A little girl was crying in the bathroom at Whole Foods. The mother was perfunctory as I passed them, maybe like a kindergarten teacher she had observed in her past, “Both hands, please. Thank you.” Then, as I went into a stall, she said “Now, do you want your crown back on?” which could be either a very tender question or a very indulgent one. The little girl didn’t respond except by additional mournful sounds, and I am afraid I decided which it was based on the tightness of the mother’s electric blue leggings.
Friday, September 8, 2023
Summer
The time of year about which I meant to write is already over - those few weeks in Florida when the temperature outside is 70 degrees and everything is surrounded by a glow of perfection. I go around saying to myself, "This is why people live here." Now we're in the sweaty season, which will last half the year. The temperature was up to 85 starting last week, and I just stayed inside, for plenty of reasons - the baby needs to eat, I need to do the dishes. But two weeks ago, I would have spread a blanket in the shade of the ligustrum and fed the baby in his Bumbo Seat. Then I would have given him a twig or a few leaves to play with and laid back and looked at the sky while the girls chased each other round and round on the trampoline, the breeze languidly lifting the tendrils of my hair. The weather was so gracious, this could have occupied us for an hour or even two. At our old house, this idyll was called "Hammock Time” and was spent swinging between two mighty oaks in the backyard. Now the tendrils of my hair are plastered to the sides of my face with perspiration. It’s “Pool Time.” Happily, we have one, even though we had to trade in our hammock for it last year when we moved. Floridians hibernate around now. At least having a pool gives us a reason to go outside. I guess I will. All things come to an end. I walk out the door into a wall of heat. It lies on my skin like a weighted blanket hot and damp from the dryer. To tell the truth, it doesn’t really feel that bad, at first. I’m catching little hints, too, on the air of a delightful fragrance. Such sweetness! I breathe it and breathe it. Where is it coming from? Oh yes, the ligustrum is blooming. It always surprises me. What a sweet perfume can come from such unobtrusive little white flowers.
Girls, get your suits on.
(2011)
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Hi Again
I found my blog. I haven’t really been here in so long. I stayed up til two in the morning last night reading every entry. I wanted more. I started reading all the drafts I have written but never posted. There are about a hundred.
Because I had been away, it was like having someone explain myself and my life to me as if I were another person, and I didn’t find that person nearly as treacherous as I did when I first wrote all these words about her and curated them so astringently, in fear of her embarrassing me. Why would I be embarrassed by her? She’s human. (“Mortal, fleshly, vulnerable, fallible, forgivable” -thesaurus.com)
The past few years, I cringed whenever I remembered all these inner thoughts hanging out here on the internet for anyone to see, but I had no time to get my mind around what I wanted to do about them. Sort of like with all the homebirth pictures in my iPhoto archives, they have just stayed hanging around in this out-of-the-way corner of the internet. I don’t expect there’s been much traffic.
I think it’s good to be circumspect about how much to reveal, and it is good to ask myself who among my relatives and friends and distant acquaintances might be accessing this blog and reading about my inner thoughts and my family. We mustn’t cast our pearls before swine, as they say.
But at the same time, I have this urge to bring my treasures out and lay them before you, standing here all crumbly, exposing myself, knowing you can reject me.
Wednesday, September 6, 2023
Pantocrator
I love the icons up front on the iconostasis at the Eastern Orthodox church. (I know I said we were becoming Catholic, but this journey keeps taking interesting turns. I'm not sure when it will be over.) To the right is Christ Pantocrator, Ruler of All Things, haloed in gold and grim-visaged above his fingers crooked in blessing, more severe than you might expect Jesus to look. I admit I didn't get warm fuzzies the first time I saw him. And to the left is his mother. Called the Theotokos, the God-Bearer, she is not a soft, glowy, pretty young thing, yet something in her gaze surpasses mere appeal - truth, and sorrow. But it is the gold my eyes return to, again and again, the gold of their halos, the gold that surrounds them. Something weighty is there, hefty as an anchor, mooring my soul. The incense, the standing (standing as in there are no chairs, standing as in the whole time), the chant, the reverence settles deep in me like solid food, like sustenance. I didn't know I was so hungry for holiness.
Orthodox people - or, let me say, Western Orthodox converts - talk a lot about who's right, about correctness in worship. Not everyone does, but you run into plenty who are dismissive of the "west" and who call Catholics and Protestants heretics. It's a long story that goes back to the East-West Schism of the Church, circa 1054. There are definite differences between Eastern and Western ways of thinking; I think everyone knows that. But (as the conservative Orthodox see it) has Western Christianity fallen off the mark, starting with the assertion of papal authority and devolving from there into strange additions to tradition like Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception, rebellion against that authority and then rebellion after rebellion over differing interpretations of Scripture that has left us a Church splintered into thousands of denominations? Or, as the more liberal or lenient of the Orthodox say, are the West and East like two lungs in the same body - i.e. they are different, but you need them both? Is it a matter of deciding which tradition fits us best? Or has the Orthodox Church truly guarded the fullness of the faith and it cannot be found anywhere else? If it can't be found anywhere else, there is only one answer: I want to be Orthodox. But the question is - are they overlooking something? You can be absolutely correct and still be wrong, if you don't have love. And, I'm not saying I haven't experienced love in the Orthodox Church, but there seems to be a bit of a spirit of scruple sometimes. They say it doesn't matter if your kids are lying on the floor, but then they say, just make sure they stand up for the Our Father and the Great Entrance. They say there is grace for all you don't know yet and aren't able to do yet, but your kids shouldn't be coloring in church. Do you see how there is some inconsistency here? But of course, if it's just individual people with that attitude it doesn't matter. There's only one Person we're there for.
Maybe it would be good for me to risk being a little wrong and stick with a Western tradition, just because it is so easy for me to be scrupulous myself. And my faith is in God, not in my own ability to choose the "right" tradition. I certainly have experienced a lot of love in the Western tradition, in Catholicism and in the sweet Anglican church where we've been seven years.
I don't know. I change from morning to night. This morning when I was taking the dog out, I was thinking, "Maybe it's just a thing you have to do by faith." It doesn't seem like it's going to be made clear to us by some supernatural intervention, like some things are. We have not gotten any kind of a sign one way or the other, and we very well might not get one. So I was thinking, holding Max's leash, that we probably needed to just choose to be Orthodox, in faith that they have preserved the fullness of the faith, and then walk it out, continue by faith. But it wasn't two hours later when I was reading part of the Catholic catechism (I've been getting the catechism by email, a little each day, to read it in one year; I haven't been reading it til today, day 122) and I felt compelled by it. My heart burned within me. Whatever we decide to do, the Catholic church can't be all wrong if they write things like that.
It's about living completely surrendered to God, living every moment for him, remembering him moment by moment as I walk out my days, choosing to do things that please him and giving up things that don't. It's about walking my little path, this one little path that is all my own, my own path to holiness, no one else's. And it might never get any better than this - I mean, it might never look much different than this - there might never be any superhuman saintliness involved. It might just always be me crying out to God as I do right now, extremely imperfectly. But I'm ready to be part of his church again, integrated somewhere. I am tired of being in limbo. I want to communicate every Sunday - to take communion - again. I'm tired of being in between places, and I'm a little sad, to be separated from my sweet community and not settled down anywhere. I want to settle. But I guess it's going to go on a little while longer, because clarity is not yet in sight. And in the meantime, He hasn't gone anywhere. I'm still walking this path, with Him.
It's something deep, deeper than my gut, that's saying, "Look, there's plenty here that shouldn't be here - self-righteousness, close-mindedness, fundamentalism - just like in every other branch of Christ's church, but look: holy halo ringing round, listen and feel how your heart is held up by the chant, by the incense, by all your senses. You don't have to reach, reach, reach with your mind up to God. Your whole being is held up to him. Holiness. It might just be what you have been missing."
Shep and I start the service out, standing there bedraggled from barely getting there with our entourage. Our children are rolling on the floor at our feet; we are looking at each other growly, like, "No way are we doing this." But by the end of our time there, when we leave, we are glancing behind us with awe and longing. We don't know exactly what we think but we both agree there is something there.
Orthodox people - or, let me say, Western Orthodox converts - talk a lot about who's right, about correctness in worship. Not everyone does, but you run into plenty who are dismissive of the "west" and who call Catholics and Protestants heretics. It's a long story that goes back to the East-West Schism of the Church, circa 1054. There are definite differences between Eastern and Western ways of thinking; I think everyone knows that. But (as the conservative Orthodox see it) has Western Christianity fallen off the mark, starting with the assertion of papal authority and devolving from there into strange additions to tradition like Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception, rebellion against that authority and then rebellion after rebellion over differing interpretations of Scripture that has left us a Church splintered into thousands of denominations? Or, as the more liberal or lenient of the Orthodox say, are the West and East like two lungs in the same body - i.e. they are different, but you need them both? Is it a matter of deciding which tradition fits us best? Or has the Orthodox Church truly guarded the fullness of the faith and it cannot be found anywhere else? If it can't be found anywhere else, there is only one answer: I want to be Orthodox. But the question is - are they overlooking something? You can be absolutely correct and still be wrong, if you don't have love. And, I'm not saying I haven't experienced love in the Orthodox Church, but there seems to be a bit of a spirit of scruple sometimes. They say it doesn't matter if your kids are lying on the floor, but then they say, just make sure they stand up for the Our Father and the Great Entrance. They say there is grace for all you don't know yet and aren't able to do yet, but your kids shouldn't be coloring in church. Do you see how there is some inconsistency here? But of course, if it's just individual people with that attitude it doesn't matter. There's only one Person we're there for.
Maybe it would be good for me to risk being a little wrong and stick with a Western tradition, just because it is so easy for me to be scrupulous myself. And my faith is in God, not in my own ability to choose the "right" tradition. I certainly have experienced a lot of love in the Western tradition, in Catholicism and in the sweet Anglican church where we've been seven years.
I don't know. I change from morning to night. This morning when I was taking the dog out, I was thinking, "Maybe it's just a thing you have to do by faith." It doesn't seem like it's going to be made clear to us by some supernatural intervention, like some things are. We have not gotten any kind of a sign one way or the other, and we very well might not get one. So I was thinking, holding Max's leash, that we probably needed to just choose to be Orthodox, in faith that they have preserved the fullness of the faith, and then walk it out, continue by faith. But it wasn't two hours later when I was reading part of the Catholic catechism (I've been getting the catechism by email, a little each day, to read it in one year; I haven't been reading it til today, day 122) and I felt compelled by it. My heart burned within me. Whatever we decide to do, the Catholic church can't be all wrong if they write things like that.
It's about living completely surrendered to God, living every moment for him, remembering him moment by moment as I walk out my days, choosing to do things that please him and giving up things that don't. It's about walking my little path, this one little path that is all my own, my own path to holiness, no one else's. And it might never get any better than this - I mean, it might never look much different than this - there might never be any superhuman saintliness involved. It might just always be me crying out to God as I do right now, extremely imperfectly. But I'm ready to be part of his church again, integrated somewhere. I am tired of being in limbo. I want to communicate every Sunday - to take communion - again. I'm tired of being in between places, and I'm a little sad, to be separated from my sweet community and not settled down anywhere. I want to settle. But I guess it's going to go on a little while longer, because clarity is not yet in sight. And in the meantime, He hasn't gone anywhere. I'm still walking this path, with Him.
It's something deep, deeper than my gut, that's saying, "Look, there's plenty here that shouldn't be here - self-righteousness, close-mindedness, fundamentalism - just like in every other branch of Christ's church, but look: holy halo ringing round, listen and feel how your heart is held up by the chant, by the incense, by all your senses. You don't have to reach, reach, reach with your mind up to God. Your whole being is held up to him. Holiness. It might just be what you have been missing."
Shep and I start the service out, standing there bedraggled from barely getting there with our entourage. Our children are rolling on the floor at our feet; we are looking at each other growly, like, "No way are we doing this." But by the end of our time there, when we leave, we are glancing behind us with awe and longing. We don't know exactly what we think but we both agree there is something there.
(2013)
After the Tsunami in Japan
The future has never been certain. I just didn't think about it much because I had a picture of it that was pretty plausible, and it was sunny.
Everyday we touch eternity in little ways: a morning prayer, a transcendent smile, anything that reminds us what we see is not all there is. Some days we touch it in bigger ways - like the day a child is born, or like the day our friend's mother said to her Hospice worker, "I just want to go see Jesus now!" The worker said, "Well, he hasn't gotten your room ready quite yet." By the end of the week, he had; she was gone from here.
On days like that, eternity encroaches upon us, devours our coastline. One day, eternity will be all there is, eclipsing this world entirely, when we see him coming on the clouds. “And every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all peoples will mourn because of him.”
I have an inkling that what is most ordinary in this life might be the most eternal, the very stuff of the kingdom of God. I have an idea that everything big and flashy, everything famous and "important" will be the things that diminish and fall away, and the little things, the hands and knees crawling over me in the morning in bed, the making of breakfasts, the simple cleaning and keeping of things, the family meals around the table - the simple, hidden, anonymous life - will be the things that grow and grow into a mountain, into a kingdom of light that fills the world. After all, where are we going to sit in the end? We will be around a table, at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Won't it be the best family table you've ever seen? We'll each have our spot and be known and welcomed to it, this time without any undercurrents of tension or old wounds or elephants in the room. All will be known and forgiven.
This is what I pray for my children: that they will be so strong in their identity in Christ and his light so bright in their hearts that no matter what happens to them, nothing can even touch it. I pray over them the meanings of their names: High Tower, Wisdom, and Strong Protector. I know they have been born for just such a time as this.
(2011)
Everyday we touch eternity in little ways: a morning prayer, a transcendent smile, anything that reminds us what we see is not all there is. Some days we touch it in bigger ways - like the day a child is born, or like the day our friend's mother said to her Hospice worker, "I just want to go see Jesus now!" The worker said, "Well, he hasn't gotten your room ready quite yet." By the end of the week, he had; she was gone from here.
On days like that, eternity encroaches upon us, devours our coastline. One day, eternity will be all there is, eclipsing this world entirely, when we see him coming on the clouds. “And every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all peoples will mourn because of him.”
I have an inkling that what is most ordinary in this life might be the most eternal, the very stuff of the kingdom of God. I have an idea that everything big and flashy, everything famous and "important" will be the things that diminish and fall away, and the little things, the hands and knees crawling over me in the morning in bed, the making of breakfasts, the simple cleaning and keeping of things, the family meals around the table - the simple, hidden, anonymous life - will be the things that grow and grow into a mountain, into a kingdom of light that fills the world. After all, where are we going to sit in the end? We will be around a table, at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Won't it be the best family table you've ever seen? We'll each have our spot and be known and welcomed to it, this time without any undercurrents of tension or old wounds or elephants in the room. All will be known and forgiven.
This is what I pray for my children: that they will be so strong in their identity in Christ and his light so bright in their hearts that no matter what happens to them, nothing can even touch it. I pray over them the meanings of their names: High Tower, Wisdom, and Strong Protector. I know they have been born for just such a time as this.
(2011)
The Maids
The maids lied to me. They looked right in my face and said, "I know it looks like the kitchen floor hasn't been mopped, but I think you're going to have to get some bleach in here." All week I've discovered things they did not do, dust they did not wipe, carpet they did not vacuum. There was still toothpaste in my sink and mold in my shower. But they did pick up all the girls' toys. I should have told them not to bother - they'll be all over the place again in less than a day - but I didn't think I had to. I thought that was maids' thing - they don't straighten, they just clean. And I so wanted it clean, especially as a Father's Day present for Shep. Next time, I won't leave the house.
(2011)
A Special Dispensation
It was seven o'clock today when I realized I hadn't finished my morning coffee. I was thinking about putting it back in the microwave (again) but thought better of it: It was seven o'clock in the evening.
That's how fast the day slides by. All day I was chasing my morning coffee.
I meant to clean more, too. I kept meaning to, but first the kids needed breakfast. Well, first the kids and I needed to hop in the car to go look for coupons people were throwing out (it's recycling day - but not in my neighborhood. We went a few neighborhoods over. I was channeling my dad.) Then there was breakfast, a moment to read my Bible, putting John William down for his morning nap, taking the girls swimming, lunch, afternoon naps (during which I ran to the store to practice my new couponing obsession), dinner, and bedtime. I managed to motivate myself and the kids to pick up for five minutes after lunch while Daddy put his bathing suit on. And then I did clean the kitchen after the kids were down. I finished at 10pm.
At least I got myself some deodorant today. I finally couldn't scrape any more off the top of the old tube, even when I separated the product from the packaging. I thought for about a week that maybe I didn't need deodorant. But I found deodorant actually does do something for me.
The cashier at the drug store flirted with me a little. When I got home and glanced in the mirror, I thought he must not have seen the drops from someone's dinner spattered on the bottom edge of my shirt. He certainly didn't smell me.
Now here I am up at 12:15 in the morning because I hate going to bed. I love night. I love the stillness - those little limbs and mouths and brains usually in constant motion finally at rest, needing nothing (at least until someone has a nightmare or needs to go potty or wakes up sweaty or just wants to nurse.) Last night I stayed up til 1am organizing my coupons - which I never would have realized could be so engaging!
It's a constant tension between needing sleep and needing time to myself. I walk a thin wire, usually erring on the side of fatigue and berating myself for it. (Like today when I dropped the baby face first in the pool when Shep handed him off to me - I did catch him so he didn't hit his face on the step, though, thankfully. Five minutes later he got a fat lip from crawling over a pool noodle that rolled him into a face plant on the pool deck. I have to remind myself that's what kids do - get bumps and bruises - especially boys.)
This morning I started back at the beginning of Isaiah. I've been reading it for nine months. Now that BSF is over for the summer, I'm going to start at the beginning and answer the homework questions I didn't get to during the year. Isaiah 1 and 2. I closed my eyes to meditate on it and the world started to fade away so quick. I brought myself awake again. I was listening for how these verses touched on my life today, and falling asleep was what touched on my life. I have read that fatigue is one of the biggest obstacles in growing closer to Jesus these days, and it is wise to create margin in your life so you can be well-rested. You can only function as well spiritually as you can physically.
But I felt God say to me - I've granted you a special dispensation for this season of your life when there isn't much margin to begin with, a special grace to know me even in your weariness, especially in your weariness - for my strength is made perfect in it.
(2011)
That's how fast the day slides by. All day I was chasing my morning coffee.
I meant to clean more, too. I kept meaning to, but first the kids needed breakfast. Well, first the kids and I needed to hop in the car to go look for coupons people were throwing out (it's recycling day - but not in my neighborhood. We went a few neighborhoods over. I was channeling my dad.) Then there was breakfast, a moment to read my Bible, putting John William down for his morning nap, taking the girls swimming, lunch, afternoon naps (during which I ran to the store to practice my new couponing obsession), dinner, and bedtime. I managed to motivate myself and the kids to pick up for five minutes after lunch while Daddy put his bathing suit on. And then I did clean the kitchen after the kids were down. I finished at 10pm.
At least I got myself some deodorant today. I finally couldn't scrape any more off the top of the old tube, even when I separated the product from the packaging. I thought for about a week that maybe I didn't need deodorant. But I found deodorant actually does do something for me.
The cashier at the drug store flirted with me a little. When I got home and glanced in the mirror, I thought he must not have seen the drops from someone's dinner spattered on the bottom edge of my shirt. He certainly didn't smell me.
Now here I am up at 12:15 in the morning because I hate going to bed. I love night. I love the stillness - those little limbs and mouths and brains usually in constant motion finally at rest, needing nothing (at least until someone has a nightmare or needs to go potty or wakes up sweaty or just wants to nurse.) Last night I stayed up til 1am organizing my coupons - which I never would have realized could be so engaging!
It's a constant tension between needing sleep and needing time to myself. I walk a thin wire, usually erring on the side of fatigue and berating myself for it. (Like today when I dropped the baby face first in the pool when Shep handed him off to me - I did catch him so he didn't hit his face on the step, though, thankfully. Five minutes later he got a fat lip from crawling over a pool noodle that rolled him into a face plant on the pool deck. I have to remind myself that's what kids do - get bumps and bruises - especially boys.)
This morning I started back at the beginning of Isaiah. I've been reading it for nine months. Now that BSF is over for the summer, I'm going to start at the beginning and answer the homework questions I didn't get to during the year. Isaiah 1 and 2. I closed my eyes to meditate on it and the world started to fade away so quick. I brought myself awake again. I was listening for how these verses touched on my life today, and falling asleep was what touched on my life. I have read that fatigue is one of the biggest obstacles in growing closer to Jesus these days, and it is wise to create margin in your life so you can be well-rested. You can only function as well spiritually as you can physically.
But I felt God say to me - I've granted you a special dispensation for this season of your life when there isn't much margin to begin with, a special grace to know me even in your weariness, especially in your weariness - for my strength is made perfect in it.
(2011)
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