Thorns, Joy & Holy Braids

It's so natural, intuitive even, to settle one's vision on the rough parts of anything. It's the way we protect ourselves.

Whenever we know exactly what we are dealing with, we feel we are better prepared to fight against it or rise above it or bring it under our control. When there is an enemy, it is always better to have the upper hand. And the way to gain that advantage is to know every side of the evil.

So, we study it. We caress it's edges. We keep it close at hand so, in the moments between other moments, we can pull it out and remember how it wants us.

And oh, how it wants us.

Its pursuant tendrils silently wrap and curl into our shadowed folds and feed on the darkness. And the rough and the dark? They become silent, parasitic partners.

We believe we are armed for battle when, really, we are wasting away in our deepest places.

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In nature, thorns are fortifications that protect a plant from being eaten by predators. A great many fruits and edible flowers are kept alive by the trails and rings of thorns surrounding them.

My life this past year? It has been rife with trails and rings of thorns. Walking alongside my mom through her illness and chemotherapy and eventual death was the most difficult thing I have ever done. And my default? More often than I care to admit, it has been to succumb to the vacuum of scarcity that Life's defense manufactures. Because when all I see and feel and experience is prickly and nettlesome, I can't help but feel shut out from the beauty.

But that's exactly the arc of the great ache--that our experiences that are often strewn with thorns are but stations on a path ringed with beauty and joy. If a thorn's design is to protect, then it follows that their presence is purposeful and necessary. They remind us that all the things that are true and noble and reputable and authentic and compelling and gracious are prized and sought after. They remind us that joy and pain are profoundly intertwined. 

For me, this is where my faith in a God of grace and mercy becomes manifest. For when I am willing to take the joy and the pain in both hands, God's immense love and care for me provide yet a third cord. Taken together, they become a holy braid that is not easily broken. 

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Where are you, today, friend? Are you knee-deep in the pain and struggle? Do you feel wrapped in thorns, as if Life wanted to "protect" you from the good you see and that others seem to have in spades? Perhaps, your go-to response is bitterness, anger or, worse, indifference. What if there was another way?

I wrote today's post as a way of partnering with Margaret Feinberg and to help spread the word about her latest book Fight Back With Joy. 

This book began as an intense study of the over 400 references to joy in Scripture. Margaret was in the final stages of writing her book when she received a cancer diagnosis. Suddenly, all the sources of joy that she had discovered were turned on their head in the shadow of her illness. In an instant, her understanding of true joy was called into question. In writing Fight Back With Joy  Margaret "discovered facets of joy that no one ever taught me—more than whimsy, joy is a weapon we can use to fight life’s battles."

Fight Back With Joy 6-Session DVD Bible Study Promo Video from Margaret Feinberg on Vimeo.

You can purchase the book at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Margaret has also created a 6-session DVD Bible Study kit that is available for purchase. 

Sometimes you have to poke holes in the darkness until it bleeds light. 

#fightbackwithjoy

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

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

 

On the passing of my mother

She is from a white clapboard house with a wraparound porch, claw foot tub and Dove soap smack in the middle of Macon, Georgia.

From the streets of Madison and Carling, up and down Coleman Hill, where she walked to Whittle School and the Public Library, and boldly asked for a library card at the age of 5.

She is from playing under fig and pear trees, soft scented pines and shiny leaf magnolias, red clay staining her bare feet and the smell of paper mills filling her nostrils.

She is from Berry and Sallie Belle, Wiley, Sister, Doris, Roger and Jimmy.

She is from strong as oxen Shero aunts who farmed cotton and worked in pants plants in Wrightsville, Georgia.

She is from the Depression and Tuberculosis and a family that took in folks who were down on their luck. From fish on Friday and First Street Methodist.

She is from picnics on Stone Mountain, Finchers BBQ, NuWay hotdogs and LaVista Catfish.

She is from poise lessons and perfect posture and words dripping honey sweet from her mouth.

She is from a hair-brained idea involving a midnight double date rendezvous to Aiken, SC, a half drunk justice of the peace, and a 4th of July celebration that included one very busy rotating fan.

She is from moves to Indianapolis, Indiana and then St. Louis, Missouri that took her from her beloved South.

She is from north of the Mason Dixon line where she took it upon herself to soften the edges of every nasal accent in the Midwest.

She is 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. She is from Boston Ferns and summer deck parties.

From coffee and cherry chip birthday cake and hands that smelled like onions.

She is from chuck roast in the electric skillet, onion soup mix brisket, Jello salads, massive pots of spaghetti, liver and onions, green enchiladas, asparagus disguised as green bean casserole, sweet tea and Hallelujah banana bread.
She is from “I love you a bushel and a peck” and “Gimme some sugar” and, perhaps most famously,  “Tim Smothers, you will nevah, nevah, evah drive that Aspen Station Wagon again!”

She is from Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass, the Johnny Mathis Christmas album, Dionne Warwick, George Carlin, Flip Wilson, Bill Cosby, Cheech and Chong, Fiddler on the Roof, James Taylor and that Classical Music in the background.

She is from You Are My Sunshine and Everything Is Going to be Alright.

She is from “To Thine Own Self Be True” and “It’s Your Mama.” From “All Is Well” and “It Is What It Is Grandma” and “Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much.”

She is from dancing jitterbugs across linoleum floors and slapping her knee at every guffaw.

She is from birthday cards and notes in school lunches and throwing kisses and standing at the door until your car was out of sight.

From “psspsspsspss” and “chum on” and “doodlebug” and “Honey Bob.”

And forever and ever and ever, she will always be from shooting stars and fireworks and every smile shared by those that loved her best.

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There you have it. The world as we have known it, all the days of our lives. We were molded and shaped and created from that celestial brew of whimsy and joy and strength.

We have never known ourselves or our world without our mother in it.  I am here, my brothers and sisters are here, because of her.  We are who we are, because of her.

Our mother was a curator of a welcome life.

To live in the orbit of our mother was to always be invited, received, entertained, accepted.

But perhaps above all, to have known my mother was to have been loved.

Her life was a lesson in loving.

What she taught us all was to always run hard after love. In all circumstances, by every means necessary, even when we screw things up or we do the exact right thing--we need love to be what is standing between us and everyone else. When love is what we choose to weave in among the fibers and snags of our everyday life, when love gilds the edges of tired joy or stretches across the chasms of unspoken fears then we become Love lived on purpose and that breathes life and one can catch glimpses of glory come down.

In the wake of my mom’s death, we are sad, yes. We feel carved out and empty and the truth of what we are left with actually aches in ways deep and long, yes.
But this, too, is also true:

There is still life, despite the loss.  There is still love in the world, despite the severing.  There is still light, despite the darkness.

And that gives me hope.

Because, if it is true, that we are who we are because of our mother...
then it means that this whole dance, all of the goodness and light spun dizzy with all of the defiance and angst, all of the ways that we continually fall down and help pick each other up, all of the beautiful and mundane, the fascinating and the trivial, the whole and the half?

It's part of us too, now, tucked away in the obvious and secret places, planted in soil made rich with her love and care for us.

It is through loving and singing with our own children or grandchildren, by partnering with kindred souls or living alongside people that challenge us...all of it ripples on and on and on.... people are continually made and remade because we are in their lives...which means that our mother lives on.

And I pray that one day, when the pictures are pulled out and the chronology of our becoming is on display, the one thing that will have leaked out all over, dripping from the corners of our eyes and the edges of our smiles, is the amazing truth...

that we were loved by her.

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.

Small Acts, Great Love

The house is quiet now.

All day there has been this swirling of vagrant leaves and fluttering of bare branches and it has been enough to make me wonder if all of heaven and earth might just be on the cusp of some arcing change. Perhaps winter’s icy fingers are beginning to crack and splinter in the hidden places. Perhaps there might just be a Spring after all.

It’s in the hushed evening that I remember what I read once about frost seeding. How a farmer can scatter a pasture with seeds while the ground is still frozen. Then, as the soil freezes and thaws, space is opened up and the seeds fall into the space that is created. All throughout the winter, with each new round of bitter cold, the process continues and the seeds become more and more a part of the soil. After each storm, each seed is better positioned to germinate once the temperatures rebound and stay consistent.

It is in this remembering that I think about my fall and winter. I think about how my life has been flipped on its head, how I am mothering an infant once again, how those dear to me are sick and in need of attention and how, right in the middle of it all, I am earnestly practicing the sacred art of balance.

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Click here to read the rest of my words over at SheLoves Magazine.

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.

Weave

Oh, 2013!
You have been remarkable. Truly.

It was on this day, last year, that I chose a word for you. I was perched on the edge of a whole new chunk of days and for the first time, I chose a word with which to walk out that gift of time.

WITH

I wrote a sort of proclamation for myself, a manifesto declaring my intentions for moving forward into the new year.

with
prep.

-in the company of
-next to, alongside
-in the charge or keeping of
-in support of
-among
-in spite of
-in the same direction as
-so as to be touching or joined to

TheFreeDictionary.com

It was the last line of intention that would end up cradling my entire year:

This year, when given the opportunity, I will choose touch over tension, embracing rather than rejecting, joining in place of separation. I am not an emotional island, nor are the ones I love. I will choose to move towards them, even when it is hard.
I will choose to be with those that are in front of me.Every.Day.

And so now, here I am, shaking my head at the methods of a loving God who, in His desire to be close to me, reached across the gossamer veil and planted Love outright, deep within me. My One Word was more than just letters on a page. My One Word was born in me.

This past year has been a collection of giving over and giving in, of walking into and in front of. 

It has held fear, only to be bathed in faith. 

It has stretched, first, thin and then swelled gloriously ripe. 

It has challenged my hopes, changed my trajectory, and championed my spirit.

That little preposition of a word continued to show up. 

Every.

Single.

Day.

And so, here I am again, on the cusp of a whole new chunk of days and, once again, I am choosing One Word.

weave

verb

-to make (cloth) by interlacing the threads of the weft and the warp on a loom.

-to interlace (threads, for example) into cloth.

-to construct by interlacing or interweaving strips or strands of material

-to interweave or combine (elements) into a complex whole

-to contrive (something complex or elaborate) in this way

-to introduce (another element) into a complex whole; work in

-to spin

The Free Dictionary

This word came to me in the hushed gray of morning this past week. My little Samuel, the very answer to a question I didn't even know that I had asked, the single greatest surprise of my life, was stirring. I peeked, sleepily, at the boy miracle within arm's reach and it hit me: 

I have a crazy beautiful life. 

So much poignant beauty has wound its way into each moment. 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 I want to remember this, for always. Because this is no small thing. In fact, this is a very grand thing. The greatest thing, even. 

So, I am choosing WEAVE as my One Word for 2014.

I want to interlace myself with each member of my sweet little family, in and out, over and under, creating beautiful patterns of light and dark, soft and scruffy, bold and demure. I want to recognize each individual for the uniqueness they bring to our clan, all the while, remembering that they are also part of a complex whole creation that is continually emerging, growing, changing.

I want to apply this to my other relationships, as well. I want to receive those that have been planted in my life and first see, really see, all the color and texture and gifts that they bring to the table. Then, after acknowledging that who I am is such a conglomeration of these people, we can go about the business of braiding ourselves together, in and out, over and under.

And then there is the writing, whose very act is a gathering, a stringing together of thought and hope and belief. 

To write is to weave, all the while, hoping and praying that in all of this straw gathering there will be flickers of gold.

So, I am extending a warm and open "Welcome" to this new year. I know that to do so is risky. There is no guarantee that 2014 will be kind to me. If this past year has taught me anything it is that the flip side of light is dark, the opposite of health is sickness, and the antithesis of security is uncertainty. But I am not going to let fear set the tone for what is to come. Instead, I am going to join hands with the Giver of gifts and, together, we are going to take warp and weft and weave beauty.

“For last year's words belong to last year's language 

And next year's words await another voice.” 

--TS Eliot

Photo credit: Flickr

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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Would you like to read the rest of this post?

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

Lessons in Light and Dark

It happened so fast, the light leaving.

It was a slow fade, at first, with the late afternoon sun casting weaker beams in the sky. And then, like a candle snuffed quietly, the sun disappeared and one day we found ourselves eating dinner in the inky blackness. That first darkened night we huddled around the table and felt a keen need to draw closer, to touch shoulders, to clasp hands.

The hushed darkness of winter will do that to you. Pull you in.

And although the earth spins faithfully and the calendar responds in turn, even though I know this cycle by heart, I am still surprised by its steadfastness. The resoluteness of time can grate painfully across this fickle heart of mine and my grandest intentions often fall like cinders from the flame that frames each season.

The passing of years does not always equate an increased wisdom and some lessons wrap themselves in new skin and walk themselves into my days.

My latest lesson wears the skin of a baby...

To read the rest of "Lessons in Light and Dark" please join me here over at SheLoves Magazine.

In which I begin the great unwinding

I suppose it has been a bit obvious, has it not?

The fewer blog posts.
Not as many comments at the end of others' pieces, if they manage to get read at all.
A diminishing Klout score.

Less of a presence.

On line, that is.

But, really, it has just been the beginning of a great unwinding. And as these days melt, one into another, and as I approach the day when life turns upside down, once again, I find my heart and mind being drawn elsewhere.

I am very much at home these days.

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Ann Voskamp wrote once about how mother ducks "pick feathers from their chests to line their nests" and now I understand.

“How else did you think nests were lined?”

With leftovers.

That’s what I thought.

With feathers discarded, the molted, the not-so-necessary feathers.

I thought mother ducks picked feathers up from what was laying about, scraps, lining nests with what simply could be mustered after the fact.

But no. No, a mother duck plucks each feather out from the heart of her bosom.

She lines the nest with bits of herself — the best of herself.  

A mother cups her brood not with leftovers — but with her own sacrifice.

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As I have begun preparing for a new baby to enter into my, and my family's, life I am having to let go of some things that I have been holding close.

I need to begin the sacrifice of my online presence.

Saying that out loud is like sounding the death knell to a modern writer. Stop blogging? No more tweets? No more platform building?

But at the end of that line of questioning and after a small but monumental silence, I stand resolute.

When I wash clothes and then hang them on the line to dry, it is a process that takes time. Each piece must be snapped free of wrinkles, clipped on with clothespins and arranged just so. When the task is completed it makes for an impressive sight, colors flapping in the wind, displayed for all to see. Work has been done and now the sun works her magic.
But if I don't hang my clothes on the line and, instead, choose to place them in the dryer, inside of my house, the work is still being done.
It just isn't seen by the whole neighborhood.

That is how things are needing to shift around these parts.

I am slowly bringing the work inside.

My sweet baby has been leading the way already. With each passing day he has been growing and stretching into the space within which he finds himself. And he has been doing it most beautifully.

But soon, his space will spill over into our space and we want to be ready.

So we are moving things from here to there. We are relieving ourselves of things no longer needed. We are welcoming, with open arms, the generosity of family and friends.

We are making room.

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This slow unwinding has made me aware in ways that I haven't been, for quite some time...

Aware of the way the sun light moves across the floor and walls of my living room, highlighting corners and gilding rough edges and generally making all things beautiful.

Aware of the ticking that comes from the small desk clock upon the shelf, reminding me of every.single.moment.

Aware of how conversations, connected throughout a day, can build bridges of thought and understanding and revelation to everyone involved.

Aware of the power of touch and eye contact and how melting into both provides a balm for heart space that you didn't even realize was rough and hardened.

And, most importantly, aware that every day is full of gifts to unwrap and in order to fully receive that multitude, one must not be looking askance.

So, friends, I am beginning the great unwinding.  I am letting the yarn unravel as it will. It will probably look quite untidy for a bit. Perhaps there will be tangles. But, together, my family and I are letting the colored strands fall into our open hands and, together, we will knit together new garments.

I believe I already like the fit of them.

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Photo credit: Ben Hosking via Flickr

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.

Emerge

My arms circled round your neck

this morning 

like a garland of hope

and although I thought it better

to refrain from

pomp and circumstance

I secretly imagined that I was

knighting you with

strength and fortitude

and

ringing you with

joy and hope 

Because I know

sweet one

that you are riding into 

both

battle

and

revelry

in the days ahead

Even on good days

there is a struggle within

That inner conflict

between

who you want to be

and

who you are

and all of it

swirling round like a storm

of 

angst

But you were made for glory

you

who are so meek in heart

Here and there

I get glimpses of

the ways that

fire has been forged

in your bones

deep and hidden

It emerges

when it must

and 

your face shines radiant

from the effort

That is the image

I will carry with me

these long days

when you are apart from me

I will cross my heart

and hope

with the saints

that you will hear the song

placed inside you

when you were but a whisper

to me

The song that was sung over you

by the One

that imagined you into being

and knows you by heart

Photo credit: Swirl Abstraction by Matt on Flickr

Brave Words: I Believe

The years, they begin to stretch a little thinner with each turn of the calendar. There is always a slight pause at the realization, an imperceptible shake of the head, a quick tightening along the jaw bone.

And then the resignation and the practiced patience. The deep breath and the tight smile. Perhaps it is habit or even a feigned fortitude. Whatever it is, it pushes forward.

It must.

But this year’s turning almost undid me. It swelled loud and frightening and red and there was a hemorrhaging of questions and unknowns. There was fear. The cinch of my belt was acute and there was an ache deep within my belly.

And I found myself asking, no, begging, the question:

On how thin a line can one continue to balance?

But hidden within the possible answer was where my biggest fear actually lurked.

What if the answer was hidden in the hard truth of

giving up

and

giving over

and

giving into?

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I'm sharing my story of unbelief over at Kelli Woodford's place today. Kelli has been hosting a series on Brave Words and here are her words on this series:

"Writers see more clearly when they can cover an experience with words. Not to hide from it, but so that what is truest and perhaps most important about the experience is made manifest to eyes blind in all other directions.  This is my reason for writing this series. 
In it I hope to allow the courage God places in our hearts access to our tongue. That in looking at the many syllables of Truth, and how they differ for each of us, we can also learn to speak them bold when surrounded by the cacophonic glare of lies.  That we can recognize how God is speaking His courage through us more often than we know.  Oh, so much more often than we know."

Brokenness is a Portal

The morning begins simply and purposefully. The boys and I eat breakfast, clean up dishes, make beds … all of it completed with, seemingly, contented airs. First one thing is finished, then the next, and the decided and determined course of slow and steady becomes a rhythm that breathes joy into the mundane. I pause, midstream, and see this with eyes resolved to frame the plain, every day moments for what they actually are: glory come down.

I breathe deep, knowing that this must be my practice.

Stopping.

Breathing.

Beholding.

Over and over and over.

World without end.

As our routine and ritual plays out, we gather on the sofa to read aloud. As we are drawn deeper into the story and questions arise, we pause and discuss, compare and contrast. For one cannot traipse and footslog their way through the dominion of elves and dwarves. No, this territory must be revered and respected. Inevitably, however, when opinions are shared, a boy forgets to extend that same respect to his brother and words begin to fly like arrows. Voices rise. Emotions flare. And in a single moment, the morning that was wrapped in gold burns hot and I am left with hands dripping dross.

I stop.

I breathe.

I remember.

This is a practice...

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Would like to continue reading?

Then, please join me over at Emily Wierenga's place for this week's Imperfect Prose

where I am guest posting and bleeding brokenness all over the place.