Hungry

In the last few weeks I’ve been really hungry all the time.  I don’t remember feeling like this during my first pregnancy.  I’ve tried eating more protein at breakfast and other strategies, and it makes no difference.  I’m still just really hungry.

This morning at church we were singing a song with these lyrics:
“We are hungry
We are hungry
We are hungry for the more of You
We are thirsty, oh Jesus
We are thirsty for the more of You”

I immediately thought, “That’s me!  I’m hungry!” and began fantasizing about food (a frequent occurrence nowadays).  “Okay, wait, I’m in church, I need to focus…”

Then I thought about why I’m so hungry.  It’s because I’m growing and creating new life inside of me.  Likewise, kids eat a lot when they’re going through a growth spurt.  And if we are growing spiritually, we should be hungry for God.  But even if we aren’t growing, just to maintain the status quo we still ought to be hungry for at least 3 meals a day.  Not being hungry at all is a sign of something being wrong, of illness.  We need to eat.  We need calories to sustain life.

“Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry.’” (John 6:35)

Announced by Hosea

While we were in Taiwan visiting my parents, Hosea said something out of the blue one day. He came up to me and said, “I prayed, and God answered my prayer, and you’re going to have a baby.” Again at the dinner table, he announced to everyone that “I prayed to God, and he answered my prayer, and Mommy’s going to have a baby.”

It came so out of the blue, and was stated so matter-of-factly, that I began to think, “Could I be pregnant?” No, I was pretty sure I wasn’t.

After returning to the U.S., I just couldn’t get over the tiredness of jet lag, and I wondered if I had an intestinal illness because I kept feeling nauseous. Until I finally realized that maybe I really was pregnant. Yes, it turned out I had been pregnant even before we went to Taiwan.

Thanks, Hosea, for letting me know.

Silenced

There have been a lot of earthquakes in the news lately.  I let Hosea see some pictures from Haiti and Chile, and explained what an earthquake is.  Since we live in earthquake country ourselves, I also showed him the extra water and food we store for emergencies.  While I was showing him some pictures from Chile, he suddenly asked, “God made the earthquake smash the buildings because the people were bad and didn’t listen?”  That caught me off-guard.  In the half-second before I opened my mouth and began to say “Well, not necessarily…”, my mind raced through thoughts of “Where did he get that idea?” to “Are people going to think we’re a fanatical fundamentalist family if he says that in public?”  I was caught in a strange moment; a moment of trying to balance teaching him the truth, deciding what level of explanation was appropriate for a 3-year-old, and realizing that I am concerned about what others might think.

After the earthquake in Haiti, I had come across the blog of a Mission Aviation Fellowship missionary family serving in Haiti in which the wife gives a detailed, intimate account of their experience of the earthquake and aftermath.  Besides the trauma of it all and the impact on her own young child, something she wrote a day or two after the quake really struck me:

“At the end of the street, there is a giant ravine full of small concrete shacks. As night falls, we see candles and hear people singing and praising God. I’ve never met an atheist in Haiti. All though many suffer from all kinds of superstitions, they all believe there is a GOD, who is in control of the entire universe. They aren’t interested in scientific explanations of how earthquakes occur. ‘God moved the earth.’ They don’t question or are angry. They sing and praise Him.” (http://mafkrul.blogspot.com/2010/01/going-through-motions.html; accessed 1/17/10)

I read that in a news story, too – that thousands of people were gathering in the streets singing hymns.  Then in the month following the quake I saw several news articles that reported on Haitians’ perceptions of God in relation to the earthquake.  I read many quotes where Haitians gave their opinions on these questions: “Did God cause the quake, or not?  Why?  Or was it the voodoo spirits?”  It appears that it is something that is being talked about openly in Haiti.  It is a valid topic of conversation.

The American reaction to the earthquake was a bit different.  The primary reaction was of course focused on compassion and how to help.  But the public discussion was mostly silent in the area of God, except for one brief flare-up of debate.

What started it all was televangelist Pat Robertson stating that Haitians made a “pact with the devil” that has cursed the country.  There was an immediate uproar, with the White House Press Secretary calling Robertson’s comments “utterly stupid,” and Al Sharpton calling him “un-Christian”.  Other pastors spoke up and emphasized that they did not believe in the kind of God that would do something like that, but in a God of love.  The Christian Broadcasting Network issued a statement clarifying that Robertson’s emphasis was on compassion and that he “never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath.”  At issue in the public war of words was the public definition of who God is.  The acceptable public definition of God was quickly re-established, and the discussion disappeared again.  The verdict:  God is love, and has nothing to do with earthquakes.

Hmm.  If God has no power over earthquakes, and is standing by as helplessly as we are, why should we bother praying to him to help the Haitians?  And doesn’t the Bible talk a lot about disasters?  What does it say?  Why is nobody discussing these questions – or for that matter, why are we not asking God?  Because it is not an acceptable topic of conversation in America, either in public or in most churches.

Now it is true that we should focus on compassion, and not on judging others.  But here’s something else Jesus said about disasters:  “Those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 14:4-5)

As Jesus so often does, He turned the focus back on his audience.  Jesus is not saying the victims were not guilty.  They are.  He says they are not less guilty that we are, and that if we do not repent, we will also perish.  We should not be focused on judging others – regardless of guilt – but rather focus on our own need for repentance.

A month after the earthquake, the President of Haiti called for 3 days of fasting and prayer in place of the usual Mardi Gras celebaration.  And the nation responded to the call.  Streets were deserted and churches were filled.

How has America responded to her own disasters?  9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the financial disaster.  Certainly these things resulted in prayer.  But nobody dared suggest or even imply that God might be involved.  And nobody talked about the nation’s need for repentance.  Not even pastors.  Perhaps Christians are afraid of sounding judgmental, as if they are blaming the people who died rather than the whole nation, themselves included.  But when we hush such conversations, we eliminate the possibility of repentance.  If we do not repent, what will happen next?

May I not silence Hosea’s questions, but allow him to understand his need for repentance.

Little Boy Thoughts About God

Hosea says so many funny things as he tries to incorporate everything new he is learning about the world.  It’s interesting to hear what things make an impression on him, that he talks about over an over.  Like superheroes, cowboys, sports, and everything boy-related.  I noticed that he has even latched onto certain attributes of God that appeal to him.  Here’s a sampling:

o    “God made me strong because I can lift heavy things.”
o    “I will fight God’s enemies!”
o    “God is power!”
o    “I’m not afraid of the wind!  God will protect me!”
o    “God made me strong, because I have long hair.”  (like Sampson)
o    “I’m a big boy.  I’m growing.  I eat a LOT so I can be strong and tell others about God.”
o    Pirate Hosea:  “I am strong and brave so I can tell people about God!”

Under God’s Umbrellow

I’ve been reading to my son from a book of poems about bugs.  Here’s a cute one:

Drippy Day

I wouldn’t blame a Beetle-Bug
who started to complain
when the day was cloudy
and the sky began to rain:

He doesn’t have a cozy house,
the lonely little fellow.
He only has a drippy leaf
to make him an umbrellow.

(from When It Comes to Bugs by Aileen Fisher)

At first I wasn’t sure he was actually interested in the poems or even paying attention.  But then one day out in the garden, he was standing under part of a tomato vine that I was tying up and he said, “Look, mama, my umbrellow!”

I guess little children are more in the habit of looking up than adults because of their shorter stature, so they notice what’s up.  Getting down low and looking up is also the best way to find caterpillars hiding underneath the tomato leaves.  Yesterday I was harvesting tomatoes when I looked up and – EEK! – a big fat caterpillar, clinging onto the vine with a vise grip.

The other night at dinner, outside on the patio under the shade canopy, Hosea gave this impromptu speech:  “God is Jesus.  God is Power.  This is God’s big tent over us.  It’s his temple church.  I love him.”

I’m leading a Bible study on Exodus right now.  When the Israelites were instructed to construct the tabernacle, God said, “Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:9).  It was also called the Tent of Meeting, not because the people met there, but because that was where God met them.  “There I will meet with you and speak with you; there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by my glory.” (Exodus 29:42-43)

It was specifically from between the wings of the cherubim over the ark of the Testimony that God spoke (see Numbers 7:89).  The Psalms speak repeatedly of taking refuge in the shadow of God’s wings; I usually think of this as referring to taking refuge under a mother bird’s wing, but now I wonder if it is really referring to the ark.  For in Psalm 61:4, David wrote, “I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.”  He was longing to be in God’s presence in the temple.

When God covers us with his wings, we dwell in his presence and he meets with us, and his glory is revealed.  What an awesome thing!  But this can even happen in little ways as we seek him.  That is what happened to Hosea and I this summer under the tomato plant when I prayed for those tomatoes (see previous post).  God met with us under his umbrellow, and revealed his glory to us.

Caterpillars & Prayer

I am having mixed success with the small garden I planted.  One tomato plant died, but the other one is thriving and almost as tall as I am.  One squash plant was a dud, but the other is on the brink of taking over the entire garden.  My big frustration is the bugs and caterpillars eating the baby squash and tomatoes.  Though if I can find the offenders, my child is more than happy to smash them to smithereens.

A few weeks ago, after the caterpillars had eaten 3 of 5 tomatoes, Hosea and I prayed over the remaining 2.  Immediately after saying “Amen,” I regretted it and thought, “That was stupid!  Caterpillars eating tomatoes are just part of life!  What if God doesn’t intervene and protect the tomatoes – how will I explain that to a 3-yr.-old and still assure him that God answers prayer?”

I should back up and explain that we were on a prayer roll.  A few weeks before, we were doing an errand and had just pulled in the parking lot when it started pouring rain.  We needed to be outside for this errand, so I sat in the car thinking out loud, “What should we do?  We don’t have an umbrella.  Maybe we should go do our shopping at Target first and then come back.”  Decisive Hosea declared, “We just go Target first.”  I almost turned the key in the ignition, then I stopped.  “No, let’s pray.  Dear God, please make the rain stop.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.”  Then we waited.  20 seconds later:  “Mama, we go Target!”  “No Hosea, we’re waiting for God to answer and stop the rain.”  Within a minute, the rain suddenly…  stopped.  We got out and did our errand.  (Now when I told my husband about this he said, “So what if you would have gotten a little wet, what’s the big deal?”  My rain phobia is besides the point of the story, okay?!  The point was that God answered a prayer in a way that Hosea could plainly see and understand!)

A week or two later was Hosea’s birthday.  The weather had continued to be gloomy, cold, and even a little wet.  The funny thing was that we had scheduled his birthday party at 5pm because that was the only time of day that there would be shade in the backyard.  It’s common to have some overcast weather here in May/June, variably called “May Gray,” “June Gloom,” or, in my family, “Birthday Weather.”  But it’s not usually downright cold and it never actually rains, and the clouds generally burn off by noon and then the sun comes out.  As the cold, gloomy weather continued for a week, then another week, I began to get worried about it being too cold to be outside for Hosea’s birthday party.  So, we prayed with Hosea.  “Lord, please send the sun for Hosea’s birthday party.”  The day of the party was gloomy again all day.  But it wasn’t too cold, and around 5:30pm, the sun broke through between the clouds and shone down right on our backyard – and seemingly nowhere else.  It came and went a few times over the next hour, and it was still mostly cloudy, but it was the only sun we had seen in weeks and it dramatically lit up the wall in the backyard that we had decorated with chalk drawings and a “Happy Birthday Hosea”.  We excitedly pointed out to Hosea, “Look, God sent the sun!  Remember when we prayed for sun for your party?”

Now back to the caterpillars.  I know through experience that God often does not take away little annoyances or even big problems no matter how hard I pray, for a variety of reasons.  Hosea’s too young to understand those reasons, but he’s not too young to know God.  I kind of think that if it had been just me praying alone for those tomatoes, God would not intervene, but use it as an object lesson to remind me that I live in a fallen world and that I am called to be vigilant on a daily basis against sin and evil as it tries to eat up everything in its path.  But it’s not just me; it’s Hosea.  And the lesson he needs to learn right now is that God hears prayer and answers.  God loves Hosea, and is merciful.  So the baby squash have been eaten by rolly-polly bugs and the caterpillars have been chomping on the lettuce, but ever since we prayed for the tomatoes they have not been touched.

Light

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”
Isaiah 9:2

We moved into our first house a few weeks ago.  We had bamboo floors installed in part of the house, and they look beautiful.  The bamboo is a light natural color.  One thing that had not occurred to me when we chose it is that the light color makes dirt very visible — every little tiny speck of it.  Who knew that we tracked in so much dirt on a daily basis!  I am suddenly very conscientious about first wiping my shoes on the doormat and then taking them off right inside the door, and teaching my 2-year-old to do the same.  I have been sweeping and cleaning the floors with much greater frequency than I have ever done before in my life.  At our last apartment, with its grey carpet and grey vinyl floors, I could go a long time without cleaning the floors or vacuuming (I won’t tell you exactly how long, out of embarrassment).  It did make it easier to be lazy, I admit.

In this season of Advent, we celebrate “the true light that gives light to every man” (John 1:9) that was coming into the world.  A pure light that is glorious to behold.  Looking at candlelight or twinkling Christmas lights brings a warm, happy feeling.  But the True Light is also like our bamboo floors.  When it “gives light to every man,” the dirt stands out.  The True Light makes very visible all my little sins that were comfortable hiding in the darkness of the grey carpet.  I am distinctly lacking in holiness.  Advent reminds me to clean house and repent, to “make straight the way for the Lord” (John 1:23).

As I clean, I keep finding that I’ve tracked in more dirt every day.  Argh!  Though God commands me to clean and be holy, I cannot win this battle myself.  I am Joshua the High Priest in Zechariah 3, dressed in filthy clothes before the LORD, needing my sin to be taken away.  That is why God sent the True Light, entering the world through the dirty, manure-filled stable, to take away our sin.  That is why I celebrate.

Haggai 1

I’m leading a women’s Bible study right now on Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Here are my personal reflections on Haggai 1:

When I was asked to teach a class for a women’s ministry at my church called Mom’s Equipped, my first response (other than shock) was that I had never taught a class before. My second response was that I really didn’t think I would have the time. I had just committed to being the coordinator for the church nursery, and we were trying to buy a house. I figured we’d be right in the middle of moving when the class was to start. I didn’t want to take on too much. But God had other ideas…

I imagine that in Haggai 1 the exiles who had returned from Babylon felt that they did not have time to build the temple. After all, they were struggling with financial problems and poor crop yields due to drought. Surely they needed to spend more time working harder just to survive, so that they wouldn’t be putting their little ones to bed hungry. “It would be nice to devote more time to the things of God, but first we need to put food on the table. If God would just bless our crops, then we would have more time.” As Tevye sings in Fiddler on the Roof’s “If I Were a Rich Man”:

“If I were rich, I’d have the time that I lack

To sit in the synagogue and pray

And maybe have a seat by the Eastern wall

And I’d discuss the holy books with the learned men,

Several hours every day.”

But then God spoke to the returned exiles through the prophet Haggai, and stopped that line of thinking dead in its tracks. The drought and financial problems they had been experiencing had been a sign from God. It was a wake up call. It was time to readjust their priorities and make the time to rebuild God’s temple.

When God told me that he was calling me to teach the class, I began to think, “Okay, I don’t have much time. How can I do this realistically?” I thought of doing a Bible study on Joshua that I had participated in at a previous church; I still had the book it was based on and all my notes. But God said no. Okay, how about studying some of the Letters of John Newton (again, a study from a previous church). God said no. Then what? It had to be something easy, with little preparation time. I had been reading through a chronologically-organized Bible and really loved the section on the rebuilding of the temple where the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi are interwoven into the historical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. How about that, God? He said yes! Hurray! Now all I had to do was find a Bible study book on those prophets and I’d be set, right? Wrong. I quickly discovered that there are almost no Bible study books available on those prophets, and the main one that I found was by an author whose writing style I didn’t care for. But I was willing to sacrifice my preferences if that was what God wanted (how noble of me!), so I prayed about it. God said no. What?! Was he expecting me to come up with a Bible study from scratch?! Yes. That’s exactly what he was expecting. “But God, I don’t have time!!”

“Go up into the mountains and bring down timber…” (Haggai 1:8). God expected the hard labor to begin. And so I began to carve out little bits of preparation time during the day. As I obeyed, God blessed me with more bits of time. Then he sent my mother to stay with us for an unexpectedly extended visit due to health problems. She has helped tremendously by watching my 2-year-old and cooking and washing dishes. As it turned out, God’s expectations were not too much, and he provided me with the time I needed.

We did end up opening escrow on a house the week of the first class. The day before the first class was filled with house inspections and piles of paperwork, and I could hardly think straight. But the class turned out okay. Now it’s the morning of the second class, and I’m sick and losing my voice. How am I supposed to teach the class? But maybe that’s the point. Maybe God is having me lose my voice so that I won’t talk too much in class, because it’s not my class. God called me and he chose the topic, so it’s his class.

It has not necessarily been easy so far, but God has provided. When the Israelites obeyed and began to rebuild the temple again in Haggai 1, it must have been very hard work with very few resources. But in just a few months’ time, God will begin to bless their crops again (Haggai 2:15-19). And within a year or so, he will shower them with abundant resources from the Persian emperor for all the expenses needed to rebuild the temple (Ezra 6:8-10). The obedience and hard work came first, but the blessings followed.

Thought Life

Over the past month I’ve been pondering homeschooling philosophies and browsing through A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola.  There are several ideas in the book that resonate with me, giving me much food for thought.  On page 43, the author quotes Charlotte Mason as saying, “We feed upon the thoughts of other minds, and thought applied to thought generates more thoughtfulness.” I had been reading the book right before bed, and all the thoughtfulness it generated impacted me immediately; it did not allow me to fall sleep.

Of course the chapter I was reading is not about the parent’s thought-life, but the child’s.  “About the child hangs, as the atmosphere around a planet, the thought-environment he lives in.  And here he derives those enduring ideas which express themselves as a life-long kinship towards sordid or things lovely, things earthly or divine.” (p. 51, quoting Charlotte Mason.)

This reminded me of another book I read parts of this past year (I can’t remember when I last read an entire adult book), Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard.  In his chapter about Spiritual Formation and the Thought Life, he begins by saying:

“As we first turned away from God in our thoughts, so it is in our thoughts that the first movements toward the renovation of the heart occur.  Thoughts are the place where we can and must begin to change.  There the light of God first begins to move upon us through the word of Christ, and there the divine Spirit begins to direct our will to more and more thoughts that can provide the basis for choosing to realign ourselves with God and his way.” (p. 95).

Returning to A Charlotte Mason Companion, the author says, “The teacher’s part is to provide children with a wellspring of right thought to draw from.  Right thought flows upon the stimulus of an idea… These instruct the conscience and stimulate the Will, and man or child ‘chooses.’” (p. 82).

In Isaiah 55:8-9, God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” So in education, my goal should not be to conform Hosea’s thoughts to my thoughts, but rather to conform his mind to Christ – and hopefully further conform my own mind in the process.

My thoughts are not Hosea’s thoughts.  A 2-year-old’s thought life is part utter mystery, causing me to say at times, “What is he thinking?!”  Other times it is not a mystery, but his thoughts are simply incompatible with mine.  He thinks it would be fun to throw crackers all over the floor, and he seems to think they taste better off the floor, too.  I think, “I do not want cracker crumbs ground into the carpet and hidden in every crevice!!”

Frequently his thoughts are very simple and transparent – basic wants, likes, and dislikes.  More and more, Hosea is capable of sharing his thoughts with me, in rudimentary form.  A significant portion of his thoughts lately have involved motorcycles.  The following conversation has been repeated many times:

Hosea:  Vroom vroom!  (twisting his fists as if revving a motorcycle)
Mama:  Oh, a motorcycle?
Hosea:  Guy!
Mama:  Yes, a guy – a MAN – was riding the motorcycle.  (Note the vain attempt to elevate his vocabulary.)
Hosea:  Yeah.  Helm! (patting head)
Mama:  He was wearing a helmet.  Yes, you have to wear a helmet to ride a motorcycle – or bicycle.  (I have repeatedly introduced this thought to him.)
Hosea:  Yeah.  Vroom vroom!

I can have that conversation with Hosea “without thinking”; he has taught me how to think like a toddler about a passing motorcycle.  But sometimes I am surprised by a conversation.  About two months ago I had the following conversation with Hosea (he was still using a lot of sign language):

Hosea: (Makes sign for “Jesus“)
Mama:  Jesus?
Hosea:  Yeah.  (Signs “Jesus”) Up up up!  (Pointing up.)
Mama:   Up?
Hosea:  Up!  (Signs “Jesus”)
Mama:  (Silence.  What is he talking about??  Maybe something from one of his Bible storybooks?) Oh, you mean Jesus went up up up in the sky to heaven?
Hosea:  Yeah.  (Signs “star”)
Mama:  Star?
Hosea:  Yeah.  (Signs “star”) Baby!
Mama:  Oh, there was a star in the sky where baby Jesus was?
Hosea:  Yeah.  Baby.  (Wiggles little finger.) Hi.  (A silly illustration in one of his Bible storybooks shows a shepherd wiggling a finger above baby Jesus.)
Mama:  Hi, baby Jesus! (Wiggling finger.) Yes, the shepherds came to see baby Jesus and said hi.
Hosea:  Yeah.  (Signs “Jesus” and then “Hurt/Owie”).
Mama:  Oh, you mean Jesus helped the people who had “owies”?  Yes, he made them feel better.
Hosea:  Yeah.

Hosea was just repeating back parts of stories I have read to him.  But it has entered his thought life.  Life-giving truth can have humble beginnings.  And pretty soon I’m taking on Hosea’s thoughts.  Here’s our prayer at breakfast this morning:

Mama:  Dear God, thank you for breakfast.
Hosea:  Dada.  Owie.
Mama:  Yes, and please heal Daddy’s owie and help him feel better.  Amen.

Movement

The last time my parents came for a visit, I was driving them back from the airport and my dad pointed to a hill and wondered out loud, “I wonder why that’s there?”  He’s a structural geologist, so this is a common occurrence when driving around with him.  He sees the world differently.  When he sees a hill, he thinks about why that hill is there –what mechanics inside the earth caused it to form in just that way.  But when I look at a hill, I don’t see those geologic processes; I just see a hill.  In fact, the only time I generally think about geologic processes is when there’s an earthquake, when the earth’s startling movement is impossible to ignore.

Lately I have been thinking about God’s movement in the world.  Not just the big, jolting earthquakes like the parting of the Red Sea, but the smaller, incremental movements that shape and form what is going on in my life and the world around me.  Things happen all day long of varying levels of importance.  I don’t often stop to ask, “Why is this like that?  What is God doing here?”  Those questions are usually reserved for big events that stick in our minds – a tragedy or something amazing.  To see a broader picture, I must start by looking at what God has already done as recorded in the Bible, in biographies and histories and people’s stories, and in my own prayer journal.  Yes, I must review my own journal regularly, because I have found that even in a matter of days I can forget what God showed me.  If I fail to write it down at all, then it may be lost forever.

Knowing that God works incrementally in our lives and in human history is not the same as being aware of his movements right here and now.  In a sermon right before Christmas, my pastor said “Jesus had emptied himself to become human, so he couldn’t see what the Father was doing unless God showed him.”  God must show me, too.  It is easy to impose my own ideas of God’s movements when it serves my interests, or when it comes to big drama like politics and world events.  I must empty myself of my own ideas, preoccupations, and priorities to make room for “the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 13:11).

I must listen.  Listening requires that I actually want to know what God is doing.  Who wouldn’t want to know what God is doing?  How often do we pray, “Lord, what are you doing?!” with exasperation?  Maybe the exasperation is the problem.  Sometimes God is doing something that we disagree with.  Sometimes he is doing something that challenges our basic assumptions.

The purpose of God’s movement is transformation, and that can be uncomfortable to a person, to a church, to a community, to a nation, to a world.  If I welcome the transformation, God will help me to see more and more of his movements.  To welcome the transformation, I must be humble and fear him.  But often I am not humble, and I do not fear him.  And so I am blind and deaf.

But I don’t want to wait for a big earthquake to be forced to ask “Why is that hill there?”  So I must ask the questions, try to empty myself, and listen.  And that is movement right there.