everyday epiphanies

Suffering and Silence, Sometimes

2012-01-30T17:26:00.000-06:00

I recently finished reading a beautiful book called The Art of Hearing Heartbeats in which a woman who cannot walk falls in love with a man who cannot see. The two create a truly symbiotic relationship - he carries her on his back and she leads him by describing the path into his ear. But beyond this practical arrangement they find a deeper connection. Living in a village in rural Burma, they are each unable to take life at the pace of an able-bodied individual. Without eyes to guide him, he must listen, listen deeply, to all that is around. Without feet to take her, she must wait, wait deeply, for nearly everything she wants or needs.

Each finds a kindred spirit in the other because each drinks from the same pool of wisdom that is available to those who dive into the depths of experience; who live life below the surface level of things to do, beyond the constant barrage of images and input.

I love so many things about this book, but this aspect stands out to me. I am so often hurried, so often distracted by tasks and busyness; so prone to fill silence with noise, to replace quiet with words. But there have been times when I have spent an hour watching a snail walk across the sidewalk, or sat silently in a forest glade waiting for the very earliest signs of spring. I have looked out my suburban window at a tree waving in the wind and learned things that you cannot find in books.

It is rare that we take the opportunity to slow down and learn without words. The characters in my book had no choice. The wisdom and beauty they encountered was lost on a world that saw them with pity, that assumed their difference meant they had less and not more.

As I ponder this, I consider my children. Into each day I carve out times of silence, spaces where they can hear the song of Creation and the voice of Wisdom. But this blind boy and lame girl gently show me more than simply that, and this is the most challenging of lessons for me: that often what is most beautiful comes in our lives from that which is most painful. As I pray for my children I find that I ask again and again that they will be people of wisdom, faith, and compassion. But I know that these qualities come when we are refined, and on reflection I tremble at what I am asking for. I want for my children and myself the beauty these two characters found, but who would willingly ask for such a trade off? Sometimes the pain of life is refining; other times, it can be consuming.

Just before this book I read The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating - a memoir of a woman who encountered a devastating virus that left her bed ridden for a decade. During this time she had the silence to slow down and listen to the Song, to dive into the Depths. She, too, came through suffering with deeper wisdom.

Once again I am reminded that we don't always get what we want, but sometimes this is exactly what we need; though this is a lesson much more easily learned in theory than in practice. Life does include suffering and it is my prayer that we will use these inevitable seasons to grow in our spirits a pearl of beauty.

As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of these books. All opinions are my own. If you'd like to read the responses of other members to the book, head over on February 1st.

Meditation

2012-01-18T15:33:00.000-06:00

My online book club gave me the assignment to read Quiet by Susan Cain and then write a blog post inspired by the book (rather than a review of the book). As I read this important and thought provoking writing I knew exactly what I wanted to say and realized that I have already said it. So here you go, re-posted from almost four years ago!

One of the primary spiritual disciplines within Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions is meditation. I have found meditation described in different ways, with slightly different goals, but ultimately through meditation we sharpen and strengthen our minds.

Eastern religions abound in metaphors describing our minds as fish flopping and thrashing about out of water; as a busy, chattering monkey that can't sit still even for a second. The mind that has been trained in meditation, however, is like an archer who can aim his thoughts and hit the mark; all others struggle to hold the string taunt, their arrows going in all directions.

Try it for a second. For just two minutes, try to think of one unmoving thing. If you get more than 10 seconds down your path, I'm impressed. The image of the monkey is potent to me, because my mind is indeed prone to race all about. Most of the time I'm busy enough that I don't even notice; but try to sit and stop it and this problem becomes all too clear.

Proponents of meditation remind us that our thoughts and minds go deeper than we will ever dive. Deep below our consciousness, our subconscious is doing much of our choosing. Have you ever gotten more angry than you wanted? Have you ever felt out of control of your emotions or your actions or your responses? We all know first hand that our minds are as fathomless as they are fidgety.

In order to live a healthy life then, we must somehow gain self-awareness, gain wisdom, gain strength over the chattering monkey that is our thoughts. In developing the ability to hold ourselves in silence, we slow down, developing the ability to hear, to know, to gain wisdom and insight. Insight into who we are and why we act and choose as we do - which allows us to live with a greater level of intentionality. Insight into how things are, wisdom as we quiet ourselves and can hear the voice of life around us and even, all religions suggest, the quiet and loving voice of God. If I can slow myself down enough to realize the events in my life that trigger a reaction, and then choose how I will respond - wow. And if I can focus my thoughts, I can focus them on God rather than on a multitude of distractions. If I can quiet myself, I can sit before God and not drown Him out with rambling chatter.

This is not a major focus of Christianity as we know it in most Western forms, but meditation is certainly in agreement with Christian Scriptures and teachings. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says "we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." How are we to not only take captive every thought, but make them each obedient to Christ, if they are coming a mile a minute, and out of our control? In 1 Kings, Elijah learns that the voice of God is not in the roaring wind, or the earthquake, or the raging fire...but in the gentle whisper. How are we to hear God's voice when our lives are so very noisy? In Psalm 46 we are exhorted to "be still, and know that I am God." In Isaiah 26 we are told that he who trusts in God will be held in perfect peace if his mind is steadfast. Jesus implores us in Matthew 22 and Mark 12 and Luke 10 to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. In Romans 8 we are told that those who submit to God will set their minds on what the Spirit of God desires. Again and again we are told to set our thoughts on God. How are we to do any of this if we have not disciplined our mind as athletes or musicians discipline their bodies?

Here in the West, our society is set up with the very opposite goal in mind - never, ever to be alone with our thoughts, to have as little silence as possible, to fill our mind with as many things at as fast a pace as possible. Radios and DVD players in the car; ipods and cell phones to our ears when we walk or run; television and internet always on at home. I recently saw a high chair with a DVD-player option. Our innovations are making it more and more possible to be plugged in at all times, to interact with fast-paced media input constantly. Our minds are being trained not to quiet, to focus, and to submit to our instructions, but to race ever faster down countless bunny trails that something outside ourselves is dictating.

As I study meditation and the importance of developing one's mind as one would any atrophied but pivotal muscle, I've thought with irony about our society's insistence in being ever stimulated. What does this do to us, I wonder? What are we losing control over, what are we losing period, that we have not even realized was at stake or might be attained?

My own thoughts are especially fidgety. This blog is in large part an attempt to relieve my weary mind by placing some of my constant ponderances outside of my head. Ever since I was a toddler, my thoughts have made falling asleep difficult. For about 15 years I would go through rigorous mind exercises, attempting to both clear and control this incessant monkey. I would walk myself through the alphabet, allowing myself to focus only on things which started with the letter I was on. I would imagine my mind as a large cluttered room that a man with a broom was slowly, steadily, sweeping clean; when we finished the room, I would force myself to hold the nothingness that was left. I would focus my inner eye on an imaginary orange, and concentrate on not letting it roll, on not let my mind peel the orange, or change its color, or thinking of something else. Some nights, I would succeed, and sleep. Other nights, I was forced to listen to my own chit-chat until dawn.

I realize now that these late-night exercises in my early life were the very rudimentary exercises of early meditation - learning to somehow control one's mind, rather than being controlled by one's mind. Keeping the tail from wagging the dog.

Why are we not doing this? Why are we giving so much control over who we are to something admittedly quite out of control? There is no need to convert to or even study an Eastern religion (or any religion for that matter) in order for us to begin exercising our thoughts.

And there is literally everything to gain.

Thoughts?

This post is part of Left to Write's online bookclub, where we just finished reading Quiet by Susan Cain. A copy of this book was given to me at no charge.

Two Tall Tales

2012-01-03T16:29:00.000-06:00

A says, "Check out my cool fall move! I made it up during time out!" He falls dramatically from his bed to the floor.

Then he rises, realizing the potential implication of what he's said. He tries damage control by adding "because if the person I've hurt is downstairs, it really helps me to think about what I've done by falling towards them, and then sort of lying right above where they are."

Despite my best efforts I start laughing. "You must be making that up" I say. "No!" he insists... but then a laugh escapes from him as well. "Well...I guess I just do it because its fun."

During this conversation B is sitting on the toilet, going on and on about how his tooth was loose and then it fell out. He insists that quite a few dramatic and unlikely maladies have befallen him and his former tooth in the short time he's been in the bathroom. He teeth are actually fully intact when I check on him but he is insistent so, in an effort to understand, I suggest that he might be pretending. "No!" he insists adamantly. "It fell out when Jesus died on the cross. That is when it really happened! When Jesus died on the cross!"

Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing

2011-12-25T14:13:00.000-06:00

Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning;

Jesus, to thee be glory given!

Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!

Oh, come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

First Snow Magic

2011-12-09T16:15:00.002-06:00

I was getting dressed this morning in the moments after dawn when I heard the small voices and footsteps that mean my sons are awake. I peeked into their room and suggested they look out the window.

Immediately they stopped in their tracks and raced to the window, bright eager faces straining to see, reflecting the magic of what they hoped to find. "Snow!!" As they stared in wonder and excitement, B shouted "Let's call Santa and tell him! On the phone!"

Several moments later I was walking out of the house and turned to see if I was being waved on my way. There in the upper window was nearly-three-year-old-Little-Bee, jumping up and down with pure enjoyment. I hope I never, ever forget that sight.

A few hours later I returned home from sharing the Christmas Story with my coworkers in word and song to an armful of still-excited children ready with hugs, kisses, and cookies. We turned on Handle's Messiah for the "First Snowfall First Listening." Snowpants have been donned and mittened hands have tentatively brought the cold flakes to inquisitive lips for a taste.

There is joy all around us, and on moments like these you can almost see it.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. - John 1

Five Month Old Cutie

2011-11-15T14:35:00.002-06:00

You just might find you get what you need.

2011-11-09T14:06:00.000-06:00

I recently read this article about women and/or couples who, after spending thousands of dollars and years of their lives on fertility treatments, find themselves pregnant at last...with twins. But because they were not wanting twins they undergo yet more medical interventions to reduce the pregnancy to a single baby.

Of all the responses this article elicited in me the strongest was in the reasons many of these women gave. They said, essentially "it is important for me to be a good mother; to provide my children with enough attention, financial stability, patience, experiences, etc and I already have a five year old - I don't think I could stay sane and be a good mother if I had twins right now."

This hit me so hard because this is right where I am. Both my sanity and my "Good Mother" card are in jeopardy every minute these days. I am the sort of person who likes control, structure, plans - but every moment of my day, every meal that I eat, every night that I (don't) sleep is filled with chaos, interruptions and noise. Nothing goes smoothly. Patience has long run out. Standards and hopes such as "being a good mother" or "giving my children values, educational experiences, and coping techniques" have been replaced by one lofty imperative - survive.

I am also reading an amazing book about Martha Beck who, while she and her husband were working on their fifth and sixth collective Harvard degrees, discovered that the child she carried had Down's syndrome. Even before her diagnosis she was hardly surviving the severe symptoms of her pregnancy, relying for the first time in her life on the grace and acceptance of generous souls who saw her need and met her where she was. After the diagnosis she encountered nearly unanimous pressure to terminate; yet though she was staunchly pro-choice she carried her baby and is caring for him still. She said:

my entire life hinged on knowing that there were people who would continue to love me unconditionally, even if I were damaged, even if I were sick. Such love was the only thing that had sustained me during the turmoil of the past months. If I eliminated my child because of his disability, if I put him out of my life, I would be violating the only thing that was keeping me alive. I"d be ripping the rug out from under my own feet.

In her gripping and compelling story Martha's idea of good life and success is shattered and replaced by something much, much better. Over-achieving, workaholic, control freaks that she and her husband were, they learned to live and value in an entirely different way - because of, and through, and by, love. Love not because of achievement or worth, but because of love itself. Love brought them this not-perfect situation that they deemed a tragedy, and love showed them that it was instead a blessing, a gift, an opportunity for them more priceless than all those thing the world had taught them to want.

I think this lesson is so often taught us by our children because it is the lesson of life itself. For me, it has been the biggest, most pronounced lesson of pregnancy, labor, delivery, sleepless night, and parenting in general - there is something in surrender, in acceptance, that creates life and beauty and joy. There are my plans, and then there is life. Life is often much, much more painful than my plans were, but resistance brings yet more pain, while surrender can bring joy as vivid as the sorrow. No amount of working and planning can make life into what we want it to be, and neither can it bring us love. Love and joy, which are always there waiting for us, come into focus by contentment and surrender.

But how can we know this if we live our lives with our fists clenched? Either we must open our hands or, eventually, they will be pried open. We will eventually be broken, but we can also be healed. Things will not go as we plan. Chaos will come, disappointment will come. And if we are willing to meet suffering and chaos and disappointment with our eyes and heart open these things can bring us to a place more beautiful than anything we had the perspective or imagination to plan.

I am (unsuccessfully) trying to teach my 5 month old daughter to sleep longer than two hours stretches at night. While she cries to get up and I thwart her desires to nudge her towards the sleep she needs I often find myself singing to her:

You can't always get what you want, but sometimes you just might find you get what you need.

This post was inspired by the book Expecting Adam, by Martha Beck. I was given a copy of this book as part of From Left to Write. Read other posts inspired by Expecting Adam on Thursday, November 10, at From Left to Write. We'll also be chatting live with Martha Beck at 1PM Eastern on November 10 on From Left to Write.

Three (and a half) month old Cutie

2011-09-15T14:07:00.000-05:00

(For fun, here's B at the same age.)

So much happens in 10 years

2011-09-11T14:26:00.001-05:00

Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing
less than nothing.
Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.

- from "The End and the Beginning" by Wislawa Szymborska, as quoted by Mary Schmich in the Chicago Tribune, 9/11/11

For my sons, who wonder what today is all about, and who can't quite imagine anything happening that long ago...

What Shall I Do Tonight: A Story now with bonus drinking game

2011-08-26T14:31:00.000-05:00

At 8pm I held my sleeping baby in my arms, knowing that my husband was nearly done putting the boys to bed in the next room. "Wow!" I thought to myself, "All three kids asleep at 8pm! This has never happened before! What shall I do with my evening?"

I will tell you what I did, and just to make it fun, take a drink every time I say the word "stairs." Ready?

8:10pm: Laid baby in her bed, assuming all kids were tucked in for the night (of course, C wakes up every few hours).

8:11pm: Walked downstairs and found A in the kitchen. Sent him back upstairs.

8:15pm: Heard C crying in the monitor. Ran upstairs to put her back to sleep.

8:45pm: Finally laid now-sleeping C in her bed and headed downstairs. Was stopped half was down by B crying in his room.

8:46pm: Discovered that B was crying because he couldn't find A, and indeed A's bed was empty. Went downstairs to look for him.

8:47pm: Found A reading books in the living room. Walked him upstairs because I had also promised crying B I would rock him.

9:03pm: Came downstairs after tucking boys in and started in on cleaning the kitchen.

9:10pm: Heard B crying from the top of the stairs "I have to go to the bathroom!" and went upstairs to find a very sleepy, disoriented B with wet pants. Put him on the potty and started cleaning his room, then got him back into bed.
.
9:40pm: Said "I think they're all finally asleep - so much for a quiet evening!" and walked into the living room. When I entered I realized that the monitor was lit up because C was crying again. Went upstairs to reapply pacifier and soothings.

9:50pm: Came back downstairs; finally managed to not only enter the living room but actually sit down...when I heard C start crying again. And I headed for the stairs. This time for the last time because its now my bedtime and I know I'll be getting up every two hours anyway.

You can put your drink down now.

Summer Bounty

2011-08-24T21:02:00.000-05:00

Now that we have a yard, my dream of having a garden is finally fulfilled. Here is what we harvested today alone. The barrel of basil we turned into pesto is not pictured.

(Please leave me comments with ideas and recipes of how to transform tomatoes and sweet peppers into something that can live long in my freezer - my lifestyle does not lend itself to a lot of cooking right now. We've already made our weight in tomato sauces.)

My Little Bee flavored ice cream

2011-08-22T13:18:00.001-05:00

Little B is a scoop of ice cream. He's an ice cold half-lemonade-half-iced-tea on a hot day. He's so delightful, so just-what-you-needed, but impossible to put into words - you have to experience him yourself.

Since he was born I've found this to be true - he a difficult blog subject. I simply do not know the words that would paint the precious delight that he is. Its not so much what he says, but the way he says it; not so much what he does, but the way he does it. Who he is. Every word and movement like the ice cold half-lemonade-half-iced-tea on a hot day.

He is running through the lawn, his toddler body wiggling and shaking like only a running toddler body can. He is stopping to rest his soft blond head on my leg for just a moment. He's pointing at me, yelling "Jou! Jou! I want jou! I want jou!" He's putting himself into my path asking "Do you hold me, Mommy? Do you hold me, Mommy?"

He is sitting on my lap and we are swinging together...higher...higher. We swing for ages, he never wants to stop. He calls it "rocket ship" and I have to call out "3-2-1-Blastoff!" when I push off the ground with my feet. His little blond head under my chin, his little body on mine. We swing for ages.

"I want a Watch Puppy, Mommy" he announces daily - his way of asking for a watch dog, though the purpose of a watch dog eludes him somewhat. "I want a Watch Puppy with my own money. To watch videos."

I love you, Little B, I love every day with you. You are just want our family needed.

Homemade Peas

2011-07-28T13:47:00.000-05:00

At lunch today A handed me a pea pod and asked me to open it. "I like eating the seeds inside" he said. "Actually" I replied, " did you know those little seeds are peas?" He looked at his now-opened pod with amazement. "Wow!" he exclaimed, "homemade peas!"

The other day I put our "Music Machine" CD on (I know! Blast from the past!). When the Conductor was introducing Stevie and Nancy to the machine A corrected him: "Its actually called a Karaoke Machine."

For his birthday I bought him a few super-cool science books, one of which had words like "Quark" and "Protozoa" and "Paramecium." Half way through he snorted in disgust. "Why do they even make kids books like this?" he demanded. "All kids know this stuff already." I told him that, actually, most four-and-five year old kids don't know that much about single celled organisms and atomic structures; I asked him where he had learned it. "From Fermi lab" he replied. Which, considering how well he matched the World-class particle accelerator laboratory with its field of study, it seems he really might already know these things.

While my young physicist was eating his homemade peas for lunch I commented on his manners, telling him that when I was little eating with your hands would earn you a comment like "were you born in a barn?" With a mischievous smile on his face he replied "Well, how would Jesus answer that question?"

Life with three is a major handful. The fact that I have a moment to type this out with one hand while bouncing is amazing - normally I'm bouncing while taking someone potty while heating up lunch while running for the phone while cleaning up a spill on the floor. But who ever heard of such wonderful kids as these three.

Last day being four

2011-07-21T13:52:00.000-05:00

Today is A's last day being four. When I made this happy announcement at the breakfast table he got very quiet and after a few other people joined in the excitement he burst into tears. "I don't want to talk about it" he said.

He's never been one to get excited about birthdays or even really enjoy them. Since Little Bee and I both adore birthdays and plan for them all year this is a fairly foreign concept to us and I don't often do well at remembering.

So we have tried to avoid all discussion of what tomorrow might be and what the implication is for today.

But as I was snuggling with him during nap/quiet time he asked if I would still call him a four year old after he turned five. "That will make me less sad" he said. When I asked him why he was sad about leaving "four" behind he said "I've just had such a great time" and then teared up again.

I remember being young, knowing that kids who were ten were very different from kids who were six and not fully understanding that the change happens gradually; the way we talk about ages it does seem like birthdays are a graduation from one level to the next, all at once. I assured A that he wouldn't look or feel or act differently tomorrow - and that things between he and I will be just the same.

He was quiet for a moment and then cheerfully went back to his imaginative play. I managed to bite my tongue and not wish him a happy last four-year-old naptime.

Heart melt

2011-07-19T14:48:00.000-05:00

This week Little Bee ran across the yard to catch up with me - is there anything more adorable than short, pudgy toddler legs running through green grass? When he reached me said "You're a great Mommy" and hugged my leg.

He's never said anything like "I love you" so these were big words. It wasn't the 97 degrees and 97 percent humidity that made my heart melt.

Third Time's the Charm

2011-07-13T12:26:00.000-05:00

When I'm alone with all three I wonder how I managed to think that one was a handful.

But when I'm alone with just her I remember the constant bouncing and holding and feeding that even one newborn demands.

She is crying. With her mouth open to wail she is just barely holding her "Cutie Patootie" pacifier with her tongue. We've been bouncing, we've been singing, we've been soothing. I lay my head just next to her's and continue my song. Her eyes catch mine and she breaks into a smile from behind the pacifier and between sobs. We smile at each other and her eyes close. She quiets, the room quiets, my heart quiets - and fills.

The Silver

2011-06-16T14:33:00.000-05:00

Lest I get too wrapped up in my worries to remember, let me acknowledge that there have been moments when the silver lining has peeked through the clouds. For example...

...seeing the huge, beaming smile on A's face as he held and talked to his baby sister for the first time. I have never seen a smile so big, so beautiful in all my life.

...watching the boys warm up to her in their own ways. A was an easy sell, having fallen for her at first sight. He insists that we should have several more because "babies are my favorite kind of person" and "she's so precious." B is much slower to warm but he is coming around. He has asked to hold her and is always the first to start singing her baby song if she seems to be in distress. And - in the true test of his heart - he is beginning to invite her along in the things he's doing, even though they are far from age appropriate activities - "maybe my baby sister can do it too!"

...holding my daughter this morning when she smiled at me for the first time and tried to "talk" with me. The precious way newborns stretch when you hold them up in the air - hands in fists and arms raised above the head, feet and legs lifting up pretzel style in mid-air. The sleepy, satisfied "milk nirvana" expression she makes (and my other two made) seconds after nursing. How very, very entirely precious and loved and beautiful she is.

I've regretted that with our fears for her safety my anxieties so easily dwarf these silver moments, and I've chastised myself to fully enjoy every newborn moment I have. But then I realize that this is what newborn moments are like - since the dawn of time these early, vulnerable days have surely been met with as much anxiety for their survival as relishing in their wonder. Instead of missing out somehow I am, in fact, truly joining in with mothers-of-newborns from ancient times until today.

B would like to call her "the hot dog man" but A thinks "Caterpillar" is a better nickname. I personally prefer the name I gave her myself, but since I already have an "A" and a "B" and since Caterpillar does start with the right letter let's just go ahead and call her "C" while we're online.

Thank you for praying for her health - we still have about another week before she's out of the woods. But there's also been the silver.

Sometimes grace comes in the form of vomit

2011-06-12T14:24:00.000-05:00

Three weeks ago today my daughter was born.

On the same day, while I was laboring, Little B was at home vomiting with the stomach flu. Before we came home from the hospital we discovered that A had what we assumed to be a bad cold. Between the two viruses we were worried for our newborn and put a tremendous amount of effort into keeping the boys separate from her. Two days after we came home from the hospital, Little B came down with the same "cold" virus. A week after we came home A came down with the stomach flu, on top of his cold. By the time we had been home for two weeks my husband and I had gotten the cold, and so had all the grandparents who had flocked to care for us. My husband and I had just a minor version but most of the grandparents were very sick. It had been over two weeks so we figured the boys were healthy enough to see and touch and hold their baby sister finally, and if I was sick too there seemed no point in continuing the quarantine.

In the midst of all this we had water leaking into the basement, into the attic, and even a big pond forming one night in our family room.

I got through all of this the same way I got through labor and delivery; when the contraction (or crisis) peaks, throw yourself into it and get through it. When it abates, even though you know its not over, even though you know a bigger and harder one is coming at any moment - don't panic; relax while you can. So whenever someone was not actually throwing up or water was not actually leaking and no one new was getting sick and no one was close enough to cough on the baby I made myself stay in the moment and relax, knowing the next crisis was just around the corner. I pictured bright lights and reminded myself what a privilege it is to be alive and kept the darkness - always so close to a postpartum mother - at bay.

A few days after we ended the quarantine I got a call from the Pediatrician. The boys had tested positive for Pertussis.

I still see spots when I remember this conversation. I hadn't seen this coming at all.

By the time we got this call we were already over the worst of it. But apparently we were still contagious and had been exposing the newborn especially in the past few days. This was Thursday night and the days since have been a blur of Doctor's appointments, trips to the pharmacy, being interviewed by the County Health Department, and more calls with still more doctors. (Parenthetically, I have interacted with some of the most frustratingly unprofessional doctors during this time). But mostly, me staring at the ceiling in disbelief and enormous anxiety. Because all these conversations with doctors and health departments cannot help me forget what we all know well - what often happens when newborns and pertussis mix.

As of now, she is still entirely healthy. We are all taking meds, waiting for our contagion to end, and for the baby's incubation period to end. And watching very, very closely. And worrying a lot, despite my best intentions. My "relax between contractions" strategy is no longer working for me.

As if all this weren't enough I woke up last night vomiting - presumably a reaction to the medicine I was given. Between heaves I said to my husband "we have a lot of challenges right now."

But the bright side is that vomiting has forced me to stay in the present moment so entirely that my anxiety has gone down, a bit. I'm still watching just as closely, still acting just as carefully to keep germs away. But not worrying so much as I just try to keep food down in the present moment.

Sometimes grace comes in the the form of vomit.

Astonished, again

2011-06-04T13:02:00.003-05:00

For months I carried you under my heart
But I could not conceive that once again I was carrying a person, a baby.

For weeks I prepared clothes and furniture and brothers for your arrival
But did not prepare myself to discover that a baby could once again take my breath away.

For days I slept with your empty bed beside mine
But could not believe that soon you would fill it and sleep next to me.

For hours I labored and struggled to give you life
And was astonished when you were here, and you were you.

With each of my children I have been taken completely off guard by their birth into the world. Three times now I have held a small body against my chest, my body trembling with the words I didn't know it was you.

I have no reason to call you a surprise, but you have astonished me again, Little Daughter. You are a blessing.

Selah

2011-06-03T16:17:00.000-05:00

The word Selah is Hebrew and is found in the Hebrew Scriptures, primarily in the Psalms. It is difficult to translate but is most likely a musical term meaning something like "Pause, and reflect on the weighty thing that was just sung." Or, similarly, "stop and listen" and/or "pause and think" with the implication being (based on other places the word is used) that what you are listening to or reflecting on is something full of weight and with a sense of "forever."

Here is an example:

Psalm 32

Blessed Are the Forgiven

¹Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.²Blessed is the man against whom the LORDcounts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

³For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
   through my groaning all day long.
⁴For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
   my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
                         Selah

⁵I acknowledged my sin to you,
   and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,"
   and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.
                         Selah

⁶Therefore let everyone who is godly
   offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush ofgreat waters,
   they shall not reach him.⁷You are ahiding place for me;
   you preserve me fromtrouble;
   you surround me with shouts of deliverance.
                         Selah

⁸I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
   I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
⁹ Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
   which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
   or it will not stay near you.
¹⁰Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
   but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD.
¹¹ Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous,
   andshout for joy, all youupright in heart!

Daughter

2011-05-26T13:04:00.002-05:00

Born May 22nd, at 10:32am. She was 6lbs,13oz and 20 inches long. Her labor started at the zoo and ended three days later on the same day of the month on which both brothers were also born. We are so blessed to have a daughter and a sister.

Little Daughter, we pray that you will pause and reflect, with joy, all your life,

and that you will inspire others to do the same.

‎"We praise You with joy, loving God, for Your grace is better than life itself. You have sustained us through the darkness, and You have blessed us with life in this new day."

~The Psalm Prayer at Morning Prayers

Brothers

2011-04-30T15:09:00.002-05:00

Speaking of Easter pictures, I couldn't help but notice that B wore the same outfit (28 months) that A wore three years ago for Easter (20 months).

Here's B in 2011

And here's A in 2008

Silly Easter Boys 2011

2011-04-29T15:00:00.002-05:00

I realized last year that the days of sitting my boys down for sweet Easter pictures was long gone. Even further gone this year as A refused to smile for the camera or even dress in nice clothes or have his face washed or hair combed (yes, a harbinger of the next 10 years, I know). But I have a feeling these will still be throughly enjoyed.

You can see the rest of the album here.

The abyss we have been trying to outrun

2011-04-19T14:26:00.000-05:00

Anne Lamott, speaking about the Lenten season, says perfectly what I so appreciate about the discipline of Lent and Holy Week:

"...So in Easter — and Passover too — something that happens is that we stop. This is the 'dark night of the soul' stuff that John the Divine writes about; that in that stopping we may fall into an abyss that we have been trying to outrun since we were little children..."

I know that abyss, and I have found that it will run after us until we take the courage to stop, to peer into it, even to dive headlong into it and face the darkness until you find the bottom. Half the beauty of Lent is that you must stop and possibly fall into this abyss. The other half of the beauty is that what comes next is Resurrection Sunday; and there is no joy or celebration like the one that comes after you have been to the abyss and returned.

The whole interview is well worth a listen and you can find it here.

LEGO Theology for Lent

2011-04-05T16:14:00.000-05:00

Today A was standing on his train table, towering over his LEGOS. "Did you know that to my LEGO men, I'm a giant?" he asked. I agreed that he certainly was. "I'm like 500,000 feet tall! What do you think they think of me?" he wondered. I suggested that they might be a bit scared of him and find him very noisy.

He speculated about this for a bit from pretend-giant-world then declared he didn't want the LEGO men to be scared. "What if I made myself into their size? Then they could know who I was and they wouldn't be scared."

That's what God did, isn't it? There is so much wonder and meaning to be found in the incarnation, in God With Us, but this is certainly part of it. We seem to be so talented at believing God to be less loving, less wise, than we ourselves are much less Love and Wisdom must be. So he came and walked among us in order that we could know him.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift...and for LEGO Lenten Reflections that bring it all down to our size.

Dormancy

2011-03-17T07:32:00.001-05:00

I spent a few moments looking at the tree that grows outside my bedroom window today. Nowhere on its huge bulk is there any sign of life - not the smallest leaf or flower or bud. It takes imagination to see what it could be and, if not for knowledge of the past and hope in what surely will be again there would be no reason to expect it will ever be different than it is today. This tree, once so full of life, is dormant. As it should be - this is the season of dormancy.

For me too I have been experiencing a season of dormancy. There are probably several reasons for this, not the least of which is my pregnancy. Each time I have carried and created a small child within my body all other forms of creativity have shut off like a faucet within me, to the degree that it feels as though the edge of my personality is simply gone. I can't write or even read like I do when not pregnant, and those are two big statements for me. I think and feel and experience in a different, more subdued and blunted way. It is not merely a lack of time and energy, though that is also true; there are other seasons where I lack time and energy but yet feel the sap of life flowing through me and I might burst if I don't find a place to let it out. But during pregnancy it feels truly as though the creation taking place inside of me has pulled me inward, all resources going to one place only; as though creating a person was more than enough for now and all other forms of creation must cease for a time; as though my soul were hibernating; as though I were dormant.

I am content with this strange lifelessness because I know from previous seasons that it will last only its appointed time and then be done. I know that what appears to me as lifelessness is in fact the very most profound opposite, and it will bear its fruit it the proper time. I know that spring is coming, and with it the hope and promise of new life.

And I shouldn't be surprised, really, to find that my own season of dormancy coincides with the actual natural dormancy all around. Because in the spring it was the same, and in the summer and the fall as well. So I am cherishing the opportunity to be content in the season I am, all the while pointing my body and soul towards the promise of spring.

Lambs, lunch, and my young son's ethics

2011-03-14T15:40:00.000-05:00

Last week A went to one of our favorite places - a functioning 1890's farm. He went there because they were making Maple Syrup from start to finish. He got to see them tapping the sap from the trees, the sap boiling in a copper pot over an open fire, and even taste some recently made syrup. While he was there he also got to see the newborn lambs, and spent an hour helping to clean out the chicken coop. When he got home there was no end of excited retelling of the cute new lambs and the hard, smelly, but rewarding work of taking out the chicken's dirty bedding, bringing in new straw, and finally being swarmed by chickens as he let them back in.

That same evening found us at a restaurant celebrating a family birthday. As always, we made sample platters for our children from the food on the adult's plates rather than ordering from the kids menu. A had just taken his first bite when he heard me say to my husband "isn't this lamb delicious?" and he put his fork down.

"This meat I just ate is lamb?" he demanded.

Thinking back through the day, it probably wasn't the best time to introduce A to eating lamb. Of course, the other meat available on his plate was chicken. His disgust was so high that he would not touch the pasta or vegetables either. He nibbled some bread but refused to eat anything else.

I know exactly how he feels. I've altered our family's buying and eating habits quite a bit in the past few years to be obedient to my conscience (it started here and here, but it didn't end there). So right then and there we had a conversation about eating choices.

I told him that some people choose not to eat animals at all - only vegetables and things that grow, or only these things plus what comes from animals without requiring the animal to die. (This seemed like an attractive option until he discovered this meant much less pepperoni and much more beans; then he stated "I don't want to be a vegetarian!"). I told him that others, like our family, only felt comfortable eating meat when we knew that the farmers who raised the animals were kind to them during their lives and deaths. I told him that it can be very difficult to figure all this out and decide what is okay and what is not okay.

I told him that however people decide to eat, there are two things which are true. The first is that we must be kind to all living things, because they are created and loved by God and because we too know how wonderful and short our time being alive is. The second is that all living things live by eating other living things - there are no exceptions. Whether we eat rice, tomatoes, milk, or bacon, we maintaining our own life by consuming a product of another life. Somehow these two truths must be held in tension by we human animals that must feed both our bodies and souls.

Its no easy task, figuring out the balance. Its a lot to think about.

Listening to Elva, Ah-Kim, and Mr. Rosenblum as they dream in English - to name just a few

2011-03-07T15:12:00.000-06:00

Immigration and recent immigrants to America have been on my mind a lot in the past year or so. All my married life I've lived entirely surrounded by first generation immigrants and I've loved getting to know them (and eating their food) but our two moves this past summer/fall were for no other reason than to go deeper. And deeper we have gone. I've had quite an education in the past year - both by getting to know the wide variety of people that surround me and by actual education - learning to tell the myths from the facts. Now, I talk about this topic at home, at church, with my neighbors, with my friends, learn about it at seminars, and even teach about occasionally.

Parenthetically: this past weekend I attended a conference at my church that brought people from near and far together to talk about how we can look at things like racism, diversity, and immigration from a faith perspective. It was fantastic. We were asked questions like "Do I have my facts straight? Am I thinking about immigration as a Christian? Do I know any immigrants?"

As if all this thinking about and living among new comers was not enough I've recently picked up three entirely different books that tell the true-or-almost-true stories of very different people making their way around our country for the first time.

Most recently I've just finished Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English. This is a fun, even light-hearted book and love story that takes on the very difficult topic of a young Jewish family escaping from Germany to England in the days before WWII. Never quite confident of their personal safety they each struggle to find a balance between assimilating into their new land and remembering and retaining their identity. This was a truly delightful tale, loosely based on the author's grandparents. (Full disclosure insists on my mentioning that I received a free review copy of this book through the Left to Write Book Club. The other books I found on my own so no disclosure legally needed).

A month or so earlier I read Girl in Translation which chronicles the high school years of a young Chinese immigrant who came to New York with her mother. This was not nearly as light or as fun but it was valuable in that it demonstrated clearly what I have found first hand - sometimes people live at standards far, far below anything we could imagine would take place in the United States. Though written as fiction I couldn't help but notice the many parallels between the author's bio and the main character's life.

And before that there was Barefoot Heart: stories of a migrant child. This was a somewhat tedious and poorly written book that was fascinating and well worth the read; a true story/memoir about a very young Mexican American migrant work in the 1950's (and by very young I mean she was working with her family in the fields from ages 3-13). She tells the stories she remembers from her childhood now as an adult. By the end I was entirely ready and able to overlook the writing style and was moved and amazed by the beauty of the story, one that I think is important for those of us long since assimilated into dominant American culture to understand better than we do.

I love it when my real life and what I'm reading coincide. I've had a lot to think about this year and not a lot of time to write about it. But I'm grateful for this opportunity to learn through life, neighbors, friends, books, stories, and education and I'll keep on digging in. What about you? Have you been an immigrant or do you know one? What story can you tell me?

This Little One - My Child

2011-02-22T14:25:00.000-06:00

I have a little one who is 27 weeks old and - if all goes well - 13 weeks away from being in our arms. In the meantime I am once again two, not one. Once again my own comfort and needs and self have been made to give yet more ground for the comfort and needs and self of another - my child.

It has been a long and hard 27 weeks, harder than the first two times. From the beginning, routines and expectations of the whole family have been changed by this newcomer - my child.

At 20 weeks we went for the ultrasound; baby and me on the exam table, my husband and two boys huddled together on the one small chair; all of us eager to glimpse this new family member of ours. Friends and family saw this day as the long awaited chance to possibly, just possibly hear news that this baby was a girl. I responded quickly and negatively to this attitude - this baby was welcome to be whomever God had already created him or her to be and we would apply no additional demands. And so it felt right somehow when, on the ultrasound screen, we saw so clearly a tiny babe wrapped tightly in a sleeping fetal position, not willing to awaken, precious head and feet and toes but nothing else to be seen. Watching my uncooperatively sleeping infant I cheered for his-or-her unconscious refusal to play the card so many were eager to judge and I was content to not know. My heart was stolen and filled full by this tiny sleeping person - my child.

But the doctor was not content and felt a closer look at internal organs was necessary, so last week we returned - baby and me on the exam table, my husband and two boys huddled together on the one small chair; all of us eager to glimpse again this new family member of ours. This time we received a good bill of health and one other piece of news - this baby is a girl.

The deep contendness of loving unconditionally gave way to rejoicing in something entirely new and unexpected. As is our tradition we drove to Costco on the way home to buy her a newborn outfit and as we drove A yelled "I'm so excited that f I wasn't strapped into my car seat, I would jump through the roof!" B responded with shouts of "Baby! Sister!" We all feel the same way as we contemplate the wonder and mystery and blessing of a daughter and sister.

We are rejoicing, we are waiting, we are wondering - and I at least am worrying, though I try to stay in the moment. Our family is now 5. Whomever she is and shall be, she is ours, entitled to all the rights, responsibilities and privileges therein. Their sister. Our daughter. My child.

These Days

2011-02-16T23:03:00.000-06:00

These days there is always someone yelling for me, be it midday or midnight.

These days I am always stooping down to pick up something or someone, and then again.

These days there is always fussing, and fighting, and biting, and someone in time out.

These days I am always cleaning up someone's mess, and then again.

These days I am so tired, so weary, so out of patience, so lacking perspective.

These days I am never alone...and never lonely.

These days I never have free time...and am never bored.

These days I can never seek self-fulfillment...and work towards the greatest purpose I know.

Because these days there are small boys who long to snuggle with me.

These days my children say "Mommy, I love you most of all."

These days I can look my fill at soft, chubby cheeks and silken hair, or hold tiny hands and tickle tiny feet.

These days my boys run with a dance in their steps, life and creation bursting from every seam.

These days I can introduce my children to the wide world with its beauty and creativity and dangers and share their awe.

These days. I live each one so exhausted, so at the end of myself, so close to tears and so far from rest.

These days. I live each one so sure that nothing so precious, so priceless, will ever brush so close to me again.

Thank you for these days.

I Heart Mom

2011-01-22T14:54:00.000-06:00

Last night my husband took my sons to what sounds like the most amazing indoor kid's carnival ever. From what they've told me it deserves a post in itself but that's another story.

There was a face painting booth, which A is never interested in. But B wanted his face painted, so they waited in the long line. My husband asked A several times during the wait if he wanted his face painted, but the answer was always a resounding no. Then, suddenly, his face changed to this classic A expression where you can see him hatching a plan. "Yes," he said, "yes I do want to."

When it was his turn the lady asked what he'd like painted on his face. She showed him the page of options - flowers, rainbows, sports logos, spiders, super heroes, etc. "No, not those" he said. "Will you paint 'I love Mommy' with a heart?"

And so she did.

He says he never wants to wash his face again.

Best Shepherd Ever

2011-01-14T15:53:00.000-06:00

Some of my first memories as a kid involve Christmas pageants: my four year old debut as a lamb (which, oddly, I remember vividly but only of getting out of my costume to go to the bathroom), my six year old upgrade to Mary when I got to sing a solo while holding a hidden microphone. I guess kids have no way of realizing that Christmas pageants are a long way off Broadway - its just feels so amazingly special and magical.

And as it turns out, the parents feel the same way. This was my first year on the parent side of the auditorium as my own four year old A played a shepherd. And though I know its entirely predictable that I should think so, I do think he must have been the very cutest, the very best Shepherd the World Has Ever Known. I was so proud I nearly burst.

So, belatedly, enjoy these pictures of (at least) a very, very cute Shepherd.

Scanning the crowd to see if we're there watching.

What did I tell you?! Cutest Shepherd Ever!

Snowman! Soccer Ball!

2011-01-12T13:32:00.000-06:00

A few years back my husband and I attended a Holiday party and won the door prize - a three foot tall snow man. We weren't exactly thrilled but we brought him home and have dutifully put him out each year.

This year, Little Bee just happened to be the exact same size as Snowman, and they were immediatly fast friends.Their favorite activity was to play "soccer ball" together. B would drag Snowman from his usual decorative perch by the door into the kitchen. Then, with a tennis ball in hand he'd yell "Snowman! Soccer Ball!" and the game began.

Its a surprisingly long and nuanced game that I myself, having watched it played for hours, do not fully understand. Sometimes B throws the ball and then retrieves it. Sometimes Snowman throws it, with's B's help (so cute, B will hold the ball in Snowman's mitten and toss it across the room), and sometimes B will drag Snowman across the room to act upon the ball himself. There are other rules and actions, and Little Bee just cannot contain his love for this game. "Snowman! Soccer Ball!"

So unable to contain his love is he that a few days after Christmas Snowman began to look as though he were melting. First his arms and head drooped a bit. Then they sunk all the way to the floor. Once three feet tall, Snowman was a veritable puddle on our floor. When he was bent entirely backwards to the ground my husband and I decided to do a bit of Snowman surgery, for the sake of our son. Alas, a few metal dowels and joints had come completely severed. When we put away our Christmas decorations, Snowman was declared melted and gone.

I won't miss Snowman next year, but I'm sure Little Bee will. And I will certainly miss watching "Snowman! Soccer Ball" - the cutest game in town.

Confession: I bought books. But I have a funny story!

2011-01-10T15:41:00.000-06:00

Its only 10 days into 2011 and I've already bought more books. I was at a resale shop today and it just didn't seem right to leave these at home. Each was between .25 and .50. Judge for yourself if I was wrong or right. I provided a home for:

The Odyssey (in English - Fitzgerald's translation)
The Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Life of Pi (one of my all time favorites, which I do not own, and in like-new condition)
The Pilgrimage (by Paulo Coelho, an author I very much enjoy, also like-new)

So, now I have more books in the house that I have not read. But considering their condition, their price, and their literary quality, did I have any choice but to make an exception? I do not see this at all as a deviation from my plan; rather, I simply have more wonderful books sitting on my bookshelf for me to read this year.

While I was browsing I picked up a well-read copy of Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. A photograph was inside serving as a bookmark, so I opened right to it. The photograph showed a man I assumed to be the previous owner, surrounded by about 30 empty cans of Budweiser, showing his middle finger to the camera. How's that for a day's worth of irony?

Reading my way through a New Year's Resolution. Maybe.

2011-01-03T20:38:00.000-06:00

I'm typically not one for making New Year's Resolutions. I'm all for living disciplined and intentionally, but they just don't seem effective from what I've seen. So I shy away.

But this year I got a new bookshelf for Christmas, and as I was finally unpacking my beloved books (which foolishly spent the Roach months in boxes in storage) I had an idea. An epiphany, even. What if I decided that I would not go out looking for any new books, at the store or library or friend's house, until I had read all the un-read books I currently own?

I'm easily distracted when it comes to books. I'm a great library user and don't often buy them until I've already read them; but when I get hooked on a topic and find a great steal by my favorite author (of the month) at an obscure used book store I just can't pass it by. The result is a lot of really long, potentially tedious, certainly fantastic books that didn't get read before some other topic or tome caught my eye.

You know how I love to read. My initial fear was that I hadn't read these books yet for a reason, and that this resolution would doom me to a year of boredom and unfulfillment. But the fact is that I'm almost certain to enjoy these books as much as I would enjoy whatever topic caught my eye tomorrow. The only difference is it caught my eye yesterday and was added to a pile I never weeded through.

So...we'll see. Happy reading to me. And Happy New Year to you!

A's Parenting Philosophy

2010-12-27T19:56:00.000-06:00

This morning at breakfast I said to my husband "I wonder what our boys will be like when they are men?" Without hesitation A weighed in with "Well, I'm not going to talk to my kids all the time. I'm going to read, read, read!"

Later in the day he had earned a time out for disobeying. I happened, at that same moment, to be reading this article about a study which showed that kids need both the love and warmth that "indulgent" parents give, as well as the strict boundaries and awareness of consequences that "strict" parents give - rather than erring on either side. I read some of this to A as he sat in time out. "No, I think that's wrong" he said. I pretended to misunderstand - "you don't think kids need love and acceptance from their parents?" I asked? "No, they need that" he corrected, "but not the boundaries or the consequences." He shook his head vigorously and seriously. "No. No, I don't think so."

Two years of Little Bee

2010-12-22T11:24:00.000-06:00

In the dark I hear a voice calling me from my sleep. "Wawer pease! Wawer pease!" If Daddy goes in but he wanted Mommy, we'll promise the other parent and he'll wait patiently. Sometimes I'm hopeful that his patience is sleep and I try to go back to sleep. Twenty minutes later I'll be awoken again by a boy who is no longer patient and polite. "Now!" he yells. "Now!"

When he awakens in the morning the first priority is "ni-night Mommy" which means crawling into bed with me, head on my pillow, covered up with my blankets. He loves to snuggle, hug, and kiss but if my arm is blocking him he'll yell "arm away! arm away!"

He knows what he wants - no doubt about it - and most of the time he wants whatever his older brother has or is doing. And he doesn't want help - "self!" he insists "self!" Some of his favorites are "Mommy read book" or "Elmo watch." When it comes to food, dairy, noodles, and fruit are about all he'll consider. Anything else he'll play with happily or get mad and throw on the floor. If he's really mad at dinnertime he will actually dissemble his high chair, throwing each piece onto the floor, and climb out once the buckle has been freed from the (at that point non-existent) sides and walls.

He loves music. If you sing him a song, he'll sing along even if he's never heard it before. And if he's heard it even once he'll sing along with the right words. His favorites include "Jesus Loves Me" and "Hallelujah" and "Seek Ye First" and "Farmer In The Dell." He loves to sing the ABC's and count to twenty, though his pronunciation is nowhere close - but he knows the rhythm so he gets through easily.

At the end of the day nothing makes him happier than "rock! milk!" He's desperate to get at his bottle but if A is having his teeth brushed he must have his brushed too. After "rock, milk" he snuggles into his crib and it must be the very same position each time - with his blanket tucked under him, right arm slung around Big Bird, left arm slung around Piper. Then comes the cutest moment of the day: "Up sheet!" he demands. "Up sheet." I cover him all the way to his head with his fuzzy Auntie Feather blanket and he's ready for sleep.

This is my Little Bee. And today he has been with us for Two Years. Happy Birthday, two-year-old Bee.

A (Very Exciting) Pictorial Announcement

2010-12-16T14:51:00.001-06:00

Since moving in to our new house six weeks ago we've been busily unpacking and decorating.

Here's what we put up in A and B's room:

Stunningly creative, I know.

Wait...actually, that's not what we put up. Here's the full display:

Yes indeed! Baby #3 is on its way. I'm about 17 weeks along! So all this time I haven't been blogging and blamed it on the move? It was actually two moves and a pregnancy that was keeping me away. But now that I can finally spill the beans (not to mention keep food down), who knows? I might be back.

When Death Comes

2010-11-15T15:48:00.000-06:00

When Death Comes
by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Thanks to my cousin, who introduced me to this poem. In memory of my Uncle and in Love for all my family this week. And with gratitude and praise to God.

Oh, where does the time go?

2010-11-09T15:19:00.000-06:00

I love blogging, and I miss it. I love the creative outlet it gives me, the chance to reflect on my life and see what is stunning and beautiful that I would otherwise be too busy living to notice. I love that when there is something weighing on my thoughts, when I write about it, the weight is lifted. I write sometimes because I have no choice.

Ah, but recently. Remember last spring, and the amazing springtime season I was having? Now spring is long gone, as is summer, and fall is even starting to wrap up. Just as the changes of spring launched far more change and activity than just itself, so too did the springtime season in my life. And though I have a tremendous story to tell, or song to sing, or perhaps epic poem to recite, I have hardly written at all during these months.

Because I don't know how to tell it to myself, or to a few close friends, much less figure out which parts are appropriate to share with the entire internet. Suffice it to say, inside and out, 2010 has been quite the year so far.

And I've been busy. Some bloggers are super cool enough to keep writing several times a week while they move across country or even across the world. I am not that blogger. Yes, we moved again! This time just down the street. I wrote our Roaches a Dear John letter, telling them why I was leaving, imploring them to never, ever follow me. So far, they seem to have complied with my demands. (But no, that was not actually why we left).

Hopefully my schedule and my brain will open up soon and there will be at least some sort of explanation forthcoming. If you send me chocolate, I'm not promising anything, but it sure couldn't hurt!

The Intruder

2010-10-18T15:32:00.001-05:00

I awaken in the middle of the night. I'm home alone with the boys. I get out of bed and head towards the bathroom. I do this almost nightly, but this time, this one time, I switch on the hall light. Because of the light I'm able to see into the bathroom before I enter, and so I see him there, on the toilet seat as though he were waiting for me. He's massive and ugly and we're sizing each other up, wondering who will move first.

I do, making a dash for my spray. I'm back in a second pumping frantically in the direction of his eyes but only a fine mist comes out and its immediately clear that the spray is empty. He makes a move in my direction and I run again, this time for the phone, frantically calling my husband. I've just blurted out the situation when something unexpected happens - he falls over, unto his back, legs kicking wildly. Maybe more spray hit him than I had guessed? But as I watch he begins struggling to roll back over.

I know this is my chance and there's only one thing left I can do. Ignoring fear, I run to him, grab him quickly, throw him into the toilet and flush.

Grimacing, I use the bathroom as I originally intended and head back to bed shaken but unscathed. And consumed with two questions - Why did I turn on the light tonight? And more importantly...what about all the other nights I did not?

Could a Daddy forget his baby at the Sears Tower?

2010-10-14T16:35:00.002-05:00

Last night we were driving home for bed when we got a call that a friend needed emergency help. I turned the car around, to the great distress of Little Bee, while explaining that we would be spending the night at a friend's house. "No!" he cried, "Night-night! Home!"

But A was there to comfort him, and my heart entirely melted as I heard him say these words:

Don't worry, B. I'll be there with you. And remember - God is always with you. He won't ever leave you. The Bible says - 'Could a Daddy forget his baby at the Sears Tower? No! God says - even if a daddy could forget his baby at the Sear's Tower, I will never forget you. See? I have glued you to my hands, so that wherever I am, you just come along with me on my hands!' So don't worry Little B.

And if that isn't the most awesome thing in the world, I don't know what is.

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."

- Isaiah 49:15-16a

Why my housing hulaballoo and my Grand Adventure are the same story

2010-09-28T14:34:00.002-05:00

"...and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us."
Acts 17:26-27

First Week of (Pre)School: and so it begins

2010-09-13T14:22:00.006-05:00

This past week A began preschool, taking a flying leap out of his first baby years and squarely into the stage that will consume the next two decades of his life.

We eagerly went to the store to purchase the things on his supply list. When we got to Backpack Heaven (aka, the back wall at Target) we both just sort of stood there opened mouth for a moment. "I want the pink one" he announced decisively, apparently not overwhelmed by the hundreds of choice. Of course he did; pink is his favorite color and he always wants the pink everything. But I've been preparing myself for this moment for over a year, if you can believe it. We're not a family that sticks to strict gender rules and I'm perfectly happy for my son to love pink. But neither am I about to throw him to the lions on his very first day of school and society ever.

So right there in the aisle of Target I explained about Blue and Pink and Boys and Girls and about Teasing and Mean Kids and how You Can Choose Pink Next Time But First I Want You To Know What Its Like. A father and age-mated son pushed their cart past us in the aisle. He gave me a knowing smile and said "Socialization: and so it begins."

The evening before the first day A was excited in a serious and prepared sort of way. Without my suggesting it he got his backpack packed up and waiting by the door. When the time came, he threw himself in a hug against my leg and then was gone.

Everyone wants to know how it's going but oddly enough, I have no idea. For the first time he is really and truly having an experience that I know nothing of - not even a well trust babysitter to fill me in on every detail. And of course he's not about to answer any of my questions or offer any information. (I did find out that he's been on "green light" all week and that once he got to be the "Prayer Helper" for his job.) But he's excited to go in and excited when he runs out. And I did hang around long enough on the first day to peek in and see him sitting quietly during circle time. He raised his hand, was called on; came to the front of the class to put the flannel-graph apple in the correct sequence, then sat back down. I was astonished. When A came out of the door he showed me the smiley face sticker that meant he'd behaved. Then his face fell. "But I always get blue" he mourned. "She never gives me a pink one. Next time I'll ask her."

The one person who solidly does not like this arrangement is Little B. As we walk away from not only his brother but all the fun, fun rooms full of toys and good times he stretches his arms out in protest. Then mopes around saying A's name again and again. When I tell him A is at school he announces "All done." And when I finally can say it is time to go and pick him up he does a happy little dance. His smile grow every inch we get closer until he can't even contain it and erupts into chuckle.

Today A was a bit confused to learn he'd be going back again. "Oh yes" I told him, "you'll be in school now for the next 20 years."

And so it begins.

Three Books, Two Countries, One Decade

2010-09-09T06:45:00.005-05:00

Earlier this summer I read three books back to back: The Harvard Psychedelic Club by Don Lattin, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and The Help by Kathryn Stockett. On the surface they had absolutely nothing in common. Two were fiction, one was non-fiction. Two were set in the United States, one was set in The Republic of The Congo. One was about a group of Harvard professors and their research project. One was about a family being dragged to Africa by an abusive husband/father. One was about African American housekeepers in Jackson, Mississippi.

But after reading all of them over the course of a few weeks I realized something - each one began around the year 1960 and continued to follow the characters for a number of years into the decade. I was essentially getting a picture of the same time period in three very different places, and three very different sets of current events. Yet all three books intentionally depicted the historical events and settings of the time. Taken together, back to back, in a short time span, the effect was pronounced and profound. This is what I love about reading - sometimes the whole is much more than the sum of its parts.

Similar things have happened to me before. Once, years ago, I read multiple books one after the other which each mentioned that Radio City Music Hall held Saturday afternoon matinee's in the 1930's. Somehow, this dynamic in reading makes it all come alive for me. Yes, the story is fiction, but often a fictional narrative can hold truth too difficult to see any other way.

Beginning with The Harvard Psychedelic Club I got a glimpse of what the drug/LSD/counter-culture hullabaloo of "The Sixties" was all about - how it began, what fueled it, and where it ended up. I didn't enjoy this book much - I thought the author, if not the characters he wrote of, were tedious, self focused, and immature. But it showed me a much more nuanced view of the social, political, and spiritual dynamics of the time. It certainly expanded my perspective (no pun intended), in a good and powerful way.

But then I was off to Africa with The Poisonwood Bible, living these same turbulent years not with the counterculture drug and spirituality experiments of middle class America, but with the politically complicated and tragic society of colonial and post colonial Congo. Though this was an education in and of itself (not to mention a deeply nuanced and compelling story), juxtaposing the two sets of lives and upheaval from two very distant places of the world gave me pause.

Without realizing the connection I then turned to The Help, and found myself back in America during the early 1960's but this time in Jackson, Mississippi during the height of Jim Crow segregation. I fought constantly for orientation - this shocking story of racism and oppression took place in my country. Sure, but in 1860, right? Not during the years that my parents were teenagers. No? Merely one generation ago? Then it must be set in colonial Africa as I was just reading, not possibly a day's drive from where I sit happily co-existing with neighbors of every possible skin tone. It was hard, very hard, to realize that such deep, deep injustices and firmly held beliefs were propagated so close by, so very recently, even while Africa was struggling to free itself from Europe and teenagers in New York and San Fransisco were tuning in and dropping out.

I am so passionately a student of perspective. These three books, taken alone, were valuable in both reflecting and shaping perspectives I could not have found within my own circles - this is what I require in a good book. But it was all the more enlightening and enjoyable for me to read them back to back to back and see three different snapshots of what the world looked like during a decade that, for my generation, will be always be haunting and shaping us but never quite in our grasp.

Muslim Americans, I am honored to be your neighbor.

2010-09-06T06:28:00.006-05:00

I trade my shorts for jeans, even though it is 90 degrees inside and out. It has been so long since I wore long pants that I've forgotten what it feels like. I print out a short note, translated by Google into Arabic. I arrange a few fresh baked cookies on a plate and take a deep breath. This is hard for me, so hard. To do something as big as introduce myself when its so much easier to keep to yourself; to do something as small as offer cookies when the need for love to bridge the gap and erase the injustices is so great. I'm not sure which of these makes tears well up in my eyes, but they do, and stay there.

Overdressed for the weather, cookies in hand, I head out the door. It is a short walk. It is sunset. It is Ramadan.

I find the right building and eventually the right door. I knock.

She opens the door, dressed all in black from head to toe. She speaks no English and I no Arabic. Between my hand gestures, my translated note, and my cookies at least part of the point comes across. My note explains how I came to know of her and her horribly difficult day; that the cookies are a gift as she breaks her day's fast; that I am grateful to have her as a neighbor and will pray for her family. She invites me into her living room.

I stay only for a moment - we can only smile awkwardly at each other for so long - but it is good to be here, to be neighbors, to sit together as people with real lives.

As I go to the door she indicates that I can come anytime, and I try to do the same. As the door closes behind me the tears finally spill out. I cry the whole walk home and much of the rest of the evening.

I wonder often what it is like to be a Muslim in this country, these days, and I have watched with deep sadness as so much fear, hate, and misinformation has been stirred up lately by the controversy over the Islamic Center being built in New York, and the 9-11 Quran-burning, among other things. If this is truly about Religion, how could so many Christians find that fear and hate - the two things we are to conquer with love - instead have conquered our love? How could so many freedom loving Americans find so little value in extending freedom to their fellow Americans, motivated again out of fear of losing their own?

What amount of good can my little voice have among all the hurtful shouting and worse? I wish I had better than a plate of cookies to tell this Muslim American family, and hundreds more - I am honored to be your neighbor.

These beautiful, exhausting days

2010-09-02T14:41:00.001-05:00

A is holding a toy cell phone, and he hands me a toy hammer. "These are the call buttons" he explains, pointing to the hammer's handle "and this is where you listen and talk." Then he moves to the other side of the room and places a call to me.

"Mommy? Can you come and live at my house? We have a new baby here and we really need another grown up living here." An invitation to live with A? And help take care of my grandchildren? I'd never turn it down. "You bet!" I say into the hammer, "I'll be right over."

"Wait, change of plans" he says, before I hang up. "We'll come to you and you can drive us all back to my house - you've got a van, and we'll need the extra room." (We do not, in fact, have a van, but he makes a good point).

All the while, Little Bee is standing in the corner, dancing while he sings to himself the "ABC's."
-------------
"Mommy, on Sesame Street, when the grown-ups teach something new to their kids, it seems like the kids actually already know it. Its only the babies who don't seem to know." A is pondering this at breakfast with a pensive look on his face. He's right, and this strikes me as surprisingly insightful. I explain to him, carefully, watching his face for reaction, that the people on Sesame Street are actually actors, putting on a play like Brother and Sister Bear did in his book. They've made up a story, made costumes, a set, and now they are acting the whole thing out in front of a camera.

He takes this disillusionment one piece at a time, asking a lot of questions. There are many layers here: sure, they might be acting, but they do live there, right? Ok, maybe they don't live there, but they are actually the people they seem to be right? "Except for Big Bird" A says confidently. "He's not real or a puppet - he's someone in a costume."

After we've digested this for a moment he asks what I thought would be obvious by now. "So, is Sesame Street real?"
-------------
B loves to talk, and his words are so cute. "Whap!" he'll announce as he crawls into your lap. "Mama play!" he'll say emphatically, pointing forcefully towards me and then to his toys. He's worn "big boy underpants" a few times but he has misheard and think they are called "Big Bird underpants" and insists on calling them that. Big Bird is his favorite things ever.

He's at that stage where everything he says and does is just so cute and precious you can hardly stand it; and yet, can't capture it because it is embedded into every moment. On the other hand, he's fully in that temper-tantrum that never ends - the one where he's decided he wants to do everything independently. But who can turn away from his sweet budding language and precious face?
-------------
Someday my two sons will be grown men. They will hardly believe, much less remember, that they were once tiny wiggly bodies with chubby cheeks, sweet voices, and wispy hair; and they certainly won't want me talking about it. But I have a feeling that part of my soul is going to stay inside these beautiful, exhausting days forever.

"Caveat Emptor," Four Year Olds

2010-08-27T12:32:00.002-05:00

I have not been enticed by the siren song of hot dogs and chicken nuggets. Oh no. Sure, we eat them with abandon when dining at Two Toots or Costco, but they do not come home with us in the grocery cart. And when A sees brightly colored packages of food with cartoons on them at kid's eye level he shouts "Junk Food! We won't let them trick us into bring that home!"

But then he spotted the can of Campbell's Cars Chicken Noodle Soup. And we all know that every word in that title could be put in quotes. Chicken? Soup? And do those noodles really look like Cars? But he saw it, he had to have it. It was a dollar. Could I really say no?

We had it today for lunch and he was beside himself with excitement. I was planning to serve myself something else but he insisted that I at least try the broth "Its delicious! You'll love it!" he exclaimed. He excitedly announced plans for buying Campbell's Dora soup next.

But as he ate his last few bites before being excused he made a face and announced "Yuck. That soup is terrible. Let's never buy that soup again."

Confused, I asked "But I thought you love, love, love it?" He answered in an instructive, condescending tone. "No. I loved the advertisement. Not the soup."

Such a wise, insightful guy.

If-Then statements (and a Roach update)

2010-08-24T13:27:00.000-05:00

If my apartment has a balcony, and
if there's a sand box on the balcony, and
if my kids make such a mess out there that it takes me an hour and two baths to get it all cleaned up, and
if all that cleaning makes me such a sandy mess that I have to take a shower, and
if there's so much sand on me that I feel it while scrubbing my skin and washing my hair,
Then is that sort of like a day at the spa?

And If this happens on a day when I'm sick, and
if I'm so worn out that I serve Ramon Noodles for lunch because it sounds easier to make than PB&J,
Then can I still be eligible for Mother of the Year?
(I know...easier than PB&J?!?)

----------
Thanks for all your weighing in on renaming my roaches. I'm still pondering. I like the euphemism in "Palmetto Bugs" but it doesn't give me the casual turn of phrase like "Hey did you wipe the little Dudes off the kitchen table this morning?" Plus, Little Bee has learned to say "Roach" and its extremely cute. He'll spot one and yelp "roach! roach!" at the top of little lungs.

Both boys have learned that, when encountering a living thing smaller than their feet, its best to stomp first and ask questions later. Yesterday we were playing outside and I said "Look, B, an ant!" He walked over, peered down at it, then stomped it into oblivion, twisting his foot this way and that for good measure. Not the value system I set out to teach them, but these are desperate times...

Those who do not learn from the past...

2010-08-20T13:30:00.001-05:00

Below are two quotes. I'd like you to read them, then give a guess as to who said them, and what people groups they were referring to.

Here's the first quote:

Why should [immigrants] establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens who will shortly be so numerous as to change us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion?

And here's the second. Which religion has been said, in America, to be:

"...an invading enemy, audaciously conspiring, under the mask of holy religion, against the liberties of our country."

What do you think? What group of immigrants appear to be coming in such great numbers that we can hardly imagine them truly assimilating; that it appears more likely they will bring down our dominant American culture, language, and complexion? What religious group is so much a wolf in sheep's clothing as to be called an invading enemy, audaciously conspiring against our liberties, using holy religion as a mask?

I'll give you a clue - it wasn't on CNN or Fox News. It wasn't your Senator or the editor of your newspaper.

The first quote was by Benjamin Franklin in 1751. He was writing to his fellow Americans about the dangers posed by the recent wave of German immigrants settling in our country.

The second quote was taken from a book written by a Protestant Christian in 1839, written to alert Americans of the dangers to faith and liberty that was inherently posed by American Catholics. The book is titled Popery: An Enemy to Civil and Religious Liberty, and Dangerous to our Republic.

If there is anything I've learned from the Diversity classes that I teach its that our current fears and predicaments are essentially the same fears and predicaments that America has faced all along. Its hard now to imagine German immigrants being so very very different and dangerous from the dominant English culture that their language, custom, and complexion (!!!) would overtake our country. But its very easy to imagine someone saying such things about the more recent and ongoing wave of Hispanic immigrants that currently pour into our country. Its almost impossible to perceive our Roman Catholic neighbors as participating in a violent religion with the intention of destroying our American liberties, but its very easy to imagine the same being said of our Muslim neighbors and communities.

In fact, a day does not go by in which I do not hear or read both of those statements.

Discovering that America has had a love/hate relationship with immigration and diversity all along does not minimize the actual problems we face today, but it is radically important that we place today's dilemma's in their proper historical context. We have not reached a fork in the road that will lead our beloved country to its destruction. We are simply in the same difficult balancing act we have alway found ourselves in.

I'm not insinuating that we do not have a complex and unique immigration problem in our country today - I am strongly convinced that we do, and it will take radical measure to solve. But perhaps the fear that our language, safety, and economy are about to collapse under the weight of today's immigrants is -as it has been in the past - unfounded.

I am not suggesting that Muslim terrorists do not have it in mind to destroy our country - they do indeed. But we share this country, and the rights it offers us, with neighbors that worships a God they call "Merciful and Gracious" and practice a religion they call literally "Submission, Obedience, and Peace." Perhaps the best way to ensure the freedom of faith is to not be the ones to withhold it. Perhaps the best weapon the terrorists have is our own fears and hatred. Perhaps the best weapon we could use against them would be our own unity.

I wonder if that ugly, ugly word, that word we thought we had put behind us, has more to do with our fears than we're letting on. Racism. Its a question I am insisting I ask of myself.

My neighbor as myself

2010-08-16T08:25:00.021-05:00

What we want out of life has a lot to do with what we expect from life.

What we expect has a lot to do with how life has gone for the people around us.

Those to whom much is given, much will be required.

I am talking to my new friend, "Rosa." I am sitting in her apartment, eating her food, listening to her story. Already I know her smile and her facial expressions. But she is telling me how, five years ago, she left her two daughters behind and traveled to a new country - my country - so that she could earn enough money to care for their most basic needs. The journey was horrible, threatening (and nearly taking) her life. She works now, longer hours than I ever have, harder work than I have ever done, for less money than I have ever earned. She can think of no way that she will realistically ever see her daughters again, but because of the couple hundred dollars she sends back each moth, they survive.

It is one thing to read this story and quite another to hear it while looking at her eyes and sharing her food, calling her my friend. My children are now the exact ages hers were when she left. For one horrible moment I try to imagine myself in a position where my children lacked even basic food, water, shelter, and education; where they could survive only if I left them behind forever and moved to a foreign land where I had nothing and no one. In all the worst-case scenarios that always run through my head, this one has never, ever, come up. It is unthinkable.

Living with roaches and no washing machine is nothing by comparison.

I am around Rosa and others like her all the time now. Their lives and losses are each unique, but all within the same magnitude. I am beginning to feel that my standard of living, which recently took a nose dive, is quite opulent. I consider how many people she shares her tiny apartment with and wonder what I could do to get by on less than I have now; if someone else could somehow have more if I was willing to have less.

At the same time, I also enter a very different world each day. A world that feels "normal" and increasingly not normal at all. A world in which people are paid all the money they have earned; a world where education can be had; where skin color, language, clothing, and mannerisms invisibly open doors, not slam them shut; a world where we talk about needing a bigger house if a baby's on the way, or a phone that accesses the internet, or a vacation abroad, or a PhD. I participate in these conversations pretending like its normal but I'm choking back something between a laugh of irony and a sob of pain. Because I want all these things too but it sounds so, so funny to me now.

Forget asking which world is normal. Forget asking even which world is right. I'm consumed with the question: which world is mine? The one I see everyday, the one who's injustices and pain call to me more passionately and compellingly each day? Or the one that made me, the one I have always know and by which I have been known?

Or a third option, as A will always find - living as a bridge between the two. An endless loop of culture shock and re-entry shock, not daily but several times per day. And then, where do I learn what to expect? From the life I have always lived or the life I am surrounded by now? As my expectations change, so too my worldview and my theology and my understanding of blessing and of responsibility and good news and on and on....

You are the ultimate of love and beauty, yet you lived and suffered with us. Teach me, please. Gently.

When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required. - The Bible
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and...love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these. - The Bible

A Roach by any other name...

2010-08-13T13:38:00.000-05:00

I know a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I'm thinking that roaches might be easier to live with if they had a nicer name. Let's face it - if you told me you woke up and found ladybugs or butterflies crawling all over your kitchen table, I'd hardly cringe. Put the word "roach" in there and that changes everything.

So having tried nearly everything to get rid of them, like the King in The King, The Mice, and the Cheese I need to learn to live with them. And the first step is re-naming. And I need your help.

I know most of my readers are not commenters, but please, do this for me. Leave me a comment with your idea of what I should re-name my roaches. Then pass the word on to your friends and ask them to do the same.

Please. Don't leave me alone with these..."ladybugs."

Self Conscious

2010-08-10T08:27:00.000-05:00

Its a 90-something degree day with nearly 100% humidity. Our apartment has a "natural" climate and I can hardly breath. The air feels like it will automatically combust into a water balloon at any moment. A, however, is insisting on wearing long pants and long sleeves. I refuse, having dressed both boys in the only reasonable thing I can imagine - underwear. But he keeps sneaking into his room to grab clothes from his drawers on the sly so I finally stop fighting. He's wearing blue jeans and a heavy long sleeve shirt. And its more humid than I can stand, and I love humidity.

When we're about to leave the house a few hours later, I'm not willing to give in. I take off his long sleeves, compromise on the jeans, and lay out a t-shirt. He walks towards it mumbling something to himself. He doesn't sound upset but I catch the last few words "if I wear that shirt they'll laugh at me."

Now, I know some kids his age who insist on wearing only yellow clothes, or only shirts that have trucks on them. But A has never, ever in his life indicated any opinion about his clothing or even an awareness of them. And now he's afraid he'll be laughed at? What's going on?

"What did you say?" I asked in a friendly, non-alarmist tone. "Oh, nothing - just talking to myself" he replies. "Well, what did you say to yourself?" I ask in what I hope is not a nosy, probing voice. "Oh, just that if I wear that shirt to the library, then the kids there will laugh at me. Because there will be a lot of kids there. And they might think I look silly."

I asked him if he thought he looked silly in the shirt. No, he was very clear - he didn't think he looked silly, but all the other kids probably would. And laugh at him.

Possibly other mothers have conversations with their children like this all the time. What's so strange to me is that this sudden aware-and-a-bit-terrified-of-how-others-see-me attitude is totally without precedent. And I mean totally without precedent. And its about clothes.

I suggested two options: if he liked the shirt, he could wear it anyway and not worry about what anyone else thought. I told him I'd stand by him if he chose that. Or, he could decide to wear something he felt more comfortable in. I told him I'd stand by him if he chose that too. He went with a different shirt, and he wanted me to choose it.

I came back with a nice shirt with a collar that would be very dapper with his blue eyes and blue jeans, and not in the least bit silly. He tried it on. "No, they might think this is silly too. I'm not sure that this color blue looks right with these blue jeans" he says, frowning. "Oh, and mom, when we get there can you call me "A" and not "Hunny Bunny?"

I nearly passed out with shock.

Where did this come from??

This very moment

2010-08-08T22:36:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, for just a moment, it hits me that I'm alive, right now, right this very second. I haven't always been, and I won't always be. In fact, my life spans such a tiny, tiny segment of history. But right now, right now, I'm alive. And with that realization I'm filled with so much wonder and gratitude

I recently read in an article that "Parenthood confronts us with our own mortality, every day." I just want to say - Yes; that's true. Every Single Day.

Summer Moments, Part 2

2010-08-05T08:39:00.000-05:00

I've been standing on the beach, watching the sun set across the water. My feet in the sand, children playing all around me in the surf, water lapping at my ankles. I'm alone in a very rare moment and I'm drinking in everything.

I've turned around to head back to my car, feet plodding through the still-warm sand, when I look over my shoulder behind me just in time to see the sun slip down over the water horizon. And as I turn my head forward again I see the moon, big, bright, and full, just peeking up over the trees.

Gorgeous.

Summer Moments

2010-08-03T13:22:00.000-05:00

We are at a soccer field, watching dozens of kids playing soccer. We're surrounded by people, green grass, and soccer balls. We are waiting. The boys are restless, naughty, prone to running off into the street and eating pebbles. But then we climb, soccer balls in hand, to the top of a hill. Following my lead, the boys place their soccer balls on the ground and give a kick. Down, down they tumble, first the balls, and then the boys. Retrieving them at the bottom they turn, grinning, and make their way back up. They do this 50 times, at least.

Each time I have the immense pleasure of watching their faces, their bodies, their eyes; of hearing their voices yell and cheer; of watching their tiny, nimble bodies pick up downward speed and yet rarely tumble. I am amazed at their energy and balance, even the baby's. First up the hill comes my four year old, tall and strong and fully aware of himself. Just behind comes my 19 month old, a very small and entirely unstoppable force who knows exactly what he wants and isn't afraid to fight you for it. Both so very, very alive; both so very, very precious to me.

Later we wander off and find a drainage drain for the field so wide I could lie across it. Treasure! Now we are digging up pebbles in the dirt and dropping them through the slats - its a long way down and a satisfying splash at the bottom. Once again we do this 50 times if we do it once. Little B is yelling "rocks!" and "water!" at the top of his lungs; A is explaining things to us about nature and sewage systems and flooding.

By the time we head home, the boys are tired and fussy and dirty. I am happy, holding in my mind and heart the treasures of summer time with little boys. Its a busy summer; the poetry and epiphanies and their beautiful faces all but buried in my to-do lists and change processing. But tonight I saw it all.

An interview with a Four Year Old

2010-07-31T10:18:00.004-05:00

Last year a friend got me started on the tradition of interviewing your kids on their birthdays from year to year to see how the answers change. Here's this year's interview with A:

Favorites:

cereal- peanut butter cheerios, but we don’t have any more. I want to buy more. (Sad face).
vegetable- carrots and green beans
drink- juice
toy- my remote control truck
TV Show- Bob (the Builder). No, Cars!
game- Bob the Builder tent
book- Winnie the Pooh. Space books.
restaurant- Two Toots because it has the Thomas video playing sometimes
holiday- my birthday
animal- Winnie the…no, Bears. No, Trains. No,I already told you - Bears

(At this point he says “just pause for a second, I have to go potty. Just write an email or something.")

If you could change your name, what would you choose? A. A Birthday (Last Name)

What do you love about each person in our family? Mommy – lots of things, I don’t know. Because you sleep next by me, next door. Daddy – because he can lift heavy things. B – that he’s so little and comforts.

Where would you like to go on vacation this year? To see the city of Jacks. Its not a city, it’s a CD. It never rains and it never storms and people stay inside because there’s no weather.

What are some of your wishes for this year? I don’t want to wish anything.

What is something mom always says to you? I love you, sweet pea.

What makes mom happy? I don’t know. Because you crawl.

What makes mom sad? if you and me or you and daddy have a fight about something.

How does mom make you laugh? When I was a baby. By saying funny things.

What was your mom like as a child? A sister.

How old is your mom? Four…teen thousand old?

How tall is your mom? Fourteen thousand? (this is his favorite number)

What is her favorite thing to do? Play on the computer (ha ha! no, it not at all but I can see why he would think so).

What does your mom do when you're not around? Work in a tree. Cutting it down so all the buildings will be knocked down. That’s why. Ok? Do it. (Um...no.)

If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? You tell me.

What is your mom really good at? Playing on the tree. Working on the computer.

What is your mom not very good at? I don’t know…sitting in the Bob the Builder tent. (True, I don't fit).

What does your mom do for a job? Work with a tree company, work to mow the lawn (he’s being silly now). Eat pancakes.

What is your mom's favorite food? Eggs (Ah...I hate eggs).

What makes you proud of your mom? When she eats Egg-ies for the first time, when you eat mashed potatoes. I’m not being silly!

If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Lightning McQueen

What do you and your mom do together? We read “Little House on the Plum Creek”

How are you and your mom the same? We all have toes

How are you and your mom different? I’m not a grown up and you’re a grown up!

How do you know your mom loves you? Because you hug me all the time.

What does your mom like most about your dad? I don’t know.

Where is your mom's favorite place to go? I don’t know. Out to work? Or to the library to borrow books and CDs

Is there anything else you want to say that I can write here? No. Can we be done now? My stomach needs juice.

Here's what he said last year, if you want to compare. :)

Four Years Old

2010-07-22T14:33:00.000-05:00

Today my first born is four years old. Somehow time has passed and time and time and time, and it has been four years since that long, hard day that was really 36.5 hours, and then that beautiful, amazing day that really was my whole life. This morning he crawled into my bed and curled up under my right arm, just as we spent our first night, four years ago.

But he's definitely not a baby now - I woke him with a "Happy Birthday" and he asked me if having a baby would be more exciting if you gave birth in outer space. He can list all the planets for you and tell you about a manned trip to Mars that being planned right now. He knows various theories for why the dinosaurs vanished; will also explain that I shouldn't kiss his owies because kisses have no way to actually heal anything; of the difference between documented and undocumented immigrants; that, though nothing is like God, the wind can help us understand what it means to be Spirit

In the previous years, A's birthday has felt as much a milestone for me as it was for him. One year since I gave birth, two years of being a parent, three years of seeing my baby turn into a big boy. This year was different - he started it a big boy and ended it a big boy. Its all about his big day, celebrating him. And that means doing what he wants to do, which is turning out to be very different from what I want on my birthday. He's been quite upset today, gloomy even, whenever attention is put on him. He does not want anyone to sing to him, I've discovered. But presents are good.

Happy Birthday to you, my big little boy. I love every day with you.

Doors

2010-07-12T14:23:00.001-05:00

I remember the last time I walked out of my building's front door without children. I was on my way to the hospital, in labor. I froze the moment in my mind, knowing that the next time I was at home I would have a child.

I remember our bedtime routine. Bath, PJs and diaper, books. Then before his songs A would slide off my lap, pad in his sleeper-covered feet over to his bedroom door and push it closed. Then, turning off the light, he would make his way to me in the dark. Neither of us could see the other but he would always find me on the first try.

I remember the first time Little Bee did the same, running ahead of his brother to push the bedroom door closed on his own. I can see us all there, snug in their baby room, singing, hugging, falling asleep. It is such a safe happy memory. But how is it suddenly a memory? Just days ago it was my reality, with the changeless endlessness of happy day stretching into happy day.

I don't remember the last time I walked out of my building's front door with my children. We were so busy and so rushed we forgot to look over our shoulders and say goodbye. Of course we could still go there and do so, but it wouldn't be the same. Things have changed. It happened so fast I didn't really realize how big of a door we were closing behind us until I heard the click of the latch.

I should have known how big this change would be; I have, after all, moved over 15 times. But I didn't realize that our little condo was the most like home I have felt since my childhood home. Because it was home - the entire world - to my children. I knew their childhood was fleeing by, but I didn't understand that a door to their first years would close simply by living elsewhere. Tonight we still read and rocked and sang, but in my head I could say "remember when" and it wasn't the same as "now."

Of course, there are two sides to every door, and the end of one chapter means a fresh new one just beginning. But this is a take-my-breath-away reminder that there is no turning back the clock.

A and Little B - I love every day with you.

The view from here

2010-06-28T19:42:00.000-05:00

Lacking a succinct metanarrative to explain this move I've just made, let me offer you a few tidbits of my view from here.

What does this say about me? The first room we unpacked was our boys' room - from their beds to their toys to the pictures hanging on the wall - everything, done. The second thing we did was set up our computer. Then the living room. Then a trip to scope out the library and get library cards. A full week into this move I've only got my kitchen unpacked because a friend came over and did it for me (what a lifesaver!) and I haven't touched the bathroom boxes or our bedroom. I have no idea where there's a grocery store. I guess you can learn a lot about a person by watching them move into a new place.

I mentioned on Facebook that I was moving from India to Mexico, and it was only 20 minutes away. In our old neighborhood I would often find myself the only woman at the library, pool, or park not wearing a Sari or head covering. Here, I'm living in an apartment complex of over 2000 people, and nearly 2000 of them are Hispanic. But would you believe it? After years of (unsuccessfully) trying to make friends with the Hindu and Muslim ladies back home, the very first person I encountered here was a lady from India. Five minutes later we had found a million things in common, she had suggested a trip to the park, offered to teach me about Hinduism, and we each had the other's phone number programmed into our cell phones. Go figure.

The welcome wagon in this particular apartment was driven by cockroaches. Lots and lots of cockroaches. We now have 25 roach traps in a kitchen smaller than some people's kitchen island, but it doesn't seem to be making much difference. I grew up in nature-filled houses in rural farmland, and once lived in a rural village in India, but I watched too much Star Trek: The Next Generation growing up to want that many creepy-crawling things getting too close to my babies' food and beds. But there's a great swimming pool on site and my husband comes home for lunch. So every thorn has its rose (or something).

I just remembered yesterday that I don't handle change very well. Might have been good to remember two weeks ago. I spent quite a few hours last week that should have been spent sleeping reading "The Sparrow." It was one of the best novels I've read in a very very long time, but it was also harrowing and devastating. I think it may have been exactly the book I needed to read to prepare me for this time.

I know I have all but abandoned this site recently, but I'm back. Are you still out there? I'd love to hear from you if you are.

Obeyed and went

2010-06-26T10:52:00.000-05:00

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. - Hebrews 11

There's been a lot going on.

At no time since I started this blog over four years ago have I gone more than a week without posting. Now it has been nearly a month. And though I am still sorting through everything that happened during this recent springtime season, there is no question about the outcome. We have rented out our condo and moved twenty minutes away into a small apartment. This is supposed to be a temporary stop, and we have feelers out for what will be next. It has happened all at once - from the very first thought to the loaded moving truck was only a matter of weeks. And we are still far, far from knowing what its all been about or what it will ultimately become.

So here I am, amidst boxes, trying to figure out what has happened in the past month. Once I do, you'll be the first to know.

Summertime Season

2010-06-03T13:42:00.001-05:00

Springtime has given way to Summertime and the world is teeming with life and all the busyness it brings. Every surface is crawling with bugs, every breath of wind carrying the seeds of a million different plants; the sun shines hot, the rain falls hard; even the moisture in the air has a tendency to launch colonies of mold or mildew or bacteria on every surface it finds.

Gone is the subtly of spring with its pastel colors, mild temperatures, and tiny beginnings. Here instead is the full vibrancy of summer with bold colors, loud noises, everything in extremes. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere is the fullness of life.

It is amazing how something that begins in a whisper, a time of contemplation and creation, culminates in such a cacophony of noise and happy chaos. The awakening time of creativity is now the busy, full-steam-ahead time of carrying out all the life that was hatched in those early, quiet days - so recent, and yet so far behind.

And in this way it is the Summertime season for me too. All that was awakened and created in me during those quiet, contemplative days of early spring have hatched for me plans and busyness that are consuming my time, my thoughts, and my energy. But this is good in its season - the responsibility of life, the fullness of time.

With the swarms of insects that enter my window after dark, I am hurriedly gathering all I need for this busy time of accomplishing. And always, always, following my Creator as he goes ahead of me like a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.

Learning, Listening

2010-05-25T14:03:00.002-05:00

I'm often struck by how much wisdom we must have traded away when we stopped living out in nature and started living among concrete. Nature truly does call out the Truth but you have to be so quiet to hear it, and patient to understand it. And we value being noisy and fast paced above all else. Here are a few whispers I have been learning and trying to live.

From the trees I learn to be strong, deeply rooted - and yet flexible enough to bend with the swaying of the breeze. What a paradox: strength coming both from flexibility and lack of flexibility, each in its place and time.

From the river I learn to be willing, to surrender. The water is strong and powerful and can hold or carry anything. But it can also let go, can become as delicate and fragile as a dew drop. Water flows, changing itself to fit, wherever a place is opened for it. Its life giving force becomes destruction only when something tries to get in its way, unable to let go and surrender.

From the flowers I learn what to expect: nothing remains the same. There is always change - life to death and death to life. Yet another paradox - this constant change takes place on a stage that is always, always the same.

From the sky I learn that I am small - and my fears and anxieties much smaller still. I learn that I should be silent at times for there is so very, very much I do not understand.

From the forest I learn than life exists only in a community, interdependent and connected to each part. Who I am impacts everything; but at the same time I become small when drowned out by the joyous song of life.

From the bush, with its thick leathery leaves and thorny branches I learn that every creature has developed a way to care for and protect itself - so I can be patient and gentle with all those that I meet.

From You I learn all this, and more. I wait for you.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Psalm 19:1-3

Apple Pie and the Universe

2010-05-19T20:21:00.002-05:00

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch,

you must first invent the universe.

- Carl Sagan

Thanks to my brother for the great quote.

Dinner Times are Good Times

2010-05-18T12:39:00.000-05:00

Actually, they're indescribably chaotic, loud, and messy. But who can resist something that cute?

Aforementioned Super Cute Spring Pictures

2010-05-17T10:20:00.000-05:00

...and this is just the beginning. You can see the whole album here.

Three

2010-05-10T13:07:00.004-05:00

A and B were walking around with their Easter baskets, pretending to pick up eggs from around the house. A came to me with a bunch of blocks in his basket and asked me how many "eggs" he had picked up.

I counted for him - one, two, three, four, five, six.

He took one out and asked how many there were now. I counted - one, two, three, four, five.

He took another out and asked again. This time I had him count. With one finger jabbing each block he counted - one, two three, four.

He took out yet another, and began to count again - one, two, three. He looked up at me with his face beaming. "Three!" he said, triumphantly, "just like me!"

I looked at the three tiny blocks nestled together at the bottom of the basket. Three is such a small number, so tiny, so tender, so much more like one than five. Three is new-born, just-begun. You can hold three easily in the palm of your hand. You could very easily lose three. Three is like springtime, so fresh, so new.

I looked at my three year old boy. He is so big, so strong, so independent, so opinionated. He is intelligent - he knows things that I don't know. He is capable - he can do things that I can't do. He'll argue his point - and win. He'll make decisions - and you'll find they are better than yours was.

A is so strong and grown up. Three is so fresh and vulnerable.

True, its just a few months before he'll be four. But still I look at my boy, and at the blocks in his basket, and I remember the truth about my little son.

Springtime Season

2010-05-06T14:31:00.006-05:00

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone. -Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

The last time my blog was so silent and sporadic, I announced several weeks later that I was pregnant with Little Bee. There's no new baby this time around but this springtime season has been a remarkable time of creation within me. Two months ago I looked around at the emerging life in nature and wondered what new life was being awakened within me. And what a two months it has been.

But how to put words to it? I've been stumped, and therefore silent. Some things cannot be described directly, only circumnavigated, told in metaphor or story. So here is what I have written to convey my experience:

I have been on a long journey underground. My travels have been through caves and tunnels, with beautiful sights, parts of nature I have never seen and hadn’t been able to imagine. I had no sense of heading towards an ultimate destination but was wholeheartedly enjoying the journey itself. Each new cavern contained such lovely, breathtaking views and wonders. I had no intention of ever ending the tour.

But now suddenly I take a step and find myself burst into the light. And not only have I emerged without warning into daylight but I am standing in the most beautiful, the most glorious place of them all. Suddenly my entire trip is cast in a different light – what I enjoyed as an end in itself I now realize, with surprise and joy, to have been primarily a process, a building up, and without realizing there was a destination I have arrived.

Looking around in this glorious, awe inspiring place I know that I could never have been persuaded to come here, nor would I have ever found the way directly. Instead the journey I have been on has led me here. The gratitude that I feel is overwhelming, as is my surprise. And with these comes the certainty that I have been led, that I have not been wandering aimlessly and alone at all. And the certainty of this realization leaves me in awe and silence.

So there is my metaphor, an explanation for my silence, an invitation to join me in this Springtime Season, and a song of praise. To you it feels like I have said nothing, but to me it feels like I have said everything.

The Lord is near.

A foretaste of cute pictures to come...

2010-05-04T12:38:00.002-05:00

Redemption

2010-05-01T06:47:00.001-05:00

I have stood at the center of the world
The primordial Tree, the innocent Beginning
I have been rejected there, exiled
So I wander
Homeless, yet seeking Home.
Marked, yet seeking Redemption

I have traveled so far in my wanderings
That I have changed, and the distance became a chasm
And yet I have stayed so closely tied
Lingering near with hope for Healing
Longing for Redemption

I stand in the place of Anger and Accusation
Watching the last box of bitterness carried out the door
Alone now with the vast emptiness in its place
There's nothing left to do but this endless
Wandering and Lingering

I have forgiven
But you have forgotten
Even a child casts her own shadow
The past has built itself into my body and soul
And there it is:
The bruised and fallen apple is its own seed
Redemption

Rambunctious Easter Boys

2010-04-29T13:50:00.004-05:00

I tried getting some cute pictures of my boys this past Easter. That's what you're supposed to do, right? It was a special day, they were wearing special clothes, I sat them down in the same place I did last Easter...and here's what I got.

Yup, that's pretty much what this quiet, bookworm's life is like now...

Monday Morning

2010-04-26T06:45:00.000-05:00

From the Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God our heavenly Father, you declare your glory
and show forth your handiwork in the heavens and in the
earth: Deliver us in our various occupations from the service
of self alone, that we may do the work you give us to do in
truth and beauty and for the common good; for the sake of
him who came among us as one who serves, your Son Jesus
Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Found her way home

2010-04-19T18:30:00.003-05:00

I was sitting in a conference this weekend, checking my email during a (rare) slow moment, and heard that a friend of mine had died. Not only that, but she had died a month ago, only in her 50's, from a heart attack. The name I knew her by was Chani - Thailand Chani.

It seems untruthful to call her my friend as I have never met her, do not know what she looks like, do not know what her voice sounds like. But she was one of the first people I "met" through my blog that I've actually stayed in contact with over the years, and that was probably about three years ago.

I don't have much to say - don't know what to say - but it felt wrong to not make this place a sacred place of remembering and honoring, at least for a moment.

"Thailand Chani" as we knew her was alway searching for home. Its striking for me to think back to her most recent posts - mourning the loss of her roommate who had moved to a nursing facility due to a life-ending disease, not realizing her own life would end first. Longing to move to her spiritual home of Thailand, not realizing that she would be arriving at her true spiritual place of rest.

Striking to me how suddenly it all can end, and no second chances or last minute additions. Just done. Hard to read all the comments on her blog and facebook page asking where she is, and why we haven't heard from her in awhile.

Let's all look up into the sky today, feel the sun or the wind or the heat or the cold, and remember that today we are alive. And being alive is a gift.

Confession

2010-04-12T13:38:00.003-05:00

There is a song that fills the universe

A single sound, one constant note

The earth and sky quiver like a tuning fork

And I can hear it.

Sometimes I lose myself in the ecstasy of sound

Body and soul turning head over heels

Swept along with the music of the spheres.

Other times I listen and wonder

What is that sound?

What does it mean?

What does it mean?

Which is better: To gaze into the sun or to see because of it?

Good (yummy) stuff coming up

2010-04-12T13:09:00.001-05:00

I was recently contacted by someone who works for www.csnstores.com and invited to peruse their two-hundred-and-something stores. For real! I didn't actually visit every single one of their websites, but I spent enough time peeking around to discover they're not joking when they say everything is on sale - everything from cool fruit bowls to speaker stands.

You already know all about my hobbies - reading, theology, writing, World Religions - and cooking does not rank on the list at all. But my husband is a full blown foodie - which is a good quality to have in a husband. I would choose food he prepared over food at nearly every restaurant, anytime. I've been hungry for a good omelet recently, and he's been hungry for an All Clad non-stick skillet for months (I'm not making a single word of this up). So after looking at thousands of items for sale, which one did I pick? Yes, the skillet.

I haven't done a non-book review around here in a long time, but my hobbies aren't the only ones that matter. So stay tuned to see how much I enjoyed my omelet, and how much my husband enjoyed his skillet (and I'll review the shopping experience with CSN as well).

My boys after all

2010-04-08T19:26:00.006-05:00

My boys are all boy. Sometimes I think ahead to the day when snuggling has been exchanged for sports and I wonder if I'll be left in the dust.

Today the nearly unheard of happened - both boys napped, and at the same time. Even more unlikely, it was a day when I had no pressing work or responsibilities with which to fill the time. I was unusually weary so I spent my free hour doing what I always do when I'm exhausted and have a truly free moment: I curled up in a chair and...read theology.

When Little Bee woke up I brought him to my chair. He saw the book I had been reading and insisted on looking through it. "Do you like my book, B?" I asked. "Yeah!!" he replied in 15 month language, eyes lighting up. "Do you enjoy theology like I do, B?" I queried. "Yeah!!" he responded with his voice and entire body.

A few minutes later we went into A's room to wake him. I sat beside him and gently shook him; he rolled over and, within seconds of rousing, said:

"Did you know that the reason people worry is because they love people? And they don't want anything to happen to them. And did you know that's what's wrong with Hate too? Because someone loves them, so you shouldn't hate them because their family wouldn't want something to happen to someone they loved. And did you know that God helps with that? Did you know that God can even help Pirates? There are some Pirates that, because of God, are becoming kind, normal people! Its true!"

Ah, they are my boys after all.

No babies in this house!

2010-04-05T15:23:00.001-05:00

As of last month Little Bee is officially a toddler. After several weeks of taking steps while grinning proudly and making sure everyone was watching, he's decided to go full biped. One day he was wobbling two or three steps at a time, the next day he was walking all over the house. 24 hours later he had moved on to running and jumping on the bed (seriously, you should see him try so hard to jump on the bed! Its too cute!). There's no turning back.

His vocabulary is taking off as well. He's got the usual baby words down, recognizable at least to the trained ear. His brother's name, Da-da, ball, hot, honk, woof-woof, doggy, bye bye, geese, on/off, fishy, Bob (the Builder), bath - just to name a few. Funnily enough, his favorite words are "actually" and "uh-oh spaghetti-oh." He'll sit in his car seat or high chair saying "actually actually uh-oh spaghetti-oh actually actually" over and over again. One day he and I were getting in the car for church while A went in Daddy's car. B didn't know where A was and as I drove away I heard a tiny, sweet, adorable, urgent voice saying "uh-oh spaghetti-oh! uh-oh spaghetti-oh!" and pointing to the empty car seat. When he really, really wants something he'll yell "Dooo! DOOooOOO!" with a tone that implies desperate hope. Its nearly impossible to resist.

He seemingly understands everything we say to him, and should he ever be awake when his big brother is asleep he'll so eagerly request that we go and wake him; there's just no one in the world like his big brother.

Days have turned over into weeks, into months, into a year and more. Little Bee is now a little boy.

Goodbye, Hodi Dodi: encountering death in Holy Week

2010-04-01T13:57:00.001-05:00

Last summer I gave A two water frogs for his birthday. It was no surprise that he named them Hodi Dodi and Adi Adi. They were his first and only pet and though he often commented that a dog would be better, I think he was fond of them.

I noticed recently that Hodi Dodi did not seem to be doing well and then today I found him lying belly up. I lifted A in my arms to see and told him that Hodi Dodi had died. His face went entirely blank, and then suddenly filled with deep grief.

For an hour or more he asked question after question in a thin, quiet voice. Why? What happened? How could we help him? Could we call a Veterinarian? At least call? Why not? When would he be alive again? Could we still keep him? Might he just be sleeping? There were no tears but much seriousness and holding on to me. I knew he was navigating through deep and powerful new emotions.

Then he asked me to hold him in my lap and tell him the story of Hodi Dodi dying. I held him close and told the story of a little frog who came to live at A's house, who spent happy day after happy day, swimming and jumping, eating and sleeping, living life just as he was created to do. But one day he felt tired and knew his turn to be alive was ending. He lay down on some rocks and it was his turn to die.

A began to cry. He cried and sobbed and wailed. I held him, encouraging him to cry loud and long, telling him it was normal and right to cry when someone has died. My eyes filled too, for the hard truth my child was facing for the first time and not for the last; for the hard truth we all face.

As he wailed I told him that once all the sadness had passed through him, after some time the sadness would begin to heal. He hated this idea, refusing it, not wanting the loss of Hodi Dodi to fade. I was amazed that he recognized so instinctually the bitter-sweetness of dried tears, of moving on.

When he calmed, he asked if we could put Hodi Dodi in a cage to look at forever. I explained that when something dies it lies still for some time but then begins to fall apart; that it was best to put it in the ground or water because when it fell apart it could become part of the dirt and then become good food for plants and flowers, giving itself to create new life. He asked if we could put Hodi Dodi in the ground by our tulips - just beginning to peek up - so his body could feed them for springtime. I said that was a great idea.

But then he was sobbing again, crying hard. He was asking something but it took me awhile to make it out. He asked about when God creates the new Heaven and new earth, when he raises the dead back to life and gives us new bodies. What then, he wondered? Ah, as do I. I told him that I didn't know how it would work, or when, but that God would be with us and take care of us. "But what about Hodi Dodi?! In the ground!" he sobbed "Can we bring him with us?"

I told him again that God would know what to do, was in control even over death, that God would take care of us when we died and Hodi Dodi too - that he knew even when a small bird fell, and cared. "But what about the tulip plant, if Hodi Dodi's body was food to help it grow?" he asked through tears. "Could we kill it so we could have Hodi Dodi back to life on the new earth?"

Oh, my sweet thinker. These are such deep mysteries. I ask these same questions of Death, of God. In the end I know only that God is near to us in life and in death, and that he is tenderhearted and loving to us, and so gentle. Death asks so many questions and leaves so few answers. But I trust the One I Know.

Today A is learning the depth of grief and of loss. I want to walk with him also on the path of Hope, and of Love, which does not ever let us go.

Thoughts from a Householder - Part 2

2010-03-28T09:10:00.000-05:00

Protestant that I am, when scanning my memory for child-bearing Saints I was entirely unconscious of the spiritual hero I overlooked. As I wrote about the spiritual refining achieved through the struggle of child raising it did not once cross my mind to consider the Holy Mother.

Less than 24 hours after I wrote this post I found myself in a chapel at a convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary, standing before a statue of Mary holding her baby Jesus with Joseph at her shoulder. There she was, looking so much like a mother, a wife, a woman - with God playing on her lap - the spiritual hero looked to by millions.

I was struck by the scandalous, beautiful, wonder of it all. Mary, Joseph, Jesus - a family; the real-life quality of God's work in us - birth, life, flesh, death. The Divine incarnation and redemption did not break out of them but worked within them.

I walked through the chapel and looked into the stain glass windows. In the first, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, telling her that she had been chosen of God, telling her of what was to come. Mary responded "I am the Lord's servant. Let it be to me as you have said." This reaches to me powerfully. We have little control over our lives. Our task is to listen, to wait, to accept, to surrender. For our spirit this is the beginning, or the end, of everything.

In the second window I saw Mary with the newborn baby Jesus, and I felt the pain, danger, and joy of birth. This most human of moments is when God breathed his first breath.

The third window showed Mary and Joseph finally finding their son, teaching in the temple. I saw in her face the anxiety, the relief, the bafflement. My spirit cried out with the realization of the task now ahead - giving up, letting go; humbly realizing that this child is no longer primarily an experience of my own, but a person and identity all his own. This baby may have begun as part of my body, literally one person with myself, but now he will forever be somewhat of a mystery, somehow inaccessible. Now I must learn, learn to see my children not define them. To say 'it is no longer about me but about you, and what God is doing in you, and who he has created you to be.' This profound experience of motherhood has given birth to a new soul, and now begins to fade into the background

And the fourth glass - Mary, seeing her son at the cross. The look on her face is easily recognizable: she is facing our ultimate fear - the pain and suffering of her child; the breaking of the body and life that she so carefully built and nurtured.

Surrender, and birth. Surrender again, and death. These are the seasons and steps of our lives, and God's incarnation and redemption are played out within them, among them.

When God touched mankind most dramatically - when he walked among us, and when he redeemed us - he did it not with the shocking supernatural moves of a comic hero or demigod as we might expect. He used the same mundane tools and life seasons used by each one of us. To show himself to us He came to earth; not on a bolt of lightening or riding on a cloud - he was carried in a womb, born of a woman, made into flesh and blood - incarnated. And to redeem us this same human body did not triumph majestically but was broken, his flesh torn, his blood spilt - death.

The sacred does not float ethereally beyond the reach of mortals. The sacred has mingled with the mundane.

So there is a spiritual hero who's life and energy was spent raising children. Protestant though I am her example is there for me to see, her experience for me to envision. Today I saw Holy Week through the eyes of a Mother. I saw God's work through the eyes of Mother.

Thoughts from a Householder

2010-03-25T13:15:00.005-05:00

Have you ever noticed that the World's great spiritual heroes did not have children? Or at least, were not actively raising them as the primary caregiver.

Not Jesus - he loved children, spent time with children, instructed his followers to come to him only as a child would. But, he wasn't raising children. Not the Buddha. Not Mohammad. Not Moses. Not C.S. Lewis. Not Mother Theresa. Not St. Francis or Martin Luther or Thomas Merton. And Hinduism suggests by definition that the season of life best spent in pursuing great spiritual depth is after your child raising days are done.

This occurred to me as I stole a quiet moment while my own exhausting children napped, and gazed out the window at the winter-barren trees, contemplating the limitations of my worldview filter. Suddenly, two unrelated memories suddenly came to mind at the same time, and this thought was the result of their collision.

The first memory was an article I recently read, in which the author (Jeffery Paine) described a spiritual man by saying "simply watching the way [he] opened a door gave one an idea of what enlightenment is." I thought about what it looks like when I open a door - heavy bags dropping off both shoulders, baby on the hip with his shoe falling off, preschooler trying to wrench his hand free of mine, digging his heels in to avoid being taken through. Not quite the very picture of enlightenment.

The second memory (though they came at the same time) was of the only time I was ever yelled at in school. It was my art teacher in seventh grade, and I had put away some supplies in the wrong place. I was nothing like a troublemaker and my mistake was innocent and easily correctable. Besides the shock of being yelled at I felt the sting of injustice and I've never forgotten it. But today I thought of how quickly my own patience is drained and I wondered for the first time what it was like for her, teaching the hooligans that made up my seventh grade class.

And I realized then that people who walk serenely through doors very rarely are doing so surrounded by children. More, that those who achieve acclaim for their great accomplishments of Spirit are rarely those who are raising children.

And yet, being a mother and a primary caregiver is hardly an obstacle to spiritual development. I have found nothing to be so enlightening, so character sharpening, so weakness illuminating, so virtue defining as the non-stop practice of self sacrifice, creation, and surrender that is pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. Though I may appear half crazed, sleep deprived, harried, and unkempt, my soul is being taught and sharpened and purified. I'm not able to sit and ponder this, or even be aware of it most of the time. But soul refining is the work of struggle, sacrifice, discomfort, and perseverance. I would never have realized how impatient I was without these two non-stop boys and I'm certain my soul will emerge from these years stronger for it all. Maybe Mommy-Bootcamp is even better for my soul than spending these years in constant meditation.

I'm doing a workbook about unleashing your creativity with a group of people, and I'm enjoying the process very much. But it seems I'm always having to defend these mothering years. Though they may appear to be sapping my time, energy, and creativity, I'm confident that this is the type of refining process that is always needed for anything of value to be salvaged and purified.

Thank you, my children. You have nearly entirely replaced my Muse and I am the better for it. Nothing could be more beautiful and enlightening than every day with you.

What I heard when I went Outside

2010-03-17T21:25:00.014-05:00

Today I found myself driving by a Forest Preserve while I was alone, while I had 30 minutes to spare. Inertia fought hard, telling me to stay in the car, keep driving. I stopped.

When I was in college I used to take what I called an annual "Personal Day." I would skip a class (a big deal for me) in the earliest days of spring and wander around campus in the newly returned warmth, marveling at the signs of life. Wandering aimlessly, listening, watching, drinking in, learning.

Today I did that again.

Someone I've read recently - maybe Joseph Campbell - says that anything can be an object of meditation if you really look at it and really see it. I have found this to be so true. Every detail of life in its present moment is a wonder. The few sprigs of grass peeking through the brown; the countless naked twigs pointing towards the sun; even the airplane high above, leaving behind a double trail of white in its wake, a zipper in the sky. All of it enchanted me. Everywhere I looked was something that drew me in and enveloped me.

All of this somehow is speaking, teaching. There is wisdom here, pronounced so loudly without words. Wisdom we desperately need. Wisdom proclaiming the glory of God.

We so often see nature as apart from ourselves, Other. We go out to see nature like we go to the store or to the movies. And yet we are nature. Every rock and puddle and bug and plant is part of me. The sun's energy shines on our Earth, taken in by the plants that receive it and convert it into life and energy. These plants are then taken by us for food, or eaten by an animal which we then eat, and in a wondrous miracle of Creation the energy that builds and sustains my body's cells is the same that is in the flora and fauna - and soil and sunlight - of my environment. Yet how much do we know about the cycles of life that we are part of? How much at home do we feel in them?

Today I walked, listening, watching, learning. I heard the ground sing as my footprints left indents in the squishy rain-and-snow soaked ground. I watched a robin sit and sing regally in her tree. I heard a choir of frogs filling their swampy cathedral. I looked at the garbage littered here and there and contemplated that even these things will ultimately be returned to nature by the slow processes of nature; and I thought about the time involved in centuries of patient work that Creation does and how our lives are but a breath.

I looked at the new life awakening all around me, only a hint, just barely visible. I wonder what new life is being awakened within me.

Thank you.

Supporting (but not calling) Poison Control

2010-03-14T22:00:00.002-05:00

I've only had to call the Poison Control Hotline once in my life (Praise the Lord and Knock on Wood). It was scary, but they were calm and helpful, and their solution did the trick. I'm glad to know they are there.

And I'm not the only one. In 2009, the Illinois Poison Control took over 100,000 calls, most cases involving someone under the age of six. I can believe it. No matter how hard I babyproof this house, my little rascally boys find a way to get into anything and everything they set their minds to.

Why am I telling you all this? Because March is Illinois Poison Prevention month, and this week is National Poison Prevention week. And, to celebrate $1 will be contributed to IPC for every new Facebook fan (of IPC) from Illinois during the month of March. As mothers, this is a service that we - literally - cannot live without.

So!! Click here and become a fan of the Illinois Poison Control Center (if you live in Illinois). And spread the word! Then, click here to learn about five things you didn't know were poisonous to children - seriously, I didn't know all of these.

Here's hoping (and praying) we don't have to call IPC anytime soon.

Remembering Home

2010-03-05T14:26:00.009-06:00

I can close my eyes and, effortlessly, I'm a child again; sitting in my parents' blue Plymouth Reliant, riding in the dark along WI-29, heading home. Every thing is perfectly still, except for the rhythmic thunk...thunk...thunk as our wheels speed over the seams in the road. My eyes are closed - I'm thinking as always - but I open them every now and then to see the trees and the yellow lines racing by me, the moon holding her steady course. And my father, driving in the seat in front of me, who's refection I can make out in my window pane. I take it all in with the trusting passivity of a child who has not yet learned to fear.

As my father guides our car to the exit I close my eyes and keep them closed. This is the game I play - holding in my mind the things we are passing even though I am not looking, then testing to see if I arrive at home in my imagination at the same time as our car. There's the stop sign at the end of the ramp. Over there's the greenhouse where we get our Christmas trees. We're turning now and there's the IGA, the Tasty Freeze, the Hotel, the taverns, the park, the bank - everything silent and still in the night. We turn again and there's the library, the hospital. Then we're on our street and I can imagine the houses and the trees - I know each one. We slow, turn, and I hear the slow crunch of the tires on our driveway. There's the slam of my parent's car doors, their voices in hushed tones, their feet on the pebbles and cement of the garage.

If I'm very young, my parents carry me into the house by way of the front door. This is the best feeling in the world - asleep enough to be carried, awake enough to be conscious of being cared for. There's the key in the lock, there's the lights flickering on. We're home.

If I'm older I open my eyes and walk with my family, stopping in the driveway to gaze at the starry sky. The North Star is just above my window, which leads us to the Big and Little Dippers, and Orion and his belt over the garage. There's the tree I planted with my dad, now grown higher than our house. We enter the house through the back door, going through the pantry with its strange, unique smells. There's the lights flickering on. We're home.

Its been more than twenty years since I last drove this road, since I saw, touched, or smelled any of this. But since I traveled it so frequently with my eyes closed, so intentionally drawing it to mind, I have no difficulty calling it back from my memory still today. I would have no trouble getting myself back home.

And yet, I don't. The door slammed hard and locked when I left; I was not offered a key.

A second lock belongs to Time. The path that I can still travel so easily in my memory no longer exists anywhere else. Steps can be retraced but there is no turning back the clock. As surely as the houses, trees, and businesses have changed, so too have I. There is no more dozing trustingly in the backseat. There is no way to really go back.

This is but one memory of thousands. I know my home as only a child can, who is learning the world for the first time and takes everything at face value for eternity. I can close my eyes again and feel the carpet from the woven threads down to the backing and mat. I can hear my mother in the kitchen, find the torn places in wallpaper, trace the wood textures on the fixtures. Do you ever know so deeply as you do the things you know first?

I look at my two boys, on either side of the brink of memory. What will they see years from now, when they close their eyes? I pray that they will grow in faith and wisdom, yet I know too that suffering is an essential ingredient for both. What I bring to their lives is only a portion of all that life itself will offer them, yet for my part I long with all my soul to bring as much joy and safety and trusting as their hearts can hold.

I am Harold

2010-03-01T13:52:00.002-06:00

When I was a kid I had a book called Harold and the Purple Crayon. Harold was nowhere really, with no context - a hastily drawn figure on a blank page. But in his hand was a purple crayon. Anything he imagined, anything he needed, he drew. And there it was; and then, there he was. A whole world could blossom out of nothing and if he got lost or overwhelmed he could draw his home or his bed and there he would be.

I feel a lot like Harold. While I live firmly planted and present in the physical world, it often seems that my compass and energy comes from an intellectual or spiritual place, a world of intangibles and nuances and waif-like impulses.

But when I write, this hard to see and harder to grasp reality takes on form. It becomes real and somehow I become more fully real myself. I give birth to my thoughts and see them grow outside of myself, yet always part of myself. I can walk towards them or away; and I can see and take hold.

This is why I write my life, why I have been writing it - most of the time, in one way or another - for twenty years. I write what I experience, yes, but on another level I experience what I write. In an amazing synergy, like Harold and his crayon, I build a structure for myself with my thoughts and my pen. By recording life, I create life.

So, with Harold, pen in hand, I am scratching my head and wondering what with come next.

Ash Wednesday

2010-02-17T21:44:00.003-06:00

Today is an important day for me, and for thousands of others. If you wonder what, or why, I am celebrating today, please read this post from a few years back.

Ash Wednesday Prayer
author unknown

Jesus, you place on my forehead
the sign of my sister Death:
“Remember you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

How not hear her wise advice?
One day my life on earth will end;
the limits on my years are set,
though I know not the day or hour.
Shall I be ready to go to meet you?
Let this holy season be a time of grace
for me and all this world.

“Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.”

O Jesus, you place on my forehead
the sign of your saving Cross:
“Turn from sin and be faithful
to the gospel.”

How can I turn from sin
unless I turn to you?

You speak, you raise your hand,
you touch my mind and call my name,
“Turn to the Lord your God again.”

These days of your favor
leave a blessing as you pass
on me and all your people.
Turn to us, Lord God,
and we shall turn to you.

I wish I could credit the author of this lovely poem - I found it a number of places, but not with consistent credit. Suffice it to say, I have copied, not written it.

More from the mouths of (my) Babes

2010-02-11T14:55:00.000-06:00

I couldn't fit it all into this post, but the cuteness just doesn't stop.

A walked into the room holding a piece of paper. He stood before us saying "Excuse me, I have an announcement." Then in a formal voice he "read:"

In the 1960's the first train was built and it carried people from Haiti all around the world. Thank you.

One morning A was playing with "kid scissors," cutting up wrapping paper. When he was done he wrapped the scissors in the wrapping paper and gave them to me saying "Its Christmas morning!" When I opened them and thanked him he said in a serious voice "these were mine when I was a kid."

During a "reading nap" he apparently was looking through an excellent book we have about Martin Luther King. He burst from his room in excitement saying "Did you know that Martin Luther King was the King before Jesus??"

Back after our bout with H1N1 A was singing a little tune under his breath. I leaned in to hear what he was singing. The words were slightly different than the original but were in line with what had been on all of our minds: "Influenza, influenza, influenza Clementine." (To the tune of "Oh my Darling").

Speaking of songs, A proudly wrote his first original this past Christmas. The words go like this:

Don't be afraid of the Baby Jesus, he's the King of all the world
Don't be afraid of the Baby Jesus, he's the King of us all.

Breathe

2010-02-08T15:05:00.001-06:00

Recently I've been practicing the spiritual discipline of breathing. Yes, breathing. I know it doesn't sound as rigorous as fasting or solitude, as traditional as praying or singing. And yes, everyone does technically breathe, all the time. But my life currently doesn't hold a lot of opportunity for more orthodox disciplines so I've found one that works nicely into my schedule.

Breathing it is. And already I'm wondering how I lived without it. Let me introduce you.

Think of that moment when you walk into a room and are enveloped by a favorite smell. Think of the moment when, after hiking through mountains for hours you finally reach the top and look over the majestic view. Think of slowly savoring a bite of your favorite thing to eat. Of breathing in the scent then slowly sipping an exotic wine. Hugging someone you've been longing to see. A moment so special that you stop everything else and just take it all in.

These moments are special because of what we are experiencing. The experience, enjoyable already, is made even more so by our act of savoring it. For a split second we move in slow motion. The impact of the experience drives all our past and future thoughts from our minds and we fully embrace one moment, we embrace naked existence.

Savoring this naked existence is what I call breathing. We are always breathing, but rarely aware of it. Likewise we are always existing, but rarely conscious of it.

What I have found is that in the examples above the smells, sights, and tastes function by stopping us in our tracks but (this is the key point) each moment of existence contains this same joy. What we are delighting in with the examples above are not so much the experiences as it is the joy inherent in each moment, in existence. The difficulty comes in the layers we heap on top of this awareness of joy and peace. The trouble is we miss the vast sum of our life's moments because we are distracted, thinking about something else, the past, the future, the television, the radio, our worries, our dreams.

What I am trying to do is to cultivate an awareness of my every breath, my every movement. I may be cooking dinner, working at my computer, putting socks on my boys' feet but instead of planning or worrying I focus my awareness on one thing - what I am doing at that moment. What my body is touching, what my ears are hearing, what my eyes are seeing. And one thing I am always doing is breathing: in...out...in...out. Since breathing is the activity that never ends when I am focused enough to be aware of it I also gain awareness of what I am experiencing in that moment.

I have been startled to discover that no matter how horrible I may be feeling, when I remember to breathe and focus my awareness in the present every single moment is full of joy and peace and I myself become full of wonder at the very fact that I exist. And more - that I exist in the presence of a Vast and Eternal Creator. Merely existing - has there ever been such a self contradictory phrase? - becomes the source of all loveliness and contentment.

I don't actually credit myself with discovering a new spiritual discipline. What I'm doing is similar to meditation and other practices, and right in line with the constant Biblical commands to stop worrying and being anxious and to rejoice in all circumstance. One of my highest values is of acknowledging both pain and joy together as one, of living life with your eyes and heart both wide open. So what I am suggesting is not a shallow ignorance of life's complication and trouble. I have simply been startled and blessed to learn that when I discipline my awareness to remain in the present moment, savoring the fact that I am alive and in the presence of God, there is joy and peace to be found. We are not alive for long; I don't want to miss it.

Of course, I remember to do this for about twenty breathes per day but I am getting better. I am practicing. And I am finding myself changed as a result.

You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever. - Psalm 16:11

Out of the mouth of (my) Babes

2010-01-26T15:05:00.000-06:00

My boys are enchanting as always, but recently with increasing communication skills. Every day they "say" things which make time stand still for me and I think "I must record this before I forget it." But I don't, and then I do. But here are a few that have stuck with me.

A covered his eyes when I came in the room. "You can't see me! I'm hiding!" he yelled.

A has always had a sense of humor, long before he could talk. His irony is getting more sophisticated however. Watching Little Bee fill his diaper for the third time in one day I said "Little Bee, you have all kinds of poop!" Without missing a beat A said "Cat poop...dog poop...elephant poop..."

Riding in the car one day I asked A a question and was met by silence. "Can you answer me?" I queried. "There will not be an answer" he replied stoically, not moving a muscle. This seemed strange to me so I asked "are you upset about something, A?" Still, nothing but silence. I gave up and changed the topic but my husband, who had been only half listening, said "did you say you were upset about something, A?" "No," he replied. "Mommy said that. I'm just relaxing." This was all done with such an air of other-worldliness and unflappability.

For his part, Little Bee has discovered sign language with a vengeance. Talking to him is like conversing with a referee - always a flurry of signs, symbols, and pointing - some which he has been taught and many which he has made up himself. They are incredibly nuanced and effective.

The best part of his communication, however, is his word for generic desire. It can mean "I want" or "this is exciting" or a million other things relating to enjoyment. The word is "doo" and we hear it often. If we wants something he'll point and say "doo." But when he's really excited he'll yell "doo DOoo...doo DOooo" over and over again, lifting his arms up then pulling them down with elbows bent.

His other favorite word is "uh-oh" and he uses it often. Sometimes I think he drops his dinner overboard, one piece at a time, just so he can say it again.

As indisputable as it is indescribable

2010-01-18T14:42:00.001-06:00

Little Bee is supposed to be sleeping. Instead, he is standing in his crib, pulling puzzles and games down to the floor. From the living room where I am listening there is one loud crash after another. I've already been in once to move the puzzle shelf out of his reach. Instead, he discovered that the game shelf is also accessible. Now dinosaur puzzle pieces are covering his floor and crib, mixed with game cards for Candy Land and phonics flashcards.

I enter his room and catch his look of excitement as he munches on a flashcard. His expression turns to a baby version of guilt at the sight of me, then hope when I lift him from his bed. But when I head to the rocking chair his hope turns to rage and a full blown tantrum.

Was there ever a child who wanted so little sleep? A child who would trade sleep for play or intimacy every single time? From the womb he has turned his back on rest, chasing ever after fun and fellowship.

I am so much larger and stronger than he is, and I continue to hold him while he arches his back and thrashes around. I look at him with compassion and love, crooning "I know you love to play Baby. But you need to get some sleep." He screams and kicks in response.

Until suddenly, he doesn't. After a few minutes his red, angry face is against my chest while he yells and squirms. A few minutes more and his body is lying in my arms, snuggling ever closer, gazing up at me with tired eyes beginning to close.

He knows what he wants but I know what he needs. So often this means we are at cross purposes but I am the one in charge. When I keep him from what he wants I do it in love, receiving his anger and opposition in response.

Yet there is something between us, as indisputable as it is indescribable. Somehow my commitment and care for him, the safety he feels in my arms, and the fondness we have for each other is tangible. He may be angry, but he trusts me and needs me. There are no other arms he would trust like mine, no matter how much play time they offered in trade.

This is exactly how it is between me and The One whose arms are sovereign over all creation. So frequently He does not do what I want, and I do fight back in anger at times. And yet there is something between us. There is a love and a trust, a realization of safety and deep benevolence that no other Arms could ever, ever offer; that I could never leave for any price. And this belief allows me to also lay down my tired fight and rest, acknowledging that His ways, however mysterious or contrary to my own, are best.

He is infinitely greater than I am in every way. Does he hold me in His arms, crooning and singing over me with compassion and love while I insist on taking the long and difficult path to ultimate surrender?

Faith is a funny thing; a flame burning brightly one day, smoldering the next. Yet the ashes have never grown cold and I pray they never will. There is something between us - my tiny, finite self and all that is Greatness and Infinite - and it truly is as indisputable as it is indescribable.

Compassion is Complicated

2010-01-15T12:03:00.003-06:00

If you haven't already noticed, I'm a sensitive, reflective person. I think deeply; I feel deeply. I consider the daily events of life to be on par with lyric poetry, so you can imagine how significant I take tragedies like the earthquake in Haiti. As with everything else in life I react by reflecting, by thinking deeply and feeling deeply.

Compassion is complicated. As a global community we are hearing the reports, seeing the images, feeling an echo of the needs. But how can we respond?

If this tragedy had happened in my neighborhood, I would not hesitate. If I had clean water, I would bring it to those who had none. If I had food, I would share it with those who were hungry. If I had a blanket I would share it with someone who had lost hers. If I had a house that was standing I would fill it with those who's houses had fallen.

And there are people without water, food, warmth, and shelter today. I can see them, I can even hear their voices. But I cannot touch them. I cannot share with them. I cannot help them.

I could give money to a relief effort - but any amount short of "everything I have" seems so insufficient. What price is right? $10? $100? $1000?

And here I come to the real complication of global compassion - the tragedies are endless. If I give what any one tragedy deserves - all that I have - what will I do tomorrow when the next crisis hits? Before our communities were global, they were local. Before media and technology the entire world was within walking distance. Tragedy was still endless, but it was accessible. If someone lost a loved one I could go and sit with them, I could bring a meal, I could provide a blanket. And a real disaster that could level the whole community would come only one or twice in a lifetime.

Now that our community is global, these once-in-a-lifetime events happen weekly, if not daily. Earthquakes, hurricanes, famines, war, refugees - we know not just of the rare instances these things touch the lives of our own town, we have the opportunity to know when one of these touches any town. And yet, and because, we are armed with this unceasing knowledge of need and pain, our arms are too short to act.

I wonder if we were more compassionate people, before. When we knew the intimate lives of our neighbors and could meet small needs on a daily basis, facing together wide-sweeping disasters once or twice in a lifetime. We would have known that in other parts of the world there was similar trouble, but there would have been no way to access the details. We could give all of ourselves to the needs around us.

Or maybe we are more compassionate now, with a vivid awareness of just how many millions of people lie down with grief each day, how easily the unexpected could overtake any of us at any time. Or maybe we are just more numb, unable to take daily what we are made to take only a few times in a lifetime. Or maybe we are just more confused. Or maybe that's just me.

Compassion is Complicated.

Top 9 Books of 2009

2010-01-10T20:36:00.005-06:00

As I sat down tonight to post about the top 9 books I read in 2009, I logged into GoodReads and was dismayed to discover that I read just over 20. With that size of a pool almost half of them make the list which hardly warrants a label of "best." Plus its so much fewer than my normal - what happened to me this year?

I literally sat and tried to figure out what caused this and it actually took me a second to realize what demands have been taking my time and energy this entire past year. No wonder. The funniest part is that I had to think about it at all - proving that sleeplessness does impede memory.

So, without further ado, here are Catherine's Top 9 Books of 2009.

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church -by N.T. Wright

If you only read one of the books I recommend this year, please let this be the one - it is that good. Here's what I said on GoodReads:

I can't say enough about this book - most of the time when I say I enjoyed a Christian book what I mean is that it deals with topics that I've thought about on my own and tend to agree with. With this book however I can say that I loved and that I learned a lot - it was like taking a class with N.T. Wright. He teases apart what the Bible actually teaches about life after death and the resurrection (and what this means for us as Christians here and now) from what we've learned through myths, hymns, Dante, etc. Very, very valuable for any Christian to read (or someone interested in what Christianity teaches, regardless of what some of its follows might believe).

Did I mention I can't say enough about this book?

Birth Day: A Pediatrician Explores the Science, the History, and the Wonder of Childbirth - by Mark Sloan.

If you read two books I recommend...yup, this is the one. Even if you don't have kids. Even if you don't like kids. I loved it. I blogged about it. Here's what I said.

Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity - by Keri Wyatt Kent

This book literally changed (is changing) my life. I've said all there is to say here and here and here.

The Power of Myth - by Joseph Campbell

Keeping in mind that I am able to (and in fact love to) learn from people with whom I disagree, I found this book fascinating, inspiring, and incredibly illuminating. This was the first book I read of Campbell's but it certainly will not be the last. This book is currently in my Amazon cart and that's a big statement (I never buy books until I'm done reading them and decide they make the cut).

Tao Te Ching

This is the ancient text of Taoism, the Chinese philosophy/religion. I enjoyed it very much and found much of the imagery very helpful during my labor and delivery with Little Bee (though don't look for it under "Childbirth" at your library!).

Wholly Jesus

This book was written by a family friend, but it would be on this list in any case. Its a fantastic book, and his points are right on in my opinion.

The Only Road North - by Erik Mirandette

I'm almost surprised this book made the list, yet there it is. I received a free copy and gave it away without thinking - now I wish I had it back. Read my review before considering it.

Why Religion Matters - by Huston Smith

Aside from the fact I enjoy everything he writes, this book was very good. It started a bit weak, but his ultimate point and perspective is very valuable, and he speaks with the authority he has earned. I'm convinced.

Charlotte's Web - by E.B. White

This is, of course, not the first time I read this classic, but it is the first "Chapter Book" I read to my firstborn son. That in itself deserves a mention, but I do love the story.

And there you have it - the top 9 of 2009. If you read any of these, please let me know. And if you have a list to recommend to me, I am always taking recommendations!

It takes a village to travel alone

2010-01-04T13:03:00.006-06:00

I survived 10 hours, 3 airports, and 2 planes worth of traveling alone with my two boys yesterday, by the skin of my teeth. Although I was alone, because I was alone, I couldn't have done it on my own. So here is an open letter of thanks to all who made this trip successful.

Thank you to the man behind me in the security line who collapsed my stroller and helped me get everything and everybody through the checkpoint, and then set up and going again on the other side. I don't know what you were doing in the "stroller and wheelchair" line, but after the TSA agent brought me to tears of frustration, I think you may have been sent there by an angel.
Thank you to the amazing woman who sat by my boys and I on the first plane. A mother with teenagers and a teacher, she let A look out the window, held B when A needed to go potty, and engaged with us happily the entire trip.
Thank you to the flight attendants on the first plane who quickly sized up an urgent situation and got the bathroom ready for us as we ran down the aisle, complete with a paper seat for sitting on and a paper mat for A's bare feet (there wasn't time to get shoes back on).
Thank you to the San Fransisco Airport for scheduling our connecting flight to go out of the gate next to the one we flew in on. Thank you to United airlines for having everything running ontime.
Thank you to the cousin who gave us reusable stickers for Christmas - the only toy that held A's attention for more than three minutes the whole day.
Thank you to whatever it was that caused both my boys to fall asleep at the exact same time. It may have only been 30 minutes out of the 10 hours, but at least it was at the same time!
Thank you to the unseen baggage handlers who had my stoller already set up for me each time I exited my plane.
Thank you to the pilot and flight attendants who suggested we stay in their cabin long after the plane had emptied so that we didn't have to be in the cold runway while we waited for our things. Thank you also for sending us with blankets so that my boys would not be cold as we departed.

And finally, thank you even and especially to the woman with whom we shared the longest and hardest five hours of the day. Your overwhelming rudeness and ungraciousness towards my boys and I flooded me with the patience and pride in them that it took to remain calm tempered and patient during the long flight. We tried so hard to not inconvenience you; I wish you would have done the same for us. I tried so hard to imagine what it was like in your shoes; I wish you could have done the same for us. But I could not have mustered the patience and kindness that I did without you. I truly hope you have a Blessed New Year.

Be it ever so frigid, there's no place like home.

Holiday Fun

2009-12-28T08:14:00.000-06:00

Christmas day may be over, but there is still plenty of the twelve days of Christmas left to celebrate. These three clips are my current favorite Christmas videos. The first is a favorite since my childhood. The second is truly one of the funniest things I've ever seen, but you might not agree - my family does, but not too many more. The third is a new find this year, but still very enjoyable. What are your favorites? Enjoy!

The Memory of Christmas Past

2009-12-24T13:50:00.000-06:00

Recently, I was asked to write about Christmas memories. Where do I begin?

My first Christmas memory is from kindergarten. I was chosen to be Mary in our pageant, and I was to sing Away in the Manger in front of the whole church. I can vividly remember what an honor this was, but mostly I remember how thrilling it felt to have a hidden microphone in the manger straw.

I remember my plan to stay awake in bed one year until my parents hauled my gifts from their hiding place, past my closed door, and out to our Christmas tree. I waited up, senses alert and nose in the air, determined to smell out my presents as they went by. I was specifically hoping for that "new doll smell" to come wafting under my door...fueling my hope for a Cabbage Patch Doll of my own.

I remember writing Christmas poems for our small town newspaper; caroling in hospitals and nursing homes; I remember the White Elephant party where everyone else brought nice handmade gifts...and my family brought a toilet seat. I remember the first year I earned my gift-buying money myself by raking and bagging leaves for my dad - $1 per bag - and addressing and stamping Christmas cards for my mom - 5 cents per card. The presents I bought that year and gave on my own were the most special to me of all.

I remember candle lit church services, Christmas dinner with family and friends, baking cookies, and wearing new sweaters. I remember Advent calendars and popcorn balls after Church Christmas programs. I remember one brown December when we walked out of the Christmas Eve service to the first magical snow fall of the season.

I remember three years ago, the first Christmas after I became a mother, and the new perspective this gave me for what really happened in that stable 2000 years ago. Imagining with new eyes the pain of that donkey-and-cart ride to Bethlehem on a pregnant woman's aching body; imagining the bustle that overtook the stable, the inn, and the neighborhood, as women heard Mary's cries and Joseph's impassioned requests for help and worked to give this new life - God Made Flesh - a chance to breathe his first breath.

I remember the Christmas two years ago when a young, nearly homeless teenage mother spent the day with us. She was living in a shelter with her tiny infant boy. My soul trembled in awe as I spoke with her and held her tiny baby, remembering that Jesus himself told us that when we give food and shelter to someone in need, we are doing it to him. Based on His value system, I celebrated Christmas with Mary and Baby Jesus that year. While we read the Christmas story together by candlelight there was a knock on the door. A young man, a neighbor, was beside himself with worry. His pregnant wife had traveled out of state unexpectedly to attend her Father's funeral, and while she was there the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And so, Joseph visited our house that night as well.

But most of all, I remember last Christmas, Christmas of 2008. I spent the Advent season in deep, profound reflection, preparing myself and waiting not only for Jesus' coming but also for the coming of my second son, due to arrive around the same time. As my body and soul waited for my child, the period of Advent waiting for Christ's birth was vividly real to me. Sitting beneath the tree, lit by colored lights and candles, with carols playing in the background, I spent my evenings contemplating the road ahead of me, the pain, the joy, my anxiety, my expectations, the wonder, and the work. I began my labor there as well, and prayed, and cried, and asked for strength, for deliverance, for my son, and for myself.

God has come to make his dwelling among us, and he came in the most natural, human, way of all - born of a woman. When we speak of the virgin birth, the miracle we refer to is in the "virgin" part. But what about the miracle of birth itself, and the miracle that this is God being birthed? The miracle that God imparts through women all over the world, every minute of every day. And the ultimate miracle - that God himself was made man - was born - with all the blood and trauma, and joy, that surrounds any other birth.

How can this be? I have taken all of these and I do ponder them in my heart. Hallelujah.

A letter to my Little Bee on his First Birthday

2009-12-22T14:11:00.010-06:00

Dear Sweet Little Bee,

Today you are One. Before the days flutter past us I want to take a moment to remember.

I remember finding out that I was pregnant with you. I had Daddy look at the test first and then tell me. It was a warm spring day and we drove to church with our windows down singing songs at the top of our lungs in joy. There was new life in the world and you were a part of it, our family joining with the trees, plants, flowers, birds, and animals everywhere. You were conceived during the celebration of new life and born during the celebration of light coming into the world.

I remember telling your brother that there was a baby in my tummy, and all the wonder it was. He couldn't wait to have you live at our house and he waited and waited until it was snow-time when you were due.

I remember waiting for you during Advent, for so many days and so many nights, and the spiritual significance that this waiting was to me. I remember the tree, the Christmas lights, the music, and my own contemplations as I prepared myself for you.

I remember walking into the labor and delivery room, and the emotional shock this was - I cried tears of Mommy-hood. After so many nights of labor it wasn't until that moment that realized I was about to meet my second child.

I remember how tiny you were, how quickly you were born, and how readily you nursed. I remember how early you smiled socially at us (two weeks!) and how interactive and alert you have been right from the first. I remember the love and affection you drew from all of us, but mostly from your big brother.

I remember how eagerly you would kick your legs and wave your arms to communicate excitement or frustration. I remember how you would pull your legs into your tiny body, stretching you arms out to yawn. I remember how early you woke in the mornings, singing a song to the rising sun.

I remember how you would tell me it was time to switch sides while nursing - by turning your head as far to the opposite side as you could reach. I remember how you loved to snuggle, always leaning in for a hug or kiss. There was a period of time when you would only fall asleep in your bed if I would lean down and kiss your cheeks while you relaxed into sleep. Now, if I ask for a kiss you will happily lean to my lips for slobbery baby love.

I remember how much you needed closeness, inclusion, and Mommy. I need these things too,Little Bee, and I see myself in you. I love to be close to you. I love it when you choose me. I choose you too.

I remember the nights we spent together snuggling in bed, or in a rocking chair, your tiny self curled up next to me, finding comfort in my body and my voice. I remember the wonder of knowing that I was somehow the incarnation of safety, love, comfort and desire for you in the great big world.

I remember how you joined in our conversations in any way possible from just a few weeks old, blowing raspberries at us all day, every day. Then when you were older, babbling and telling us stories by pointing at things, making eye contact with one person after another, and "talking" passionately.

I remember the time a person in church came up and told us affectionately that you should be banned from the service since your smile was so distracting. I remember the person who came up to me and said "When A was born I thought he was the cutest baby in the world, and now look at B!"

You crawl so eagerly to people you love, so full of life and trust and delight. You have crawled your way right into my heart, and won my affections. All of the care I have given you has come directly from my commitment and love. I love every day with you. Happy First Birthday, Little Bee.

Look how he's grown

2009-12-21T04:45:00.001-06:00

My Little Bee turns One Year Old tomorrow. What a year it has been!

Birth

One month

Two months

Three months

Four months

Five months

Six months

Seven months

Eight months

Nine months

Ten months

Eleven months

Twelve months

I've loved getting to know you this year, Baby Bee.

Here's to more good times (and more sleep I hope!) to come.

Wonderful

2009-12-18T18:25:00.004-06:00

We have just arrived in California for our Christmas vacation. This means many wonderful things but it also means that my normal 5am wake up call has moved two hours back to 3am.

But wonder of wonders, it happens that Nana truly finds no greater delight than starting her day at this middle-of-the-night hour if it means spending time with her grandsons. So I go back to bed to sleep my fill. For the first time in a year I drench myself in sleep.

When I awake the morning is my own. I shower, drink hot chocolate, read a book in the sun. And it is Wonderful.

Then Little Bee is brought into the room. When he sees me his body leaps, his voice shouts, with joy. And I find that mine does the same. Since his conception launched his existence we have not been as separated as we have been today. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and oh, how nice it is to feel this fondness for you, Little Bee, to look at you through eyes that have finally been refreshed. How joyful to be reunited with you.

It is Wonderful

Winter Wonderland

2009-12-14T14:43:00.000-06:00

Our first snowfall of the season arrived last week, and before the cold spell there were two nice December days in which to enjoy the snow. We built A and B's first snow man and had a great time.

Practicing Sabbath

2009-12-11T13:33:00.006-06:00

I have taken music lessons since I was six years old, so I know what it means to practice. It means doing something again and again and again. Do it when you want to; do it when you don't want to. Do it when you excel; do it when you fail.

By this definition I have been practicing Sabbath. Sometimes I'm looking forward to it, sometimes I'm looking for ways to get out of it. Sometimes I excel, sometimes I fail. I keep doing it, keep practicing.

My first lesson was that simply ceasing to work does not produce rest. Even if I am not cleaning the house or putting in hours for my job there are still so many ways to avoid silence, holiness, and rest. Email, for example, or the internet and television. These are recreational and entertaining, but they do not bring peace.

Of course, ceasing from work is not actually possible. I've heard several people describe their ideal Sabbath similarly to a day at the spa - leisure activity, favorite drinks, music and ambiance on hand. But I don't believe this is the goal of Sabbath. Just as my body requires me to continue pumping blood and breathing oxygen even during physical rest, so my family and community require the provision of at least basic life giving care. And for the ancient Hebrews who had no benefit of technology and leisure hobbies this was even more true. Spiritual depth, even during holy rest times, comes from real life.

So as I am cutting out work and entertainment I am actively trying to add in peace. On the Sabbath I play quiet music. We have a special candle which has already created a strong association for the boys.

And there was one time when both boys were actually napping. Since I couldn't pick up toys, unload the dishwasher, fold the laundry or log into email I just looked out the window. The view was of old, cracked roads and a piled dumpster. But over all that I could see the tops of a half dozen trees. And my soul filled with joy and worship.

It is for these brief moments that I am continuing to practice. The joy of the Lord is worth practicing for.

Isaiah 58:13b-14a
"If you call the Sabbath a delight
and the LORD's holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD.

You are the life that burst forth

2009-12-08T14:07:00.008-06:00

Last year, in the busyness of Advent and Christmas and December I was preoccupied, preparing to give birth, waiting for my baby boy. This year the busy, magical season has returned, and so too my preoccupation with the tiny baby who was born December 22nd. One year ago today I wrote:

And then, there is the baby. We know a lot more than we used to, ahead of time, but yet he remains a complete mystery to me. What will he look like? Will he be healthy? Special needs? Difficult or charming personality? Entirely in the dark about all these factors, I am committed to him forever, body and soul. I will embrace him into myself, into my family, into my future. And most startling of all, into my firstborn son. Not just for the unknowns of now, but the unknowns of 10 years from now, 20 years from now. Everything he is and will be, I am now making room for in the midst of all that is most sacred to me.

Already one year has nearly passed, and Little Bee, how well I know you now.

I know that you greet each morning, just before dawn, with a song.
I know how you love music, rhythm, and dancing.
I know how you love to play - Peekaboo and Pat-a-Cake were your early favorites, but playing with your brother's tools and trucks and trains is your current obsession.
I know that you love to be included, love to be with the group.
You love to be snuggled and will lean in for more kisses and cuddles (unless its play time, of course).
You do not like to sleep, how could you when it means not only being away from the family but also, not playing!? Little Bee, there is very little else I will remember so vividly about this first year as well as I will remember the sleep deprivation you have caused. But would you believe I knew this about you since you were in my womb? Before you were born I said to your Daddy "This baby doesn't have very long sleep cycles - I don't think he'll sleep as well as his big brother." Do you see how well I know you?
Like your brother you have a strong will, strong opinions, and strong sense of independence. The baby food stage was hard because you refused to let anyone besides yourself put food into your mouth.
You are very verbal and love to jabber and joke and sing with us, trying out real words and making fun noises and tunes of your own.
You love to climb! Oh my, you can climb on to anything and everything. I've found you at the top of step ladders, laundry baskets, and chairs. Your biggest feat (and my biggest fright) was when you climbed on top of a wagon, using it as a step on to a large toy truck, and were standing up and attempting to climb from there to the top of the toy kitchen.
You have a quick smile and a ready laugh - you've always been alert and were giving real social smiles at two weeks old! You enchant everyone you meet.

And you have enchanted the three people who's lives you invaded one year ago. One year ago I didn't know these things about you, but I was ready for you, ready to learn day by day:

I waddle slowly up the icy steps and into the coffee shop where I am meeting a friend. Everyone in the building, strangers to me, watch me as I move, beam at me affectionately, pronounce blessings upon me, and graciously describe me as "glowing" and "radiant" as I continue to lug my large, cumbersome self to a chair. I answer their questions with the cheerful-yet-awkward smile that matches the rest of my body: yes, due this week; yes, any time now; yes, so ready! yes, so excited!

I am standing (with one hand on my lower back where this boy has wedged his head against my spine; with the other hand supporting my over-crowded belly in front) on the cusp, on the precipice. I am looking forward, always forward, but can see nothing. And yet I am continuing on ahead, believing myself to be excited, ready to meet whatever comes.

It is surrender, it is hope. I am literally bursting with life.

You are what was born from my surrender, you are the life that burst forth from within me. I am still looking forward, and even as we begin to celebrate the year that has passed I pray that the road ahead holds day upon day upon day for us to travel together until we know each other by heart.