Pond River Ocean Rain Find Peace in the Storms of Life 1st Edition by Charles Lattimore Howard ISBN 1501831038 9781501831034

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Product details:

ISBN 10: 1501831038
ISBN 13: 9781501831034
Author: Charles Lattimore Howard

For those who seek to find new depths in their spiritual lives, Pond River Ocean Rain helps readers wade into the beautiful water that is God through stories, questions, and accessible illustrations.

Feel
the Living Water wash over you while contemplating chapters on
stillness (such as a pond), the full trust in God’s will (much like the
rush of a river), peace within mystery (as experienced in the depths of
the ocean), and the movement of God’s relentless love for us (the
refreshing rain we receive).

Pond River Ocean Rain,
like all bodies of water, is simple, occasionally wild, and
consistently beautiful. And there are depths that, when explored, reveal
abundant life for all who jump in.

Pond River Ocean Rain Find Peace in the Storms of Life 1st Edition Table of contents:

Pond

Inaction sometimes is the greatest action we can take. Stillness is sometimes the most important move we can make. The beauty of this pond, the grace of its small yet active and fruitful ecosystem is based on its gentle stillness. If it moved itself into a roaring river or rose up and produced bounding waves like the ocean, the quiet turtles could not bask in the warmth of the sun in their daily peaceful adoration. The affectionate fish—in this pond they are koi—could not receive their gifted sustenance. Nor would I find this reminder to slow down amidst the constant speed and sound of the world that swirls around it.

As much as I love it there, most of my life has not been lived by the side of the pond. Instead, the image that comes to mind is of a crashing rainstorm. There is beauty in the storm, in the bright lightning, the powerful thunder, the heavy rain that helps things grow. Storms, however, are not meant to be perpetual. God designed them to be temporary, brief moments in life, not a constant way of life.

While I was in college, the clouds gathered in a way that I had difficulty seeing the Light. I nearly came undone from the swirling storm that I found myself walking through.

Stillness allows for that which is hidden within to come to the surface and teach. I walk to the pond near my office not to escape but to find. And it is life that I find there. Beautiful living friends. Among them my favorite animal, the turtle.

I do not go to the Pond or to the River or to the Ocean or out into the summer Rain empty-handed. I always come while holding my cracked jar of clay so that I may dip it into the Living Water and carry it with me the rest of the day.

On busy days I take a break and walk to the pond. And as the sun moves from right above me to the side, beginning its afternoon descent, I see that it is time for me to head back to the office. I don’t want to leave the Water and return to the path. My heart wants to stay there all day.

Ponds are different. Apart. They do not find the need to connect with other bodies of water. Needless of a creek or stream plugging them in to others. They are separate and free. And that takes courage.

Swimming in the pond is hard. Not dangerous, but hard in a different way. Once when visiting the pond near my vocational home I met one of the pond’s caretakers. She was employed to take care of the little turtles, koi, and other creatures. Her work was lonely. At times it was messy as she knelt on the muddy banks. It certainly was thankless unlike the degreed oceanographers or the ship captains of the sea. She only hears the quiet gratitude of creatures whose language is peace. I saw the way that people looked at her as she got in the pond. “How gross!” I imagine some of them thought as she entered into water that is not sterilized with chlorine. “And how disgusting to share water with those creatures.” Most of us prefer to swim in lonely pools with chemicals that burn our eyes. It’s hard to see after swimming in pools.

River

I first contemplated this notion of not being in control during my season as a hospital chaplain. I did not enter seminary with the intent of going into chaplaincy. All students were required to complete something called C.P.E., which I would later find out stood for Clinical Pastoral Education, a phrase that didn’t clarify what was in store for me much more than the three abbreviated letters. C.P.E. is an internship experience during which seminarians are asked to serve as ministers in what is usually a non-congregational setting. And for me that setting was a hospital in West Philadelphia.

The word discipline comes from the Latin word Disciplina meaning “teaching, instruction, or knowledge given.” The Latin word Discipule means “one who is taught or a student.” I have fond memories of entering my middle school Latin class and being greeted by my teacher who consistently said to us, “Salve (greetings) Discipule!” And our response was always, “Salve Magister (teacher or master)!”

Swimming in rivers is different than swimming in pools. The river is heading somewhere; the pool is not. The river pulls us. In the safe water of a backyard pool we make our own path.

I heard a pastor once ask his congregation if their lives were more like rivers or more like swamps. He explained that rivers, on the one hand, are places teeming with life within and around them. Historically people groups have often organized and developed cities and nations around them (Egypt and the Nile, Rome and the Tiber, London and the Thames). These rivers, the pastor went on to say, flow steadily between the riverbanks and remain ready to temper thirst, assist with cleanliness, help with travel, and offer food or even recreation. The river is there, consistently faithful with its calling.

There are two types of drowning, I suppose: the bad kind that suffocates and the good one that allows us to finally breathe.

The Nazarene was about thirty when He was baptized there. I was closer to thirty-four when I entered the chilly ancient waters of the Jordan River, though I had certainly heard of it. Paul Robeson’s baritone and Jessye Norman’s soprano both sang of the Jordan. My enslaved ancestors before that. That was how I first learned of the Jordan—as a child learning spirituals.

When looking at rivers, we only see the water. We often forget about the ground beneath the surface. When contemplating the ground at the bottom of the river, I remember theologian Paul Tillich’s description of God as “the infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of our being.” There is a floor that holds up all rivers. An unchanging base. And as the waters come and go, the ground remains there faithfully. And it is so with God.

The goal of the inner journey with and to God is not simply to learn how to swim but rather to learn how to drown. The gifts of the Spirit and our time in prayer and meditation and worship and fellowship are sadly often thought of as tools for the journey, that is, things taught and learned so that we may avoid drowning in the waves of life.

What is drowning? The losing of one’s life. What is spiritual drowning? Allowing that life to be consumed by the Current. Allowing the Living Water to fill your lungs and take over everything inside of you. To fill all that is within. Thoughts, passions, loves, desires, dreams, hopes. To have it fill your life. And then to allow the desire to care for and love others drown out the desire to serve only yourself.

A young believer praying for help with her unbelief walked upstream with her teacher and asked: “Teacher, I pray by the shores of this river every day. I draw water from it to tend my garden. I wash my clothes on its banks regularly, and whenever I thirst I kneel down and drink. Now what more should I do?”

Ocean

It reaches both day and night whether we are standing on the shore or not.

There is no thing, no one, no struggle, no mistake that could make God give up on us. A couple we met through church, named David and Nancy, have over the years mentored Lia and me. After church one day during a particularly low moment for me, they shared with me some wise words paraphrasing the brilliant author Philip Yancey. They said that “there is nothing that can make God love you any more or love you any less.”

The heat of the day and the heat of life at times have driven me to the water. And my soul’s desire for a cooling respite occasionally emboldens me enough to run in. Feet first. Then ankles, then calves, next my scarred knees, and then I am halfway in. I walk deeper, feeling shells and seaweed below. I want to go deeper.

The Water is deep. Diving off of my safe little boat, I break the surface and descend into darkness. This is not an evil darkness. Not all darknesses are created the same.

To me the most awful (as in awe-filling) moment in the scriptures of my faith tradition is in the Book of Job where those who surround the book’s namesake wade into the “why” in attempting to make sense of Job’s suffering. Perhaps out of a desire to help Job (thinking that if the source of his suffering is known there might be a way to stop the “divine punishing”) or from an insatiable desire to make sense of why Job suffered these tremendous personal losses, friend after friend tries to bring clarity to this incomprehensible situation. Even Job himself desires explanation and questions God about the great and enduring mystery of why bad things happen to good people. Toward the end of the book, however, God speaks and pronounces an oft-overlooked phrase that I have never forgotten: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2 ESV).

The ocean can seem so wild, mysterious, and unpredictable. How can we trust it? If I may diverge from the water motif, I’d like to turn to another majestic aspect of God’s creation, to attempt to answer this question.

Rain

The rain is humble. Compared to the ocean and other larger bodies of water, it is small. Sure, a rainstorm can span many miles, but each individual drop pales in comparison to the other water forms considered in this little book. In its humility, each drop does not need to be named like the great bodies of water around the world. They are at peace in their anonymity. Living their vocation without being marked on maps.

Dark clouds move in as silent harbingers of the coming storm movement. And it all begins with one drop. And then another and another. Moving and watering one by one.

One of the blessings of my time in seminary was the opportunity I had to study Hebrew. For those who truly love reading scripture, I encourage you to read it in its original language, for, as cliché as it may sound, so much can be lost in translation.

From age eleven I lived full-time with my older sister Ami. Being only twenty-three herself, she was attempting to work, study special education in graduate school, and raise a quickly growing tween in Baltimore. In an effort to keep me out of trouble during the summer, she found a sleep-away summer camp that would get me out of town for ten weeks in June, July, and August. By God’s grace and the generosity of the owners, I was given a full scholarship to attend this camp, which was all sports, all the time.

A love supreme. A love supreme. A love supreme.” Three repeated words. The only lyrics to be heard on John Coltrane’s subtly, yet powerfully, worshipful masterpiece bearing the same title. I long thought these were the only lyrics uttered during this classic jazz suite. The rest was said, sung, and whispered by Coltrane’s saxophone and the other featured instruments.

David Greer: An Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

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Tags: Charles Lattimore Howard, Pond River Ocean, Storms, Life