God & Grace in the Garden & Coop

"Hen Party"

I try to make it a habit to walk around our yard most days after work.  I circle the house, then head down to the garden where yellow and red Zinnias occupy one row and red-and-white striped ones form another. The heads of the sunflowers hang heavy, drooping and brown, and the yellow finches are happy to pilfer their drying seeds.  Our tomatoes grow nearby, dark and dense as a forest, with heavy fruit twice the size of my hand hanging like red water balloons on nearly every vine.

Our garden is a riot, an explosion of weedy chaos that cannot, in our current tropical conditions, be tamed. But, we try. We summon strength and courage to weed one bed, then another. Hidden, we find the small watermelons the grew from last year's seeds, the pale winter squash growing in inexplicable abundance.

This year, with our hens no longer free-ranging, we're freed the alarm of their endless infiltration of the garden gate. No more pecked-at tomatoes. No more chasing five, six harried hens, trying to shuttle them out through the narrow gate.

This year, the hens are confined to a large fenced yard attached to their coop and they've managed to peck the ground there bare of any sign of life. Noticing their sparse conditions this summer,  it dawned on me that our garden’s endless supply of weeds might be a welcome addition to their otherwise bleak landscape.

We started taking weeds to them by wheelbarrow and wagon-load, tossing the leggy green plants over the fence handfuls at a time.  The hens were elated.  They ran, pushing and shoving, to scour the windfall of succulent greens.  Our rooster, Joker, puffed out his chest, making several announcements to his girls, waiting until they set-in before taking his own. Within minutes, the stems were bare, stripped to frail, skeletal forms. 

What a grace this is, what a miracle: our chickens take our garden’s accidents and turn them into eggs.

There’s more, though.  Standing in the kitchen, on any given night, I’m frequently confronted with routine kitchen scraps (the peels, the cores, the wilted ends) as well as bowls of mystery food left too long in the refrigerator.  These too, the hens down enthusiastically, clucking and tutting.  When I feel weighted by the guilt of chili left too long in the back of the fridge, the knowledge that this too can feed to hens gives me solace.  These hens are teaching me grace again, reminding of the power of redemption, the truth that our mistakes are never the dead end we imagine them to be. 

Richard Rohr sums it up this way: God writes with crooked lines.  By which he means, God connects all the dots of our lives, the much-intended ones AND the ink blots that splatter accidentally on nearly every page.  God writes the story of our lives with a view so broad, so imaginative, even hens turning old tomatoes into eggs ought not to come as a surprise.

Origami and God (Fold, Unfold, Refold Again)

Each of my boys has discovered origami sometime between their sixth and seventh year of life.  It always begins with fortune tellers and airplanes, then progresses to boats and paper hats.  Soon, every surface of the house is littered with folded scraps of white copy paper.  Eventually, familiar patterns lose their thrill and we head to the library searching for new patterns to master.  
  

Harder patterns, though, require adult assistance.  Inevitably, I’m called to assist a frustrated child in deciphering vague diagrams and tricky folds.  This, I do, kneeling on the floor by the wood stove with an anxious, eager child peering over my shoulder. 

“Mom!  I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do,” they cry.

“Ok, let me see,” I say.

They want me to be able to look at the picture once and tell them what to do.  But, I need to begin at the beginning, to feel the paper moving through its motions beneath my fingers.    

I follow the patterns step-by-step: fold, unfold, refold again.  Even though I know the desired outcome, the path to completion’s often far from direct.  Jumping ahead is not advisable, so I stay in the moment working slowly, one fold at a time.

Some patterns begin with several steps of folds and creases that are then, one by one, undone.  These folds are preparatory, lining the page with creases that serve as landmarks for the steps ahead.  It would be a tempting but misleading to mistake one of these preparatory folds for a final fold. 

Sometimes I think this may be how God works in our lives – not that our lives are paper, manipulated by God into an unforeseen shape – but every life is filled with folds, some relating directly to the final goal, others only serving as markers along the path.  So much suffering comes from mistaking one from the other – pegging our lives, our identity on something that will, shortly, be unfolded to make way for something else. 

The problem is, from my human perspective, I can’t readily tell the difference between final folds and preparatory folds.  Even the final outcome remains unclear – what are we working toward here, God? A jumping frog? A peaceful crane?

The truth is, I'm not sure God cares nearly as much as I do about the difference between unfolds and final folds, about final outcomes and destinations.  God may be something more like a child, thrilled with the feel of pliable paper, delighting in the joy of shared discovery.

Knowing this, maybe we can learn to move lightly and freely through life, turning and folding, shaped in each moment by what is, rooted in the humility of not knowing, and a deep trust in the goodness of the One in whose hands we rest.  We are being turned, crease by crease, into works of beauty and wonder beyond what we could ever imagine.  This is what redemption means, this folding and unfolding, moving forward, always, toward wholeness.  

God's Not Grumpy

I've been immersed in Jesuit priest Gregory Boyle's books recently (Tattoos on the Heart and Barking to the Choir).  I'm so encouraged and enchanted by his sense of God's innate qualities - qualities affirmed in scripture, but often overlooked in our own imaginings of God.  All of this led me back to this brief post from August 2015.  Enjoy.

*   *   *   *

“What do you think heaven’s like?” my oldest son asked. 

My kids and I were slowly waking up, seated around the sticky kitchen island, absorbing summer's early morning humidity.  I cradled my second or third cup of coffee while they spilled milk and cereal and crunched on chocolate toast.  

In a moment of unexpected quiet, my oldest son posed his question.

Wrapped in a fog of sleepiness and still focused on my coffee, I said, “I’m not sure.  What do you think it’s like?”

Perched on a wooden stool, he pontificated for a while, and made sure to specify that his picture of heaven included the conspicuous absence of bickering.

There had been a lot of bickering that morning.  In fact, first thing that morning I scolded the boys for their non-stop verbal warfare. 

The 'absence of bickering' idea made its way into my sleepy brain, tickling my imagination.  Putting on a grumpy voice (not unlike the voice I used to reprimand the boys earlier that morning), I growled out an impression of God policing behavior in heaven.  “Hey, cut that out.  No fighting allowed in here,” I said. 

Distracted from the joy of his own ideas, my son paused and turned to me with a quizzical look on his face.  Eyebrows arched, head tipped to the side, quick as a whip, he objected to my impersonation.  

“God's not that grumpy,” he said.

His correction ushered in a moment of silence.  Then we both laughed, surprised by his nimble reply.  In four short words, my son defended his understanding of the heart of God; God's very nature. 

//

I am often grumpy.  

Especially in the early morning, when humidity is at 90% and little sweaty, sleepy people are squabbling all around me.  

But God is not.  

The fact that my son not only sees, but defends the difference, is a wonder to me and a source of great joy.

The Wood Stove (Need Draws Us)

Our need for warmth draws us and keeps us together, sprawled where the seating is too limited for six, the noise levels too much.  The dog, also, is there, taking up more than her fair share of the love seat.

In the corner, the wood stove ticks as the cast iron absorbs a slowly growing fire’s flames.  On the coldest mornings, the twins stand directly in front of the stove, blocking its window’s orange glow.  The older children stand within a foot, one on either side, squeezed between the wall and stove.  The smell of drying laundry fills the room as their clothes absorb the pulsing heat.  They stand until their pants are so hot they can barely walk and sitting down, forcing the hot cloth against chilled skin, ceases to be an option.

This is how we start and end each of winter’s darkening days, as the sun slips its way to and from arctic nights.  During the day, our circumference expands.  With time, heat grows, and the kitchen, the laundry, the sun-warmed front room, all become habitable and we spread, easing into the furthest reaches. 

But, when the sun sinks, we return.  Our need for heat draws us into the heart of the house, into the space of one another, into the stove’s orbit again where we hover until need is met.

These winter days, I find myself grateful for the warmth and the need that gathers us around our own glowing sun.  Need is also a gift and, often, the clearest path to communion with others and with God, who draws us also; God, like a great pulsing heart, a glowing sun, a wood burning stove, drawing us all close and closer yet.       

    

The Kingdom of Heaven is Like a Tree

What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it?  It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches. Luke 13:18-19  

A large, brown seed sat in our cupboard for a good month or more.  Sealed in a zip-loc bag, surrounded by moistened paper towels, it was my husband's experiment, the result of a moment of possibility. 

It seemed, at best, forgotten.  

Then one day, after an online search for instructions, he planted it shallow in a white ceramic pot.  He watered it and placed it on the windowsill. 

Something maternal in me must have kicked in then, because I watered it faithfully along with my violets and ivies.  I watered it too little.  I watered it too much.  The sun came and went and, still, it sat there just the same - half-buried and silent, like a stone sleeping in the barren brown dirt. 

I can't tell you how long it took - weeks? months?

I watered.  I watched.  I waited and forgot to wait.  Inside the seed, secret life stirred, hidden, invisible.

Then the seed split.  It cracked open, right down the middle, and out curled a small green shoot, bent but rising, like a head that had been bowed in prayer for such a long, dark time, but now lifted to take a look around.  

//

The kingdom of God is like this, Jesus said, and then later also he added, "the kingdom of God is within you."  

//

Maybe we too are like that seed, like trees planted and growing, seen and unseen, in the midst of a busy and barren world.  We are watered, too much at times, or not, and the roots grow first, hidden, pressing down blindly, like worms in the dirt and secret places of our lives. 

Then we too are cracked open, split right down the middle of our lives.  We are the shoot that rises, the seed splitting, the roots rooting down deep.  We are the ones drinking in light and water and growing, always growing, into trees of every shape, color and size.  

And the birds of the air - those lonely, wandering, homesick birds - make their nests in our branches.  

May it be so.

The Thrift Store, With God (What I Gave Up & What God Holds)

Photo by Artificial Photography on Unsplash

God and I went to the thrift store last week. 

It’s was the first day my kids were back in school.  Although I often go thrifting with the aim of stocking my kids’ closets, I breezed right through the children’s section of the giant store with barely a glance.  The image of them each boarding the bus that morning in new shoes, shorts and sneakers was still fresh in my mind.  

The day before, I had been struck by an unexpected wave of resentment at the wealth of new clothes they had and their apparent lack of appreciation for it.  It wasn’t just the clothes I resented, though, it was the time, the sheer amount of resources, I sent their way this summer, particularly during the last grueling weeks of August.  You see, this summer, I gave up.

I fought hard, in the beginning, to make room for my writing and working life to continue.  Hard, like, wearing ear muffs in my office while my kids mimicked the rooster by my window and practiced playing the recorder outside my office door.  When working with them at home failed, I took them to a free day camp program the next town over, freeing up two precious hours, three mornings a week.  But it wasn’t enough.  The pressure to drop them off, drive home, and dive into writing with little to no transition proved unwieldy. 

By early August the impact of my evening and weekend work schedule at the library became clear.  In summers past, those were times I could steal away to my office write.  This summer, I traded those hours for a small but much-needed paycheck.

Then came August, with two birthdays (twins!), several days of single-parenting while my husband wrestled the engine in and out (and in and out again) of his rattle-trap pick-up truck, then several days more of single parenting while he traveled for work.  All of this, right around the time the day camp ended. 

I gave up.  I let go of even pretending to keep the semblance of a writing life together. 

At first it sucked and I was sad and mad and had All The Feels.  But then acceptance came along like a breath of fresh air and it felt so good to not be swimming upstream, to accept that there was neither time nor energy for more.  I lived in the reality of the last weeks of summer with four kids.

I cut hair. 

I bought shoes. 

I participated in a round-robin of back-to-school night events and organized a mounting pile of supply lists and schedules. 

I took them to the pool and praised every new trick they learned. 

I washed load after load of towels.  

It was what it was.  

But, after I loaded them onto their buses, when I went to post the traditional first day pictures online, I felt, again, the loss that accompanies ‘giving up.’  I scrolled through images of friends releasing new books into the world.  I read updates of others heading off to new jobs teaching in local schools.  I had nothing to post except for a few candid shots of my kids decked out in new gear, ready to face a new year.  “This is what I did this summer,” I wanted to write.  “This is what I’ve been working on.”

It seemed both sad, to me, and simply, remarkably, true.

In the post-bus quietude, I messaged a friend, “I’m trying to process what I lost/gave up this summer.”  Then, I shut up the house, pulled on my sunglasses, and headed to the thrift store with God. 

Like an awkward parent and teen tackling difficult subjects on a shared commute, God and I find it easier to talk at the thrift store.  Something about strolling the aisles of color-sorted clothes quiets and opens me, creating a place of listening and attention, which God and I both recognize as prayer.

That’s how God and I found ourselves sifting through hangers of winter coats and blazers, discussing ‘what I lost’ this summer.  It occurred to me, as I perused tan corduroy coats from the nineties and multi-colored ski jackets from the eighties, maybe I was being a bit melodramatic.  I paused, with my hand on the shoulder of a pea coat and considered the possibility.

Was I being melodramatic? 

Yes, perhaps I was. 

I turned to God, then, for an opinion. 

God said, without skipping a beat, “Yeah, you get that way sometimes.”

I stifled a snort of laughter.  Of course, God knows me.

With acknowledgement came acceptance.  I felt free to feel the loss – both real and exaggerated - and to trust that it too would pass.

God reminded me, then, of how it works between the two of us.  “All the things you give up, I hold,” God said.  “There is no part of who you are that ever has been or ever can be lost.”

How could I have forgotten that simple truth?  With it comes incredible freedom – freedom to hold on when the time and space are right; freedom, even, to fight for what I want.  But, freedom also for letting go when time and circumstances demand it.   

I felt lighter as I moved on to rows of skirts and blouses.  God wandered off into the aisles of handbags and shoes (God does that sometimes).  We said we’d meet up in the car on the way home, we find that’s a good place for talking, too.        

  

As Much As There Is

He catapults out of bed in the middle of the night and I hear his bare feet slapping against the hallway’s wooden floor as he hustles through the darkness.  All of this comes to me as sleep’s heavy shadow gives way to a dim and growing awareness.  Then, he stands beside the bed. 

“Daddy,” he says.

“What?” my husband mumbles.

“I love you as much as there is,” he says. 

“Ok, Levi,” my husband replies, his voice clearer now, rising to meet his son’s offer of love.  “I love you too.”

“Ok, good night.  I’ll see you in the morning,” Levi adds.

“Good night, see you in the morning,” my husband answers, completing the call and response.

Levi runs back down the hallway and sleep descends again upon our house.

//

“I love you as much as there is” is the latest attempt in five-year-old Levi’s ongoing effort to verbalize the depths of his love for us which, apparently, is particularly intense around two or three in the morning.  He’s fascinated by math and, for a while, tried using the biggest numbers he could think of to express the magnitude of his love.  “I love you 100 times 100,” he would say. 

But it wasn’t enough. 

He knows there are bigger numbers and he doesn’t want to undersize his love.  So, for now, he’s sticking to the enigmatic phrase, “as much as there is.”

Last night, before I fell back to sleep, I saw for a moment the simple humility of that phrase – a child’s willingness to believe in and try to convey that which is beyond words. 

//

Real love is like that.  God’s love is like that, so real and yet so big it’s hard to explain. 

The apostle Paul, struggling to convey God’s love to the church at Ephesus, put it this way,

“I pray that you might have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:18-19).”

Paul tries to sketch out the dimensions of what he realizes is beyond description, he prays for the Ephesians to somehow receive the ability to comprehend the incomprehensible.  In so doing, he invites them – invites us all – to enter into the depths of God’s love which is both measurable (because it exists) and beyond measure (because of the limits of human comprehension and communication).

Paul’s prayer comes to us like a voice in the night, the words of someone struggling to communicate what he clearly knows is beyond communication: God loves you as much as there is.   

This is What God is Like

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?  Or if the child asks for fish, will give a snake?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!   - Matthew 7:9-11 

Our kitchen has a drawer we refer to as “The Snack Drawer.”  Unlike “The Weapons Drawer” – which is a thing of my five-year-old’s making and does not actually hold weapons, but instead holds things that could potentially be used for weapons – The Snack Drawer, as its name would imply, does hold snacks. 

Each of my four kids are allowed to have a snack during the day at school, so each of them reaches their hand into The Snack Drawer once every morning or two to grab something to stash in their backpack for later in the day.  Some things in the snack drawer (like Cheezits or Goldfish crackers) are considered to be top notch, and these go first.  Mid-level snacks (like pretzels and granola bars) go next.  Last resort snacks include, but are not limited to, boxes of raisins and things they claim to be allergic to.    

On a recent morning, a murmuring and rumble of discontent arose in the kitchen as three of four kids stood peering into the snack drawer.  From where I stood, near the kitchen sink, I could see the drawer wasn’t empty.  But still, they complained.  I moved in for a closer look and the children split like the sea and lifted their gaze from the near-empty drawer to me.   

It was, indeed, time to replenish.  

“Hold on,” I said.

I went to the pantry in the laundry room and pulled out the box I’d been saving.  I carried it into the kitchen, with the twins trailing behind me, and held it high over the open drawer.  I tipped the box, dramatically, and assorted snacks in red packages, orange and green, poured down like rain.  The kids circled and pawed at the pile, as though I’d cracked open a piñata. 

My one son, the one with the Weapons Drawer, grabbed an off-brand peanut butter granola bar.  

“Mom!” he said, in a deep voice he puts on when he feels the moment demands, “I LOVE THESE!”

Everyone’s hand found something good.  

Isaiah, exuberant in the face of so many good choices, eager to hoard the things he loves best, announced that he was going to take four or five snacks to school with him that day.  I quickly restated our one snack a day limit.    

That moment, with its flash of color and exclamations of delight hangs, like a snapshot in the corner of my mind.  That's what God's like, I think.  God - the giver of good gifts, the filler of drawers we once thought too empty or sparse to satisfy.  

* I'm well aware that too often 'the drawer' of life is empty, sparse, or filled with things we'd rather avoid.  But, scripture is clear that there may not always be a direct correlation between the circumstances of our lives and the character of God.  So, rather than drawing conclusions about God based on what we find in life's drawer, we might be better served to see the good things as signs of God's presence because, even in the midst of life's struggles, we can still be certain of the God's character.   

Love That Carries

He's tall and burly, like someone who played football in high school.  Gray-haired, with some extra weight around the middle, he carries his daughter to school wrapped in a blanket every day through the long winter months.

I saw him this morning, as I do most mornings, walking back toward home as I waited in the drop-off line with my van-full of kids.  He walked down the sidewalk toward me with the now empty blanket draped casually over his shoulders.  It looked to be a quilt made of the sort of colors that bring to mind a Winnie the Pooh motif, a baby blanket, maybe.

Most days, I've noticed him, and most days I've thought, "Really, you carry her?"  There's part of me that still thinks it's a bit much - his daughter's in first grade at least - but today I saw it differently. 

Today I recognized the value - the depth - of a love that carries.

Grown men don't often walk around with baby quilts draped over their shoulders, but this one does, and as I write I'm reminded of those pictures of Christ the good shepherd walking with a lamb draped over his shoulders.  In those pictures that lamb is you, is me, is us - we who're being carried, wrapped in those incarnate arms of love.  

I wonder whether his daughter will even remember the way she was carried each frosty, breath-catching morning.  Maybe she won't and certainly a day will come when she says, "No more."  But slow-dancing in the kitchen with one of my bitty-boys on my hip, his head tucked into my shoulder, I know the truth, that being held, being carried, shapes us deep within in ways that can never, ever, be forgotten.

Love is Vertigo (a falling, floundering thing)

(Photo Source)

(To celebrate my new web page and in honor of Valentine's Day, I'm re-sharing some old posts this weeks focusing on the topic of love.  Today's post was shared on Valentine's Day 2013. Stop back tomorrow for another look at the many ways love finds us.)

I turned to see my two and four year old children driving their yellow, battery-powered, Corvette through our small, cramped living room.  I stood in the doorway between rooms, interviewing a potential babysitter, nanny when I looked up to watch her watching them drive by.  We were in the process of moving our older two out of daycare and hoping to hire someone to provide care in our home – the news that I was pregnant had finalized the decision. 

The incredible discovery that we were expecting twins had turned our world on its head the week before and, as I stood there talking, it still felt to me that our world was tilting, spinning out of control.  In that moment, the picture of our children driving through the house in a car that took up a third of the length of our living room struck me as both absurd and entirely appropriate. 

It was then that I knew we had fallen or were falling, though toward what I did not know.  The incline was steep and the sensation would not end, still has not ended, even now some two years later.  What I could not understand then that I do now is that what we were falling into was love, a deeper and wider love than we knew was possible.   

*   *   *

When I started dating the man who would become my husband, we would sit on opposite sides of the college cafeteria with our different groups of friends and make googly eyes at each other from across the room.  Whenever our eyes met there was a spark of electricity that spanned the distance and threatened to throw us off of our chairs if we didn’t glance away with speed. 

Later, when he studied in Oregon for a semester and I traveled out to visit, we spent an evening in Portland exploring, but all I remember is sitting together on a bench in the midst of the city.  I looked into his eyes, two deep and gentle brown pools, and felt myself falling, head-long, heart over heels.

*   *   *

When my daughter, my oldest, was born after months of waiting and reading, planning and anticipation, they placed her in my arms and I looked into those small dark eyes and felt a sudden and surprising moment of recognition.  It was an aha moment, a coming home and we sank into each other like two lost souls, like two lovers clinging as we plunged into life together.  I fell hard, as I have for every baby since.

*   *   *

Recently, I interviewed yet another babysitter.  The moment she walked in the door, my four year old pulled her into the hallway to see our new climbing wall. 

“A climbing wall . . . in your hall,” she said, “interesting.”  

I felt the same old sensation, the realization that we had fallen, are falling still, head-long into our love for these lives that have sprung up among us.  We are off-kilter, leaning hard into love and our home and our hearts are showing the expansion, the wear-and-tear of it all. 

Love, my friends, is a falling, floundering thing.  To love another, to be in and for love, is to consent to live continually off-balance.  Love is a leaning, plunging leap, a heart-pounding lunge that leaves your stomach in your throat and the only danger is that we would come to prefer the safety of solid ground over this sensation of continual plummet. 

To me, this is the only way to explain God coming to live among us, God looking, leaning down toward humanity.  God so loved the world that he leapt and fell in among us and in his falling for us he freed us from the fall, for the fall, and the taste is born in us for love – for leaping, falling, floundering, foolish love.

Christmas morning 2010, the Corvette we found for $25 on Craigslist.

Sitting in the Corvette, watching Bob the Builder.

We Are Held (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

(I'm still seeking and finding my writing rhythm for this new year, so today I'm again sharing one from the archives.  This post was written back in 2013 when my twins were just about 18 months old. The image above is of a plate my husband and the twins picked up for me at a (indoor!) yard sale over the weekend.  I love the swirl of it and the image in the middle reminds me of a child in the womb.) 

*   *   *

I sat in the living room last week rocking my poor, sick, sleeping boy and watched while his twin brother explored a small wooden chair.  He walked diligently to the book basket, chose a board book, then toddled quickly over to the chair.  Placing the book on the chair, he lifted one little knee and, after maneuvering the book to make room, pulled himself up and turned, settling into a seated position with a look of great satisfaction. 

There he sat, fuzzy-headed and plump, like a ripe peach, his short legs sticking out straight in front of him.  Glancing at me with a look of triumph, he opened his book and “read” briefly and with great volume.  Then, with a swift movement, he slipped himself off of the chair, and ran back to the books shelf where he made another reading selection.  

Back to the chair he went, repeating the whole process again and again with a different book in hand each time, as though neither “Trucks” nor “Things That Go” could scratch his literary itch. 

Stand, climb, turn and sit, his movements went.  Then, repeat.  

Sitting and standing are new pleasures for him.  And the act of doing so with a book in hand in a little wooden chair just his size makes the act all the more pleasurable.  

He repeats the movements - standing and sitting - over and over again and I imaging he's swirling the feeling of it all around inside of his little body, memorizing each sensation until at last the feeling fades to ordinary, like so many other firsts tasted and mastered in his short eighteen months.

*   *   *

Speaking of standing and sitting, a strange thing has happened several times now during my monthly retreat.  At some point during a moment of silent stillness or quiet conversation, I find myself acutely aware of the reality that the chair I am sitting in is holding me. 

Every time we sit, we are being held. 

But most of us, most of the time, have stopped feeling it.

*   *   *

Earlier this week, I sat in the pediatrician’s office with the same sick child whose limbs hung limp as he fought a raging fever.  Between the bustle of nurse and doctor, in the midst of the bright light and noise, he slumped against me - his belly to mine, his heavy head pressed, un-moving against my chest.  

My boy's fine, blond hair was damp with sweat and his cheeks blazed red with heat.  His eyes watered and breath came in short pants.  Against my chest, his small mouth hung open and saliva pooled and overflowed. 

He smelled like sweaty, sick, baby.  Or maybe I smelled.  Holding him there as the minutes passed, I lost sight of where he stopped and I began.  

At one point he raised his flushed head, squinting his eyes in discomfort and I noticed that the whole front of me, two t-shirts thick, was soaked through with spit.  Still, I pulled him back into me, curving my body like a hammock to hold him.  I rocked and sang and he he hung on for dear life between the Dr.'s probing exam and tests for the flu and strep throat. 

*   *   *

I turned my body into a living, breathing home for my child in the Dr's office that day.  Later, I wondered if God doesn’t also do this for us.

Maybe God also curves, bending into a mighty ocean of a lap, a wide, swinging hammock of rest that holds us, not just when we're aware of it, but all the time.  Maybe we're just so used to being held, we no longer feel it any more.  Or maybe we believe we're too big, too smelly with our own sickness, too Other, to rest in God. 

But, this much I know is true: God holds us, my friends, even when we’ve lost the ability to feel it, even when we’ve outgrown the desire to be held.  God waits like a hammock swinging in the breeze, like a mother’s lap that sways full of life and breath and song. May you find some small moment to climb up again today, to settle in and feel again the Love that holds you, always.         

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!  

           

Manna, Flying Ovens and Grace

Our stove was broken.  The oven burned everything and the biggest burner, the one I used every meal, either ran on high or not at all.  It was one more thing we didn’t have time for, didn’t have money. 

Not long ago, when our finances led me to consider applying for a full time job, God told me clearly, “Just wait.”  I was relieved to hear from God with such clarity.  But after a pause, I reminded God that this meant “he” would be “supplying all our needs.” 

After burning yet another meal in the broken oven this week, I scrolled Craig’s List obsessively searching for a replacement.  Then I remembered that conversation with God.  

Maybe God has a whole warehouse of stoves somewhere and all I need to do is ask, I thought. 

I don’t claim to know how these things work, but I stood on the porch and pictured a white stove floating down out of the bright autumn sky.  (Ought I mention that the stove had big black wings?  It was really quite a delightful image.)

That afternoon I found a decent stove on Craig’s list, but it was still $100 that we didn’t have.  My husband suggested we just fix the burner on the old stove and continue using the broken oven.  But I didn't have the heart to burn one more loaf of bread.

Later that night a friend stopped by and standing in the darkening driveway, my husband mentioned that he was stressed about money.  

“Really?” the friend replied, “We've got an extra $100 dollars floating around this week.  I want to give it to you guys.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out cash.

My husband said no three times before giving in.  We're so tired of needing help.  But when he came upstairs to tell me, as I was putting the twins to bed, my eyes lit up.  

“That’s our stove!” I said, telling him about my prayer.  

I wish the story ended there.  It would be a good one, wouldn't it?

The truth is the guy with the $100 stove didn't get back to me and we ended up buying one for $125.  Then the cord on the new stove wouldn't work with our outlet, so my husband pulled the cord off of the old stove to attach to the new one.

But that old cord?  It was broken.  So we ended up spending another $25 for a new cord.  That brings the new stove tally to $150.  

(Maybe God isn't the best at math?)

We'll fix the old stove and sell it, it's got to be worth something to someone.  And maybe then the math will work out.  

All of this has got me thinking about faith and trust and how the way things appear on the surface can often be deceiving.  I'm thankful for all of the graces, big and little that come our way.  But I want to remember also that each and every grace is only a fragment of a greater truth - the Love and Grace that dwells in and around our lives.  

Sometimes the little graces add up and sometimes they don't.  Sometimes that which is manna one day has soured by the next. 

I keep reminding myself of all the things we have, the things we take for granted that come floating down out of the clouds for free.  Things like the field of soy beans across the street that turns a brighter shade of gold with each passing day.  Or the view of the mountains along with the blue sky and sun.  Who am I in the midst of all of this abundance to say what is and is not enough? 

Last night I made pizza from scratch in the "new" oven.  It had a perfectly browned crust.  Examining her slice, my daughter exclaimed, "It's not burnt!" and the look on her face was priceless. 

Not that Grumpy (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

“What do you think heaven’s like?”

Seated around the sticky kitchen island in the early morning humidity, my children and I wake up slowly.  I am on a second or third cup of reheated coffee.  They spill milk and cereal and crunch chocolate toast.  In a moment of quiet, my oldest son poses his question.

Still focused on my coffee, wrapped in a fog of sleepiness I’m reluctant to leave, I reply, “I’m not sure.  What do you think it’s like?”

Perched on a high wooden stool, he pontificates, and his picture of heaven includes the absence of bickering.

There’s been a lot of bickering this morning and every morning, especially now as summer begins its waning.  In fact, first thing that morning I scolded the boys for their non-stop verbal warfare. 

My sleepy brain picks up on the no-fighting thing and in my best grumpy old man voice, I growl out a version of God, “Hey, cut that out.  No fighting allowed in here.”

Wrapped in the joy of his own ideas, my son pauses and turns to give me a quizzical look.  Eyebrows arched, head cocked to the side, quick as a whip, he replies, “He’s not that grumpy.”

His correction causes a pause, then we both laugh, surprised by his nimble reply.  In four short words, my son defended his own understanding of the heart of God, God’s own disposition. 

I am grumpy.  

Especially in the early morning, when humidity is at 90% and little sweaty, sleepy people are squabbling all around me.  

But God is not.  

And the fact that my son not only sees, but defends the difference, is a great source of joy.

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  

The Evening Breeze (#Small-Wonder Link-up)

This giant Maple is one of many shady spots at our house.

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze . . . Genesis 3

It’s hot, humid, and I’m sweating just sitting in the evening shade.  Crisscrossed in the green grass, my head is bent over scissors and my hands move swift, precise, cutting out letters for a piece of word-art.  It’s been a long, hot, day.  Air settles across the world like silt sinks to the bottom of a bowl of water. 

Every few minutes, though, there’s a breeze.  The trees lift their leaf-hands, saluting the air as it snaps and spreads like someone shaking the wrinkles out of a crisp, white sheet. 

Across the yard I see my neighbors working slowly in their yard. A retired couple, their vegetable garden and flowers beds are immaculate.  They know when to work, I think to myself, as they disappear around the side of their house in the early evening cool.

These are the moments that hide in summer time.  Small slips of cool in the dewy morning and early evening – the liminal spaces between high heat and the still, dark, night.  These are the ones I miss most often as I press, push, and herd through each day. Children swarm around me like insects circling a sweaty brow. The heat of the day rises and I feel myself shutting down, retreating into a restless siesta while wide awake.  

The breeze, though, is gift.  It is a gentle hand to the brow, cool lips pressed to fevered flesh.  

There is something of God in a breeze, in air stirred like a breath and I'm learning to position myself in its pathway.  Beside the open window, under the leafy tree, you might find me.  Hoping, waiting, to catch the breath of God like a firefly in my hand, some small bright light to grace me through another day.        

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.