A Hare, A Shovel, A Pale Blue Envelope

(photo via Unsplash: Gary Bendig)

I walked out the back door and circled around toward the front of the house one recent Saturday morning, looking for the shovel.  I suspected it had been left leaning against the porch after a recent gardening project.  A few weeks earlier, we had pulled out yet another dying shrub and planted a few annuals.  The annuals – mostly Zinnias and Sunflowers sown from seed – sprouted and grew about an inch tall, then disappeared.  We figured someone ate them, most likely a rabbit.  

I was hunting for the shovel so I could plant some things in another flower bed, this one beside the Little House.  

I walked down our paved driveway toward the road and noticed the yellow metal flag on our mailbox across the street was standing at full salute.  I saw no sign of the shovel along the porch and continued toward the road, aiming to fetch the now day-old mail.  Along the shoulder of the road, just in front of the mail box, sat a large, speckled hare.  I figured it would run off as I crossed the road. 

The rabbit stayed still, though, as I approached.  Beyond the mail box, the gravel and grass gives way to a giant field of feed corn, a tide of green that rises slowly each day.  I stopped, just beside the rabbit, my sandal-ed feet pausing in the small strip where grass and gravel collide.  The rabbit's eyes bulged.  They were enormous, not right at all for a hare its size, and its breath came in short heavy pants.  The fur along one side of its body was rumpled and I leaned down to look for injuries. 

I couldn’t see any blood, so I reached down with my right hand to feel the rabbit’s back.  Its speckled fur was coarse and dense.  I gently pushed the rabbit toward one side, then another, looking, again, for injuries.  I wondered at its bulging eyes, were they rimmed with blood?  

Observing the hare, with its unknown injuries, I felt a familiar weight of responsibility descend.  I considered picking it up and carrying it to the house.  It would likely die before long, but I hated to think of it struggling through its last hours on the side of the road with the sun beating down.  Also, there was our dog to consider, and the cat – I didn’t want them crossing the busy road to catch it.

I turned to the mailbox, pulled out our mail, and locked down the bright yellow flag.  I noted a pale blue envelope – real mail, not junk – wrapped in the day's advertisements and crossed the street, heading back to the house.  

I decided to get a towel to carry the rabbit.  Once it was safely inside, I'd ask my husband to take a look at it.    

Walking toward the house, I reflected on the foolishness of nursing a hare to health.  I, who routinely stands along the fence kvetching with our neighbors about the havoc rabbits wreak in gardens and flower beds.  I remembered the plush Angora rabbits I recently petted at my friend’s farm, their dense cashmere-like coats so different from this wild hare’s hide.  Mostly, I hoped the kids wouldn't catch wind of the rabbit before I could decide what to do with it.      

It was the first morning, in over a week, that all six of us were home together.  To celebrate, I had gone to the grocery store after work the night before to buy Buttermilk, intent on wowing us all with a new pancake recipe.  I envisioned a delicious, family breakfast, but the recipe was a flop and I gave up on the lumpy bowl of batter after producing a few half-cooked pancakes with a texture like silly-putty. 

My husband, John, was in the hot kitchen trying to salvage my mess.  I found him there and lured him outside to explain the rabbit situation.  Armed with a beach towel, and fully prepared for a rescue operation, I led him across the road.  The rabbit was still there, but had moved a little, turned toward the field of corn.  John guessed, by the way it moved, that its foot was broken.  He also commented on the bulging eyes.  

“Can rabbits get rabies?” he asked.  He didn’t want to touch it.  I mentioned I already had. 

I bent down, then, to look at its face and saw that its nose was bloodied and raw.  “Its face is bleeding,” I said. 

“I don’t think it’s going to make it,” he said. 

“I don’t think so either,” I said.  “But I don’t want to leave it here.”

“Should I throw it out into the corn field,” he asked, “or get something and just hit it so it dies?”

I hated the thought of whacking it over the head, but I hated the thought of its slow, confused, demise even more.  “Do you think you could break its neck?” I asked, thinking of the young rooster we recently dispatched.

“I’m just going to hit it,” he said.  “I’ll get a bag and the shovel.”

“I can’t find the shovel,” I said as we crossed the road together. 

It seemed we had come full circle. 

He found the shovel, I know not where, and headed across the street with it and a plastic bag for the body.  But he returned, soon, with the empty bag.  “It went off into the corn field,” he said.  “It was already pretty far out.”

//

Afterwards, I stood in the disastrously dirty kitchen, leaning against the counter, and opened the pale blue envelope.  It held a card with a small pile of cash tucked inside along with the signatures of three dear friends.  They had asked, a few weeks earlier, whether we would accept a little money to help us do something fun with the kids this summer.  

//

When I think of these two events - the injured hare and the pale blue envelope - coinciding, I am reminded of one of my favorite poems, 'Shoulders,' by Naomi Shihab Nye.  In her poem, Nye describes a man cautiously crossing a street in the rain.  The man carries his sleeping son.  As he walks, 

"His ear fulls up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy's dream 
deep inside him."

Nye concludes her poem with a prediction,

"We are not going to be able 
to live in this world
if we're not willing to do what he's doing
with one another.

The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling."

Nye's poem gets at the heart of what I was doing that Saturday, what my friends were doing through their inquiries and gift.  We were each crossing the street, pondering how another's need might intersect with the abundance of our own lives.  It's not like I heard the hum of the rabbit's dream deep inside me, but I did hear the hum of a deeper truth.  All of the many roads that divide us are nothing compared to the impulses of Love and Compassion that bind us all together.    

(Click here to read or listen to the full poem.)

Miss. Ann's Zinnia's (The Kingdom of God is Like . . . )

Sunday afternoon I left my husband with seed packets of Zinnias and Dahlias and walked up, across the yard, to look for a spade in our overflowing garage.  The planting of those flowers, four packets, was what I requested for Mother’s Day this year. 

I don’t know why planting seems, for me, an impossible task.  Maybe it’s that simple act of letting go and watching the impossible seed fall into darkness; maybe it’s the familiar struggle of facing an unknown future.  Whatever it is, my husband plants the garden each year and I, in time, tend it. 

Walking up from the garden, across the green expanse of lawn, I looked over at our neighbor’s yard.  They have a small, fenced in, vegetable garden and the wife, Ann, has a separate flower garden.  Their garden, like most in early spring, is a miracle waiting to happen – a tilled expanse of soil, a pregnant pause.  My eyes saw the emptiness there, the open waiting space, but in my mind I remembered the Zinnias. 

During our first summer here, we planted a good-sized vegetable garden filled with the practical means of nutrition.  Our neighbors did the same in their fenced-in plot, but around the outside edge of the fence grew large, splashy, red, purple and pink flowers – a fiesta of color that started blooming in late summer and stood strong into the fall. 

Oh how I envied Miss. Ann's Zinnias.  I eyed her flowers hungrily and finally, in September as the flowers were beginning to fade, asked if I might over and cut a bunch.  From that moment on, I was hooked. 

The following summer, I bought a packet of seeds and grew my own riot of reds and pinks.  I cut them and filled our house with vases.  I carried them to friends’ houses.  Everyone loved the Zinnias.

Then, last year, we made a farm stand for selling fresh, free-range chicken eggs.  I again planted my Zinnias (or rather, my husband did) and, when they grew and bloomed, I started cutting large happy bunches of purples and pinks, oranges and yellows and selling them in old tin cans at the farm stand for $1 each. 

It was a real steal for fresh cut flowers and they flew off of the farm stand’s two tilted shelves.  A friend suggested I should charge more.  But I refrained. 

I was already making a profit, but, what’s more, I know what it’s like to not be able to afford fresh flowers.  I know, also, how beauty feeds the soul.  I also know the feeling of finding a wonderful deal, how it opens our hearts and minds, makes us feel the expansive mystery of goodness and provision in the world that’s so often buried in layer after layer of unmet need. 

I wanted people to feel what I felt in my garden, the sensation of wonder and delight, the absurdity of so much color available for mere ornamentation.  

Returning to the garden with the trowel in hand that Sunday afternoon, I thought, the kingdom of God is like those Zinnias.  The Kingdom of God – heaven in our midst – blazes and waves in the place where it is planted.  It attracts the eye, captures the heart, fills those who are awake enough to notice, with longing.  The Kingdom of God is like a packet of seeds, bought for $1.49, that yields one hundred fold.  The kingdom of God is color cut and watered in an old tin can, bright joy on the side of the road bought with a handful of change – a deal too good to be true.   

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.   

Ignored, Dismissed, Insulted

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.  Matthew 15:21-28, NRSV

(I preached on this passage yesterday in church and continued learning about the passage during and after our service.)

A man approached me after church while I was tucking my sermon notes back into a folder. 

“There were three words you used that really struck me," he said,  "Can you remind me what they were?”

I looked at him, a solid man, my height and balding, a good ten years older, perhaps.  He was one of the few in the congregation I didn’t know well and while I spoke he had alternated between lowering his head, eyes fix on a spot on the carpet in front of him, and looking at me with grave concern.  It was easy for the anxious, insecure preacher in me to imagine him disagreeing with the entirety of the sermon or, more simply, disapproving of a woman in the pulpit. 

“You said three things that happened to the woman,” he said, “real succinct.”

Lowering his reading glasses from where they were perched on top of his head, he peered over my shoulder while I rifled through my notes looking for the line I guessed he had in mind.  Finding it in my bare bones notes I pointed and he nodded and read aloud, “Ignored, dismissed, and insulted.  That’s really all there is, isn’t it?”

At first I thought he was referring to my sparse notes, then I realized he meant that the woman in the passage pretty much experienced the sum of what we humans can do to each other. 

“Thanks,” he said, raising his reading glasses again and shaking his head as he walked away.

//

I started the sermon portion of the service by reading the passage three times, pausing for a brief silence between each reading.  “Try listening with your eyes closed,” I said.  “All you have to do is pay attention.”

After the reading, I invited the congregation to share their impressions of the passage – what did they notice, who did they relate to, and what were they curious about?  Every time I start a sermon this way, the congregation identifies almost every single one of the relevant issues in the text, often outlining the relevant points of my sermon for me with hardly any effort at all.  I guess maybe that speaks to the power of crowd-sourcing, but I also take it as a sign that people are much more capable of reading the bible than they think and that every good reading of a passage begins with a lot of questions and a little confusion. 

During our discussion, one man in the back mentioned how struck he was by Jesus’ response to the situation – that Jesus seemed to allow the situation to unfold in front of him and waited before making a definitive judgment. 

This is one of the things I would identify as a positive later in the sermon too – Jesus listened to the woman despite seeming to be pretty clear about wanting nothing to do with her.  Because Jesus listens, the Canaanite woman is able to insert a new perspective into the conversation, one that makes room for Jesus to recognize and respond to her faith.

//

I thought about all of this as my husband drove us home with the kids squabbling in the back of the van and my head pounding from sinus pressure.  “Ignored, dismissed, insulted.”  I thought about the Canaanite woman’s vision, the way she shifted the conversation away from the position of those at or beneath the table to the meal itself which was so abundant it couldn’t help but overflow beyond the table’s borders. 

Riding home I thought about the people in our world who possess a greater vision, those who are willing to push against status quo and shift the level of conversation into a wider more productive space.  These people are, most often, outsiders, people who for one reason or another have been relegated to the outskirts of society.  But their exclusion, painful as it is, often comes with the gift of perspective – positioned on the outside looking in, they often see beyond what is to the possibilities of what might be.  Lacking the benefits of insider status, outsiders like the Canaanite woman are often willing to risk more in order to attain a more inclusive vision and they’re not the only ones to benefit from it.

People like that are often ignored, often dismissed, often insulted.  But I wonder what it would be like if we were to be a bit more like Jesus; if we were to pause a little more and listen more often to an outsider perspective, if we were to refrain from ignoring, dismissing and insulting.

When Jesus listens to the Canaanite woman he discovers ‘great faith’ in a place where no one would have thought to look.  I hope I can learn to listen more to people with outside perspectives and I also hope I’ll continue to push beyond the risks to share what vision I’ve been given.  At times like this, when people are so divided and arguing over a place at the table, we need a broader vision more than ever.   

We Were Robbed and It Was Good (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

If I were to characterize Jesus' ministry, it would be to refocus people away from a sin focus and onto a life focus.  Where you give your focus, you give your energy.  - Vern Hyndman

Wednesday my husband came home early to take our daughter to the dentist and work on installing a long-awaited dishwasher in our home.  Working to frame a cabinet around the hand-me-down appliance, he trotted out to the garage to cut a piece of wood. 

The counter in the wood shop was empty, no saw.  He looked around in confusion, walked around hunting.  We’re not always very organized with our tools and, after a while, he asked the kids and me whether we’d seen or moved his equipment.  The more he looked around, the more things he found missing.  Reality dawned slowly, someone broke into our garage and stole several of my husband’s large wood working tools – a chop saw, a drill press, an electric drill, among other smaller things. 

Two police officers came to our house that afternoon and spent a good bit of time looking around.  It was all terribly exciting for the kids who hunted the yard and garage for footprints and other clues.  John and I continued to wrap our minds around the forethought and planning it would take – two people at least and a vehicle – to empty his shop of equipment.  We believe they came in the night, Monday night to be precise, while we slept with our bedroom windows closed against the heat and an ancient window unit AC throbbing out all outside noises.

In the middle of helping our kids not be scared and figuring out what we need equipment-wise to move forward, John and I have worked through the anger and discouragement that follows crime.  We’ve talked about the buttons it pushes, how disbelief is followed by anger and then a pervasive sense of futility (or what my husband calls being glum).  We’ve wondered aloud and privately whether this event might change the way we live and, more importantly, the way we think about life itself (which is always behind the way we choose to live).  In the middle of it all, despite the very real loss of tools we cannot really afford to replace, there’s a part of me that wants to call this event ‘good.’ 

When evil arrives, in any form, two of its ugliest fruits are the lies, “you are alone” and “there is not enough.”  With these two lies, evil sets itself up to multiply, because evil flourishes in isolation and scarcity.  

But when we shared about the robbery on facebook, friends near and far expressed concern, outrage and sorrow.   We were reminded, as a friend said, “You are not alone in this!”  Also, within minutes of posting, a friend sent a private message, “We have a drill press you can have,” she wrote.  This generous offer reminded us there’s enough to go around.    

These reminders were indeed good and we count ourselves as lucky because too many people do experience crime in the midst of real and crushing isolation and scarcity.  But, beyond these reminders, there was, I believe, a goodness in the robbery itself, in it happening to us (or, maybe I should speak for myself here – to me). 

It was good, not because theft is good or because I can imagine scenario in which someone really did really need our resources more than us, but because it is true and real.  Crime is a reality, or maybe I should put it another way – sin is a reality. 

Too often I’m prone to pretend it isn’t.

Before we go nodding our heads, though, and clucking our tongues over the state of the world we live in, it might be helpful to remember the words of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes.  “There is nothing new under the sun,” he says.  Just nine verses in to a ten chapter book, and he lays out his sobering conclusion.  It’s almost as though he concludes before beginning, “It is, what it is.”   

It is what it is – robbery, racism, fear, hatred, isolation – all of these things always have been and always will be.  Sit with that for a while, if you will.  Or, if you don’t want to take the Teacher’s word for it, read elsewhere in the bible.  Take the book of Amos, for example, wherein an unlikely prophet calls Israel to task for conflating politics with religion, for allowing robbery and violence to flourish in their midst, for trampling the poor underfoot in a continual rush toward material greed and personal pleasure (7:10-17, 3:10, 5:11, 6:4-6, 2:6-8) all while continuing to perform empty religious rituals (5:21-24).  All of this, among the people of God, mind you. 

Or, read history.  Chose a time, a place, any one, and you will find sin working in obvious and not-so-obvious ways.  It is, what it is. 

Christians must accept the reality of sin.  Small wrong-doings, like a local robbery or the way you treat your kids when you’re tired or hungry or simply done at the end of a long, hot, humid, summer day, can be good reminders.  Local news, national news, international news, these all serve as reminders too, but not when viewed as extraordinary.  The times we live in are like no other and yet, they are like every other time before this.  “There is nothing new under the sun,” the Teacher says, not even evil itself is new or different than it has even been. 

It all seems rather grim, doesn’t it?   

But this is where I see something glimmer, a small nugget of good news tucked right in the middle of the darkness, which is, by the way where we ought to most often expect to find the gospel. 

The good news is this:  there is nothing new.  Not when it comes to evil.  It is and it is the same, without end.  So if we’re going to get up in arms about anything, let it be this – there is nothing new under the sun save for the gospel which is continually and again inviting us and everyone who does and doesn’t look like us and speak like us and pray or sing like us to pitch in and be part of that which has already overcome.

 

We can spend our energy bemoaning evil, which never changes, or we can turn our hearts and minds to the work of God, the way of God, in the world.  We can open our very lives to the power of God in Christ Jesus that's forever redeeming. 

Sin is not new and (good news!) neither is its cure.  And even sin itself, our own or others', can be an invitation, a reminder that we can choose where we place our focus and how we use our energy.  

*   *   *   *

Only 10 spaces left!  I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

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.   

Enough (Coats and Quiet Lights - #SmallWonder Link-up)

The More We Own The Less We Have to Name

If we had only one coat, we would call it Warm,
but if we got another, it would not be Warmer,
      just our other coat,
and if we bought, borrowed, stole
      or rescued from the trash
a third, fourth, or fifth coat,
if our closets held so many coats
jackets, parkas, capes, stoles, mantles and mackinaws
that if we changed them daily from October through April,
rotating cashmere, leather, fleece and down,
scarlets and peacocks, blacks and browns,
if we had coats to cover the entire tundra
      and with it all our ancestors
who ever felt the chill of His absence,
none of these would be Warmer,
none of these would be Enough.

- L.N. Allen

We have a whole room in our house lined with hooks and devoted to the storage of coats - a startling array of outerwear designed to ease six people through four seasons of weather and everything in-between.  That small back room, a former porch now closed in, boasts more coats than Baskin Robbins has flavors - a coat, you might say, for every palate. 

I also have a whole room in my mind devoted to the coats of my past, a musty closet so full that the door will hardly stay shut.  Digging my way into memory's closet, I find, way in the back, the mustard-gold wool coat with large toggle buttons that I thought was oh-so-trendy in high school.  Hanging near it, or cast forgotten onto the floor, lies the bright orange and navy blue windbreaker that matched so well with my eyes, but made me feel like a construction worker every time I wore it. 

The dark wool pea-coat I bought at the Salvation Army during college still hangs stiffly on memory's hanger.  It was ungodly heavy, decked out with two rows of silver buttons and appeared to be a real cast-off from the Navy.  Nearby would be the thin yellow rain coat I bought for a camping trip with my then boyfriend who later became my husband, as though the purchase of a coat between us somehow sealed the deal. 

Hanging toward the front, still usable, would be the burgundy knee-length coat that makes me feel a little like a rock star every time I wear it.  This is the coat that caused my husband to suggest in a gentle tone when I returned home from buying it, that maybe we should consult each other before making big purchases. 

I have too many coats (maybe I always have) and my husband and children do too.  Lately I'm hunting for a back-up winter coat for my daughter.  I've made multiple trips to a variety of stores, ordered two online and returned, all because I don't like the way her bright pink parka from last year is starting to show some wear. 

Walking into Old Navy on yet another scouting trip I noticed a box for donating old coats as you buy a new one and I thought, "Why not keep your old coat and buy a new one to donate?" 

I didn't do either, though, not that day nor since. 

The coats we wear, like much of our clothing, are often a symbol for identity, announcing to the world our interest in outdoor sports or our need to hide behind something long and warm that covers us.  Our coats hold us, warm us, and I have to restrain myself every year to keep from buying an over-abundance of fleeces and hoodies at yard and consignment sales, so great is my desire and my pleasure at covering, clothing, my children.

I have too many coats as our back room will tell you and many days I'm convinced that this is more of a burden than a blessing.  I wonder what these coats might tell me if I were to listen to them one by one?  

Certainly they would speak of my vanity, my desire to fit in or stick out in equally competing measures.  They might mention also, perhaps shyly, my fear of the cold and how holding myself too tightly rigid only makes the shivering that much worse.  They would probably also want to know why I don't go out more often, to enjoy the cold or the rain or the wind, especially now that I have them to keep me.   

Gracious God, we in our frail humanity fear the cold, the wind, the rain.  To put it more plainly, ever since that incident in the garden, we fear exposure.  Forgive us, please, if we go a little overboard in covering ourselves and the ones we love.  Help us to bear, oh Lord, your stripping.  Teach us to welcome the first breath of frost and its burning sting.  Help us to learn to let Warm be Enough. 

*   *   *

Friends, are you longing for a moment of Quiet in the coming Holiday Season?  I want to invite you to subscribe to my Advent Email Series called, "Quiet Lights."  Signing up will allow you to receive an email of a simple poem and a few good links to add wonder to your Advent journey.  Watch my blog later this week for more info or subscribe NOW by visiting the link.  

Click here to subscribe to Quiet Lights.

*   *   *

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.  

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. 

Self-Care: The Simple Math of "Too"

(Laura Lynn Brown, over at Makesyoumom.com is leading a discussion this summer around self-care - you can find upcoming discussion topics here.  Then add your voice to the conversation in the comments.  This conversation is near and dear to my heart and I'm looking forward to following along and contributing as I am able.  This post is linked with the topic: Self-Care Assess Your Situation. )

Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’ . . . Billy Preston

If I were to sum my self-care situation up in two phrases they would be, “too little” and “too much.”

Too little quiet, solitude, stillness.

Too much laundry, loudness and scattered demands.

Too little money, time, support.

Too much chaos.

“Too little” and “too much.”

Looking closer, however, I notice these two phrases can be further reduced to one word – “too.”

“Too” is, like “also” and “and,” a word of addition; it is yes and inclusion and multiplication.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges and rewards of welcoming two (by which I mean twins) is learning to live in and welcome “too.”  For much of my life I’ve longed for singularity of purpose and identity and now I find myself learning how to embrace the gifts of many and much. 

Yet “too” presupposes the existence of something prior - some thing, some one, to which “too” is added.  I can see now, in learning to live with “too” that it is not my job to prevent “too” or even try to control it, but to tend to the one to which “too” is always being added. 

Self-care is attention to the center, the root, the self onto which all of life is added in varied measures. 

Self-care is not in opposition to “too” but rather presupposes “too.”

Lately, one little line from Billy Preston’s 1974 hit, “Nothing’ from Nothing” has been following me around in my head as I tend to all of the little “too’s” that add up my life these days,

“Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’,

you gotta have somethin’ if you wanna be with me.”

Sometimes it feels like all of the “too’s” in my life leave me with nothin’.  When I am at zero, which I often am, I have nothing to give and all of those too’s just pile up, neither good nor bad, just “too.”  I’m beginning to heed the signs that tell me I’m headed toward nothin', to notice the moments when zero is rapidly approaching.  

At thirty-eight I'm relearning basic addition and subtraction, recalculating the cost of “too” and working to maintain “somethin’” lest we all be left with “nothin’”.  More than ever before I understand that it all begins with one.  

Scrappy

My husband made a shovel for gathering the ashes out of our wood stove in the mornings.  Before that we were using my son's plastic beach shovel, but hot coals and plastic, well . . .  

He made the scoop out of a tin can which, up until dinner time held creamed corn.  The handle was cut from an old wooden dowel, something I salvaged from a broken roller blind left here by the previous owner. 

We spent a few minutes laughing about the shovel the other night after the kids were in bed.  I asked if we could hide it when company comes, he said he might write Heloise with the idea. 

The other day one of the older kids asked what the word "scrappy" meant and I was at a loss.  That night, had they asked, I could've held up that shovel.  John and I have always been scrappy, trying time and again to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.  

There was a time in our country where the ability to scrape things together from scratch was seen as something like a virtue or at least a great asset.  I think of my Grandmother's drawer of lightly-used tin foil, the balls of saved rubber bands and I remember learning to darn socks with her, using careful stitches and an old wooden heel form. 

These days, though, there seems to be a bit of shame that lingers around both the need and ability to scrape things together - or is it just me who feels the shame of not enough? 

We can't afford to buy a shovel and we're keeping the ashes in old tin coffee cans donated from my husband's co-worker.  Firewood sits in a plastic five gallon bucket near the stove.

I guess, if we had the money, we'd pull up amazon and order one of those fancy fireplace sets, all of the manufactured tools to do the job right and look good too.  Or maybe we wouldn't.

The Merriam Webster online dictionary tells me scrappy, as an adjective, can mean 

1. consisting of scraps (as in that shovel my husband made) or
2. having an aggressive and determined spirit 

I don't typically think of myself as aggressive and it would be the last word anyone would use to describe my husband, but somehow, that second definition seems to fit and I like it.   

What do you think?  Are you scrappy?  If so, are you proud of it or embarrassed?

Rudolph's Bargain Patch (A Christmas Story)

 

It sat alone, across the muddy tractor tracks, next to the stinking porta-potties in a wide and muddy pit.  

Enjoying the wagon ride out to the fields, the hacksaw in hand and children all around, my husband and I hardly noticed the wide plastic sign, our sights set firmly on cutting our own Douglas or Frasier fir.  

We’re skinny-tree people, the taller and spindlier the better and we were excited to head out across the muddy fields to cut and claim our own piece of Christmas.  Two three-year-olds in tow, we climbed down from the wagon and followed vague directions toward a distant hill.  

The boys lagged behind by the time we reached the first stand of trees - small, pre-cut firs - and my husband I exchanged worried glances as we subtly scanned the increasingly alarming price tags.  We held a quick and quiet conference in the midst of the evergreens then turned as a family and headed back toward another field where the hopefully cheaper Douglas Firs waited.   

Things started to fall apart a little then.  Little people stumbled over stumps and ditches, hands were cold and ears.  There was an argument with an older child about the need to zipper a coat.  We crossed the muddy wagon tracks to a field of still shorter trees and slowed, again exchanging looks over the price tags we passed. 

Subtlety aside, our older children picked up our tone and started exclaiming over the prices too and then we were that family with too many kids exclaiming in overly loud tones about the cost of the trees.

Picking a tree in winter with young children in tow is a time-sensitive endeavor.  We were running out of patience, hesitant to pay for an overpriced tree that would be dwarfed by our nine-foot ceilings, but more hesitant still to spend the gas and time needed to drive to a cheaper tree farm.  

That’s when we remembered Rudolph's Bargain Patch, a humble cluster of homely castaways – a veritable island of misfit trees.  I ran ahead to scout things out, saving precious little feet unnecessary footsteps, and planned to signal back if the small patch held any promise.  I slipped and scurried past a storage shed and several industrial outhouses before stopping by an overly cheerful sign emblazoned with a chipper little red-nosed reindeer. 

Wagon-loads of people road by as I dove into the muddy patch, running quickly between the trees and, lo! to my great surprise our salvation lay in that lowly patch.  I ran again into the roadway and waved the family over, uncontainable excitement at the prospect of getting a “steal” written across my face.  

The trees were enormous and cheap, so cheap, especially in comparison to what we’d just seen.  The six of us bobbed and wove among them, stumbling and slipping in the mud, exclaiming over and over, “Look at this one!” and “Oh my gosh, this one is huge.”

In the far back corner sat the mother-load, a great monster of a tree, exceptional both in girth and height – a tree so big and cheap that we couldn’t not get it.  

Still, we hesitated, grinning, circling, exclaiming and wondering.   

Would it fit in our house?  Our tree stand?  Could my husband even carry it?  

Finally we brought it to a vote and with smiles all around, from the littlest face to the largest, we voted to embrace the glory of that giant, forlorn tree. 

Stumbling a little on his feet, my husband hoisted the heavy trunk halfway to his shoulder while I “spotted” from behind.  Then the six of us marched, triumphant, from the bargain patch, our faces filled with the glory of largess, the audacity of abundance discovered in unexpected places. 

 

People in the passing wagons smiled at us and I imagined the picture we made – a family short on cash with a gaggle of kids carrying this great misfit of a tree out of the mud and muck like we’d just won the lottery.

I was tempted to be embarrassed, but mostly I was joyful, exuberant.

Reading the Magnificat this week it occurred to me that maybe this is something akin to what Mary felt when she sang her famous song about the upheaval that was taking place within her.  Maybe the joy we felt lugging home that pearl of great price wasn’t so far removed from what the shepherds felt, slipping and sliding their way to the manger; not so different from the awe and welcome the wise men experienced entering the child's simple home after their costly exposure to Herod’s court.  

When the tree was home and in the stand, my husband cut the wrapping off and there was a pregnant pause before whomp! it sprang out of its confines filling the room and our hearts with joy.  

Every time I descend the stairs and spy it’s swollen circumference in the corner of the living room, Mary's question chimes within me, “How can this be?”  This is the story of Christmas, this story of searching and finding what you didn’t know you needed in a place you never would’ve thought to look.      

Credit for this sweet photo HERE.

(This post is dedicated to all of the families we've secretly and openly ridiculed for their ridiculously fat Christmas trees, specifically the Hicklins and the Ladases and in memory of my Grandfather Hausknecht whose Christmas trees got a little shorter and wider every year.)