Free-Range Summer Days

Isaiah (age 8) has taken up baking. He bakes like a happy drunk, tripping around the kitchen, leaving a trail of small disasters in his wake. He dives into each recipe like a boulder dropped into a pond, no caution, all energy. We may or may not have all the ingredients, he may or may not add them in the correct order. He scoops two cups of flour into the one cup measuring cup and scrapes the excess off with a casual flick of his wrist. Flour coats the counter, the floor, his clothes.

 

Often, all of this happens before I’ve stumbled downstairs for my first cup of coffee.

 

The other week while I was out (napping possibly or at the store), I returned to discover all three boys had established vegetable gardens IN-THEIR-ROOMS. They scrounged containers from the recycling bin and planted seeds in soil they found God-only-knows-where. Solomon offered me a pride-filled garden-tour and the twins boasted the convenience of midnight snacks being so close at hand. They love their gardens and water them daily, but I’m having a hard time getting past the act of hauling dirt INTO their rooms. 

 

Speaking of dirt, we’re in the middle of installing an above-ground pool and, in the process, we’ve moved a bunch of soil from one place to the next. It turns out a dirt pile in the yard is even better than in your room and may just be the hottest toy of summer 2020. I’m only hoping they get as much use out of the pool.

 

The other day Isaiah was sitting on the edge of a once-buried cement goldfish pond, a treasure left by the previous owners. We’d planned to dig it up to make room for the pool, but it was built like a cold war bunker, all concrete and rebar, and after going through two jackhammers, we admitted defeat and moved the pool a bit further down the hill.

 

Isaiah, though, sat on the small concrete wall one morning, cutting at a piece of metal with a hacksaw. I guess I should have interrupted that activity, but he was so happy and it was his father who suggested the hacksaw after all. A friend was due soon for a playdate so I called form the back door, “Maybe you should put the hacksaw away. Your friend will be here soon.”

 

“Why,” he asked, looking up from his labor.

 

I paused a beat, then replied, “Well, some parents don’t let their kids play with hacksaws.”   

 

It was later in the kitchen that my daughter repeated the line back to me, laughing and I heard the absurdity. I posted about it then, online and people loved it like they love most of my free-range children's outrageous activities. Some friends comment, "Your kids are having the best childhood." By which, I guess they mean my kids have lots of room to play and explore and test their wills against the wild, wild world. 

I always laugh internally, though, when others (usually mothers) make comments along the lines of, "I admire how much freedom you give your children to create." 

Hah, I think to myself, You're assuming I have a say in the matter. 

Communion (A Five-year-old's Perspective)

The Communion with God is simple, so we will not be dazzled; so we can eat and drink His love and still go about our lives; so our souls will burn slowly rather than blaze.  . . . the Last Supper did not take place on one night in one room, and to eat God's love, we do not have to even open our mouths; we can be walking, sorrowful and confused, with a friend; or working on whatever our boat is, fishing whatever it is we fish for; or we can be running naked, alone in the dark.  The Eucharist is with us, and it is ordinary.  To me, that is its essential beauty: we receive it with wandering minds, and distracted flesh, in the same way that we receive the sun and sky, the moon and earth, and breathing.  

                   - Andre Dubus in Meditations from a Movable Chair

Five-year-old Isaiah loves bread almost as much as he loves his Mama, which is to say, quite a lot.  He also loves juice.  When there's no Sunday school and he's forced to endure the long church service upstairs in the pews, communion - with its tempting combination of both bread and juice - offers a bright respite in the midst of the otherwise boring service. 

Seated during prayer at the service’s beginning on Easter Sunday, he bobs and weaves his head from side to side, searching out the low table at the front of the church.  Then, he exclaims, “I see bread and juice!”

His brother, Levi, sees it too.  “Mom,” Levi says, like someone who’s just discovered cake and ice cream is on the menu for breakfast, “We’re dippin' bread!”

I turn to them, scandalized by their outdoor voices, and stretch my neck forward, my eyes wide, one finger pressed to my lips.  I silently tap my finger to my closed lips.

They settle back in the hard pew to wait.

My boys love communion and my hunch is it’s because they love to eat.  Sometimes this strikes me as sacrilegious, but, mostly, something in their enthusiasm - the way simple appetite and desire breed longing and consummation - also feels right to me.  They're happy to be part, to take part, and receive something good and nourishing.  

When the time comes, at last, I send Levi under his father’s guidance and push Isaiah along ahead of me.  I wonder again, as we exit the end of the pew, about the rightness of allowing children so young to participate in communion, but they’re so happy, so eager, I can’t see holding them back.  We move slowly toward the altar in two lines that bulge and clot the aisle as adults shepherd groups of children.  Seeing my older son behind me, I push him forward too, intending to lean over he and Isaiah both and orchestrate, regulate, their reception of grace.  

Isaiah reaches the half loaf of Italian bread first.  It sits on a plate outstretched in front of his face, level with his big brown eyes.  He reaches for it two-handed, manhandling the loaf which slides forward precariously the slanted plate and the server and I both lunge to stop the fall.  In my mind, Isaiah’s hands are everywhere (germs!) and I grab the loaf to steady it, tearing off a small piece of soft white dough while he wrestles with the dry, flaky crust.  He peels back a sturdy piece as big as his forearm and we turn to the dipping, then back to our seats.  

While the rest of us have quickly dipped and swallowed our own crumbs, he sits in the pew tearing off bite after bite of flaky crust.  When his twin brother asks about the size of his serving, Isaiah replies, with deep contentment, “I didn’t try to get it so big, but it came off, so I kept it.”  

The Hardest Part (Advent Week 1)

The Sleeping Disciples by Henry Ossawa Tanner

I slept but my heart was awake.  Listen!  My beloved is knocking.

Song of Solomon 5:2

Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.  For salvation is nearer to us now when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. 

Romans 13:11-12a

In the night, they come to our room,

nose dripping blood or underwear damp.  

“Can you help me with this?” they ask,  

and we are stirred from the heavy 

darkness of slumber.  

I never want to wake in the night,

never want to throw back the warm covers,

to search for glasses blindly.

I dread the wet sheets

and sitting in the cold dark of the bathroom

pinching his nose until the red river stops. 

But when he shivers, stripping the wet

in exchange for dry, and when he waits

oddly stoic for the clotting to begin,

I feel compassion rise. 

By the time I tuck them

back in, I can say I love you and

mean it as I rub their short-cropped hair.

The hardest part is waking.

The Awakening We Seek (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

#SmallWonder friends - I set the linkup to automatically post last weekend since we were out of town, but it didn't work!  I missed connecting with you all. Today I'm re-posting something from October, 2013, back when the twins were just two years old and we were living in a small rental apartment and waiting to find a home.

*   *   *

To see the world in a grain of sand,

and to see heaven in a wild flower,

hold infinity in the palm of your hands,

and eternity in an hour.

- William Blake

The whole world is dripping and gray; water runs through the streets and pools in the Quick Stop parking lot across the road.  In this light, the apartment walls are dingy, ashen, crisscrossed with shadows.  Every corner of the house is filled with piles; it feels like the stuff in our house is also pooling together mirroring the puddles outside.  Here I sit, waiting for a miracle that will move us into a brighter space.

//

The twins threw noodles down through the cast iron vent in the floor the other day, noodles from a box they scrounged from the pantry and tore open like the little wild things they are.  Laying on their bellies now, peering through the grate that leads to the basement below, they're pleased and excited to recall where the noodles have gone. 

"Hot-hot," they exclaim, "Noodles!"

Everything, to them, is an exclamation point, everything extraordinary - the sun, the clouds, the rain, the discovery of their own shadow following their every move.  In their eyes all the world is a miracle, the finite infused with the infinite.  To us, they are the miracle, these little beings whose minds see no clear divide between the ordinary and extraordinary.  I envy their capacity for wonder, their openness to the love of what is.

//  

All our lives, I think, are spent seeking an awakening, a return to that same unity of vision.

*   *   *

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!  

Privilege: They Didn't Ask and I Didn't Tell

*Photo Source: Unknown

Sunday morning our pastor read the names of last week’s shooting victims, law enforcement and civilian, aloud during morning prayers.  The brick-walled room was quiet, sunlight streamed in through wide windows and I wondered what my oldest kids, seated at a table with us, would think about those names.  

Our older kids, just eight and ten, home for the entirety of summer vacation, are ensconced in a semi-rural white bubble.  John and I get most of our news online and, without the evening news hour on TV, our kids are sheltered from much of the world’s news save for occasions where we decide to intentionally break the bubble. 

We did so with the church shooting in South Carolina last summer, explaining about the shooting and its racist motivations over dinner.  Then we made a quilt square to send to a group in the south who were piecing a quilt for those impacted by the crime.  Still, we haven’t talked with our kids about the events of last week.  And they remained oblivious to our pastor's prayer, wrapped up in seeing their Sunday morning friends, doodling and folding paper airplanes.  

They didn't ask and I didn't tell.   

Monday morning I thought about it again as I worked to add yet another layer of paint to the dark wood paneling in our laundry room.  Would we tell the kids and when and how would we navigate the complexity of the discussions?  A new thought flickered in my mind like a light bulb - this is white privilege.  I get to choose when and where and if I talk with my kids about the complexities of racism because I believe it doesn't impact them and, more importantly, not telling them doesn't put them at risk.    

There are mothers across America who don’t have that choice.  To not talk about these deaths with their sons and daughters is to expose them to risk.  Information that feels optional for my kids is essential for theirs.  The idea that I don't have to address these issues and they do is a privilege born of the color of my skin, a burden born of the color of theirs. 

Later in the morning I read these posts by Lisha Epperson at Give Me Grace and Regina Stoltzfus at The Mennonite, both mothers to teenage boys wrestling with similar questions of when and where and how to talk about racism, but entering into the discussions with wisdom, bravery and fear because they cannot afford not to.  

I am a white woman raising three white sons along a stretch of road where pickup trucks of all shapes and sizes drive by with confederate flags proudly flying from the bed of the truck.  These aren’t unobtrusive confederate flag stickers pasted to a windshield, but a large 3x5 foot banners flying on a pole, statement sized flags.  I am a white woman who believes placing a #Blacklivesmatter sign in our yard would have real repercussions, so I don't.  
   

I want to preserve that bubble, to keep my kids safe.  But I understand now that doing so only keeps us all at risk.  No bubble that includes some and excludes others by reason of the color of their skin can ever be truly safe for anyone.  What appeared optional – talking with my kids about the realities of racism in our country – is, I now see, essential.  I cannot afford to say nothing.  

//

I wrote this post on Monday and have sat with it since largely because I am afraid to say something wrong.  I now realize this hesitancy and the desire to "get it right" and not expose myself to possible ridicule or argument is another layer of privilege.  

//

I turned on the evening news while driving home with the kids Tuesday night.  They were wiped out from a day of swimming and sat quietly listening.  We listened for five minutes before the questions began.  I turned off the news and we cleared up confusion and I turned it back on again.  Eventually, as we pulled in the driveway, my oldest son caught wind of the shootings in Dallas.  

"What are they talking about?" he asked.  "Was that another shooting?"

I asked him to wait while the twins went inside.  Standing in the driveway, I told him quietly about the events of the past week and he filed it away like kids his age do.  

//

The conversation begins, it continues and we have no choice but to enter in for the sake of all our children.  

Please do take a moment to read the posts I've linked to above, both women share important perspectives.  Thank you. 

At the End of this Swaying, Fraying Rope (#SmallWonder Link-up)

Matti Mattila

(This is a re-post from January 2012 when the twins were just six months old and my older kids were 3 and 5.  It was a crazy time.  This January I'm working full time and my kids are sick (as is par for the course come January) - it is also a crazy time.  In light of all the craziness, I thought pulling something out of the archives might serve me well.  Enjoy!)

There’s a level of desperation around our house these days.  Winter's arrival has us cramped and snotty, sneezing and feverish.  My husband and I make daily trips to the store for things we forgot and debate who should go to the Dr. next as we shuffle endless loads of laundry from basket to washer to dryer and back to the basket again. 

It feels like an endless game of “whack-a-mole.”  

One day, between phone calls and drop offs and trips to the library, I turned to see one twin chewing on the now-empty bottle of infant Ibuprophen.  Running to call poison control, hurdling the baby gates with Olympic precision, I realized I don't know for sure who drank the medicine.  I doubled-back quickly to check both boys over, frantically searching for tell-tale sticky hands and berry-flavored breath.  Thankfully, it was "not a toxic dose."

I called the Dr. the other morning about our son who’s running a high fever after two days of antibiotics and left the wrong birth date on the message.  I thought it was wrong as I said it and tried to correct myself on the phone.  In the end the message went something like this, “His birthday is 8.11.2011.  Or wait, that’s not right, it might be 8.10.2011.  I’m sorry, I really can’t remember right now.”

I'm at the end of my rope, you see, hanging here white-knuckled with fingers grasped tight. As I dangle, gasping for breath, waiting for things to stop spinning, I'm reminded of Eugene Peterson's translation of Jesus' first Beatitude,

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule."

How can this be?  

Blessed, right here, right now, dangling, struggling, sagging with nowhere to go.  Blessed because the end of me is not the end of everything, only the beginning of something more, Someone more. 

Peterson's words remind me of something I read a few months ago in Scott Cairns' book, Short Trip to the Edge.  Cairns is an Orthodox Christian and writes briefly about the role of a prayer rope, a string of 33 square knots used to focus the fingers and mind during prayer.  As Cairns puts it, the prayer rope "does its bit to re-pair the inherent schism within the human person, [it] helps to  . . . bring the mind into the heart (36)."   

Reflecting on this image I wondered whether prayer itself might be like the weaving of a rope leading us deep into the heart of God - where we're anchored and at rest.  

The rope woven through prayer is so different than the one I work to climb most days.  I struggle along the rope of my own striving like a scrawny adolescent in gym class trying to perfect the hand-over-hand technique necessary for upward momentum.  This rope, the end of which dangles before me daily, is one of my own making, my striving, my success or failure. 

But the rope of prayer begins where that one ends and leads downward out of myself or perhaps deeper in to the place where Christ now dwells in my heart as I asked him to all those long years ago.  This rope of prayer, when I tend it and mend it, leads me to the places of deep blessedness and true security.

Once again I lower my expectations and ease myself down off of so many cliffs of my own making. I sit down, sink down into grace and love and with every prayer I find the courage to let go one more time, to lean-in to the blessedness. 

Here I am, again, at the end of me; here I am, again, blessed.

*   *   *

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.  

Something Epic

He was a dead ringer for the kid from A Christmas Story.  A short, chubby boy with an overgrown buzz cut and thick, dark rimmed glasses.  Dressed in navy sweats from head to toe, he ran back and forth along the edge of the playground, arms pumping, breath huffing in out-of-shape bursts. 

On his third time past he stopped about twenty feet away from my husband and I, equidistant between us and the black plastic swings hanging on long metal chains.  Inspired, he turned toward us, the nearest available audience.

“I’m gonna do something EPIC,” he said.

Then he turned and ran, huffing and chuffing, arms swinging and threw himself belly first onto a swing.  To our watching eyes, it was decidedly un-epic.  The extended take-off added nothing to the quotidian talent of swinging on your stomach – something any little kid can do.  

But something in his confident declaration, his putting it all on the line approach was truly legendary.  And I loved him for believing it, for announcing it and following through.  

What he did wasn't epic.  

But the way he did it?  

Totally EPIC.   

Love Leads (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

Photo Credit

In the rush between dinner and dessert, in the harried press to Get-These-Kids-to-Bed, four-year-old Isaiah remembers.

Running through the house, he shouts, "Guys! We need to do our yeaves!"

//

My family is growing leaves again this Thanksgiving. 

Last Tuesday I cut contact paper into the shape of a large, barren tree and stuck it to the wood paneled wall in the living room.  Then we cut a bowl-full of leaves.  Every evening we each write what we’re thankful for on a leaf and stick it to the tree.  By Thanksgiving the tree will be full and green, vibrant. 

//

Isaiah doesn’t remind us to do our leaves because he’s so very grateful.  Most of his leaves proclaim anticipatory gratitude for the handcuffs he hopes to receive for Christmas (heaven help us).  He reminds us because after the note’s written, he gets to color his leaf and Isaiah is a big fan of coloring.  He’s been known to spend a whole afternoon coloring at the kitchen counter.  He loves it.

And his love leads us, even if it has nothing at all to do with gratitude. 

That’s the way love is. 

Love opens doors, makes way and helps us remember what we set out to do, who we wanted to be, when we ourselves have forgotten.  And if we don’t have enough love of our own, all we need to do is follow someone else’s, to sit for a while in the glow of their passion and delight. 

I don’t love coloring like Isaiah does, but his love for it cuts through the evening rush, spurs memory and reminded, we follow in its wake. 

Do you have special family practices for the season of Thanksgiving?  I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

*   *   *

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.  

      

Choosing Your Groove (#SmallWonder Link-up)

Reaching across the purple loveseat where we sat, I grabbed a hunk of my husband’s wildly overgrown hair and held it between my fingers.  “I have an idea,” I said, “Let’s hold Daddy down and cut his hair.”

The kids, sprawled around the room in various stages of candy consumption, cheered at the idea. 

My husband laughed and shrugged it off.

A second later Isaiah, returning at a run from the kitchen where the scissors are kept, ran up behind my husband and started snipping.

John lunged forward and spun around to face his attacker, panicked at the idea of a four-year-old hacking at his hair. 

It sounded like Isaiah had scissors, but he didn’t.  We all got a good laugh out of it and no one was happier than Isaiah.  His double dimples winked with delight at the trick he played. 

Standing behind John, the twins reenacted the prank over and over again and John followed along responding to every attack with a leap and shout.  It was like they were rehearsing parts in a play. 

Snip. Leap. Shout. Laugh.

They repeated the scene until their laughs were forced, a thin duplication of their initial joy.

Looking on, I was reminded how often little children repeat the things that give them joy.  Tasting a moment of delight, they demand “do it again”, savoring its sweetness, sucking joy down to its marrow. 

I’m far more likely to reenact the difficult moments in life, to stand over the kitchen sink come evening obsessively repeating a difficult conversation or the bumpiest parts of my day.  With the remembering comes the feelings and, in the middle of a perfectly fine day, I can find myself sunk in the shame or guilt of an incident that happened some fifteen or twenty years ago.

This is what I thought as I watched my boys running themselves round and around in that groove of delight.  Humans, young and old, learn through repetition and there they stood, giggling, earning a degree in 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.  

I Hate Skittles

I hate Skittles. 

I do not want to, as the slogan goes, "Taste the rainbow."

If a Skittle accidentally fell into my mouth, I would spit it out.  This is how I feel about most candy.  Except for sour patch kids.

Levi and Isaiah, however, like every other four-year-old alive, LOVE Skittles. 

And M&Ms.  

And Blow Pops. 

And all the other Crack-in-a-wrapper kids get at Halloween. 

After a night of Trick-or-treat, Isaiah started the candy-consumption-negotiations first thing this morning.  I don’t think he was even all the way downstairs before he started in.  In fact, he fell halfway down the stairs because he was lugging his bag of candy along, slung over his shoulder like a little Santa’s sack filled with sugar. 

He very quickly negotiated the potential consumption of one piece of candy after lunch.  I know this because he reminded me of it before breakfast, after breakfast, before preschool, after preschool, before lunch, etc.  

The candy of choice?  A full size bag of Skittles. 

The twins waited all morning for that candy which, for a four-year-old, is basically a lifetime. 

Isaiah’s bag was quickly opened, half-eaten, and spilled and picked-up twice in the five or so minutes we waited after lunch before heading to their older brother’s Halloween parade.  Foreseeing the potential for a disastrous candy spill at the parade, I went to get a zip-lock bag for both boys.  I planned to open Levi’s bag and pour both into separate preschooler-compatible packaging. 

I forgot, however, that a four-year-old tears into a candy-wrapper like a squirrel attacking a plastic feeder full of sunflower seeds.  Place a thin layer of plastic between a toddler and a handful of chocolate M&Ms and stand back – all sorts of destruction is about to ensue.

One second we were ready, almost out the door for the parade, then Levi’s bag of Skittles exploded shooting a rainbow of sugar all over the kitchen floor.  He ripped open the whole side of his bag in one deft, semi-miraculous movement and Skittles rained down, scattering (or would that be “skittling”?) under the island, across the rug, behind the heavy iron radiator. 

This, of course, was a crisis for him – children hunt spilled candy like the shepherd hunting his lost sheep in Luke’s gospel, or the women hunting her lost coin.  Kids hunt lost candy with the kind of determination and passion that God’s hunts lost souls.

Crisis.

This was less than twenty-four hours after confection-ageddon (aka Trick or Treat) and I had already had it up to HERE with sweets. 

Remember the candy-consumption-negotiations that started in the pre-dawn hours of the day? 

And the incessant reminders? 

I wanted to explode like that bag of Skittles. 

One preschooler was crying while the other tried to find and consume as many of his brother’s lost treats as he could and all I wanted to do was hunt down the person who thought it was a good idea to give little people bags of candy bigger than their faces. 

I did not scream, though, like I wanted to, did not stomp on the candy in rage.  I dug deep within, past the part that had it up to HERE and somehow saw for one brief second the rainbow right there in front of me.  I saw how rainbows lead to hidden treasure and rather than breaking the moment further, I reached for the pot of gold.  

I knelt down beside the crying boy and the thieving boy and was thankful the dog at least was outside.

With due diligence, most of the loss was recovered.  

We put the rainbow in a new bag and I zipped it tight. 

Then we ran out the door together, two boys clutching baggies of brightness and one Mama carrying a rainbow in her heart.

//

By the way, we did miss one red Skittle.  This I know, because the dog found it . . . and spat it out. 

Even the dog knows better.          

When Your Huggy-Boy Won't Hug (i.e. Everything is Coming Undone)

(THIS is the lovely view across the street from our house.  Amazing.)

When the day starts with your huggy-boy not willing to give you a hug. 

Then progresses to yelling and hitting. 

When you let them watch way more T.V. than they should and it only whets their appetite for more.  And even the fun of pulling sunflower stalks thick as trees from the garden isn’t enough to help you all find a flow. 

Time is wrinkled.  And you are caught in its folds. 

On those days there is no low hanging fruit.  The easy way cannot be found.

//

The caterpillar, trapped within its cocoon, let’s go completely.  Dissolving all but its essence – a bit of memory and the cells that tell what it will become.  Antennae, wings, legs.  

Sometimes I think this is what we must do on these ill-fitting days that confine. 

Let go, completely, of all but the essential. 

Curl on the loveseat by the woodstove and nap. 

Sit under the weight of a blanket, bookended on either side by the boys who were fighting, the ones who want more T.V., and read book after book.

Then maybe something new, but familiar as your own memory of how the day could have been, will emerge.  Something composed from your own longing for something more. 

//

Unable to fit together as you are, the boys will spend an hour playing in the bathroom closet, their “office.”  And you will doze in and out of sleep in the one room where you can hear them the least. 

You will make a cup of coffee, adding cream and chocolate syrup.  Then it will be time at last to wait for the bus on the front porch.  The boys, happy now, will attack you from their picnic table pirate ships.  They will “fick” you into believing they’re innocent farmers before whacking you with a sword. 

In the afternoon sun, you will realize it’s warmer than you thought and the day, unveiled, will emerge as something new.    

He Danced (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

 

Photo Source

A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes, but simply live each day with new hope, like children, in wonderment as the sun rises and in thanksgiving as it sets . . . The beauty of humanity is in this fidelity to the wonder of each day. - Jean Vanier in Community and Growth

Twilight fell and the campfire flickered. 

A small, clear voice rose, “The floooo-wer grooooows, and the house, and the stooooop signs, and the caaaars.” He was just getting warmed up.

Later, his body twisted and turned, arms in the air, waving, then down at his sides.  His hips wiggled, feet stomped.  He spun, swooped, shook, with a far off look in his eye, his body responding intuitively, impulsively to the sounds of the singer, the acoustic guitar. 

Four year old Isaiah stole the show last night.

His twin brother, Levi, drifted off to sleep, tucked into the nest formed by my arms and legs, a fleece blanket pulled up tight around his cheeks.  Sleep hits him like a freight train come seven thirty.  Seated on the ground by the fire’s warmth, I swayed like a cradle and watched his eyelids drift.  Lifting his face, he said, “I’m going to sleep now for a little while.  Wake me up when they clap because that means it’s the end.”

Isaiah danced so long and so hard he finally flopped right down on the ground, huffing and puffing.  Then he was up again, moving and shaking and running over to his Daddy and I every minute or two, a desperate look on his tired little boy face.

“Is it almost done?” he asked.

Afterwards, he was proud.  

“Someone told me ‘Thankyou,’” he said, “and someone else patted me on the back.”

It was a big and important thing he did, that dancing.  He danced with serious abandon, every move an extension of his soul. 

Over fifty people came to hear John Francis perform in the lap of our great, wide yard, underneath the dark night and stars. 

Kids tore in every direction on wheels of every shape and size. 

Our dog, Coco, chased kids and chickens like it was her job. 

Donations were collected and we raised $400 to help provide hot, home-cooked, Thanksgiving meals for local families in need. 

We huddled close around the fire in the surprisingly cool night air.  We shivered and laughed, shrugged under blankets.  We sang along and clapped our hands and I felt the goodness of a frequent smile on my face. 

But the best part of it all, by far? 

My son – he danced.  

*   *   *

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 Last Day of Summer

At the end of the day two cats sit in the window, sunset facing, while my husband walks the trash to the curb.  Two fresh bodies are tucked into bed.  Two still-dirty ones stretch the last minutes of daylight in the yard. 

There was some discussion this morning of knocking out a wall in the upstairs of our house.  Common sense prevailed though (No new projects right now, thank you very much!) and the cool blue sky drew us outside. 

We moved a pile of wood, cleared up a patch of land under the big pine tree.  The kids built a fort, tag-teaming lumber from the garage to the very space we were clearing, under the big pine tree. 

The dog found a toad, who became a pet. 

Lucky, he was rescued from the dog. 

Unlucky, he will spend the night in an old fish tank. 

Dead flies, worms, pieces of fruit, the lid of a peanut butter jar filled with water, all of these served as offerings for the toad.  Still, he seemed to be without appetite.

I chopped some wood, throwing the axe out over my shoulder, missing half the time, aware of the vulnerability of my toes exposed in sandals.  Every once in a while I hit home and the wood snapped with a satisfying crack – worth the effort it took.

The wood pile behind the garage grew slowly, a long stretch of Lincoln Logs strung together, wobbly.  I hammered nails in the kids’ fort.  Hooks for the hatch-door.  My daughter knelt on the ground with wire cutters snipping chicken wire which became a window. 

By the end of the day, the oldest boy built a zip-line which, failing to zip, turned into a log-launcher.  And we all left the dinner table, measuring tape in hand, and stood staring at the old wooden stairway that runs through the heart of our house.

“Could we turn it into a slide?” someone asked.

My husband turned to me, a light shining in his eyes. 

"It’s 14 feet," he said.  "You can buy a 2x12x16 ft. board for about $30."

“Will we? Will we?” the kids clamored. 

"Maybe," we said, "it'll be a winter project."

Happy Labor Day!

How did you celebrate?

As A Child (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

In the early morning darkness, I lay my head back on the couch, face lifted, chest wide, shoulders back.  Open.  Prayers rise, unbidden, as coffee cools in my cup. 

Decisions, relationships, lift like smoke, ascending from that tense place in my chest where I hold things too tightly.  For the hardest things, my words are lacking, stumbling stutters. 

“Please.  Help.”

I feel inarticulate, frustration rises.

//

When my four-year-old gets in a tight place in the yard – stuck upside-down in the hammock, balanced precariously on the edge of a fall – he cries out.

“Somebody help I!  Somebody help I!”

Yesterday, having nicked his heal, he ran into the house at full speed, full volume, calling, “Guys, I bleeding! Guys, I bleeding!”

I love the unspecificity of his cries, the simplicity. 

He is a boy raised in a loving crowd – someone will answer. 

He doesn’t need to find the right words to wrap around the problem in the midst of his panic and fear – help will come, regardless.

//

This is what comes to me in the midst of the frustration and inadequacy.

Ah, I think, I am praying like a child. 

I live in the midst of a great sea of Love – Someone will answer.

I don’t need to find the right words – Help will come, regardless.

My cries are precious to the ear that hears them. 

Friends, the lovely Laura Boggess and I are leading a retreat day on September 26 based on Jesus' invitation to become "as a little child."  You can find out more about this event here.

*   *   *

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.  

Playing With Fire

See the Mama wren? She's fussing at me for being too close to her babies 

who're tucked inside the bird house. 

Discarded shoes litter the grass around the pine tree; two bright blue Crocs, a pair of canvas sandals.  

When the kids are missing for a while, I step out the back door and call to the tree.  Before long, small faces peek out from among the greenery.  They're perched a good fifteen to twenty feet up.

Their faces and arms bear scratches from their climbing, but no one’s fallen yet.  

//

The other night, eating at the picnic table, I asked the kids what their favorite thing is about me.

My oldest son replied, “You let me do dangerous things.”

I had that in mind a few days later when he asked if fire would spread on rocks. 

Fire questions deserve follow-up, so I investigated his plan which was to make a fire on our driveway using his magnifying glass and leaves.  Playing with fire, I guess, is a no-no.  But we’re reading Gary Paulson’s adventure novel, “Hatchet” about a young boy stranded alone on a beach in Northern Canada.  A small hatchet is the boy’s only tool and eventually he discovers how to make sparks by scraping the hatchet across some flinty rocks.  Using the sparks and birch bark he is able to make fire.  

My son doesn’t have a hatchet, but he does have a small pocket knife that he bought with his own money at Lowes.  The other day he came down from quiet time with a heavily shaved pencil.  “I think I’m going to like carving when I get older,” he said, pocket knife in hand.

I imagine he wanted to be like the boy in the book in some small way, so I let him make the fire.  And it worked.  He used flower pots to perch the magnifying glass above a small pile of leaves and bark so he could “watch from the shade.”  The leaves smoked and smoldered and I reminded him not to stare at the sun’s reflection and to keep a big glass of water at his side.

I stayed nearby imagining the fire somehow catching, then spreading.  All it would take is a gust of wind at just the right moment, just the right angle. 

But I let him have his fire while his little brother squatted nearby taking it all in.

//

“Don’t drown in the pool tomorrow,” I announce into the van’s rear view mirror.  Four blank faces stare back at me.  We’re running errands and I’m thinking about their much anticipated day at a friend’s house tomorrow – the one with a pool. 

This is my backhanded way of expressing worry and fear, the by-products of my fierce love for them.

//

The tiniest of wrens built a nest in a small bird house in our yard.  It sits under a metal windmill, in the middle of a round flowerbed.  I love to see her little face peeking out of the small, round doorway.  

When I hang laundry nearby, she flies a few feet away to the Japanese Maple.  From there, she scolds me with fierce chattering – she is trying to get my attention, to draw me away from her babies.  Inside the bird house, tiny voices whirr with excitement as she comes and goes, her beak carrying food.  

In the evening I sit and watch her fuss.  Our clueless tomcat wandered too close to the nest and she is frantically trying to lure him away.  She flits across the lawn, swooping low before resting in a shrub, her machine-gunning chatter calling incessantly.   

“She would climb inside his mouth just to get his attention if she could,” I tell my husband. 

She tends her little ones with love that is both gentle and fierce.  

But a time will come, not long from now, when they will leave the nest.  Then what? 

Maybe she will sleep for a hundred hours, relieved.