Essays
Swim Lessons (Holding On and Letting Go)
(Photo Source here, CC License.)
Let’s just say it’s, oh, I don’t know . . . 90 degrees in the building that houses the high school’s swimming pool.
And humid. Yes, very
humid, like a sauna or a spa, although you’ll want to get the very idea of
any sort of luxury out of your head right. this. moment.
So, maybe not a spa or sauna, but something more like a
tropical jungle.
Yes, that’s it – hot, humid and filled with danger.
You enter, four children in tow, through the germ-infested high school locker room. Carrying a bag of towels and toys, your purse strapped
across your chest, you herd your children down a long narrow hall, past the toilets,
the showers, the lockers, until you emerge, like someone newly born, into the
heavy, moist, echo-y cavern of the pool.
This is where you grab the hands of the littlest ones. Reflexively, your mama-arms shoot out to catch the One Who Wanders like a lost lamb
toward the pool’s edge and the Other Who Is Running and Might Slip. Little limbs are pulled and stretched as you
steer toward the metal bleachers, the five of you forming a bizarre amoeba of tired, sweaty, anxious people.
The older two, the “swimmers,” are nervous and clingy and the
little ones are just plain clingy, unhappy with the Waiting, the Watching, the
Lack of Swimming, they will do.
Patience.
You are a model of patience, as one then another has to use
the bathroom. Hands are clasped again as
you pass the Great Abyss of the pool’s edge and shuffle again down the
wet, tiled hallway.
It’s never just One who has to pee, there’s always Another
and so rather than running in and out, you all unfold, unclasp and settle in to
that small dirty space with the sink that stopped-up yesterday and stops-up
still today.
You help the littlest one onto a toilet, but the fact that
he’s wearing his rain boots and you are in a hurry leads to what we’ll call “a
series of unfortunate events.” Because
he’s wearing his rain boots you fail to pull his pants down far enough and
because you fail to pull his pants down far enough you also fail to place him
far enough back on the potty. He is
therefore perfectly positioned to pee directly over the edge of the potty and
into his shorts (at which point I would also like to mention that no one is wearing
underwear because you simply cannot find any underwear in the house, possibly
due to a small-ish laundry “situation” which has crept up out of nowhere).
Seeing the pee heading for his shorts, you will use your
lightening-quick maternal reflexes to throw his legs up into the air, hoping to
aim the pee back into the potty but instead causing that incredible stream of
urine (how long has it been since he last peed?!) to shoot out, under his
shorts and onto the bathroom floor. Your
child is now peeing onto the bathroom floor, but you are determined to avoid
wet shorts and a trip to the van for something to change into (do you even HAVE
anything for him to change into??) and so you simply keep his legs in the air
while the puddle grows.
Let’s just leave that puddle there, shall we?
Finally, someone, the oldest one is deposited with her class
and you cart the other three up two flights of stairs to a second set of more
removed bleachers. Miraculously, no one
falls down the Cement Stairwell of Certain Death and you are pleased to see
only a small swath of pee soaked shorts on your two-year-old’s back-side as he marches up the stairs.
Today you brought apples, smart woman that you are.
This will keep them happy and occupied for sure and, yes,
you do cast a none-too-obvious judgmental glance at the couple next
to you who’s two-year-old is downing a snack-pack of Chips-Ahoy cookies. Your
gloating, however, is interrupted by the astounding bang your son’s apple makes as it falls through the small opening at the bottom of the plexiglass railing, down to the pool level below
where it bounces off the bleachers and rolls under a desk.
This is the same opening you eyed-up again and again on day
one, trying to reason out whether a thirty-pound being could in any way
possibly be in danger of slipping through it.
Although your maternal instincts argued heavily, your reason won out in
determining that your children could not possibly slip through that opening.
The apple, however, proves to be another story altogether.
Nearly paralyzed with mortification, you watch as the man
next to you (yes, the one doling out the Chips-Ahoy cookies that do. not. by the
way, ROLL) catches the apple that’s tossed back up by an instructor below.
Blushing yet?
Your hot, tired, two-year olds cling and climb on you like the
tendrils of a plant; if this is the jungle, they are the heavy, swinging vines.
Then, of course, a half-eaten apple is dropped right there
on the ground in front of the other kind mothers and handing it to you, one
says, “You’re going to want to wash that.”
“I have a wipe,” another offers.
But, swallowing your pride and unwilling to face another trip
to the bathroom, you brush your hand quickly over the apple to offer the guise of Cleanliness. Handing it back to your son, you offer up the only
explanation you have, “I have four children.”
Then your son is back to crunching and “building his immune
system,” just. like. that.
You know, don’t you, that it isn’t five minutes before Another One, with big puppy-dog eyes, HAS to go to the bathroom. Desperate, you suggest, (quite lightly) the possibility
that he goes by himself. This suggestion
is met with a look that accuses you of a deep maternal betrayal and you are
certain, right then and there that if you do not load up the four of you and
head to the bathroom Together, your son will be sharing this very moment with a
counselor somewhere, someday. As in, “My
terrible, cold-hearted mother, (gasp!) would not stay with me while I pooped.”
Anxious to avoid abandonment issues, you do what any
reasonable woman would do and push down your frustration while you all hike
back down the Cement Stairwell of Certain Death, back past the Great Abyss, back through the narrow, wet
hallway, being careful to avoid the Pee-Puddle-Stall.
The pooping commences and you wander, frustrated, between
the bathroom and the locker room where your twins have discovered the fun of
banging locker doors open and shut.
“We fit! We fit!” they exclaim which is adorable, of course,
seeing them standing there so small and compact in the locker’s tiny space. But you are their Mother and this is the
Jungle and you cannot be certain you know how to unlatch those doors, so you convince your two-year-olds that playing in the lockers isn’t such a Good Idea and explain how the firemen will have to come and cut them out if they get stuck.
Finally the pooping is done and you make your way back upstairs again (you know the routine by now, long hallway, Great Abyss, Cement Stairway of Certain Death).
The first half hour of swim lessons has now passed and, drawing a line in the sand, you convince your six-year-old that he is able to walk down to his class alone – this is the first small victory of your morning.
But there’s another half hour of swim lessons left to endure and despite the help of your daughter, it will be just as eventful as the first.
You make Two More trips to the bathroom with yet another child professing the desperate need to perform one and then another bodily function. A toy escapes (by accident? on purpose?) through the opening in the plexiglass railing and when another young swim instructor tosses it up, you catch it with charming ease. The other Moms are amazed at your good catch – this is yet another small victory.
You stand now at the railing watching your son who’s first in the line of children wearing bright orange life jackets and waiting to jump into the deep end of the pool. Before jumping he raises his index finger to make one point or another of clarification and then he leaps and you are grateful his teacher doesn’t let his head go under.
He floats, face-up, across the pool and you smile down on him because your eyes, your smile, are like the sun to him and he smiles back seeing you watching him, but his hands never leave the life vest at his chest, because that’s what he’s been told to do.
One by one the children leap, like a long line of penguins slipping into the ocean and then they’re all bobbing along, like so many brightly colored water bugs.
It nearly does you in, how small they look drifting in that big square of blue and for one moment in your mind that pool is the universe and you are that child bobbing along, unsure, obeying instructions and hoping against hope to feel (and soon) the familiar nudge of the pool against your head.
On their way back across the pool, paddling on their stomachs now, one small boy struggles, taking in gulp after gulp of water. The mothers in the bleachers lean forward as one with a collective intake of air as the struggling boy flips over onto his back, waving his arms in the air and crying, at last, “Help, help!”
It’s mere seconds before the teacher’s there and the mothers all lean back and exhale as tears spring to your eyes.
This, you know, is why you’ve been relegated to the nose-bleed section – you who would leap without hesitation over that plexi-glass wall if need-be, you who have ushered your children safely up and down the Cement Stairwell of Death, you who have circumnavigated the Great Abyss with care and caution.
You, dear woman, you are their Life Jacket.
This has been your role for eight years or more and now they’re learning to swim and, God-willing, someday you will be tossed aside as they dive, paddle and float through Life.
Finally it’s time to go.
Your son comes shivering up to you with blood-shot eyes.
“I wish I could do today over,” he says and your heart sinks as you wonder what went wrong.
“Why?” you ask, ready for the flood-gates to open.
“It was so much fun,” he replies.
Then you are limp with relief as you again clasp hands with your little people and ferry your way down the hallway, across the parking lot and into the van.
It is nearly the weekend now, no more swim lessons for three whole days. You will spend the weekend resting and recovering, wondering just how many calories you burned climbing up and down the stairs in that hellish sweat-lodge of stress. You will eat those calories and more in chips as you sit on the couch with your husband, explaining the fear and the joy of watching them there, the great difficulty of holding on and letting go.
Come Monday you will all be back there again, learning how to swim.
The Rooster’s Prayer
Reading in
the morning,
I am distracted by the light
that falls
across the page,
across the
room,
climbing
down the wall
as the sun rises.
Somewhere, a
neighbor’s rooster
crows, as I carry
my little boy
toward the bathroom where he
stands
on sleepy legs. Maybe that song
is his prayer, I think, as I carry
this boy back to his bed, fix
the
pillow and blankets,
and close
the door.
Yesterday
afternoon I stood
in the kitchen cutting
potatoes,
eggs, cucumbers and onion and paused
to call my husband, because
of the way
the room was lit through
the windows, the way the
ceiling fan spun,
fresh, the way I
stood, happy
and content in a farm house
kitchen
like so many women have
before.
This, I know, was my prayer.
Photo Credit: HERE.
Linking with Playdates with God and Unforced Rhythms.
The Clever Crow
The clever
crow
places her
meal
on top of
the utility
pole at the
end
of the
driveway.
The dead
bird flops
awkwardly on
its
round,
wooden plate.
The crow
comes
and goes,
returning
as to a
buffet, pulling
off the
tastiest morsels.
Standing in
the windows
we watch,
bug-eyed
with
binoculars, repulsed
and filled
with admiration –
oh, that
clever crow!
In the Garden (Playing)
Riding the
old yellow Cub Cadet, I mow long
rectangles around the back fields. Out
in the garden, between me and the road, my husband works with the kids, tying
short, thick tomato plants to their stakes with long strips of cotton.
From where I
sit, rattling and humming along on the old mower, the boys are bright, little
flowers that have sprouted legs, walking, tumbling, running through the garden
in their shirts of bright teal and red.
My husband is the tallest flower, an iris perhaps, overseeing the work
and play.
The twins flop and hop climbing and falling on each other and by the time I move on
to mowing the front, circling the overgrown bushes, they’ve pulled my husband
down to the green grass. He is a horse
now, crawling along with two cowboys astride until they all tumble again to the earth.
There is
such beauty there, in that wide open space, under the bright sun and blue and I
am so thankful, for those flowers that grew in my body, for the legs they run
on and for their father who plays with them there in the garden.
This post is linked with Jennifer Dukes Lee. She’s telling a lovely story this week about life and death and kittens, so pop over to soak in some sweetness.
I am (a poem)
I am the
mouse
who climbed
up the side
of the milk
pail, intending
only to take
a sip.
Leaning, I
slipped,
and landed
in a sea
of creamy
white.
I am
drowning now
in this
moment
of
sweetness.
There is no
option
left, but to
surrender
to its
delight.
Photo source HERE.
This post is linked with Unforced Rhythms and Playdates with God.
Never Lost
One of the twins was missing for a while the other day.
Not alarmingly so, but gone for long enough that I thought to go and
look for him. Striding around the garage,
I saw him stretched tall on his tippy-toes at the corner of the back fence
where the neighbor’s mulberry bush reaches over.
That bush drops berries into our yard, like
an old woman passing out candy to children, “Here you go
dear. No, no, take more than that. Do you have a pocket? Here, let me put some in there.”
This is my
shoeless boy, feet stained purple, and I left him there in his revere without
letting him know that I knew where he was, because sometimes, I believe,
children need to feel that they are off on their own in the world, wild,
dangerous and free.
Later, while
cooking dinner, I glanced out the kitchen window to see him squatting in the
driveway, washing his little paws in a puddle.
Splashing his hands back and forth quickly, he then stood and turned,
satisfied.
That
boy. With the wide world his home, he
will never be lost.
This post is linked with Five Minute Friday.
Vacation Descends
Our kids enjoying ice cream on the porch swing.
We are not on vacation.
It’s the last day of spring and my husband’s off from
work. The sky is pale blue like fine
china swirled with bits of white. The
sun has swallowed a week’s worth of humidity and breathes out now a cool breeze
that has me craving a warm cup of coffee.
There’s a lightness to this day that cannot be pinned to
the weather alone.
Though the sky here is clear, I’m certain pigs are
flying somewhere because everyone in our house – from the eight-year-old on
down to the two-year-old twins – slept in this morning until EIGHT
o’clock. My husband’s alarm went off at five thirty and mine followed suit
at six, but thankfully we both had the good sense to slap them back into
silence.
We all woke loose-limbed and sluggish, TIRED, and the oldest
boy declared as we lolled on the couches, “I’m going to be lazy all day today.”
His copycat brother followed suit announcing without skipping a beat that he was going
to “be a kid all day today.” Then the
littlest one added his own plan, “Me gonna be an electric man all day today.”
From there the day unfolds – bowls of cereal, crumbs tracked
from room to room, little projects broken up by more food and moments of play
as we wander the yard and garden, all of us loose still and relaxed. My daughter and I re-pott the avocado tree,
damaging the roots so that it droops now like a broken-hearted waif standing in the corner of the porch. On a day like today, though, it seems o.k.
and I believe it will recover.
My husband unpacks the hundreds (and I do mean hundreds) of
screws and bolts and tentatively starts on the new swing set that’s sat,
unassembled, in the garage for weeks.
Even this, the scattered parts unlabeled, arouses no frustration, we’ll tinker a little with it and maybe with
time it will come together.
A few weeks ago I told my husband how this new-old house
of ours feels like a vacation rental, so full of newness, surprise and
possibility. Something in this space,
this time, brings together the elements of rest, play and adventure that form the essential triad of a good vacation.
All of this has got me thinking about vacation – how it
isn’t a place to go or thing to do or, worse, to be taken. Vacation restores an openness and
ease that’s so often lacking in the pressure of day-to-day life. This spaciousness softens and restores the human
soul.
Vacation descends upon us, if we are willing, in moments unexpected. The perfect work-day lunch, where last night’s left-overs hit the spot and the company is good and the brief pause between what has been and will be done is fully felt, moments quietly stolen with a good book while the kids are Somewhere Else, each of these can surprise us with their spaciousness – the way that what we need is found in the Here and Now in a way we didn’t believe possible.
This morning I woke in my own bed and sat on the couch while
vacation unfolded around me – a little bit of lazy, a little bit of play, and a
little bit of adventure, all right here, at home.
This post is linked with The High Calling for their gathering of Best Vacation Stories. Click on the link to read more stories about vacations near and far.
What’s your best vacation place? Have you ever felt vacation sneak up on you at home? I’d love to hear about it below!
Bloodhound (a poem)
Head-down,
thick folds of skin slide forward to cover her eyes.
Long ears
drag the ground, swinging in time with each step
and the
scent of one just passed spirals up the length
of her nose. Hard upon the trail of one she cannot see,
led by scent
(also unseen), she bumps against old tree stumps
the hard
head knocking with the force of her longing.
In the
straightaways it’s a forward rush
until the
trail turns and pursuit turns to pause, discerning,
then she is
off again, certain in her blindness.
It is
neither day nor night, only Now
with the
scent of God fresh all around.
She is the
hound who hunts, everywhere
a fresh
trail, every chase an arrival.
Photo credit HERE.
This post is linked with Unforced Rhythms.
How I Deal With Rejection
My friend Shawn Smucker is hosting a series on his blog called #OvercomeRejection. I thought about the series for a good long while, then finally came up with this post which Shawn graciously refused to reject. You can start reading here, then click on the link to finish reading over at his place. While your there, click around on some of the other posts in this series (all guest posts) and read some of Shawn’s writing, you’ll be glad you did.
It took me
over a week to think of a single concrete experience of writing related
rejection.
Repress
much? Maybe.
Or maybe I
simply haven’t risked enough. You have
to play your cards to win. You have to
play your cards to lose.
Driving in
the car the other day, though, it came to me, the memory of a very concrete
experience.
About six
months into blogging I met with a friend, the editor of a regional parenting
magazine. She wanted to know whether I
would be interested in writing a monthly print column, something about
parenting and faith.
“What angle
are you looking for?” I asked.
“It’s up to
you,” she replied, “I see this as an opportunity for you to build a name, a
platform, you can do whatever you like.”
Gulp.
Click HERE to continue reading . . .
How have you dealt with rejection? Writing related or otherwise?
The Other L Word
“I’ve been
so lonely,” I say, my words like a sigh, laying down a heavy weight.
“How long
have you felt this way?” she asks.
There’s
hardly a pause before the answer rises, “Always. I have always felt this way,” I reply.
She nods, open
and accepting, in a way that removes the layer of guilt and wrongness I’ve laid
on top of the loneliness and welcomes it simply as what is.
//
“What I
noticed,” he said as the interview was closing, the none-too-difficult
questions answered, “is a real loneliness.”
We were
discussing an autobiography I’d written as part of the application
process. We were wrapping up and his
words, more of a comment than a question, were brushed off with a quiet, “Yes,
I guess that’s true.”
But his
observation reverberated like the striking of a gong and it was all I could do
to hold back the tears for I was ashamed of my loneliness.
//
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone . . .” Genesis
2:18
Loneliness was the first thing
that God’s eye named not good. – John Milton
//
Loneliness is an unwelcome guest, so the first thing I do, on
impulse, is judge it.
“What’s wrong with me? Why do
I feel this way? What am I doing wrong?”
I use these judgments like shock therapy, a straight forward attempt
to jump start myself out of the land of alone.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes
it doesn’t. And loneliness, she’s got my
address.
There are days that I carry her, like a child strapped to my
chest. Yes, loneliness, I feel you, you are here. When she grows too heavy to bear, I pray.
“God, I feel so lonely.
Please, help me.”
Sometimes the weight is lifted, sometimes it remains.
//
Yes, your loneliness was a
presence I often felt during our times together. – a counselor I once knew
//
God sets the lonely in
families. Psalm 68:6 (NIV)
“I write about my loneliness
so that others won’t feel so alone in their loneliness.” Henri Nouwen
//
Loneliness,
as I observe it, manifests most often as distance, an absence and in this way
loneliness also is the fruit of desire.
Desire
itself is a doorway and when I am finished judging, finished bearing the
weight, I welcome loneliness in, ask her what she wants.
“You,” she
says, “I’m lonely for you. You have been
gone so long from yourself, please come home.”
//
Loneliness
stands at the doorway, waiting, long into the night, her lantern flickering;
hers is the flame, the siren song that calls me home.
So I return
to where I am.
Letting
loneliness lead I am returned home, standing in the sunlit kitchen, my hands in
soapy dish water or sitting in the living room while my children swirl
around. Loneliness leads me back again
and again through the doorway to the present where I find the presence of
myself, the presence of God and my family set around me like so many shining
stones.
This post is linked with Playdates With God and Unforced Rhythms.
How it Has Always Been
The vicar general, shying away from ‘paganism’ hangs back
and sits under a tree reading the guidebook.
I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in
wet grass, wet sand. – Thomas Merton describing his visit to the sleeping Budhas in the Asian Journal
My son comes walking to me, barefoot,
across the wet summer
grass.
The morning light lays soft around him
and in that moment I see how it
is,
how every child is a contemplative,
exposed in every way to the Now.
“This is what you must become,” Jesus
whispers
and I see now how it has always been, God
and his children, barefoot, the morning
grass
cool and wet beneath their feet.
This post is linked with Unforced Rhythms.
God Sleeps (a poem)
(Storm Sleeper by Glen Strock)
God sleeps,
yes,
but not like
we do.
God sleeps
like the
rich, dark,
patient
earth
surrounding the
yearning
seed.
God sleeps,
yes,
but not like
we do.
God sleeps
like a
mountain
tall,
majestic,
home to
streams
that run,
rushing
down his
face,
home to the
deer that
wander,
gently
nibbling and
to the hiker
who stops
on the trail
midway
between
valley and peak.
God sleeps,
yes,
but not like
we do.
God tosses
and turns
like an old
man dreaming
a tangled
mass
of what was,
what is,
what will
be.
God sleeps
and is silent,
while the
storm rises
and with it
panic.
God sleeps
like the ocean
depths
unruffled by the wind.
‘Wake up!’
we cry, ‘Wake up!’
and the
earth shudders,
the mountain
quakes,
the old man
sighs and turns in his sleep
while the
ocean grows calm around us.
(a reflection on the calming of the storm in Mark 4:35-41)
Photo credit Here.
John the Baptist (a poem)
He didn’t see it, but felt it
through the darkness
of his mother’s womb,
the flame that baptized
drawn close enough
to singe his foot,
which caused him to leap.
The wild fire caught
and grew, ruining him
for a life of conformity.
So he moved to the wilderness
somewhere near the river’s edge
where others were drawn
by the smoldering flame.
He doused them each with water,
warning them one-by-one
of the fire to come.
Later, when he leapt
from this world to the next,
leaving his head behind,
he was greeted by the fellowship
of the flame – Isaiah
with his charred black lips,
Miriam who danced
like a flickering wick,
and the others, too many now to name
together they glowed like
so many embers,
lighting the long, dark night.
This post is linked with Playdates with God and Unforced Rhythms.
Shopping with my Friend (A Mother’s Gaze)
She stands, arms
outstretched under
fluorescent lights,
holding up
the empty shorts,
the t-shirts and tanks.
Her mother-eyes focus
on what is not there,
gauging the cloth’s
ability to hold, to hug,
the ones she loves.
Her gaze is fixed
just past the things she holds,
imagining the shape
of belly, theigh,
chest and shoulders,
practicing the maternal art
of reconstruction.
We cannot see
the child she sees,
we do not know his dimensions,
all we can see is the love-struck gaze
that brings someone into being
out of nothing.
This post is linked with Five Minute Friday.
For the Doubtful Gardener and Precarious Beginnings
The paper
seed packet read, “Mesclun Mix” and pictured a leafy assortment of
lettuces. The seeds themselves were
miniscule, small balls the size of a pin’s head, little shards and spikes in a
variety of colors.
I shook them
loose into the ground, filling-in short lines where the buttery Boston Bib failed
to sprout.
I was
doubtful at best, pulling back the matted layers of dead grass that covered the
dense soil. This is our first year of gardening in this field that has grown grass, dense and soft like carpet, for years
now.
Using a
power-house tiller that belonged to my Grandfather, my husband turned the earth
two, three times over. But still, I had
to stand on the shovel and jump to dig holes for the small tomato and pepper
plants.
Crumbling
moist dirt gently around them I remembered my recent introduction to the
traditions of Celtic spirituality, how they had a blessing for nearly everything
– a blessing for lighting the fire in the morning, a blessing for washing one’s
face, a blessing for the planting of a garden.
I’m afraid we modern peoples have lost the practice of blessing.
We live in a
world hungry for and deprived of good words freely given. We gather, grab and cling to the good in our
lives, forgetting it takes an open hand to give, an open hand to receive.
I was
kneeling already, my knee poking through the rip in my jeans, chilled and
scraped by the dirt, so I said a blessing.
I prayed
that this small plot of earth would remember, be re-awakened to its potential
for growing more than grass. I prayed
for precarious beginnings and pictured the spidery webbed roots of each plant
merging with the darkness around it.
Come wind,
Come spirit,
Come sun and
rain,
Come bless this
place
and the life
that grows in it.
I laid my
hand upon the earth, the seeds, the plants and whispered goodness over them.
How long has
it been, dear friend, since you received a blessing? How long since you spoke goodness into your
own life, into another?
May you be
blessed.
May you be
re-awakened
to the
potential of your life,
the
potential of you.
May every
beginning you make
be a doorway
to life.
May you grow
deep roots
and open
hands so that you also
may bless
another.
This post is linked with #TellHisStory.
Trust Matters
It was mid-April 2013 when we sat at the kitchen table with our realtor discussing price points and all of the other details of listing our house for sale. Timing was important to me, I wanted to sell and buy quickly, to have it all said and done by the time school started again in the fall. That gave us about five months.
But we had to list our house and get it under contract before we could even really start looking for a new home, ie. we had to let go of one thing before grabbing on to the next, and this had me worried.
As the meeting was winding down, the realtor tucking our details into a nondescript manila folder, I let the smallest bit of my anxiety slip out. “I’m just afraid we won’t find something,” I said.
I don’t know why I said it, I knew no promises could be made. Maybe I thought saying it aloud would be enough to make the fear go away.
Our realtor spoke up then, in a move that surprised me. “Don’t worry,” he said, “you’re in good hands.”
(I think he felt like he had to say something.)
I looked at him then, this man a good bit younger than us with no wife and no children and knew he couldn’t begin to understand the weight of my concern.
But his words did help.
It wasn’t his hands I pictured, but His hands and that was enough to remind me of the One we were trusting as we leaned and leapt toward something new.
//
Maybe you know the story by now, how we didn’t find a house in time and nearly missed finding an apartment before that same realtor welcomed us to rent one of his. I’ll always wonder whether he remembered what he said at that table, whether he felt any obligation because of his words.
He was hesitant and we were desperate and so he played the dual role of realtor and landlord while we continued to hunt for houses.
As time passed and we failed to find a home, people felt the need to point out the obvious – that it benefited him for us to continue to rent. They asked gentle and leading questions like, “Are you sure you trust your realtor?”
//
When we lost the farm house, the one that felt perfect, I sent John an email:
“I know this isn’t helpful, but I’m not sure I can work with him any more . . .”
I didn’t think he’d cheated us, didn’t really think it was his fault. But sometimes when you can’t do one thing (i.e. buy a house) you really want to do something else (i.e. find a new realtor) just to feel like you still have a little power left.
We hung in there though and he drove us to see houses in a wider and wider circumference from the places we really wanted to call home.
//
A month later he called with the impossibly good news – the fail-proof deal had fallen through and we now had the exclusive opportunity to bid on the farm house before it went back on the market. Within days we were under contract and seven weeks later we met at a local lawyer’s office for closing.
It all seemed too good to be true, it WAS too good to be true and I felt strangely giddy as the room filled with more and more official looking people dressed to the nines. Our lawyer, two bankers, a lawyer and realtor for the estate and our realtor and mortgage broker filled the room with quiet chatter while my husband and I signed a hefty stack of papers.
I wanted to giggle (and nearly did) and then I wanted to cry. Looking up, my eyes came to rest on a water bottle I’d picked up in the waiting area – one of the fancy ones with a special label advertising for the business that handed it out. Beneath the lawyer’s name was their slogan in big, bold letters, “Trust Matters.”
I thought back to that evening at our dining room table, to the fear I felt then and the worries that hovered for nine months straight. We hung in there though, because we trusted. We trusted our realtor, we trusted each other and most of all, we learned in newer and deeper ways, to trust in God.
Trust matters, my friends, trust in the One who holds us, trust despite the fear and worry. Trust is the road the leads us on shaking legs beyond the reach of our own sufficiency.
I have dear friend and sister in Christ who’s starting a long and difficult journey toward health and healing – she is being invited to grow in trust. Click here: Help me be half the woman I am today to read her story, share it, offer words of encouragement or donate. How is God inviting YOU to grow in trust?
This post is linked with Playdates with God and Unforced Rhythms.
Growing Season
“I’m feeling
the invitation to sow seeds,” I said to a friend and mentor.
//
Every year
my husband plants the garden.
The children
swarm around him like insects, digging and dumping seeds and then, later, when
what has been done has been done, I tend it, making the most or more of what
is.
As a
“maximizer,” this is what I do best, improving upon what is. I’m not a starter, not a planter, I do not
want to face the blank space alone, to feel the weight of all of that
potential.
But as I
told my friend, I recently felt God pushing me on that.
//
The key to
sowing, is the open hand, the willingness to let the potential and possibility
of each seed fall and scatter; the key to sowing is in surrender and letting
go, then waiting to see.
No wonder
I’m not keen on it.
//
“But what if
ALL of these seeds grow? It’ll be too much.” My voice rises in challenge to the task at hand.
God and I stand in the open field beside our house, freshly tilled soil at our feet, rolling hills scalloping the sky in the distance.
“It’s not
the plants I’m worried about Kelly, open your hand,” God replies.
“There must
be a right way to do this,” I add, turning toward the house, “Let me go check
on-line. Maybe it’s still too cold.”
“Hey!” God
says, with firmness now, “plant the seeds.”
Back at the
garden now I bend, seeds in hand, but hesitating still, “How deep should they
be? How far apart? I don’t know enough.”
God reaches
down to where my fist is frozen shut, sweaty, and pulls my fingers open. The seeds fall in a clump, some sticking to
my hand.
We continue in
this way.
God shakes
seeds from the paper packets into my open hand, the impossibly tiny carrot
seeds, the large, lumpy cucumber and zucchini.
Then we bend and my fist that closes reflexively is gently pried open
and we sow the seeds together.
“See how the
ground catches and holds them?” God says, “See how many there are?”
God moves
steadily as though the seeds will never run out, as though it isn’t where or
how they land that matters most, but simply the fact of throwing them.
Slowly I
begin to believe it too, that this motion of sowing, scattering what is and
waiting with faith, THIS is what matters most.
A steady
rain starts just as the last seeds are in and God and I stand watching from the
porch.
The sowing
is done. Some seeds will grow, others
will not. Some will be food for the
birds and squirrels, others were duds to begin with and some will grow into the
hardy plants that will feed our family through summer and fall.
But, for
now, it’s the sowing that matters, the opening of the hand, again and
again.
//
Later in the
season, I excel at the close-handed jobs – the quick slashing of the hoe, the
tight grasping and sharp yank needed to pull a weed out by its roots. Pleased with my work, I look up to see if God
is watching me.
Lounging in
the shade with a tall glass of iced tea at his side and book in hand, God seems
unimpressed.
“’Lotta
weeds out here,“ I call.
God glances
my way and smiles before returning to his read.
I continue,
sweating and slashing at weeds, taming the wild garden until the blisters rise
and break in the soft flesh of my palms.
Exhausted at last and a little peeved with God’s nonchalance, I toss
myself down on the grass nearby.
A few
minutes pass before God speaks, “You are good at those things, good at tending
the chaos, at discerning between weed and vine.
You tend your garden well.”
There’s a heavy pause as the long-sought praise sinks in.
“But I am concerned,” God says, the words unfolding slowly like a flower’s bud, “with the one necessary thing.”
//
So it goes, year after year. Some years the garden flourishes, some years it does not and most years it is a terrible mixed-up mess somewhere between the two, but always it starts with the one necessary thing, the opening of my hand.
What part of gardening do you prefer? Planting, tending, harvest?
This post is linked with Playdates With God , Unforced Rhythms and Trusting Tuesdays for OneWord 365 (my OneWord this year is ‘Open’).
We Don’t Lick Each Other (The British are Coming!)
There are times, as a parent, when you need to establish norms.
Simple things like the appropriate surfaces for disposing of boogers,
whether one may or may not fart on other people, and whether spontaneously licking another human being is ever appropriate.
So when, for instance, I see Levi lick his brother’s check, I make a
firm and direct proclamation, “We don’t lick each other!”
Or when someone picks their nose while I’m reading to them at bed time
and proceeds to wipe it on the wall, I might say, “We don’t wipe our boogers on
the wall.”
As I said, sometimes you need to establish norms.
While other families may do as they please (Licking? Why, yes, please. Booger’s on the wall? Of course, that’s fine art to me!) we here
are choosing to dance to a different drum.
//
“Only 19 and ½ more days of school!” my daughter said.
She may as well have been Paul Revere screaming his midnight warning,
so great was my alarm.
Good God, I thought, where have I been? What’s happened? The hour draweth nigh!
The British, indeed, are coming.
The British are coming and they are demanding to be entertained, to be
vacation-bible-schooled and swim-lessoned, to be play-dated and day-tripped
and, good Lord, I am unprepared.
Nineteen and a half more days and me without a plan.
//
So I decided to establish some norms.
We are doing SLOW this summer.
We are eating ice cream on the porch and watching storms move
through. We are catching fireflies (if
we let them stay up late enough) and getting bored enough to use our
imaginations. We are camping in the back
yard because it is FREE and state-parking because it also is FREE.
We are doing KINDNESS, which is a spacious sort of thing that pairs
well with SLOW and the NON-LICKING of other people. It will take practice and there will be
sure-misses, but KINDNESS is also free and I plan to help us all be prodigal in
its dispensation by the time fall rolls around.
We are practicing GENTLENESS which, good Lord, is a long enough word to
be out of fashion these days, but necessary also for when our KINDNESS slips
and SLOW starts to feel like stagnation.
We will not hit when we are farted on, though we may hit (its reflexive)
if we are bitten.
We are doing HOME this summer, because we’ve waited so long to find one
and because having a home means making one which isn’t something that can be
done without a little presence. We will
be HOME and unhappy and scraping the boogers off the wall. Then we will still be HOME and laughing as we
tell about the ones who ate their boogers and the ones who used them to
decorate. We will be HOME when the first
hail storm tears through and when the first peas are ripe for picking. We will be HOME for skinned knees and sibling
frustrations, HOME for sharing and collaboration.
We will ALL work hard, because I’m not a martyr in the making and we will knock-off before the work is done because, let’s face it, it will never really be done.
We will do vacation bible school and swim lessons and vacation, but
they are not our norms, not the hub that holds the spokes of our summer
together.
The British are coming, but don’t worry, it’s ok. There’ll be almost no licking, I
promise.
What are your family’s summer
norms?
Sucker-Punch (a story of Openness and Vulnerability)
I was so grateful a few weeks ago to receive an invitation from Amber Cadenas to write something for her blog, Beautiful Rubbish: the everyday art of learning to see. Amber’s running a series of guest posts under the topic “Tales of Beauty from the Rubbish Heap,” in which she’s asking several writer friends to write about story of redemption or beauty found in unexpected places. Today I’m writing a little more of the “behind the scenes” story of how we found, then lost, then found again this old farm house.
* * *
We wrote an offer on a big old farm house – a
solid, happy looking place with great bones, two acres and a “tenant
house” – the day after Christmas 2013. Then we waited a week for the
bank representative to return from vacation and reply to our
offer.
This was the fourth house we bid on over an
eight month period. We’d been through enough
ups and downs to be cautious, but this time around we were very, very
excited. We tried to simmer down about it, but one day I brought home a
stack of Organic gardening magazines I found on the free shelves at the local
library, then my husband started researching chickens on-line. Soon I was
scanning Craigslist for the cabinets and fixtures needed to bring the place up
to speed for a family of six.
But it wasn’t until the last day, the day
before we would hear back, that I really let myself get excited.
It felt so right . . .
Follow me over to Amber’s place to read the rest of this surprising story, won’t you? And while you’re there, be sure to click around to get a flavor for her writing. Thanks so much, Amber for this lovely opportunity!
Photo credit: www.jeremybinns.com
This is a Mother’s Love
God is the source of all love; whenever we show love, whenever we experience love, we are experiencing an aspect of God. For me, the role of mother, as one who loves and is loved, has been a revelation of many aspects of God’s love. The following piece, gracefully published by SheLoves Magazinel explores the texture of this mothering love which reveals one small yet important aspect of God’s deep, unyielding love for us.
* * *
“…the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” – Gerard Manley Hopkins
Silent and still, like a gray stone nestled inside the evergreen, she is almost but not quite hidden from the world. Tucked
in and under, behind the bushy green branches, a Mourning Dove sits on a
nest like none I’ve ever seen. Wide and spacious, it opens out around
her like a cupped hand holding her body, her warmth, her eggs.
She caught my eye one day gathering sticks near the foundation of our house.
Her body, soft and gray, moved with purpose: picking, choosing her
wares before flying to the pine tree, then back again for more. Later,
my kids confirmed the nest and the eggs it held: her treasure, hidden.
Waiting for the bus with my older kids one morning, chilled by April’s soggy wind and rain, I think of her sheltered there. What wisdom led her, I wonder, to that place of safety, that tiny harbor within the boughs of the evergreen tree?
Click HERE to continue reading and leave a comment over at the SheLoves site.
Books
Between Heaven and Earth (poems)
Prayer can easily become an afterthought, a hasty sentence, a laundry list of all the things we want. But what if prayer is a time to find out what God wants for us–and for our world? What does it mean to pray that the kingdom would come here and now as it is in heaven? Explore these questions in this study, and learn prayer practices that nurture intimacy with God and sensitivity to God’s dream for the world.
Follow this writer, spiritual director, and mother of four as she dives into the deep end of chicken farming and wrestles with the risks and rewards of living a life she loves. At turns hilarious, thoughtful, and always compassionate, Chicken Scratch will change the way you see the mess and chaos involved in living life to its fullest.
