Guile

I had decided to stop drinking coffee this morning, but when I woke up, unexpecedly it was Monday and I could think of no way to start Monday off in a worse way than to skip my beloved brew. It just didn’t seem right. Sure, I can skip drinking it, but what are the emotional ramifications on the coffee if I reject it on such an unseemly day.

You probably scoff at the idea that coffee beans could have feelings, but have you ever asked?

No, you have not. So you cannot know what I know.

Yesterday at church, Pastor delivered the kind of message that blew our socks off. We sat stunned into silence, even the babies felt the full import of the words being delivered gently, with the full authority of the heavens behind him.

B looked at me, and I looked at him, “I have many things we must speak about when we get home”. I teased in a whisper.

I am distracted with the little morsel tucked in beside me. His wide little lab puppy paw hands clutch the fuzzy blanket to his face and he luxuriates in the warmth. Happy little noises are coming out of him and his sleep flushed face is wreathed in smiles. I could just eat him. Don’t worry, I don’t mean actually, actually. I mean in the way little Amish mothers have been telling their babies for generations.

I had company this weekend, and I didn’t clean my house. I didn’t prepare or stress. I just opened the door and delivered hugs. The first night we had cereal with lepish milk because the power was out from 7 am to 6:30 pm. I had a delicious meal of chicken marsala planned. It was humbling to serve treasured people, cereal. But it simply was what it was. Cereal served with love and joy is far more delicious than a four-course meal served with tension and stress.

But most of us Amishers were taught to have a perfect house, with perfect food, a perfect table, and all the perfect things. So inadvertently in our quest to obey Gods command to be hospitable, we find ourselves sacrificing our family to further Gods kingdom.

Except God does not work like this. He never causes us to neglect one commandment in favor of another.

“So what is the answer then?”

For me the answer was guile.

What is guile, I wondered? Why does God warn so much about it being in our hearts?

I looked it up and was most fascinated by the synonyms.

Wow, God ain’t playn. Even the word guile drips with slime.

We’ve all come into contact with the obvious guile. You know, the salesmen, the MLM’ers who aren’t honorable. But that isn’t the guile I want to talk about. I want to talk about the crap that is at the bottom of our oceans, polluting our beach, and ruining our testimony.

Like when you have to have a completely perfect house and meal before you can have guests. You shout at your children, you sweat the details, and you are.so.stressed.out! Company walks in the door and marvel secretly at your ability to have such a perfect meal and house with so many children. Except you don’t have that ability without screaming at your children. So that means you don’t have that ability. Someone paid for that perfection and it wasn’t you. It was your husband and children. Your guile forced you to the alter of perfection where you worshipped and lit your little candles and coddled it along.

Or what about the good wishes you wished someone while slipping crafty little teeth into your frosting-dipped manure bites. Because that is what it is. You may as well have put crushed glass into candy bars and handed it over, washed your hands, and said “I have no part in this shed blood.”

Even more slick, what about that person that asked if you can come to help her catch up. You said you could, but then you grumbled to your husband about it. You went to her house, helped her, and then told your best friend how dirty her house was. You say “yes,” but you meant, “I will only do it because I can’t say no, but I really don’t want to and don’t even like you that much.”

That would be impolite though, to be honest you know.

So you are dishonest in the name of Christian Virtue.

“I wish I could be as honest as you are",” you tell me.

“Ummm, you can, and you are responsible, to be honest.”

God does his best work when we are honest.

Performance does no one any good. (Unless you have PMS and forgot you are a good wife and mother) Performance cripples and hides. Like my daughter’s room when we went to paint it. First, she covered the wallpaper in a gorgeous deep grey. She let it rest to cure over the weekend and then carefully taped random geometric patterns over the whole wall. She covered it all in a smoky light grey the color of rain clouds over the mountains, and then happily pulled the tape down. Instant migraine, the tape came down with the new paint, the old paint, the old wallpaper, and random bits of wallpaper under that. We checked and yep, a least 5 layers of wallpaper on top of an old plaster wall.

It’s fine, erbody, it’s fine. Nobody is hyperventilating and grabbing for her sagging britches.

Ok, it was me, ok. So now that my underwear is under my chin again, we have to carefully pick off the wallpaper and pray to God the plaster doesn’t come down with a horsehair mess behind it.

The thing is, to fix the wall right, we have to take off all those layers and we don’t know what we will find.

That is what happens to you when you are not honest. When you allow others to silence you. When you lose your identity and your heart becomes bitter. Still your face smiles. You put your arms out and pin the covering on your head. You secretly hate the man you are commanded to submit to because he took your voice and your identity. Take the covering off. It’s only making a mockery at this point.

Nobody can take your voice, you closed your mouth because you are not strong enough or confident in God enough to speak up anyway.

Nobody can force you to lose your identity. You willingly reached into your wallet and handed it over because to keep it would have caused some discomfort as you and your new husband shuffle and elbow together in your new home and marriage, learning to live together in peace. Instead of pursuing peace, you sold your destiny for a bowl of soup.

Your identity and your voice are right where you left them. Go back and pick them up, sister of nobility. Push past your discomfort and fight for the marriage and the man God gave you.

How is that guile though, you ask.

It is guile when your heart wants people to look at you with admiration and happiness instead of following God’s word.

Guile is that thick fog you sometimes drive in when you are traveling at night while the children sleep. You know what I mean, you are driving along holding your spouse’s hand and all of the sudden a wall of fog. It’s white and thick. You run your windshield once, then twice more, and it doesn’t help. You slow down and turn your flashers on. You pray you don’t come suddenly upon a wreck or a slow-moving car. It makes that you cannot see or predict what’s ahead. Like a cobweb in the face it blinds you. Everything becomes skewed. You jerk to the left at the deer that became a mailbox right at the edge of a road. By the time your vehicle slips out from the cloying silver grasp, you feel exhausted mentally and need to stop to pick up some sour gummy worms to soothe your shattered nerves.

You fill buckets with your dishonest manure and use it to slather on the back of your guile so you can cover your walls to make them look better, hoping no one sees or smells the manure you used to put it up with.

The wall that has taught me so much about guile.

There is a better way, peasants. I am the queen of peasant pedestrians and I have found my voice in the middle of oppression. I have repented of guile and refuse to pretend for anyone, least of all for God.

You can join me.

Sure, it will bite the flesh right off your bones, and I am not talking the flesh that makes you a size 10. I am talking about the metaphorical flesh that you will leave at the doorposts because you insist on walking the narrow road because that is the road Jesus is on. Sure the wide easy road looks pretty sweet from here. It’s all warm feelings and snuggly teddy bear love but wait until a lion comes down that road freely killing left and right. You won’t find lions on the narrow road.

Over here there are thorns beside the road, but the water is cold and sweet. On the wide road, you best be concerned because most of the water is poisoned. It won’t kill you right away, but trust me, you are dying.

On the wide road, if you blow your inheritance, you are damned.

On my road, over here where my flesh is at the doorposts, the price of admission was my inheritance. He took my inheritance that fades and rusts and burns and replaced it with an inheritance that cannot be destroyed.

I have seen his power. I have seen him order the world without so much as a twitch of his finger. I have seen his love. The love that heals, and the angry love that says “no, this one is mine.”

And I can tell you, he is always worthy of my fanatical devotion.

This is why my yes is my yes, and my no is my no.

Because I do not fear those who can only destroy the body.