This Beating Broken Heart

Each morning, the voices and images of people across the globe flood my second floor as I prepare for the day. Through the amazing gift of technology, Brian Williams catches me up on the latest news in our world.

Women weep and cling to one another in a Chinese hotel as they await answers from the disappearance of their family and friends. Men attempt to win the battles of wars waged by greed, power, and pride that parade as politics. And then they feature a special on the children of Syria. Continue reading

LENT: The Hand that Drags Me

Even now, the ashes cling underneath my thumbnail. When you have the responsibility to spread the ashes on the heads of your congregation, the darkness has a way of seeping into the crevices and indentations where nail meets skin.

Person after person comes before us and we smudge the ashes on their forehead and we visualize the reality that this church will bury each one of these precious, beloved souls. A young girl in leggings. A man in all his strength. My own father. It’s all too much to bear in that moment. Should we let it truly sink in, each one of us as ministers would be a pool of tears before the congregation. Continue reading

Love Remains

The babysitter is secured and the plans are coming together to celebrate a friend’s birthday tonight. We’ll gather at one of his favorite restaurants and retell our memories. We will recount the small things that once seemed inconsequential. But in the absence of his physical body with us, they have become everything.

When I let my mind wander, I can get lost in the memories. The moments we shared. The adventures. His dreams. His smile. The times he was fully alive.

For a moment, I am with him. All that has been lost returns. All that is fractured is made whole. Continue reading

Giving Thanks for Love-Made-Flesh this Valentine’s Day

The mother covered her daughter with a pink blanket covered with big hearts of different colors. She tucked in the sides around her body to keep her warm. Taking the handles behind the wheelchair, the mother pushed her onto the sidewalk to make her way into her daughter’s school. The wheelchair carries all her various supplies and includes her music player. It is her home for she is unable to move or speak or share. Though technically a teenager, her daughter is in my three-year-old’s class.

Our daycare is a place that welcomes medically-fragile children to receive the care they need while their parents work. James’ class is full of children who run by the aid of wheels or walkers or their own two-feet. There are those who breathe on their own and those that run with an oxygen tank by their side. It is the Kingdom of God – a place where all are celebrated as children equally worthy of love and nurture.

The gift of watching this mother prepare her daughter for school is all the Valentine’s Day moment I need. It is the picture of Love-Made-Flesh – a Love that sets up home in the pain, finds hope in the ashes, and shows up each day as a steward of the bittersweet gifts of Life. Continue reading

At her feet…

My movements were quick and frantic. The minutes raced by. I rushed around the locker room as I cleaned up after a run at the gym. The countdown was on to pick up the boys from daycare.

Her movements were slow and cautious. The minutes slowed down as she worked to get dressed and faced the task of getting her feet covered for the winter weather. Her walker stood next to her but it was of no help in this moment.

As she brought out the tool she used to help get her socks on, I turned off the hair-dryer and set it down. “May I?” I asked. Continue reading

Embracing my calling as HOMEmaker

On my day-off from work, I look ahead at the day… the sticky messes, tall laundry piles, empty pantry, and long to-do lists to make home for my family. It is a day that is mundane and yet it is one of the most important I have all week. My resume says I am a Minister to Youth. My paycheck and our daycare bills tell that I am a working mom. And yet, at the heart of it, I am first and foremost a HOMEmaker.

For some, my calling as a HOMEmaker will be perceived as traditional and predictable. Some might assume it to be old school or even a role of gender discrimination. My previous-self would judge my current-self. I would reject this calling for I am a supporter of women’s rights and daughter of the modern age.

Life has a way of changing you. Parenthood has a way of changing you. Continue reading

Dancing in the Tension

Snow blankets the streets. I hold him close to me as I dance him around the rug, dodging Legos and Little People which litter the room. Cheek pressed against his cheek, I hum and try to quiet the stubbornness that fights sleep within him.

Out the window, beyond the falling snow, a house nearby smolders from an early morning fire. News reports tell that the fire ended a man’s life. Time stands still and I imagine his mother standing next to his crib, dancing around the room as she feels the breath rise and fall from his chest. Where is she now…the day he breathed his last? Continue reading

Above the stream

Below the surface, the current in the stream is strong. Its rushing waters are quiet as we bustle along. Without too much thought or effort, we float forward and all that we feel sure of is the strength of the current and our place in the water. The boundaries of the stream limit our sight. The water occupies everything.

Just above the stream, a whole world teems with life. The rocks and stones stand with a stability and strength enough to resist the current’s pull. The trees that shade the stream look from above with the wisdom of long-practiced perspective. The skies overhead glow with warmth and promise.

To step out of the stream is risky. It requires trust that there is more than what the waters will allow you to see. It holds over me all the reasons to stay in the familiar: the habit of following along, the power of the current, the fear of suffocation, the complacency with a “fine” life, the perceived protection of a predetermined trajectory. Continue reading

It is Well With My Soul

The cries pierce my sleep. I wait it out a few moments and listen to determine if they are the cries of a momentary disturbance or if they are the cries of nighttime need. I walk to the room and rub his back. His arm reaches around to touch mine. Finding my hand, he wraps his fingers around mine. The cries cease and in the silence, he holds on and finds his calm again.

Eight months old, I am still his refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. One of the greatest privileges of parenthood is getting to be the peace my little one needs – to be the arms that make everything alright. During the early months when the needs are concrete and specific (food, diaper, sleep), parenthood means being the one to anticipate, notice, and satisfy.

When the oldest wakes now, I venture down to his room the same I did when he was young. Now, though, there are some night terrors where I struggle to break him out of the crying. I hold him close in his little bed and try to whisper those words, ancient and sacred, “Do not fear, I am here with you.”

And yet the words and my presence do not hold the magic power they once did. Right before my eyes, my oldest is growing up. The chubby cheeks are dissipating and his physique is more “boy” than toddler. As his vocabulary grows, he is becoming more and more aware of his surrounding. He is beginning to taste the Great Sadness Continue reading

Personal Training for the New Year

“With the coming of the end, a great bustle and business begins to shake the nations of the world. The time of the end is the time of the massed armies, ‘wars and rumors of war,’ of huge crowds moving this way and that, of men ‘withering away for fear,’ of flaming cities and sinking fleets, of smoking lands laid waste, of technicians planning grandiose acts of destruction. The time of the end is the time of the Crowd: and the eschatological message is spoken in a world where, precisely because of the vast indefinite roar of armies on the move and the restlessness of turbulent mobs, the message can be heard only with difficulty…

To leave the city of death and imprisonment is surely not bad news except to those who have so identified themselves with their captivity that they can conceive no other reality and no other condition. In such a case, there is nothing but tribulation: for while to stay in captivity is tragic, to break away from it is unthinkable – and so more tragic still.

What is needed then is the grace and courage to see that ‘the Great Tribulation’ and ‘the Great Joy’ are really inseparable, and that the ‘Tribulation’ becomes ‘Joy’ when it is seen as the victory of life over death…

It is not the last gasp of exhausted possibilities but the first taste of all that is beyond conceiving as actual.”

~Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable..excerpt found in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas

As Thomas Merton writes, Jesus was born in a stable away from the world that crowded together for the census. Away from the machines of individualism, consumption, and fear, I seek to walk farther out to the fields so that I can be one of those who receives the good news of new life born in the most unlikely places. The magnetism to the world’s highest esteemed products – success and happiness – is strong. In this new year, may I work on my own personal training – strengthening my muscles to break away as I practice… Continue reading

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the practice of paying attention