Uncategorized

a bruised reed he will not break

/ jill autrey dorman / 6 Comments

pexels-photo-532303.jpeg

A Message from the Valley of Decision…

I saw her standing in the Valley of Decision and I reached for her hand gently.
I said, “I don’t know where you are coming from but I do know what you are running from.”
She said she had forgotten her loveliness and her might. She has forgotten the taste of new wine and sweet olive oil. Her trees would bear no more fruit. All of her gifts and talents had drained away. The “invented” normal had left her heart and soul gravely bruised…
I have seen it many times in sixty years. The exigencies the “inventor of lies” has put upon us. The accuser, the impostor of beauty and wisdom says, “We girls have to be skinny, smart, beautiful, witty, sexy, as well as Mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, healer, cook, house keeper, and oh yes, we can never age, wrinkle, or grow soft muscles or gray hair…
Oh what a relief is found when we know these falsehoods cannot raze our joy! The Spring rain will wash you clean of shame and doubt and you will regain all you have lost! Young woman, daughter, widow, single Mother, or any Mother, any woman…Come to the Valley of Decision and lay down all the plates you are spinning. Hold with palms open upward any control you deem you have and you will realize that you are so far beyond what you believed. Choose Wisdom instead of control. Choose Wisdom which says, “You are the Pearl of Great Price!”
Stay in this Valley and decide to seek Wisdom… be healed, be whole, and dance before the Lord God without fear and then reach out your hand for the next woman you see and give her the Wisdom you have gained…it is a decision, it is truth or it is lies and you must choose…thousands upon thousands of women are waiting for your hand…

A bruised reed he will not break, and a fading candle he won’t snuff out. He’ll bring forth justice for the truth. Isaiah 42:3
Also, inspiration from Joel 3:14

 

Reconcilable Purity

/ jill autrey dorman / 2 Comments

 

 

people-peoples-homeless-male.jpgHe said, “I get my meanness from the gutter and I get my kindness from God.” I sat down under the bridge with him and I said, “I think I could say the same.” He looked at me square in the eyes and I could see he was surprised by my response. He said, “You don’t look like you know much about the gutter.”

I smiled and said “looks can be deceiving don’t ya know?” Then he laughed. The sound of his laughter was one that made me smile. His laughter was like a nine month old baby’s belly laugh. The kind of laughter where nothing is held back and a sweetness of joy rings from it. I told him I had not laughed like that in ages and he said, “Oh you can only laugh like that when Fury and Thunder have cracked your soul and all the dark places have been opened up and cleaned out and all the pieces are strewn about and you cannot put them back together by yourself. I call it reconcilable purity. This laughter only occurs when you have lost your life to save it and when you were first but now you are last…”

I sat there in sober silence but something inside of me begin to tremble. “Who are you?” I whispered. He said, “I am just an old man who has been given a new heart and all day long I just like to go around and give my heart and life away to whoever might need it for a minute or two so that they can go about their day with some pure laughter…” The gorged veined, brown spotted hands palmed my face and the old man looked me in the eye and he said, “Go and be, not do. Go laugh and cry. Go and give your life away for someone else and you will see. You will laugh the laugh of “reconcilable purity.”

what I couldn’t know…

/ jill autrey dorman / 4 Comments

woodland-road-falling-leaf-natural-38537.jpeg

What I couldn’t know…when I was a nursing student my instructor gave me an assignment that I have carried with me for forty years. I will never forget it because I gave loving gentle care to Jesus that night.
Stay with me… to get the whole and the depth of this picture I must confess that at that time in my life I lived in a what I call ” a well-intentioned but misinformed idea of Grace.” In my childhood and early adolescence Grace was very “sanitary” , if you follow me. It followed a certain prayer, then Baptism, the cleaning up your behaviour issues (or at least hiding them), and then good works followed that. At age twenty I had long well-known I could not live up to these rules but continued to pretend that I was ok…
So this happened…
I stepped into the room of a woman very ill. She did not speak nor open her eyes. I could see she was weary and when I reached to touch the bed sheets she grimaced embracing herself for what I couldn’t know. I was about to begin my assessment when my instructor, God bless her, said “take care now…you will be touching Jesus.” Oh how I weep when I remember those words.
When I pulled back the sheets the little emaciated body of the still silent woman was covered in bed sores. Her body was filthy, her finger and toe nails grown long and brittle. The sore on her spine was through to the bone so that even the breeze of my moving the sheet caused her to stiffen in pain. I turned to my instructor with a face full of question and overwhelmed I whispered “what am I to do for her?” She responded by nodding to a bath basin and many towels and simply said “you want to be a nurse now here is your chance.”
It took me two hours to peel off her filthy clothes and wash the dirt from her body and to dress each wound. The woman never spoke and her eyes remained closed. I only spoke gently to explain each of my actions. It was tedious and repetitive work. After I had dressed each bedsore and put a clean gown on her and of course, clean sheets I turned to leave. Only then did the woman look at me briefly and simply said in voice so strained and broken, “Thank you so much.”
I turned my head and smiled at her but her eyes were already closed again. I whispered that she was welcome. I stepped out into the hallway and in my unprofessional youth I leaned against the wall and cried and trembled. I cried because something in my soul told me that night that Grace is personal and intimate and sometimes very painful. I leaned my forehead against the door of that hospital room and a still small voice that seem to come from her room said, “whatever you do to the least of these my daughter, you have done it unto me.”
What I couldn’t know or fully grasp that night is I had begun my journey toward developing gratitude…and so much more pain and joy echoed down the road of Grace…

Relay Station

/ jill autrey dorman / 2 Comments

pexels-photo-258510.jpeg

The “Cafe’ ” looked like 1950’s America. I should have known right then and there it was a relay station…ya know?  One of those places God has you stop in a while at different times in your life. You know what I mean don’t ya? BIRTH. EARTH. DEATH. HELL. HEAVEN…
Well anyway, back to the Cafe’. The splintered wooden sign above the door just read, Cafe’. That’s it… just one word on a green milk paint weathered sign with red letters. The old screen door looked freshly painted and was red too and right as you walk in there is a big chip board sign that said “Sweet Ice Tea 25¢…
Well, as it happens I was so bone weary and July Delta hot that I had to go in and get some sweet iced tea for a quarter no less!
Behind the counter stood the most beautiful charcoal skinned lady I have ever seen! Her skin was radiant like a diamond. Her chestnut-brown eyes were perfectly round and so clear they twirled like starlight from far away. Yep, I thought to myself…Relay station. The Lady looked up at me and smiled. She said all the usual stuff like “welcome, take a seat, etc…but then she called me “Darlin” and said “let me get you a big old glass of sweet ice tea!”
The Lady’s  melodic voice sounded like a song I had known all my life so what could I do but “take a seat.” The booths had that fake leather vinyl and a few of the seats were cracked with age. I noticed how clean they were. The formica table tops had once been white were now yellowed with age but the whole Cafe’ was tidy and clean the way any eatery should be…
Yep, I thought to myself again , “this is a relay station.”
Suddenly I became aware that the Lady was speaking to someone else although I didn’t see another soul in the place. She said, “You know you better get outta my Cafe’!!!. You know good and well you can’t be here! Now you get on outta here right now!”
I didn’t want to see who was getting such a dressing down so I just sat at my booth and looked down at my hands. I never saw or heard anyone else coming or going so I thought maybe the Lady was a little touched in the head, ya know?
I just sat there enjoying the coolness of the big attic fan whirring above me. I love the hum of an attic fan. It was blowing just enough to cool me about my head and shoulders but not so cold like some places do so that your teeth are chattering the whole time you’re trying to eat…
The Lady brought me a large, large glass of sweet ice tea and grinned at me with one of those “deep” kind of smiles. You know the kind of smile I mean? The kind of smile that shows the little lines and miles a person has travelled? Anyway, she had a comforting smile and I thanked her for the tea…
As the Lady walked back behind the counter we enjoyed the pleasure of silence. After a while I was lost in thought but I could hear the faint scraping of a spatula on a grill, with its own familiar melody. I began to feel a little stiff and sleepy so I sat up straight and started looking around the Cafe’. That is when I noticed all the photographs above
each booth and covering most of the wall space.
One photo was a WWII veteran and his beautiful chocolate skinned teenage bride. I recognized those big brown eyes as the Lady’s eyes. Boy she was a beauty! In another photo there were the same young couple with a handful of children. There were multiple shots of families with teenagers and old people smiling at the camera. There was even one or two pictures of a gathering of folks at a cemetery or a wedding…I began to feel so tired again and finally just put my head down on the old cool table top…
I was gently awakened by the awareness that the Lady was sitting across from me at my booth. She gazed at the photograph above my head of herself as a bride then she said, “something children don’t know, at least most children don’t, is that we are each strangers to our parents pain and woes. Strangers to their wounds and broken dreams. We rarely, if ever see their scars yet we are wholly formed by them. Losses and dreams they knew before we were born lay behind them like mountains they climbed over and when they got to the other side they just kept on moving forward and held on tight to the meaning of life. The meaning of it all is just this…move forward no matter what and just maybe the next child will have less wounds, less scars, and less broken dreams and the next generation will have more and more love and meaning and love and meaning and it just keeps us going for a reason, for the meaning that perhaps we cannot see so clearly and that is that we, each of us, are on the same road map. It is the curse and the beauty of humanity. We make it over that next hurdle.” she ended in a whisper. Then she looked into my eyes and that melodic voice said, “it is all just to wonderful to miss!”
As quick as a blink I had to cover both my eyes because a canopy of piercing white light began to rain down all over my head and shoulders and then like a shot out of a cannon there was an arc of shimmer silver light all over the Cafe’. The Lady touched my hand and I asked her what her name was and she said, “Hope.”

The next instant all was quiet and the Cafe’ was cool and serene again. The Lady was behind the counter working and humming that melody again. I looked around and everything in the Cafe’ was just like it was before. I took a last swig of my tea and lay some money on the table. As I headed toward the old screen door I turned to the Lady and asked, “Hope, who was that in here earlier that you told to leave?” She turned her head briefly and grinned and said, “oh, that old demon’s name is Despair. He tries to come into my Cafe’ with lots of folks traveling through but he knows he can’t stay where Hope is.”

I smiled and stepped through the screen door. I smiled in my heart and felt joy…do you know that kind of smile? The kind of smile that shows the lines and miles of a person’s journey. Then I looked back over my shoulder to see the Cafe’ once more and it was gone…
“Yep, just like I told y’all before, a relay station…

Bluebirds ( a tribute to my grandchildren) or If Spirituality Had a Voice…

/ jill autrey dorman / 1 Comment

I have four grandchildren. I secretly call them my little Bluebirds.  The newest one still remains in his Mother’s womb but he will be here in less than three weeks. The next youngest little bluebird arrived right before Christmas and she is growing strong and smiling. The third youngest is my three and a half- year old granddaughter and the oldest Bluebird is my six and a half year old a grandson.

I have learned from them, even the yet born grandson, that Wisdom is for the young!  Even my unborn grandson is woven into the wisdom of when HE is to enter the world. His parents don’t even know the time or day! That is wisdom. He will enter our world when he and God are ready!

I think if  “spirituality” has a sound it must be the voice of a child!  The stories that I have come to believe are the ones that occur in early evening  when the wind is still and I will come flying through their door and am allowed  to tuck them in bed and we will share a magic kiss and soar into the clear night sky like Bluebirds (Paul McCartney and Wings band song)…and we fly across the sea to a magic island or we go to an enchanted forest or visit Topper the Rabbit  who walks on two legs and has a fancy top hat and give us sweets and tea! Or we speak to The Holy God without theology but in total purity and trust! I can feel the Spirit of God enter the room on little tiny wings like a Bluebird…

I have come to see that what age teaches is not Wisdom but knowledge and knowledge cares nothing for me! With age I see if  allowed Wisdom is called something uninviting. A place where complacency, cynicism, and weariness can come to live.

I  rather choose to fly with my Bluebirds  in that place where just “being six”  is exciting and you just walk down the street singing at the top of your lungs just because you are six!!!  Or  soaring up into the heavens on the wings of a “nice” dragon is possible! And as all three-year old girls know it is so much more fun to turn all the lights out and use a flashlight even if it is the middle of the day! Oh and lets not forget the Wisdom of the newborn and infant…there isn’t one second where they do not trust the ones who hold them, feed them, and keep them safe and warm. 

Youth is the time in your life when you get to stand apart from the status quo and view almost everything in exaggeration! All is a wonder and I call that Wisdom. Oh yes I know there is a lot to be said for maturity but honestly it is NOT what Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven! He said, “You must come like a child into God’s Kingdom.”pexels-photo-556669.jpeg

So, I tip my heart to all the Bluebirds in my life and to my first two Bluebirds, my daughters,  who taught me  when that time comes and The Holy Spirit slips through my door in the still night air  with that Holy Kiss I will fly like a Bluebird straight into the midnight air and head across the Sea…

a dreaming night

/ jill autrey dorman

Half moon rising

it is a dreaming night

the indigo sky

yields a winter’s blue light

 

I dreamed I was flying

riding on the Breath of God

the sweetest sense of Peace

where the angels trod

 

Quiet lay like a mantle

of snow upon the earth

the enchanted song of Holy

forms a wreath upon my brow

 

pexels-photo-360912.jpeg

 

 

Memory

/ jill autrey dorman

Memory. Memory is a fickle friend. Nostalgia can make a memory “warmer” then it really was in reality. Longings can make Memory less lethargic too. Things, events, people remembered can be curious things or hazy things covered in dust motes. When you blow the dust away and all of the motes dance through the sunshine underneath can be an inauthentic tourist souvenir.

Then again, Memory can be the art of life. A sculpture like old hymns I can still hear ringing from the brick of the churches I grew up in. Authentic and comforting or all a farce. I guess we each have to hold Memory as we choose.roll-the-dice-craps-board-game-points-122427.jpeg

New Skin

/ jill autrey dorman

pexels-photo-271418.jpegThere wasn’t any physical bleeding involved like I thought there would be when the time came. It was more like the raw pink pain of having the top layer of your skin or a scab removed. The new skin underneath with extremely exposed nerves assaulted my brain with a relentless message of stinging immobilizing pain. My first instinct was to cover myself with the old skin so the nerves would be fooled into thinking there was no pain but then I realized there is no way to cover every area of my life that has been peeled away.

In my prosperous comfort and consumer Christian culture I am becoming more aware that I have been silently invaded by idols that often pry their way into the Christ culture and the American Dream. it reminds me of Texas chiggers which are insects unseen to the human eye but if they find you in the tall grass they will burrow under your skin and cause you to itch so badly that you are driven to distraction. I keep hearing a quote from Mr. Tolstoy in my head, “everyone wants to change the world but not themselves.” In the end however, only one man who was willing to take it all upon himself on a Cross of unbearable torture changed the world for once and for all when he rose from the dead to live forever.  It is the enormity of Jesus’ love that has caused me to shed these layers of comfort. The old manta of “if we are just good people” who keep our disobedience and sin to a tidy minimum then we are good Christians is not true. This has often been a huge comfort zone for me. One that can no longer be.

I grew up in an era that appeared to be both wholesome and bullet proof. Middle class America with a two parent home, two cars, a house in suburbia, a good school, and of course going to church. my Dad was a Pastor so Church was my life, my social arena, the litmus test for everything around me. I am left with many wonderful and terrible memories and glimpses of God and of what the family of God should be. However, the truth, as one author and pastor writes, “the True Gospel shows up best when it is brought into direct opposition with a “subtle distortion” of itself.

I have felt this magnetic pull on my life when I was taught or rather the silent message was given “behavior” is somehow in direct correlation with how good of a Christian I am. I have come to see we are often shamed and distorted in our journey with The Holy because we minimize sin, worship idols, and invoke “cheap Grace” to live however we choose. Perverting the Truth. The reality of the journey with The Holy God does ultimately lead to transformation, which is fact does change and adjust behavior. This is called Sanctification or maturity. “It is promised to us from God himself to every believer. “It is the most powerful experience a human will have and it is a process that is eternal. However, changing behavior simply to exhibit a sense of false righteousness or to be in control puts us right back into our “original sin” which is we want to be god. We crave control.” (Dr. Hud McWilliams).

So, as I continue my journey I am slightly braver now  to peel away more dead skin that might prevent or pervert my desire to continue growing in my relationship with Jesus. I hope to walk beside other believers as they peel away their old skin too so that we can hold  each other up along the way when the pain is at its most unbearable. It is God alone who Sanctifies just as it is God who reveals to us our need for redemption. Like the Father in the ancient story of the Prodigal Son the message from the Father has always been  and will always be this, “all that I have has always been yours so come home my child.”  Luke 15:32

Watercolor

/ jill autrey dorman

pexels-photo-325225.jpeg

For many years as a young adult I felt like a “watercolor wash” painting. Blending into the dominant colors of those around me who had so much influence on my life. I didn’t even know my favorite color, food, or music. I didn’t know what I believed about life and death…and I realized I had to paint with my very own colors. My gentle memories run to those persons and I love them whether they were harsh or gentle. They had dreams of their own but listened to mine anyway and for them I am grateful…
The first and glaring color was a bright arterial red. While red is not my favorite color there is no doubt in my mind there can be no redemption without the shedding of blood. That color represents the day I met Jesus Christ and let him become my Redeemer.
The next and my favorite colors are the blues and greens of the sea and sky. The ocean, the beach is where I walked stronger and healed my heart. The salt water and wind a balm to my young weary soul. These colors are where I learned that I will live forever and that I can soar on the breeze or dive into the depths and behold my God is still there.
Yellows, pinks, and violets are the colors in my life where I flew too close to the sun and my skin was burned but the new skin grew back pink and healthy. The rich flora hues and scents drove me forward toward the goals of softness, children, and safety. Still and always learning…
The rich dark color of the brown/black dirt with its earthy scent comes next for after all this is where this earthly body was formed…how can a human not love the earth? Deep within it lies the mystery of creation and purpose…and then the clear snowy white to emerald to muddy silt of the rivers that run to the sea…a Holy Baptism there…
The last and final colors in my watercolor are silver and gold. The bright and shining stars of the galaxies. These colors remind me that I am significant but small and even greater still these colors are a testament to the infinite bigness of my God. The one who loves me beyond all measure and always will. So, I will keep painting for now and let the fire keep burning bright. On that day that I lay down the paint brush I will have said what I have to say and make my stand humbly and always trusting that life will carry on…and oh yes, I will keep painting…

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨