of eternity.

And in this pure pause, one may find a house of prayer.

These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.                                                                   Isaiah 56:7    

“Smells, I think, may be the last thing on earth to die.” ― Fern Schumer Chapman, Motherland: Beyond the Holocaust: A Mother-Daughter Journey to Reclaim the Past

My grandson, Griffin, has what our family calls a great sniffer. This is a boy who not only stops to smell the roses but the clover, the rocks, the very dirt under his feet. We have found small scented votive candles and his sister’s chapsticks in his pockets, a secret stash ready and available whenever he needs a hit of sandalwood or pink bubblegum.

He is a boy after my own heart (in so many ways!) Sitting in the row nearest the bank of windows at Park School Elementary, I waited–with sensory anticipation–for Mrs. Beebee (real name–I am not making this up) to pass out the newly processed worksheets. Hot off the mimeograph press, they were passed back, student to student. And oh, the smell! We pressed our fifth-grade noses into olfactory heaven: a mix of gasoline, Windex, and turpentine that wafted off the damp pages. Before huffing was ever a thing, we huffed and whispered to our friends across the aisle, “They’re really fresh today!” Even today, the smell of gas, Windex, or turpentine will take me back to fifth grade, Park School, under the watchful eye of Mrs. Beebee.

Scent’s sister is memory. When we smell, and smell deeply, we often close our eyes and let scent transport us. Sometimes to better times and places, and sometimes to darker times and places we would rather forget. Bleach may take us to summer clotheslines with white percale sheets or to hospital bedsides; smoke may take us to campfires with s’mores or to burnt shells of what were once family homes.

In Isak Dinesen’s Winter’s Tales, she writes:

The lime trees were in bloom. But in the early morning only a faint fragrance drifted through the garden, an airy message, an aromatic echo of the dreams during the short summer night. 

Today, sweet clover sends an airy message as I walk, an aromatic echo of a younger woman’s dreams. I will breathe deeply and let my nose take me where it will.

I have always had a penchant, a hankering for anything dappled. As an eight-year-old, one of my prized possessions was a Breyer horse, 12 inches of plastic perfection, an gray Appaloosa with an exquisitely dappled rump. It transported my Barbies and me into worlds in which there were horses–glorious horses–and infinite pastures. Having saved $10 (it may have well been $10,ooo for an eight-year-old), I purchased my Breyer at a souvenir shop during an annual summer visit to my grandparents.

These same grandparents often sent me home with other dappled things: namely salamanders rescued from my granddad’s biology classroom. Most were three-legged (results of biology experiments on regeneration), but they were gloriously slimy, slow-moving, and dappled. They lived in a terrarium on a window shelf in our dining room. Until they didn’t. Live, that is.

In high school, for a time I believed that I would be an art teacher; I could not imagine a better way to live my life than surrounded by colors and shapes and the possibilities of a blank canvas. Drawn particularly to the Impressionists, I studied how they mottled color and, with small dabs of paint, created a sense of light that defied anything I had ever seen on a two-dimensional canvas. As I looked closely, I could not identify the exact place where blue turned into green. And in that nether space of translucence, I discovered that it was futile and foolish to do so. The Impressionists taught me that what was dappled was that which was wholly exquisite.

When light falls through the leaves of summer trees, there is a artful dappling that is just right for resting and thinking. Just right for dreaming.

When my father introduced me to Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Victorian poet and Jesuit priest, I was amazed by a kinship with one who saw great worth in all things dappled. In his poem, “Pied Beauty,” he writes:

Glory be to God for dappled things–                                                               For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;                                                 For role-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;                                   Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls; finches’ wings;                                 Landscape plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;                             And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, and strange;                               Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)                                         With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;                                                   He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:                                                                        Praise him.

Oh that I would have written these lines! Hopkins uses sound and rhythm so perfectly, creating a dappledness that deepens and compliments each image.

Although I realize that it is naive and too preciously romantic to yearn for a world in which “all thing counter, original, spare, and strange” are things of great worth to all, I yearn for it nevertheless. This is a world in which birthmarks and blemishes, scars and moles are constant reminders of a beauty that is “past change.” This is a world in which we willingly enter that nether space in which we cannot, we dare not name colors, for it matters not. All are glorious, all are just right. And this is a world in which we see our dappled selves for who we are: imperfect yet loved.

Glory be to God for dappled things–dappled rumps on horses, dappled skins of salamanders, dappled light through trees, dappled oil on canvas .  .  .

The sole foxglove that my daughter planted in small bed of flowers in her front yard is a freak of nature. Foxgloves grow tall–generally two feet or higher–but this one has defied generalities. Its height, however, is not its most admirable feature.

Its velvety blossoms once sat atop a stem that is entirely straight. And by straight, I mean disturbingly vertical for something alive. Through thunder storms, torrential rain, and 40 mph hour wind, it has persisted in its straightness.

Its flowers long gone and its stem now brown, it stands strong, a sentinel of all that is straight and true. Oh but the world would stand as such!

Several years ago when I was delivering professional development for high school teachers, I chose an essay on tolerance as the centerpiece of the afternoon’s session. My decision was morally courageous, but professionally stupid. In this essay, the writer argued for a truer definition of tolerance: respecting, but not necessarily accepting, another’s idea, perspective, or worldview. Tolerance, he claimed, has nothing to do with the relativism of the day; rather, it follows the classical path of truth which lives in constant tension with respect.

The high school I have worked in for the past five years is a small city under one roof. With 1, 400 students of diverse races and backgrounds, political, sexual, and religious views, this is a community of competing ideas and values. I brought the essay to my staff in hopes of helping them understand that their colleagues and students hold truths that compete with others’ truths. In a public educational setting, I wanted open discussion regarding the efforts and methods we might use to help our students respect and understand those with whom they disagree.

Naively, I was not prepared for what followed. Two days later, I received a phone call from a community member who had heard about our professional development session and who had since read the essay I used. For forty-five minutes, he talked at me, scolding first and condemning later. I cannot believe you used this essay. This is not the Shannon Vesely I know. 

This is not the Shannon Vesely you know? Not the Casper Milktoast of Relativism cowering beneath the tower of Truth? Not the kinder, gentler Shannon of all that is politically and educationally correct? Not the spineless, smiling wimp with stylish shoes?

No, I am not that Shannon Vesely. Not now and not ever. And yet, I let him chastise me for 45 minutes, wearing each moment and criticism like a hair shirt, scourging myself with the persistent–but misguided–belief that I might talk some sense into a man who insisted that others abandon their truth to accept his. (Though I understood that he could not accept my truth–one that clearly opposed his, ironically–and oh so tragically for such an enlightened one-neither would he respect it or me.)

Any chance that I might talk some sense into this man? Not so. He demanded that I apologize to the staff for the errors of my ways and retract all that I endorsed in the essay. And with that, he hung up. Imagine this scene (like one from a Lifetime TV movie): I am holding the receiver to my ear still, mouth agog, hands trembling, and tears pooled–but not yet fallen–in the corners of my eyes. Was it seconds or minutes before I hung up the phone? I cannot tell you, but suffice it to say, it seemed like ages.

And in the moments after I returned the receiver to the phone, I became painfully aware of what I thought may logically come next: the man would call my superintendent, the school board, the local paper. This could be it: the end of my educational career.

Still, truth prevailed. As it must. As it always does. I did not apologize to the staff nor retract my words. I did, however, relate to them the nature of the phone call I received and the demands made. In the end, with the Truth under one arm and my carefully crafted notes in my other hand, I faced the music. And I did not lose my job.

Just the other night, my son and I were talking about the Black Lives Matter movement and the chaos unfolding in many American cities. I asked him if he had ever read Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” How incredibly difficult, yet magnificent, to hold the passionate truth of equality in constant tension with respect for others and the law! How painful to march through the ignorance and hatred of those who hold truths contrary to yours! And how exhausting, but necessary, to call upon mercy and grace in the face of such evil.

As a young black man, my son is working his way towards Truth. And my enduring hope for him is that, like the foxglove, he will stand straight, and he will stand true.

In the sanctuary of all that is straight and true, we find a plumb line. Like prairie settlers who, in the midst of a blizzard, moved assuredly from house to barn and back, holding fast to the line stretched between, we can navigate our storms with truth. We can and must hold fast to that which is straight and true.

Holy Family Shrine near Gretna, Nebraska

There are metaphorical and symbolic sanctuaries all around us, but the real deal–the sanctuary of churches and cathedrals–is something to behold. Resplendent with stained glass which fractures sacred light, the sanctuary is the crowned jewel of a church.

Though a sanctuary may be architecturally and aesthetically a magnificent space, it remains but a pleasant shell without the presence of the Holy Spirit. The true beauty of any sanctuary is forged from the brokenness of its people: their prayers, their tears, and their longings.

Sanctuaries host altars of iron and stone and wood, tables of sacraments and mysteries. And before these, the hands of all sanctuaries extend, palm up, eyes fixed on all that is pure and true.

Sanctuaries prefer kneeling–or better yet–lying prostrate, arms perpendicular: a human cross before the cross. In the laps of the best sanctuaries, we curl up to hear the Word and to feel the arms of Jesus.

In the sanctuary of the Holy Family Shrine near Gretna, Nebraska, one can shout psalms of surrender and supplication, commune with Job and Paul, and be. Just be. This sanctuary is the right place for song and silence. And to borrow a line from poet Robert Frost (“Birches”), “I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.”

In the world of the ordinary and mundane, sanctuaries invite us into those extraordinary places of all that is lovely and holy. If we will but enter. And though the doors of these places are often foreboding in their sheer size and oaken stature, they open easily. If we will but enter.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.                                                                                                                               Revelation 3:20