How do we deal with our fears? How do we let go of anxiety and trust the Lord, moment to moment, whatever the twists and turns of the journey? 

I sit in a sunlit parlor and ponder these mysteries, reflecting on the continual movement of time. Nineteen women have gathered to study Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who gave his life for the sake of Christ Jesus and his church. His execution came at the end of World War II. So many decades later, we are attending a study group in the cool, green wetness of central Louisiana. The rooms are large and handsome, tables decorated with books and flowers, windows opening onto garden vistas. The simple beauty of the place sharply contrasts with the rapid rate of change in our lives: births, deaths, illnesses, marriages coming apart, new marriages taking place.  

Together, we pray for all these things: for members absent and present, babies yet unborn, daughters in labor, husbands who have undergone operations that didn’t quite succeed. We pray for ourselves, for our safety, to be spared from severe thunderstorms that crisscross our roads. We beseech God for good weather, for sunshine, for decent rainfall that does not flood us out. Most of all we pray to be in the presence of God, to know his will, to follow his way.  

In earlier sessions with Bonhoeffer’s writing, we had focused on walking with Jesus as Friend, Savior, and Lord. Month after month, we had studied, but also complained to high heaven about his complex thought, his dense theological discourse. Now we watched—for a second time—Dietrich’s life story unfolding in documentary style. We were delighted by his childhood, his early commitment to God’s Word. We were touched by his surprise in discovering America, the foot-tapping songs of praise in the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem. We were angered by the posturing of Hitler, by the twisted mentality of the Nazi High Command; saddened by the failures of the church, by the persistence of evil. We mourned the loss of Dietrich, a man in love with God, with justice, and with a cherished fiancée. How could God permit the death of such a faithful and obedient servant?  

We had wrestled with his stern advice on how to live by the Sermon on the Mount. But now in this sunlit parlor all was simplicity, gentleness, peace. As we watched the relentless story of Bonhoeffer’s obedience to the Word, a thought came insistently to mind. Bonhoeffer walked forward. He read the Psalms faithfully, attentively. He listened to God’s voice in Scripture as if addressed to him. When the summons came to walk with Christ all the way to the cross, he went, obediently. Like him, like Jesus our Master and Lord, we believers are walking forward into the future, as well, toward the dazzling bright door of time. 

Well, if the future is so dazzling, so beautiful, what am I afraid of? 

How would I say goodbye to dear friends and readers of my section of Conversations Journal? As I often do when goodbyes are upon me, I had fidgeted for weeks about what to say. I scribbled false starts, partial beginnings. How to take leave of such a lovely moment on my journey? It is not goodbye to Conversations. I will contribute in a new way, from a different perspective. So it’s not farewell, but a way of walking forward into the future. Through the bright door of time. 

I know you will welcome the new editor who takes hold of Classical Spiritual Exercises, bringing a fresh perspective to the disciplines we honor and live by. I know you will be startled and refreshed by a new angle of vision, a different take, a fresh start, a new beginning. 

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01.  The Tulips of the Field

On the tables there are yellow tulips. The dominant color of the day is yellow-gold, it seems. But no, the room is a rainbow of colors, each woman wearing something new or old that expresses the simple happiness of the changing year. 

It is a spectrum of feelings, a passionate yearning for the beautiful and the good. Then what is this anxiety that nips away, reminding us of the unpredictability of things? 

The words from Shakespeare’s fifteenth sonnet come to mind: 

 

When I consider every thing that grows  

Holds in perfection but a little momentWilliam Shakespeare, “When I Consider Every Thing That Grows,” Sonnet XV, The Oxford Shakespeare: Poems (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1914).

 

They are wisdom-words, expressing the fragility of things, the necessity of change, the mystery of the future, almost biblical in their depth and simplicity. I let go of anxiety and hold onto God in the present moment. 

Through the lucid tulip petals, drooping over clear glass vases, the beauty of God’s world is powerful, intense. I am flooded in his light. Our happiness, throughout every change, every crisis, every challenge, is to dwell, richly, in the heart of his sustaining love. 

So much of my writing is about change. The sudden shifts, changing perspectives, the seduction of resisting the way of God. How hard it is, sometimes, to accept what the Lord sends us. How challenging to walk with him, faithfully, obediently. As Abraham and Sarah did. As Isaac and Rebekah did. Surrendering, letting go of what has been, taking hold of what is to come, dwelling always in the warmth of God’s presence. 

But Dietrich Bonhoeffer was my messenger, my angelic visitor. With great simplicity he led me through the joy of knowing and following the Lord Jesus Christ. “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, R. H. Fuller, trans. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1959), 99.

People who notice the distortion of my hands from rheumatoid arthritis want me to tell about my pain. And I do that, in my writing, as honestly as I can. For me, the writing is a way of doing what Bonhoeffer did. Loving each person. Befriending where I can. Honestly expressing my own anxiety and fear of tomorrow. Then embracing each moment deeply and well. 

Resting in God. Being silent before him. Allowing God’s healing love and presence to make everything right, to help us to be whole.