Giving Thanks for the Christmas Circuit

Every Christmas, we pack up our lives and pile up the gifts. We drive south on I-65 and we begin our Christmas circuit that takes us all over the state. From house to house, we drag all our items out of the car (an obscene amount no matter the length of stay thanks to the little ones). Drew distributes and unpacks while I begin the vigilant watch of our 4 year old and 20 month old in new territory. Suddenly everything seems breakable or a choking hazard.

Christmas with two young ones is exhausting. Chasing them around leaves me so tired that 9:00 p.m. sounds like a perfectly acceptable bedtime. Watching them in new environments is a game of risk, a test of multi-tasking abilities while maintaining conversation, and a sport of trying to communicate with Drew through mere hand signals or looks that clearly say, “It’s your turn! I need a break!” Mitigating negotiation-deals with the four-year-old at every Christmas meal is always humbling while we sit in front of those who prepared the meal. He contorts his face and says in the whiniest, most pitiful voice he can muster, “I don’t like this. How many bites do I have to eat?” We unwrap presents and I practice my telepathy as I send eye-signals to the oldest to not immediately blurt out “we already have that” or “I don’t like that” or the most obnoxious, “Where are more presents?”

And yet, Christmas with two young ones warms the jaded adult heart like nothing else. Christmas morning in striped matching PJs, the boys jump up and down with un-matched glee as they see the stockings. From house to house, we get to watch our grandparents be great-grandparents to our boys. Our youngest’s shyness dissipates and he begins cackling and playing games with everyone. He plays peek-a-book, freezes, and shows his mean face. To watch my boys be known and loved by family – it is the greatest gift. Continue reading

A Few of My Favorite 2014 Things

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Kneeling at the Altar

His tiny hands rummaged through the ground and picked up the seed. Holding it before him, my oldest exclaimed with the joy of discovery, “Hey, Look!”

“It’s a buckeye seed,” my dad answered enthusiastically. “Remember what seeds do?”

In his little boy voice he echoed back, “They drop in the ground and turn into a new tree!”

My dad had begun the education on our way in the car. For the forty-five minutes it took to get from Brownsboro Road to pull through the gates, “Grandpa” did his best to describe in young-boy terms the formation of North America and the molecular wonder of creation. Staring out the window, my newly-turned four-year-old seemed both young and old at the same time. A filled-out boy frame with the ability to listen while still sitting in a car seat and distracted by bull-dozers by the side of the road.

It was November and we were finally fulfilling my dad’s birthday present – an afternoon hike to Bernheim Forest. Continue reading

Rushing, Rushing, Rushing… then it’s there… alleluia

Pushing the cart around Kroger at 5:00 p.m. and I think to myself – no one moves as fast as a mom squeezing in an errand before picking up the kids. Coffee filters. Eggs. Yogurts. The fuel that keeps this family running day to day. The next morning I find time FINALLY to sit down in the silence. The house is quiet. Yesterday has been cleaned up. Today is before me.

Rushing, rushing, rushing… and then it’s there…alleluia.

Standing in my closet, I frantically debate back and forth on the shoes before me. I first choose the bronze flats but soon reverse course. It’s a cold day and they won’t quite cut it. I place them back and pull out the red clogs. I think back to my college-self that wouldn’t be caught dead in the clogs. I place them on the ground and slip my feet in. I come downstairs and I remember who I am – one who is not defined by the choices I make in my closet.

Rushing, rushing, rushing… and then it’s there… alleluia.

Rounding the circle loop on the way to daycare, the sky shocks me out of my routine. Pink has broken out and splattered across the sunset. As my hands shift on the steering wheel and I slow down to take it in, it seems radical and extravagant. It seems like a extravagant painting that is being wasted on a busy mom rushing to get boys picked up and home for dinner.

Rushing, rushing, rushing… and then it’s there… alleluia.

Tidying Up Our Pile of Days

Outside our windows, change is at work.

The trees are letting go of their leaves.
The skies are letting go of their composure.
The season is letting go of its resistance.

Inside, the day is slow. And yet, change is at work.

Arms moving frantically, the oldest maneuvers the trains around the tracks. While little brother naps, he enjoys the quiet solitude that settles in and gives space for his imagination to live without the brother’s grasping and demolishing hands. He sings “Going on a Bear Hunt” off and on, intermixed with crashing sounds and imaginary dialogue amongst the trains.

Staring at him, I try to uncover and bring to the light the change I feel. His fourth birthday has brought about all the cliche bittersweet feelings. My eyes lock on his face and as he asks for help, I loose myself in his eyes as I wonder… how do four years feel both long and short at the same time? It feels like I’ve been parenting forever. And yet it feels too soon to be entering big kid territory. The power of looking in his eyes can feel almost threatening. I don’t know how to quantify it. I don’t know how to predict it. With each milestone, each year, I wonder… what hard lessons are yet to be faced? What is yet to come before us? What aspects of life are going to threaten to undo him, and me? Continue reading

To Amsha and the Yazidi Women

Displaced demonstrators from the minority Yazidi sect demonstrate outside the United Nations offices in Irbil, Iraq, on Aug. 4 in support of those held captive by the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

To Amsha and the Yazidi Women,

The car has made its way back home from dropping the boys off and it is time to walk back inside to begin the tasks of the day – emails to send, errands to run, calls to make. But I am hunched over the steering wheel, my eyes glazed over as I watch the tree branches sway. The grey fall morning and my to-do list for the day feels suddenly foreign as I finish listening to a NPR report. Through the power of journalism, I have been transported to Erbil in Iraq as Leila Fadel tells me you. She tells me how you and your fellow Yazidi women have been captured by ISIS and held as slaves for sex, violence, and service after your husbands and families have been murdered before your very eyes.

Your voice makes it real. Your soft voice sounds too familiar. The words, I may not understand, but your humanity I receive. It is a voice of a fellow woman, a fellow human being, who has endured the darkest night and now wonders, where do I go from here? Can life continue now that my dignity and my community has been robbed? Continue reading

For Days Whose Endings Are Sweeter than their Beginnings

Dear oldest,

The car was our breaking point this morning. Your Sunday morning wake-up call was too early. Your excitement about getting out of bed was too nonexistent. My patience was too low. There are burdens from work and casualties that come from being a son to a minister and a doctor. The casualty this morning was our beginning. It was not sweet and it was not pretty. It was ragged and rough. It was what was necessary to get Mommy to work on time. It was not how either of us wanted to start our day.

“When we get to church, I want you to drive back home and start agin,” you said.

Me, too. Continue reading

To the newborn baby in the arms of your migrant mother

To the newborn baby in the arms of your migrant mother,

We heard news of your arrival yesterday. There were no balloons or texts. There were no Facebook announcements or professional photos. We heard of news of your birth as we were seated surrounded by the sacred stones and saints in stained glass. Your advocate and future pastor, Samuel, brought us the news from the pulpit. He mentioned no baby showers, no hospital visits, no grandparents, no newborn tests.

You were born under the radar. You were born in isolation. You were born out of the violence of rape as your mother escaped the dangers of her home countries. You were born into the masses of migrants that flood the Moroccan streets, stuck on the border of Africa and Europe. You were born stuck, homeless, and unknown for there are no documents announcing your arrival.

One Life with One Beating Heart in Prayer for the World

I feel it again on the car ride home from daycare. My daily worries, headaches, and inconveniences are pierced and shattered by word about the state of my fellow humans living around this world we share. The stories. The audible cries of the hurting.

I pause. Not to give thanks for my privileged life, but to walk a mile in the shoes of another in prayer. Seemingly inconsequential in the face of another’s impending death in war. Seemingly not enough in the face of another’s life-altering grief. Six-degrees-of-separation suggests the suffering of another is never far from me. Scripture suggests it must always be within me.

I pause and I walk next to each of them in prayer… Continue reading

Baptized in Muddy Waters: This Journey of Calling

The day has begun with the early summer sunrise. A cry woke me earlier than usual, so I find myself with time to spare. I prepare my mind for the day ahead, but I can’t get past the next hour. My day depends upon what I find in the crib… crusty-eye that daycare nurses will label pink-eye? Or a clearer eye that has already been cured enough by the eye-drops from the previous night to allow us to pass by without detection? Continue reading

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the practice of paying attention