Perspective

Tidying Up Our Pile of Days

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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.

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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

Baptized in Muddy Waters: This Journey of Calling

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DSC_0781The 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

30: BLINK. 30 years, 3 days, and Counting

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BLINK
Words from my dad on the occasion of my 30th birthday… presented over lunch with two squirming boys on a Sunday afternoon at a quiet spot (that is, until we arrived)

Blink.
That’s it.
Open shut them open shut them
cry then eat then sleep then cry.

Finding your voice
finding your feet
losing your fat
in come your teeth.

Long summer days
dolls in your arms
but then its your friends
and school-day alarms.

Homework and games
leaves orange brown
thick golden hair
laughs all around.

Stepping then running
then sprinting and bursting.
A long-legged blur
for the future you’re thirsting

The fresh life you sought
brings you close to new friends
who love and live with you
and form a new lens.

Through which to cast
an eye towards another
and see your reflection
embraced completely.

That embrace once returned
leads to love’s relation.
and vows and new houses
and two new creations.

Eat then work then love then sleep
open shut them open shut them.
That’s it.
Blink.

I blink and time has passed. Thirty years, three days, and counting. Days have passed and I have endured them. Some have sped too fast to catch my breath. Some have crept along too slow in between breaths.

The significance of these 10,953 days is not in the accumulation of meager wealth, success, or power. It is found in the ones who have walked these days with me. Continue reading

Eleven Months and Ten Days.

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0829367999002Eleven months and ten days after his first arrival in this world, it’s time to say goodbye to the intimate role of being the source of nutrition for my youngest. As the days come to an end, I give thanks for the blessing that it was – to nourish, to comfort, to sustain this little life from my own. It was gift. It was blessing. From the early days in the hospital to the grueling first months. From the return to work with all the embarrassing mechanics to the nighttime bedtime routine with all its sweet tender moments.

Since the beginning when we savored that first golden hour after birth, there has been an invisible tether that kept our personhood interwoven together. We have been two human bodies in deep need of one another, sharing in our fragility and strength in a way in which no other human relationship can compare. Continue reading

INSPIRATION: On Being’s “Suicide, and Hope for Our Future Selves”

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For the wisdom that comes from another, I give thanks.

INSPIRATION: Krista Tippett’s conversation, “Suicide, and Hope for Our Future Selves” with Jennifer Michael Hecht about her recent book, Stay, on NPR’s “On Being”

  • amazing how a conversation about death helps us life seem more vivid and clear
  • amazing how the work of a non-religious writer is the perfect partner to my current ministry book I’m loving, The Relational Pastor.
  • amazing how a good radio program makes a 6-mile run seem not long enough.

“None of us can truly know what we mean to other people, and none of us can know what our future self will experience.” Continue reading

This Beating Broken Heart

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ImageEach 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

At her feet…

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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

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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

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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