Living in the City of Ember

The prudent sees danger and hides himself,

but the simple go on and suffer for it. 

                                            Proverbs 27:12 

“The other night

I had a dream;

It was a world full of kings and queens

But it was cold,

Dark as the night;

We were the fire on the moonlit skies.

We weren't divided,

We were the same,

And we were free

But we all wore chains.

We couldn't see it,

But we created

A place between truth and overrated.

If I could just see it all

Just like a fly on the wall

Would I be able to accept what I can't control?

And would I share what I saw?

Or just sit back and ignore
Like nothing ever happened...

"...We had a plan to build a wall;

A great divide that would never fall,

To separate us

From all the pain,

And keep our skeletons locked away.

And brick by brick

We built it so thick

That it blacked out the sky and all the sunlight,

And one by one

We all became numb —

We were making the bullets to a broken gun.

If I could just see it all,

Just like a fly on the wall,

Would I be able to accept what I can't control?

And would I share what I saw?

Or just sit back and ignore,

Like nothing never happened,

And I haven't seen you before?

I'm on the run from a thief

I let into my head. 

...I don't think I need you anymore;

Take your words, and your lies and just beat it.

...I wanna live, I wanna be the change;

We can all be kings and queens

If we can just learn to believe,

If we can just learn to believe."

                                (‘Fly On The Wall’ — Thousand Foot Krutch)

  Years ago, a dear friend of mine introduced me to the movie City of Ember.  I did remember seeing the trailer for it way back when one of the Narnia movies was coming out, but the trailer wasn’t super fantastic...and I honestly didn’t care much about anything but watching my all-time favorite books coming to life on screen, however imperfectly, so I wasn’t paying much attention to any trailers. Ha.

  But once this friend shared the movie with me, I was attached.  This has seriously become one of my favorite movies ever.  I love the action adventure aspect, the costume and set design, the filming style, the fact that the filmmakers didn't turn the friendship of the main characters into a romance (whew!), the storyline, the soundtrack (which I weirdly love to listen to on repeat while gardening...), the adorable giant moth, that ending couple of sequences, the decrepit instruction sheet at the interlocking clear Generator key pieces...
  I wrote a quick post about it some years ago that you can find HERE.  (...please pardon the pictures that have disappeared... I need to go back and fix those...in all my spare time. Ha ha.)

  Well, as you're probably all aware, earlier this year, the world went...a lot more crazy than it already is.  And you probably thought, like I did, that as crazy as it was, we'd still be well past all of it in a month or two.  And...umm... Nope.  And so I'm guessing that you've been doing a lot of thinking and even more praying during these months, like I have.

  I'm not a dystopian fiction person, and I seriously dislike when people take whatever is currently beating down on the world and spin a doom-and-gloom, end-of-the-world tale of fear out of it.  Honestly, we can't even presume to say that it's "never been this bad before"; I mean really, remember the description of the days of Noah, when "the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5)?!  Yeah, mankind is always sinning and finding ways to turn from our Creator, but we can't be making crazy claims like that.  It may be the worst you've seen in your lifetime, and we absolutely DO need to get on our knees and repent and help our generations clean our hearts, but beyond that is God's call.  ...And that's really a thought process to follow for another time.

  All that said, I do believe that fiction (along with history itself) is one of the strongest methods of warning, with the most impactful wakeup calls available to us.

  Lately it’s been striking to me how very much living in our world looks unsettlingly like the way the City of Ember functions.  Organized to a fault, fearful, insisting that the state alone knows best, foolishly leaning on and looking for long-lost human pillars of society to save us from a fundamentally broken world, and from ourselves.
  Just think about that Pledge the school children in Ember recite by heart day in and day out:

"...Beyond Ember, the Darkness goes on forever in all directions.  

Ours is the only light in a dark world."

  How paralyzing that kind of fear-planting thought is! (and how close to "ours is the only light" is that terrible new age advice we hear all the time: "seek truth/wisdom inside yourself"...)

  Ember is waiting, half in the dark, for the clock to wind down.  Branding the only ones brave enough to venture out and take risks as “crazy”, labeling them the “rebels” and “zealots” and “lawbreakers” (inventing or twisting laws as they need to prove it) for acknowledging that human wisdom can only go so far, and that we have to find the way Out in order to live.  While we let the real troublemakers roam free, skulking in shadows, stealing and back-scratching for the elite who pretend to share and understand the plight of the common man. 

  Frequently it’s only the youth who take the chance on getting Out...with desperate hope of Somewhere better; uncommon wisdom and faith planted deep in young souls by parents and mentors, who've hinted and encourage them to find the Instructions and understand them for themselves.  And then to use them. 

  In our world, the way Out is very, very real and more than assured — provided we follow the Instructions and don’t presume to know better.  Jesus has provided us an actual, Forever-Exit from the once beautiful City of Ember that’s crumbling around us. 

  But we usually show masterful skill at ignorance instead — keeping our heads down and doing just the opposite.  Wearing our thousandth-time-patched threadbare clothes, trying to be important and to gain a few pitiful, desperately old and rusted cans of things we’ve never tasted to hoard a little comfort for ourselves.  What a sorry picture we make. 

  Let's watch or re-watch this insightful adventure story again, friends.  Yes, it's fiction.  But that just means it has a very real chance of sneaking past our blind spots and hardened corners in our hearts, and really telling us something.
  Then let's be sure we're spending real time in the Instructions (and really, the Love letter) we've been given by our very real Exit; let the Word of God prove that it so truly is "living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12).

  We have answers.  And that nagging in our hearts is right; there IS something out there, something much greater than "Darkness [that] goes on forever in all directions".

  We escape to the sunrise, to the air and the light in the end, if we follow the Instructions.
  If we remember the Signs and do them in order.
  If we wake up that something Took-ish inside us, and push through the adventure.
  There's been a great Lion alongside us always, that half the time we do not remember, or see, or that we often fear.  But He's been between us and the edge the whole time.

  Here we follow what's been laid out for us, we push on and don't get distracted by trying to be comfortable in the crumbling City of Ember we were always meant to leave.  And then at the end, we come out into Sunrise, and actual Life in Eternity.  Not fear.  Enormous Hope.

“O the sweet air of Narnia!  

An hour's life there is better than a thousand years in Calorman.”

                                         (—C.S. Lewis, ‘The Horse and His Boy’)

(pictures and quotes always belong to their original owners.  They are only here to inspire.  All other thoughts are my own.)

The One Who Has Waited Long

  I wonder sometimes how hard it must be for the Lord, and how heavy the longings He carries become...  as He patiently waits for each of us —for me— to listen, to be ready to hear and accept, to take in what He is working to teach me at this moment. To show me about Himself and about how He made and rejoices over me, and how He is working incredible things together.  It must be an enormous weight.

  But (wonderfully!) He is so dearly, beautifully, awesomely patient as my eyes and ears and heart strengthen to withstand a little bit more glory. And so endlessly, breathtakingly creative in how many ways He communicates each new chip of diamond He helps my soul be ready to receive. 

“I stuck my hat up,

I caught the raindrops;

I drank the water,

I felt my veins pop. 

I’m nearly sanctified

-I’m nearly broken!-

I’m down the river,

I’m near the open. 

I’m down the river to where I’m going.”

                        (—NEEDTOBREATHE, ‘More Heart, Less Attack’)

  Often He does His shepherding for me throughout a whole day or over a week.  I’ll take a picture of a verse or two and maybe a quote that stood out to me at different times during the day, and keep track of songs or lyrics that keep cropping up in my head or are really moving me as I go about my day.   Then in the evening, when I go to read the verse of the day email I haven’t looked at yet, it’ll be the same as one I took a photo of hours earlier, or directly tie into a verse or song or theme from what I’ve been keeping track of since morning.  Sometimes I’ll see another same or complimentary verse while I’m teaching or running errands.  Maybe a radio broadcast I listen to at random or the book I’m reading will reference or speak to the same themes, to my surprise.  Then I’ll open my devotion journal later to record all those verses, songs, quotes and whatnot, and the pre-written verse or quotes on the journal page for the day will again reflect the same things. 

  This happens regularly essentially every week, if not many times a week.  And I’m surprised, and really touched and moved every time.

  And then surprised that I’m surprised.

  Of course He would do that, and would do it for me...but also how beautiful that the God of heaven and earth would care to and want to orchestrate such gestures for a little person like me. 

  It makes me think of my favorite piece of literature ever, from C.S. Lewis‘s ‘The Horse and His Boy’; when Shasta is wondering, lost at night, on an ordinary not-talking horse he doesn’t know how to direct in the least.  Little by little, he becomes aware of a huge Someone, keeping pace beside him in the dark, and has no idea that it’s Aslan.  Of course he’s initially afraid. But as the Someone continues to just be with Shasta, walking in silence, he gradually works up the courage to acknowledge the Someone... and start to wonder about Him. 

  That Great Lion has been slowly, patiently easing Shasta into meeting Him, and waiting for Shasta to conquer his uncertainty and be ready to not just listen, but to /hear/ what Aslan has to tell him. 

‘ “Who are You?” Shasta asked. 

“One who has waited long for you to speak,” said the Voice.  It was not loud, but very large and deep.’

  Then Shasta finds himself telling the Voice everything.  And Aslan unfolds, a little at a time, how He has been caring for and guiding Shasta all this time.  All his life, actually, though he didn’t know it at the time.  And eventually Shasta comes to ask more important questions:

‘“Who are You?” asked Shasta. 

“Myself,” said the Voice. '

  And only then is Shasta ready for the next level of revelation Aslan has been preparing him for.  Only then is he ready to see. 

 ‘The mist had been turning from black to grey and from grey to white....It must have begun happening some time ago, while he had been talking to the Thing. 

...A golden light fell on him from the left. He thought it was the sun. He turned and saw, pacing beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion. 

It was from the Lion that the light came. 

...No one ever saw anything more terrible, or beautiful. 

...Shasta took one look at the Lion’s face, and slipped off the horse and fell at the Lion’s feet.  He didn’t say anything, but then he didn’t want to say anything and he knew he needn’t say anything. 

The High King above all high kings stooped towards him...and touched his forehead with the tip of His tongue.’

  That’s the most beautiful unfolding scene in the world to me.  Without fail, it chokes me up whenever I read or think about it.  And about how the Lord does just that in so many ways for me.  Sometimes, He does that same thing for me through movies. 

  One I very distinctly remember was when we went to watch the new live action Cinderella in 2015 when it came out.  Of course it was magical, beautifully told, cinematically gorgeous, so well acted, and with costumes and sets to die for.  And the sweet, innocent, hopeful and radiant spirit the filmmakers kept in the whole thing was a rare treasure. 

  But it was as Cinderella arrives at the palace, stepping out of the golden pumpkin-coach with palpable anticipation in that glorious blue gown, that my heart heard the still, small Voice whispering just for me;

  “This is a little like how glorious it’ll be when you arrive Home, Dear One, to the Forever I’ve created for you.  You’ll be an even more beautiful new creature.  I’ll be waiting with more anticipation and joy for you than any prince, and I’ll adore waltzing with you before everyone, My breathtaking Little One. 

But My grand ball has no ending, and no stroke of midnight.”

  And needless to say, my heart was far beyond full, and there were tears.  And I couldn’t have felt more loved. 

  I am amazed by how gently He makes my soul stronger and deeper, so that a little at a time, He can give me more of the Eternal —more of Himself— than I could ever have handled a moment before.

  Like the people from the Grey Town in Lewis’s ‘The Great Divorce’, slowly growing more “solid” so they can walk on even the grass of Heaven, grass that is more Real than they were when living on earth.

  Or the Narnians on board the Dawn Treader, slowly becoming stronger and less in need of rest and able to look right into the sun, as they drink the water of that Last Sea and sail closer and closer to Aslan’s Country. 

  How awesome it is that our God “remembers that we are but dust” (Psalm 103:14) and adores us so dearly that He loves to restore us  and make us Real with so much care. 

  Recently for me, He took 3 movies within a close time span to keep growing me along a line He’s working on in my heart. 

  From Star Wars Episode IV Rise of Skywalker, then Frozen 2, and the 2019 Little Women, over several re-watches.  (what a combination of genres!)  Maybe at some point I’ll try to unpack and put into words what connected loudly and swept inside me to teach my heart during those three, working together.
  But anyway, beautifully, God uses all kinds of things to speak to us, to strengthen us for a little more of the Eternal.  It’s uncomfortable and even painful, like growing pains at times.  And certainly so many moments are beyond comforting and glorious.  But more than anything, it’s awe-inspiring and amazing to know and /see/ how hard, how carefully, patiently, tenderly He works to strengthen and expand our souls so He can share more of Himself. 

“I’ve been burying a mountain, 

I’ve been running uphill; 

I’ve been pushing up a big wave 

that I’m carrying still. 

I can see over the mountain, 

and I know that it’s real; 

there’s a river made of roses, 

just up over this hill.”

                            (—NEEDTOBREATHE, ‘The Mountain, Pt. 1’)

(All pictures and thoughts are my own; please do not use without permission.  Quotes and lyrics of course belong to their original authors, and are here only for inspiration.)

A Calling, not a Vocation

  I’m sure you, like me, have heard many times and in many different ways how we need to “shine”.  We hear often about how we need to let our talents shine, or let our light so shine before men, etc. etc.

  But before you can start pouring out light, you have to be plugged into the source were created for. 

 Think of each of us as lighting implements, like candles, lightbulbs, oil lamps, etc. You won’t give out the light you were created to by being plugged into the wrong power source; even if that thing is the most common thing out there that makes many other people shine. If you screw a candle into a lightbulb socket, how much light is it going to give off? What about if you light a lightbulb with a match; is it going to burn for hours? Or what about pouring oil all over a light bulb; is it going to suddenly light up and use that fuel like an oil lamp?

  Each of those elements is absolutely used to light up something. But connected to the wrong one, they might let off a spark, and possibly even keep burning for a little while, but ultimately they’ll go out. And probably be ruined for giving light in the future. 

  Similarly, if you’re not in tune with what YOU specifically were called to do, with the gifts and talents and personality and passions God gave you, you will not only not be giving off the light He intended you to, but you’ll also probably feel tired, rundown, frustrated, stuck.  Like wondering aimlessly because you don’t know where you’re supposed to go.

  God’s calling for you will never feel pointless; and even if it feels overwhelming or too big for you at times, it will keep lighting a fire in your soul that you can’t ignore or let go; it’ll give you chills and make your heart bold, and probably scare you and scare you into action at the same time.  As Mark Batterson puts it in his fantastic book, ‘Chase The Lion’:

  ‘If your dream doesn’t scare you, it’s too small.’ 

  Now don’t let that overwhelm you. God-given dreams are POWERFUL, beautiful, life-giving things.  Mark Batterson explains in another book of his, ‘Wild Goose Chase’:

  ‘Most of us will have no idea where we are going most of the time. And I know that is unsettling.  But circumstantial uncertainty also goes by another name: adventure.’

  And we all crave adventure in some way in our lives.  Adventure is a good thing, even when it moves us out of our comfort zones and expands our courage. 

  Just think what that “nasty, uncomfortable” adventure Bilbo Baggins had to go on in ‘The Hobbit’ did for him.  There were an enormous amount of terrible and dangerous moments throughout; the little Hobbit was right about that, and adventures do absolutely “make you late for dinner”. (!)  But through the whole ordeal, our dear, very timid, somewhat proud, really fearful Hobbit becomes a heartfelt friend, a merciful, cleaver, and discerning little warrior, and an inspiringly courageous hero.  He’s lost only a large portion of his selfishness and fear by embarking on his dangerous quest, and gained so very much more of all he was created to be.  (If only he’d continued to grow in that direction, and not held on to that Ring...)

  We are MADE to do great things and live great moments God has planned for each of us.  If we don’t, we grow fearful and selfish, and feel hopeless and aimless. 

  You HAVE to seek what you, and you alone, are made to bring to life.  What you are created to shine out with.  But that comes with it’s own dangers. 

 John Fornof put it this way: 

  “We have to give our dreams to God. Sometimes he won’t give them back [in the same way we originally had them]. But if he does, they will come back with all the fleshly-ness [selfish human-ness] ripped out of them.” 

  Yikes. And wow.  Now THOSE are the kinds of dreams —not the ones we come up with for ourselves, but the ones God plants deep inside us— that really DO change the world, and don’t just ride a minute of fame and then fade away. 

  Now, for that finding the right source to fuel your unique God-given dream; your calling. 

  So your calling is not the same as the dreams you have of the fun things you want to do or accomplish in your life. Dreams and accomplishments and bucket list goals may play into your calling, just like your skills, gifts, things that get you up the morning and inspire you, and things that frustrate you and break your heart, will all play into your calling, but are not your calling in and of themselves.

  You’ll really be discovering what your calling is with more and more clarity for all of your life. 

  Think of it like a mountain range far away. When you first see the range, it looks like one solid wall of mountains, all clumped together and connected. As you get a little closer, you realize that there are multiple colors and several layers, and some shorter, greener cliff heights start appearing in front of the mountains. Closer, and you realize that those are not even the first mountains or hills; there are more green slopes and some mountains before and behind those.  As you get among the first rolling green hills, you realize that there’s not one set of mountains back behind the next green heights; there’s actually three or maybe five different levels of mountains, and the farthest back ones have snow on top. And as you get over the green slopes, you can now see rivers and lakes and forests and misty places, and layers upon layers of mountains behind the ones you first saw, some bigger, some smaller than any of the ones you've first spotted long ago.

  Your calling goes on and on like that; you realize that there’s more to it and more playing into it, and more beautiful details and adventures involved than you ever could’ve first imagined from a long way off.

  Think of Shasta in 'The Horse and His Boy', seeing the tiny mountains far, far away across the expanse of the desert.  Then later, on the other side, he sees how many more there are, and later in among the foothills, still more, then more from high up on the passes, and on and on...  And not long before, he had only ever seen or imagined the fishy-smelling edge of the sea, and the old fisherman's hut.  Rather 'further up and further in', really.

  Ultimately, your calling is this:

to bring out and exemplify in many, many ways again and again, better and clearer and more beautifully, an aspect or two of God’s character, and how He calls us to Himself.

  Your calling is not a job, though it will probably have many jobs connected to it.  If your call is limited to a job or career, what would happen if you could no longer do that job?  Does that mean you no longer have a calling?  Absolutely not.  Your call is something else, something MUCH larger, and it may come out through many careers and different forms throughout your life. 

  Your calling is also not a single accomplishment or event God placed in your heart and you’ve held onto, or one you come up with for yourself. Though those may very well play into your calling too.

  Overall, the point for everything on earth is for man to know God.  That’s why He created the earth, created man, bothered to go through all the trouble to give us a free will so we can love Him for ourselves, and then bother to redeem us when we misused our free will, and on and on it goes. Everything made is so that we would know our God. (Which speaks volumes about how much He loves us!)  And that includes our callings. We are given them so that we will better know Him, and then help others better know that bit about Him. It’s the point of the universe.  And since He’s infinite, and our finite selves can never fully grasp even half of His whole Self, there’s an unending well of His beauty and majesty to draw and learn from. 

  If you had asked me what my calling was 15 years ago, or 10, or 5, or even 3, my answer would be always growing and becoming clearer.

  As of right now, I’m understanding that one of my calls is to encourage others to find theirs.  And I have another one, that’s frequently linked: to tell stories that bring people to wonder, and inspire courage in them.  And one or all of those come out, or are encouraged in me, again and again in all my passions and jobs in different ways and vocations; through dance, through teaching, through film, through writing, through time with friends...

  I want to challenge you (and always myself as well) to look at “what you want to do with your life” in light of this different view of a calling.  Not what job or college degree or accomplishment you want to go for.  But what is it about God that you are drawn to and moved by, that He has trusted you to communicate?

  Almost every time, that kind of perspective will help you discern what God has for each next moment of your life.  Which takes an enormous burden off of trying to “figure out” God’s will in other ways. 

  Hunt down your calling now. Every day. During all your activities. Your heart and soul will begin to find so much joy and passion and courage to move ahead.  Ask God specifically in prayer; and try asking Him out loud when you’re out where you don’t have to worry about anyone hearing you.  And look at what inspires you. 

  Notice what kind of stories move you. Preferably by reading loads and loads of books, or listening to books on tape whenever you can. Yes, movies are wonderful, and as a filmmaker, I love movies as much as any of you. Maybe more in some ways. But with movies we can often get caught up on things besides the story. So read a lot, whether to yourself, or having someone read to you, listening to audiobooks, audio dramas, etc. 

  But notice what stories, what characters, and what themes move you most. What your heart grabs on to. Those are very likely linked to your calling.

  Also read books like ‘Chase the Lion’, and ‘Wild Goose Chase’, and ‘Death By Living’.  Books that help you see the world as it is; brighter, deeper, fuller and more beautiful in detail than you ever realized, and help you think about life in a different way.

  As you plug in to what calling or “power source” you are made for, all your lights really start to turn on. Both inside and out. 

  There’s SO much I want to try to express and encourage you with as callings go.  But...there’s so much...!  So right now, remember that: 

  “Jesus didn’t come to just make us safe. He came to make us dangerous.”  —Mark Batterson 

and

  ‘Train [your children]. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows.’   —N.D. Wilson

  Your calling will absolutely do those things.

  Live boldly.

  Be dangerous.

  Go after what you are called to, and not just a job, a career, or a degree.

  And take the adventure. 

(Quotes belong to their authors.  Pictures and thoughts are my own.  Please do not share without permission.)