Thoughts on Wild in the Hollow AND a Giveaway

I haven't written much about my journey towards faith in this space.

It infuses everything I write, yes, because I am stained by its touch and born again into its glory. But sharing the journey before and during and after? I've been pretty quiet.

Perhaps it is because that part of my story is, at once, innocent and convoluted and fiery and fickle and it just feels too messy to wrap words around. There is definitely fear of judgement present. And not just from those who might read it.

Perhaps it is because I struggle to see where I am on the spectrum and I don't know how to trust the spaces where colors bleed, one into the other.

Perhaps I am just tired of trying to hold it all together and I don't trust that anyone else really wants to help me carry the burden.

But maybe that will change now that I have read Amber Haines' book Wild in the Hollow.

This, here, is why:

"There will always be ways I'm learning to let God love me, but maybe I inherited more than desire for the knowledge of good and evil from our Eve. Maybe I inherited her memory, the echoes of the garden. There was the faint memory of the cadence of his walk in the cool of the evening. There was the settled stride I remembered. Oh yes, I remembered that he had seen my freshest skin. He had seen my naked heart. There was a memory in my spirit that he had called me beloved. His smiling on me what always his original intention...
I saw this potential for others also. I knew God was everywhere and knew there were glimpses of him in all people, because he showed me his kindness and his mercy in all creation. Even in the great sin and shame of other, I saw him, or at least I saw the groaning for him. In this, I learned to recognize the hollow, the search for God, and the deep longing for him (for fulfillment) in the needles, the skin, and the bottle. I recognized his wooings in every metaphor. I saw the desire for skin on skin as the soul looking for home, for intimacy. I saw the body, made for God, as an original intention, as a belonging.
Our lives are made of metaphor, and we can recognize Jesus throughout creation and in those who have never heard his name. The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1 that no one has an excuse. God is everywhere. Yoga poses and Gregorian chant, buttermilk cornbread, the Grand Canyon, and the picture of a rainbow drawn by the hand of my two-year-old all speak of him if we're looking. Don't make a mistake and hear that I worship those things; no, instead I worship the God of the universe who is. 'For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.' His scent wafts through tent cities, jail cells, granite kitchens, and marble palaces. He beckons us in all places. Where can I go from him? The echo of him in metaphor throughout the earth is undeniable when one wakes to him.
When I first believed, I walked around in a clumsy prayer, so awake, listening for God in the falling acorn, in everything. I was free to lapse into long spiritual metaphor simply by hearing my alarm clock. Some might accuse me of being led purely by emotion. Let it be so. It was the feeling of love, of very first love. Let it also be understood that I studied Scripture like a brain on steroids. I studied homiletics. It was a mind transformation, a decision as best as one knows how to make in the midst of being overcome. I was ridiculous really, and I didn't need cigarettes or anything else--not a cute tush, no nightlong blitzes, and certainly not a fella to keep me company.
I didn't have the language for it then, but I saw the Imago Dei everywhere and in everyone. I saw myself as a child of God, Abba letting me come to him, boldly and with ease, in the gentleness of relationship. I was confident, and I saw God as one who loved me completely as a good Father. And Jesus--he, my love, my brother--became my friend. He was becoming the only place that made any sense to me, the only way to see the world."

You see, Amber Haines' story feels like my story, in so many ways. The idyllic childhood wrapped in church culture, the rebellious adolescence, the rabid desire for significance and being known, the running to and falling away again and again and again.

But Amber's story never feels all cleaned up. And that, my friends, is the beauty of this book.

This book isn't just for those who know and love Jesus and have made mistakes along the way--although it will touch those folks deeply.

No. It's more than that.

I believe that this book can sing over those who are hell bent on living but are killing themselves in the striving. 

It whispers in the ears of those who desire connection and have reached for flesh on bone but come back empty handed, every time.

It cradles those whose arms are riddled with tracks that lead to dark spaces and smooths the hair of folks sick on bitterroot.

It shakes out the quilts of those who have wrapped themselves up so tightly with the hope that nothing will ever touch them. There.

This book invites.

"Come, everyone who thirst,

come to the waters;

and he who has no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,

and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;

hear, that your soul may live."

Isaiah 55: 1-3 ESV

Wild in the Hollow is a book for those who long to be known in the way that we were created to be known--beloved, gorgeous, quirky, ripe, alive. I think that is why I couldn't put it down. I drank these words like a woman parched. I sat with the all of it and let the truths of God's infinite and lavish grace and love pool around me.

At times, I went under.

But I was not afraid.

This book speaks to places deep and important and it opens the door to much needed conversation about brokenness and redemption.

I would love to talk about those things with you in the comments:

How have you found beauty in the brokenness?

How has your brokenness actually led to your healing?

What have been your experiences with the church and how has that contributed to your brokenness and/or your healing?

Everyone who leaves a comment by Friday, August 7 will be entered into a drawing to receive a copy of 

Wild in the Hollow. 
Free copy of Wild in the Hollow has been gifted.
Thank you for your comments.

If you don't win a copy of the book, I hope that you will buy a copy for yourself anyway. Wild in the Hollow can be purchased here. To read more of Amber's beautiful words, subscribe to her blog.

In closing, I'll let Amber tell you about her book in her own words.

Of Things That Have Been

I finger them mindlessly most days,

These tokens of thanksgiving.

In some familiar corner of my brain I am

aware of their weight and

the anorexic string that

keeps them connected to a well

untended.

But something has shifted

inside of me and

I can’t remember

how to see.... 

To keep reading this poem, please follow this link

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I am writing today over at my beautiful friend Elizabeth Marshall's home, 

Poetry & Prose Through A Lens of Grace.

She extended a gracious invitation to several of her friends that write poetry and I am honored to be included in that circle.

Elizabeth and I have a history of mingling words and images and stirrings of the heart.

Together, we created Adagio, a writing "pas de deux" of sorts where we wove our words together to pen poems. 

Quite a bit of life has happened between that last project and now, as well it should have. But we are both very excited to join together again in the new year. It is our hope that you will journey with us.

How To Make a Life

Her absence rings most empty at the breakfast table.

Every morning, my dad starts the coffee maker, drops his raisin bread in the toaster and slowly opens the blinds covering the window over the sink. Squinting through the glass, he takes note of the temperature outside, the amount of bird seed left in each feeder, the slant of sun on the deck.

At various points along his morning choreography, when an observation worth sharing arises, he feels it—the slight hesitation of breath, the parting of lips, the turn of his head to catch her eye. And then, in a suspended moment of remembrance, his heart and mind swirl confusedly, and then settle.

She’s not there.

It’s difficult to abandon sixty years of morning rhythms that are redolent with unforced grace.
When one half of a whole goes missing, every day becomes a step towards restoration. And when wrestling through such holy work, it’s difficult to emerge without a limp.

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I'm writing over at SheLoves Magazine today and would love for you to follow this link so that you can read the rest of this story.

Photo credit: Nicole on flickr

A Curriculum of Compassion

As you may or may not know, we are a family that has chosen to "do" school here at home (and in the car and on the road and in the grass and under trees...). As you also may or may not know, this endeavor has been the source of both great joy and personal angst. 

Throughout this journey (officially seven years but, in reality, twelve) I have struggled with maintaining autonomy in our learning practices, all the while not succumbing to the demon of comparison, approval from others, or a general yet, ginormous, fear of failure.

It is true--homeschooling is not for the faint-hearted. But neither is parenting so I'm not so different from any other person who has chosen to walk with young people.

Oh, how I need these hands to hold.

Additionally, I bring to this educational endeavor all of my mixed up, conflicted selves -- The good girl who likes to please those who are watching as well as the rebel who will do what she wants anyway. I want structured chaos. I want to disciple and detox. I want to set a course and then take the fork when it presents itself. I want to showcase and shelter. I want good behavior and wild abandon.

But most of all?

I pray that my scattered deposits into the lives of these gorgeous people will be my gift to the world. I hope that our journey in loving and learning will be a polestar for my children and that its light will always fall across their paths.

Generally, we are very relaxed and eclectic in the way that we do school. I've always shied away from curriculum in a box and, if pushed, have just let go and handed over the reins to my boys. My oldest son prefers that approach anyway. He has declared, on more than one occasion, that he would rather "just be in charge of [his] own learning", thank you very much. But then time will pass and I will look around me and I will wring my hands over the fact that we haven't mastered times tables or spelling and suddenly I become all business.

It is this hemming and hawing that feeds the angst. This has been the cycle.

And then last October I had a baby and in April my mom died and suddenly I find myself staring down an entire year that has spun wildly off its axis. Navigating the last eleven months has been like stumbling around in the dark and all I want is someone to turn on the light and point the way. But here we are, almost to September, and I need to hunker down and lay down some semblance of a map for us to follow.

Even if all I have are some crumbs.

And then #Ferguson happened and, once again, there is that wild spinning...

And I am forced to lay it all before the One that knows it all. Because, if I know anything at all, it is this:

I cannot, and will not, 

separate our slow steps forward 

from the truth that is #Ferguson.

This "learning" that we do?

If it is to be all that I desire it to be, if it is to leave marks that cannot be rubbed away from the hearts of my little men, if it is to offer anything to the globe upon which we dance--then it must open space for the suffering and lament of others. Because, in the end, all we have is each other, friends and so we must enter into the hard places. Together.

It came to me in the quiet of the morning, in that corner of space that gives birth to light and dew drops and revelation.

From now on, from this day forward, in this spot of a place that houses boys and weeds and love, we will study a curriculum of compassion. It will be the sound of our feet stepping into the suffering of others that will tune our hearts to what changes the world. It will be our willingness to hang everything of value onto the framework of brokenness that will cut open our shuttered hearts and make us open vessels for renewal.

This must be. I know this with a certainty that belies my usual conflicted self. This must be because this is the way to glory.

The truth of my heart doesn't want to walk that way. Not really. But the desire of my heart is to walk in this way and I want my boys to walk this path. I want to grab those hands of theirs, squeeze tight and confess that I have no idea what I am doing--what we are doing--but here we go anyway.

Because to continue on as if #Ferguson was just an anomaly and not indicative of a greater experience for an entire group of people is to purposely choose the garb of privilege. I'm ready to risk my position and call out the Emperor. I will no longer pretend that the clothes fit.

Instead, I want us to choose threads colored by sacrifice and suffering, humility and hospitality, love and loss and weave them into new wineskins.

I want my boys to learn that nothing in the Kingdom is earned. Not a single thing. Life together is about grace upon grace and mercy untold. The value of a person is not based on how forcefully they pull up their boot straps or under whose roof they are born. No, this Kingdom living? It is directed by how well we share our weaknesses, how willing we are to reveal that which we do not know, how empty we are willing to get. This is where we must begin. This is where love is born.

So this weaving we will do? It will begin small.

The weft and the warp threads will be set through the silent and often unseen actions. We will fill the bird feeders and water the zinnias. We will continue as a family to read aloud books like Wonder and A Long Walk to Water and then sit with the difficult questions that stir up from their truths.

But my prayer is that we will keep walking forward, into the foggy valleys. I want us to hone our vision so that our eyes become keen to the needs of our community. I hope to move closer to an "us" mentality rather than one that hisses "them." May it come to be that we seek to grow smaller so that others can grow taller. We will study History by listening to all of the voices--Bauer, Zinn, Douglass, Steinem, AND Schweickart--no matter how uncomfortable they make us feel.

But most importantly--I need your help. I need your voice. Every last beautiful one of you. Because this course of study is a river and it is fed by many sources. You and your life? Please speak into ours. Let us ripple into each other.

"It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." 

-- Robert F. Kennedy

For such is the way of peace.


Photo credit: Andrew Hyde

A Litany of Next Things

I am forcibly willing myself to sit in this hard wooden library chair.

Right now, as I finger this keyboard, the sky above my roof has been cooled to a deep cerulean and is being occasionally scrubbed to gleaming by wave after wave of cloud stuff. Every tree is heavy with leaves and shadow but, hidden deep within each, is the glory of birdsong, trilling like so much music.

This day is one I will not soon forget. It is just too beautiful to let slip into the ether, as if it was nothing remarkable that the sun broke free of the horizon and unleashed this beauty on all whose eyes fluttered open this morning.

This day is the sort from which dreams are spun.

So to purposely sit here, in this chair, on this day means I am trying, with all of my might, to finger the threads of thought that have been fraying frantically in my head for months. These last weeks and days have often felt unmanageable, heavy with grief and bewilderment and seeming idleness. I have done my best to muddle through, pulling on joy when I couldn't handle the dark anymore and praying that sleep walking was better than standing still.

But the honest truth is that I have often felt as if I was screaming, mouth wide open, throat scraping raw, screaming. Silent and piercing, all at once. The core of me, the one that must write to figure out what she is thinking, has felt imprisoned by grief.

If, a year ago, you had tossed out the question of how I might one day deal with the pain of losing my mother I would have, most assuredly, said: writing.

So, when confronting the reality and heartbreak of my mother's actual death, I've hardly penned a word in response? Well, it has been disconcerting, at best.

And the longer the break, the more days that pass and words fail to appear?
The more I
have felt
as if I
am
disappearing.

I have felt like a glass jar full of silt shaken and left alone, shaken and left alone, shaken and left alone
again
and
again
and
again.

That is why today's clarion beauty has felt like such a gift. The morning's lighter air and gentle rippling set a precedent and the waters upon which chaos floated have started to settle. A separation has begun and I am beginning to distinguish sand and rock and crystal. What used to be only a muddied swirling now contains flecks of gold dust.

This might just be where the words have been hiding.

All of today has been like one slow remembering. I realize that grief has kept me from noticing like I used to notice. When you are trying to simply put one foot in front of the other, you don't often bother to spend time studying vapor trails or listen to the way grass stretches as each drop of dew slowly evaporates. You just seem to focus on the next thing.

But today gifted me with a litany of next things and I have discovered that the gnarl of frayed and woolly thoughts languishing in my head have begun to spin. Along their edges there seems to be a thread forming. The beautiful and terrible things of this world are working together to draw out the fibers in my mess and the twisting and whirling of the last few months don't feel quite so in vain.

I think that, tomorrow, I will follow the beauty.

Again.

When God's Face Is A Technicolor Zinnia

In ways familiar and comforting the Earth has tilted just so these last few weeks. 

At times, I have stood quiet, feet planted still, eyes peering into the woods just across the way. The barren tree limbs—skeletal and brittle, worn from a winter long and brutal, bark stained ebony against the leaden skies—they began to pulse. And deep in the hidden places, there was a quickening, a return to life.

I watched as naked branches swelled with promise, and like outstretched hands with fingers unfurling, the tips glistened as they caught the deeper shafts of sunlight. Their buds, like strings of pearls, gave way to festoons of leaves and in a twinkling, the woods were suddenly verdant and alive.

The seasons of the Earth, they are saving me these days.

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The rest of my words can be found today over at SheLoves Magazine. Join me there by clicking this link?

After your leaving

The days spin silently

and I am vacuous

in their wake

mindful of the practice

of living

but bereft 

nonetheless

 

I was not aware 

the depth of

minor rituals

and how our speaking them

to each other

pulled taut

at my sacred spaces

hemming me in

behind and before

The morning sun

falls flat 

stretching just long enough

to find the dirt smear

on the tile

I rub it halfheartedly with my toe

but nothing changes

Today

however

I heard about the hummingbirds

how they have returned

seeking nectar 

how they eat just enough

to fuel their flight

each minute

So I retrieved the feeders

their red bases 

faded from so many days

in the sun

and I filled them to the brim

sweet and dripping

A small but mighty

offering

The land of the living

is full of such sacraments

evidently

Soon I will walk

stronger 

Until then

I will just gaze upon my

Ebenezer

 

The Folds of Grace

photo credit

Some days just ring hollow
as if all the hopes I’ve thrown long and wide just
swirl round and round
slower and slower
from the weight borne upon them

And then there are days
that the black bird returns
flash of red upon his wing
his call creaky like an old iron gate
causing me to squint upwards
into the still bare tree limb in silhouette
the strengthening sun finding new fire
behind it

Some days roll in atop the
pink foam of fitful nights
and the sandy grit bristles hard
against the murky glass
leaving an etched line that will take
hours to polish out

The rest of this poem can be found over at SheLoves Magazine where I am writing today. Follow this link and join me there? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, either here or there.

In the end, three things remain

This quote appeared on my Pinterest feed a couple of weeks ago and, like a chill breeze that steals in under the warped door frame, it has descended down deep into my marrow. For you see, I have been awash in brackish thoughts of late.

With a few exceptions, I have taken a step back from my online presence the last six months. Five months ago, I gave birth to my third son. Three months ago, my mother began another round of chemotherapy. My withdrawal from the non-stop traffic of the internet was both a conscious and inevitable choice. I do not regret my decision but I would be lying through my teeth if I didn’t admit that, ever since, I have been at battle with doubt and envy.

My biggest frustration with the world of writing and platform building and influence is that what it requires seems so far removed from a life that bears the fruit worth reading about—a life of depth and stillness and meaning.

Writing, for me, has always felt like an intimate dinner party, hemmed in by golden light and the clink of dishes, measured in the crumbs stolen away on fingertips and the slow warmth from poured wine. There are the moments of sure knowing just as there are the heavy silences that come from the unknowing. But always, there is the table-- worn and steady, wide and open.

But my attempts to translate that way of being to the online world feel antiquated and stilted, at best.

It feels like sidling up to a busy counter with a bustling lunch crowd. Bread is broken and laughter distilled, yes, but the din of conversation is confusing to this ambivert who simultaneously wants to try new dishes and run out the door, hands pressed over her ears.

I'm sharing my words over at sixinthesticks with the brave Nacole Simmons for

 {The Conundrums of Christian Writing and Blogging: A Series}.

Join me and the discussion in the comments by following this 

link.

This Mortal Coil

The words pierce through the late morning light that hangs
drowsy and dust filled and glistening
and just like that
there is no way to breathe

Instinctively I fly to touch him
memorize his lips and jowls and fingertips
trace the shadow of his profile
hear the cadence within his chest
be sure of him

Whenever Death runs past
a vale of tears cuts a gorge
right through the center of
all that was known or promised
and we become wild and frantic
for life

I eventually settle and draw in
what is left of the day
seizing moment after glorious moment
like a greedy beggar
my heart keen on wanting it all

As the sunlight stretches long across the room
I feel the pull of weathered thread
that winds then meanders then weaves itself
through the fingers of all my loves
The one that holds us fast to earth
and to each other
has weak spots

I know this
yet I want to pull all the tighter
draw in the goodness so I will have it
always
entwine the bright colored thread fast
around the faded one
to keep it from shuffling off
this mortal coil

Running hard after love

I've wanted to escape to this space for weeks now. To get lost in that suspended place of word and thought that swirls like so much wood smoke, evoking both memory and revery with each bend and jump. Here is where I come to figure out what really is ... to remind myself of the ground that holds me up and the sky that pulls at my chin. It is here that I remember how to breathe.

But I have been living the last two weeks at my parents' house and despite the fact that I have all but completely withdrawn from my regular life, the days have been fuller, stuffier, heavier than most. My mom is in the thick of chemotherapy treatments attempting, with all that science and positive energy can offer, to fight a disease that alters the makeup of her blood. Rather than work for her, her cells have declared anarchy. And she is tired.

We are all tired.

And although we may be chipped and cracked a bit, dizzy drunk from all that is working around and in and through us, we are not defeated. Nor have we lost hope. Never before have I been more in tune with the song of the Gospel that sings over me, every day. That although we walk a tenuous line between faith and fear and every step seeks to hand us over to death, life is rising in us, as well.

I witnessed this truth laced through every.single.day I spent at my parents' house.

I didn't always see it while I was a child in their house. I was too busy living wildly off of the fruits of their diligence and gracious caretaking then. It has only been since returning as an adult, in a strange juxtaposition of caregiver and care receiver, that my eyes have been opened. It is only now, when the days seemed numbered, that I see the ring of light that circles the dark.

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My parents do everything with care. My mom keeps a very tidy house and my dad keeps the whole machine running smoothly. Such has been their dance throughout 59 years of marriage and they still do it beautifully. The glorious thing about it all, however, is that it never was, nor ever is, at the expense of hospitality or graceful living. Neither of them has ever answered the door to surprise guests only to exclaim, "Forgive the messy house!" Instead, doors were thrown open, arms were outstretched and visitors were ushered in with squeals of delight.

My parents are curators of a welcome life.

You can imagine the difficulty, then, when illness enters the room and, despite a willing heart, the body can't always comply. The tenuous line is drawn and its diaphanous form etches itself across the floor, like a crack in plaster.

But, over and over, I watched my parents, my mother, especially, tilt towards life.

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I always thought that if I was ever faced with a severe illness that I would, of course, take up arms and run into battle. I would not go down with the ship. I would rise above, stand defiant, go out kicking and screaming.

After witnessing the horrors of chemotherapy, however, I'm not so sure. The idea of fighting death with destruction doesn't settle well in my deepest places. But neither does quietly walking away from a life that I love. I don't know how to keep company with those who sing songs for Jesus' speedy return in order to save us from this swirling orb of humanity.

I want to live.

I want to wake up every day and gaze upon those that I love. I want to plant zinnias every summer and smell wood smoke trailing from stone chimneys. I want to eat gooey butter cake and lift weights at the Y and take road trips to the Rocky Mountains and cook bacon on Saturdays. I want to laugh at silly jokes and hear, once again, the stories that make our family its own brand of crazy. I want to hold fast to the hands clinging hard to mine.

I don't want any of this to ever stop.

I'm learning that the way to embrace a death sentence while simultaneously allowing life to rise in me is to run hard after love. In all circumstances, by every means necessary, even when I screw things up or do the exact right thing--I need love to be what is standing between me and everyone else.

When love is what I choose to weave in among the fibers and snags of my every day life, when love gilds the edges of tired joy or stretches across the chasms of unspoken fears then that cloudy glass is rubbed a little cleaner. Love lived on purpose breathes life and one can catch glimpses of glory come down.

I saw it most keenly the night I lay in bed alongside my mom. She was three days into chemo and every one of her body systems was in revolt. In that darkened room I quietly held hands with my mom and hung lavishly in that place of holding and being held. Our bodies formed a circle and I longed harder than ever that it remain unbroken. And then she whispered her thanksgiving, for me and my boys and my just being there. Her words, her naming the gifts, breathed life into my weary soul. It was love that floated between our souls in that moment and it became clearer than ever.

This speaking love into each others' lives? It is life.

In which there is Poetic Justice, for God is a Poet, but there is also Mercy

I am honored to open up space today for the words of Anita Mathias. Anita and I first connected in the comments section of a piece I wrote for SheLoves. A few months later she asked me to write a guest post over at her place. Clearly, we share an admiration for each other's words. Please join me in welcoming Anita to 

A Lifetime of Days.

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Even while Esau was out hunting his father’s favourite wild game, Jacob and Rebecca slaughtered and cooked two choice young goats-- which Jacob served to Isaac, pretending to be Esau, stealing his blessing.

A cruel deception.

And, uncannily, years later, in his own old age, Jacob’s sons sold his favourite son into slavery, dipping Joseph’s precious robe in the blood of a slaughtered goat, claiming he had been killed by a wild beast.

Tricked with a goat, just as he had tricked his own father with a goat.

* * *

The seeds we sow, we reap, measure for measure. They lie dormant in the earth, sometimes for years, then yield their harvest.

The good we have done yields blessing, and the evil we’ve done conjures shadowy forces against us.

And that’s scary if we have sown bad seeds, have said and done less than luminous things, things we are now ashamed of.

* * *

But we do not live in a mechanical universe. We live in a just universe, shot through by mercy like a golden cord.

The law of sowing and reaping is the deep magic from the dawn of time, in C. S. Lewis’s phrase.

However there is a more powerful force still: the force of mercy, unleashed by the willing victim who bore in his body the punishment for all the bad seeds we have ever sown.

And so mercy triumphs over justice. The deep magic from before the dawn of time.

Jacob recovers Joseph; Esau was, in fact, blessed.

* * *

For myself, I want to sow good seed for the rest of my life.

But the bad seed I have sown? The things I am ashamed of? The things I did because of my small, bewildered, wounded heart?

I confess them.

I ask God’s forgiveness. I ask Christ’s blood to cover them.

And I step into the waterfall of mercy, the mercy that triumphs over justice because the One who loves the world is good.

I ask him to let all the bad seeds I’ve sown, which are still dormant, die.

And I ask him for grace to overplant much good seed to crowd out the bad seed.

And I ask him, the ultimate genetic engineer, to somehow, even now, change the DNA of the bad seed I’ve planted, and bring good from them.

And I place my life and future in His hands.

(Photo credit: Jenny Downing)

_____________________________

Anita Mathias is the author of Wandering Between Two Worlds

(Benediction Classics, 2007). She has won a writing fellowship from The National Endowment for the Arts, and her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The London Magazine,  Commonweal,  America, The Christian Century, and The Best Spiritual Writing anthologies.

Anita lives in Oxford, England with her husband and daughters. She blogs at Dreaming Beneath the Spires. You can find her on Twitter @anitamathias1 or on Facebook at Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

The Thing With Feathers

I grew up in a family that loved birds. As far back as my mind can remember, I have opened my eyes each morning and quickly found a window through which I could spot the birds already bustling about the yard.

My childhood house had a tall window over the kitchen sink and just outside there stood a sweet little redbud tree with heart-shaped leaves. It was just tall enough for its limbs to reach to where we stood inside and from one branch we hung a modest little feeder. Most of the time, however, we just threw bread crusts and stale crackers on the ground. I think the birds liked those the best.

My dad taught me the name of every single bird that visited. His eyes always lit up at the flighty dance of the chickadees or the flashing red of a cardinal and with every new arrival he welcomed them by name, like old friends returning from a lengthy absence.

That is how it always felt when the juncos appeared. We called them “snow birds” because they always arrived on the cusp of cold weather and were nature’s gentle reminder that winter was on its way.

Over the years my dad’s vast ornithological knowledge gradually seeped into the corners of my little head and, to this day, I can still name every bird I see. It is one of the greatest gifts my father has ever given me.

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You can read the rest of my words by following this link over to SheLoves Magazine.

Spinning Straw Into Gold

This last week before Christmas has taken on a life of its own this year.

Right when my sweet little family was gearing up for afternoons baking cookies and evenings driving around town gazing at twinkling lights we had to, instead, quickly shift gears, rearrange plans, throw clothes in suitcases, make haste. Suddenly, it was all about hustle—a verb that I fight with a vengeance during this holy season. But rather than it being about needing a little Christmas, right this very minute, it was a pressing need to get home.

My mom is, once again, fighting a battle with her body. Cancer thinks it deserves space in her bloodstream and it is acting like a big old bully. I hate cancer.

But, I figure, the best way to fight a bully is with love so my little family has slipped on our boxing gloves and we intend to go down punching. For we want to be known as people who love. We have shown up on my parent’s doorstep, even if there is but little room in the inn, and we are ready to do business.

It is Christmas time, though, and there are children here so I am trying to figure out how you patch together something that still sings of grace and glory while not ignoring the present reality. How do we take the straw we’ve been handed and spin it into something golden and magical?

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I am writing over at SheLoves Magazine today. Follow this link to find the rest of my words.

I Am From

I am from bacon grease on the back of the stove
and dog bowls at the back door
and champagne bottles that toasted births
all lined up in a row

I am from the yellow house with pink shingles
and creaky wood floors
and one full bath
for seven people

I am from a family that didn't expect me because it was already full up with teenagers
and long haired boys on motor bikes and girls almost grown up and leaving
but it was also full up on love
and
so I am from babysitters and ice cream buyers and we love you so much

I am from the kitchen
with the worn wooden table and ash trays full to the brim
and coffee cups strewn about half full and kissed with lipstick

I am from Tree City USA full of stately elms
that grew so tall and wide they pushed sidewalks aside
and shaded generation after generation
until a disease infected them all and they slowly disappeared forever

I am from playing under water locusts and china berries and blue spruce
and climbing that one ginko all the way to the top
knowing that heaven was that much closer
because I dared
I remember that tree's
long gone limbs
as if they were my own

I am from Ghost in the Graveyard and Kick the Can
I am from Truth or Dare and lightning bugs

I am from church on Sunday and everything in order
I am from Mama and Daddy and "Aint" Alice and Uncle Roger

I am from damaged bread and honey buns and bear claws left for trash
but rescued by a hard working man who knew treasure when he saw it

I am from "Give me some sugar!" and "stand up straight"
and "You are my sunshine" sung in two part harmony

I am from The Gateway to the West and baseball and frozen custard and thin crust pizza
I am from Atlanta and Emory and Chick-Fil-A and Jimmy Carter and pot liquor
But I am also from Germany and England and Scotland and Prussia

I am from black-eyed peas and turnip greens and fried corn bread and peach cobbler
I am from apple pies and sauerkraut and fresh honey dew
and a cup of hot water first thing in the morning

I am from Meme and a house that always smelled of creamed corn
and bacon and Dove soap and Brach's candy

I am from Grandma whose short legs and generous jowls
now look at back at me in the mirror

I am from the Jim Crow South
and Whites and Coloreds

I am from rural Ohio
and soybeans and corn
as
far
as
the
eye
can
see

And now I am from three boys and a man
and a dog whom we call Stinkerpants all crammed into an ancient house built of stone
I am from writing down the stories with my eyes wide open trying to drink in all of the glory
before I fall asleep

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One of the many reasons that I love being a part of SheLoves Magazine? Synchroblogs like this, in honor of Heritage Day in South Africa. This is my offering for the "I Am From" prompt, an opportunity for folks around the world to share more about who they are and what has shaped them. We would love for you to join us. You can link up your own poem here. And while you're linking up, be sure to read from the amazing collection of stories already gathered there.

Stringing beads

photo credit: Matt on Flickr

There is this girl I know who strings words onto worn strings like so many colored glass beads and I walk around for days, fingering the rainbow forms until they are worn smooth and I know them by heart. For this girl, she mines beauty from her days. She sees how glory rains down like manna and, faithfully, she gathers and eats and it is good.

A couple of months ago, I linked arms with her for the first time in Nebraska. That time, we both crossed cornfields and there was a great unknowing that preceded our meeting. Would the person behind the words be real? Would that first embrace reveal the truth of who I was and rather than pixie dust, would I leave ash in my wake?

But her azure eyes found me across a crowded room that day and, in an instant, fear evaporated and remnants of those colored word beads split like prisms and danced between us. And there was only joy.

So when this girl offered to drive across more cornfields and rivers in order to see me, I was humbled and joyful and radiant. And I cleared the calendar.

This time, we would bring more than just ourselves. We packed our families (husbands and children) into cars and vans and food into bags and met at tables under trees, hoping, once again, that who we really were would not disenchant.

I am a silly, silly girl.

For when that long white van pulled up and those eyes found me, once again, and children began to spill out like pearls flung wild, I could only smile.

And know.

For we--she and I--we are among those lovers and dreamers who turn our insides right out and invite the world to wrap themselves in the threads that are undone as a result. There aren't many places left for us to hide.

And as the portrait I had studied for so long was drawn fuller and deeper through the paint splatters of children and spouse, I felt a fullness rising.

There were smiles and hugs and handshakes. There were quiet looks exchanged and boisterous laughs and giggles. There were bare feet and sweaty hands and games of tag and sips of cool water in sought after shade. And there were questions to draw each other out and in and deeper. It's not easy to forge trust in one afternoon.

But you can begin to carve out space.

And then the two of us were given three hours to do just that.

Carve. Whittle. Sculpt. Inscribe.

We found a coffee shop on the corner, where two streets converge, and began our settling in. And that, really, is what we have been doing all along. Taking up residence in each others' hearts, positioning ourselves to look long and hard and with love.

Words are powerful like that.

I believe that is what emerged so clearly that afternoon. The two of us and our written words? They have lit lamps into one another's heart spaces and the long shadows and bright flickers have wrought a path of love unfolding.

So as I drank my cardamon and honey laced coffee and she sipped her iced latte, our spoken words gave birth to harbors.

It's hard to walk away from moments such as these, when you are known and heard and loved anyway. When someone you study and admire speaks life into the deep places and throws a rope to your desperate places...you want to linger in those truth doused sanctuaries and bathe in the glory of how you see yourself in that new light. You want your life to sing like that. Always.

But suns must set on every day and children need cool sheets upon which to lay their sweaty heads and all of us need time to let the dust of our days settle down deep.

So, that girl and I? We hugged long and hard and I fought back tears of joy and surrender. But, despite the parting, there was this:

I will carry her colored glass beads that have been blessed by real live kisses with me always. For that girl?

She mines beauty from her days. She sees how glory rains down like manna and, faithfully, she gathers and eats and it is good.

You Can't Always Get What You Want...

In all respects, I should have been a spoiled child.

I was a surprise baby (child number five), with ten years separating me and my next oldest sibling. And if you’ve ever listened to the worn out tales of babies born into such circumstances you know the expected end-product: snotty nosed brats who lug around heavy doses of entitlement.

But God chose to place me in a family that doled out love by bushels and pecks and hugs around the neck and so the only things that came to be spoiled around our house were forgotten cartons of cottage cheese shoved to the back of the refrigerator.

Because, you see, love has never spoiled anything. Ever.

But I was a child once and, as such, I certainly had my moments--moments of selfish desire and impudent behavior, of unmet longings and unrequited wishes. And, being a child, I naturally looked to the givers of good things—my parents—for the delivery of said hopes.

So, as a child nurtured by way of arms flung wide and hearts burst open, the phrase “You can’t always get what you want” was a tad bewildering, at first. Not because I was spoiled or bratty or entitled but because, for so long, my parents’ love had been enough. Love and acceptance had been the standard upon which I grew and thrived and so, I had never really felt a lack.

And then I entered junior high and everything kind of flipped upside down...

Continue reading over at Mama Monk with Micha Boyett? Join me here.

New Wine

You brush a wisp of hair from my eyes
and while your other hand cups my cheek
I can feel the rough edge of your calloused palm
against the pillow of my skin

The room is dark
but muted yellow bends round the door frame
and moth shadows dance and twirl
in the glow

My back is turned away
and the weight of me
balances on an invisisble thread
laced between you
and the world

You pull me in
turn me
envelope the all of me
into your folded self

And there is a moment
when our curved bodies
arc
cup like
and new wine pours
into old skins
and we shimmer

Bolts of glory

It is May 3 but I have to study the calendar page, again and again, to believe it true.

There was so much hope swelling just a few days ago as the temperatures rose to meet the clear sky and the trees clapped their leaves right open. I left the kitchen door open, welcoming in that breeze laden with earth and spirea, believing that a corner had been turned.

And then, everything changed. Again.

And I realize that this dependence on happenings outside of my inner spaces to make me happy is a hollow endeavor.

I see it in my oldest, too. The way his sweet disposition darkens so quickly when even the slightest cloud passes over. And how, even after the wind turns direction, he keeps looking for the shadow, as if he knows himself best in dimmed light.

The thing is, I'm bumbling along right there beside him.

I want all the goodness and light, the warmth and the rising, the new and the fresh. I'm so tired of the gray and clouded, the cold and the sinking, the old and the stale.

But this is our life. The gray and the blue woven in tight with the yellow and the orange, in and out, over and under.

Each day is cut from holy cloth, bolts of glory by the yard. And although I've never fashioned myself a seamstress, I know that patterns and textures can change when the light is brought in closer.

So that is what I am choosing today. To bring the light in closer.

I'm lighting candles and watching the golden flicker dance upon dewy cheeks.

I'm switching on lamps and hunkering down on the couch to read the pages filled with story.

I'm looking deep into eyes, looking for that holy spark, that kindling that ignites when noticed and held close.

And I'm laughing at the calendar, for it doesn't know what I know.

That today is a gift beyond measure and I am but a servant of splendor.

Linking with Emily for Imperfect Prose