Finding God in the Appliance Section of Lowes

 

It seems
a little scarier and

the sky may

be falling. But 

even we can

change

when

we discover

kindness and compassion.

- K. Chripczuk (found poetry)

As I mentioned in a recent video on my fb page, our washing machine died over the weekend. It was the last straw in a series of frustrating, flummoxing events. Although we have the money to replace it (thank you, thank you) it's not an easy fix and certainly not a project we would choose to tackle this week.  

All I wanted to do Monday morning was nestle into the Little House - to read, pray, practice yoga and return to my own sweet center. But what I needed to do was pick up my son's negative Covid test, drop him at school, and then look at our laundry closet and make decisions about stacking or not, used or new, and (because we live in an old, old house) which walls or outlets or plaster we might want to move or replace in the near or distant future. 

These were not conversations I wanted to be having, not decisions I wanted to be making. I didn't want to be googling "best dryer brands" or messaging people on fb marketplace for the dimensions of their used washing machines. And, even though a new washing machine is a miracle in itself, I really didn't want to be riding in the old red pickup truck to Home Depot (where everything was on back order) or Lowes. 

I struggled to see how God or spirituality might be part of the day I found myself in. But I tried to stay present. I tried to have patience with the sales woman who could not get us what we wanted when we wanted it. I tried to remember her humanity as well as my own. 

I tried, again, to find patience for the salesman at Lowes, who was a bit of a talker ,when all I wanted to know is which items were in stock. Looking back, I can see that it's hard to connect with people, hard to look them in the eye, when you don't want to be where you are, don't want to connect with your own circumstances or yourself.

I'm sure we seemed worried and stressed, but we lightened up a bit once a decision was made. The salesman got chattier still when he found out where we live and he somehow rambled on to the topic of pets, cats in particular. In the end, holding our receipt hostage, he told us a story about "the best cat we ever had," a small cat name Pickles. 

Pickles, he told us, was procured one year when he and his wife went to pick out a tree at a local Christmas tree farm. "There was a little girl wearing a long prairie-like dress," he said, gesturing with his hands as if to paint the dress before our eyes. "She had a little basket with a kitten in it." 

Again, he gestured with his working-man hands, creating an imaginary basket. Then, he placed one hand, palm up, in the center of his chest, just where someone would hold a wee kitten. 

"She was this little," he marveled. "She fit right in the palm of my hand. Except for her tail, hanging over the side. Except for her tail, she was just that big." Again, he gestured, showing with his other hand how the sweet little tail would have draped out over his wrist. Pickles lived to be 17 years old and, finally, just stopped eating. The vet told them to let her be, it was "just her time." 

Isn't it something, how that cat story showed up so unexpectedly right in the middle of our day? Our salesman went to a farm looking for a Christmas tree and came home with a kitten. We went to Lowes looking for a washing machine and came home with a love story. 

I watched the salesman's hands eyes as he wove his tale, they were cinnamon brown with gold flecks. Even though the day was harder than I wanted and, in some ways, the sky did feel like it was falling, this man and his story helped me find what I was looking for all along. Sometimes all it takes is a story and a stranger's eyes, to lead our hearts back home. 

The Road is Wide, the Rain is Falling

The words, "deeply grieved" hardly begin to convey the depth of fear, anger, and concern I feel over the treatment of asylum seekers at our southern borders.  Men, held in standing room only conditions.  Children, separated from mothers, from fathers.  Children younger than my own boys who beg for dessert after every meal and snuggle into my sides while reading on the couch. There is something deeply wrong with all of us who can endure these reports and still believe it has nothing to do with who we are.  

Yesterday, I thought again of Naomi Shihab Nye's poem, "Shoulders" - only this time it is a man crossing a river with his daughter in his arms, the hum of his daughter's dream - his daughter's future - deep inside him.  Only now, that dream is dead. 

This fourth of July, I'm sharing Nye's poem along with a post I wrote in 2017.  At that time, I could not name the force that kept us apart. Now, two years later, I believe that force is this: the belief that the differences that separate us are stronger than the forces that unite us.  

The road is wide, friends.  The rain is falling.  I fear, if we don't reach out, don't learn to hold hands, to see beyond what divides, we will all be swept away.

//
  
Shoulders

A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo
but he's not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.

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

We're 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. 

//

Cold rain turned his thin, white t-shirt translucent as he bent his body, like an umbrella, over the double stroller.  The newborn baby cried and he cradled it against his chest with one hand while rooting in a diaper bag with the other.  The girl, a big sister at three or four years old, sat quietly in the stroller - her brown eyes wide, her dark hair and pierced ears glinting in the early morning light.  

//

Hundreds of strangers had lined up throughout the morning, eager to bargain hunt at the annual thrift sale benefiting United Way.  A friend of mine, a veteran shopper of the sale, arrived at the door by six thirty.  Among the first in line, she staked out a coveted position as the best deals went very, very quickly. 

I rolled in a few minutes after seven, with a mug of coffee in hand, and took my place thirty to forty people behind my friend.  I waited behind a young Hispanic man with two children in a stroller and in front of an old-timer who'd brought a plastic crate to sit on.  The line stretched out, single-file, across the parking lot, growing steadily as we waited for the doors to open at eight.  

Time passed slowly.  The old-timer held my spot for me while I went to find a toilet.  The newborn in the stroller woke and cried and was jiggled back to sleep again.  Pleasantries were exchanged in that guarded but polite Central Pennsylvania way.  

The old-timer behind me carried on a long conversation with a woman two people ahead of me, bemoaning his no-good sons-in-law who couldn't keep a job, couldn't even change a tire.  The woman, in exchange, revealed she'd recently been laid off after twenty years on a job.  "Ain't nobody wants to hire you when you're my age," she said.  "Believe me, I know."  The general consensus between them seemed to be that young people weren't worth much these days.  The Hispanic man and I, both younger by far, exchanged uncomfortable glances.

By 7:30, the sky was growing darker, not lighter, and the forecast of possible rain turned certain.  I ran back to the truck and grabbed my rain coat when the first drops started and my friend, still stationed at the front of the line, brought me her extra umbrella.  

Scattered drops turned steady and an icy wind picked up.  About fifteen feet away, the building we were waiting to enter offered a small triangular overhang.  The old-timer was the first to take cover, leaving his plastic crate to hold his place in line.  The father followed soon after as the wind forced rain past the double stroller's shabby shades and the baby woke again, crying and hungry.  

He pushed the stroller the ten steps to the overhang and sidled it as close as he could against the wall.  The old-timer scooted over to make room in the tiny triangle of shelter.  The rest of us in line, some with rain coats and umbrellas, watched this father without a coat, trying to protect his children while also mixing a bottle of formula.  We were rooted in place, rubberneckers, observing one small family's drama unfold. 

//

I can't name the force that held us in line, keeping us from offering help or heading, en masse, to wait under a large catering tent nearby.  Whatever it was - fear, longing, desire - the feeling was palpable, like a force-field keeping us all apart, causing us each to suffer the storm in isolation, single-file in the passing cold and rain.  This force, I believe, though I can't put my finger on its exact shape or name, is one of, if not the signature evil of our times.  Under its sway, as Naomi Shihab Nye predicts in her poem, Shoulders, "the road will only be wide, the rain will never stop falling."

Somehow, we must kindle the courage, the imagination, necessary to enact an alternative to our chosen isolation.  What will it take for us to break out, to break through, to one another?

//

It was the way he curved his body over the stroller, the rounded defenselessness of his back as he leaned, rooting in the diaper bag; it was the way he sheltered them that caused my feet to move, that broke me out of line.  My feet moved, of their own accord, and then I was there, behind him, my body blocking him from the wind, my friend's umbrella held high at an angle over the two children and their dad.  

He turned, slightly, at my approach, acknowledged me with a nod, and carried on preparing the bottle, then feeding his infant son.  We stood close, awkwardly close in the small space, and didn't speak a word.  I smiled at the solemnly shy little girl with her deep brown eyes that drank in the world.

The rain passed, the sun peaked out, and we moved back into line.  The old-timer caught my eye.  "That was a nice thing you did," he said, "real nice."

//

Somehow, we must kindle the courage, the imagination, necessary to enact an alternative to our chosen isolation.  What will it take for us to break out, to break through, to one another?

Open Heart : A Sneak Peak and a Giveaway (#SmallWonder link-up)

This is it, friends, Monday, Nov. 7 "Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk & Poultry" officially launches into the world.  It's exciting and a little bit scary and so, in honor of that, I want to share an excerpt from the book - a story about love and risk, pain and joy.  Enjoy and when you're done reading scroll down to see my free launch-day giveaways.

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Cold winds and thunderstorms settled into the area over the weekend.  Saturday came and went in a fog of post-birthday-party exhaustion, and the sunny morning turned dark and windy by late afternoon.  In the morning, our sleepy kids stayed inside playing on the Wii, and I walked down to the fence, hoping to talk awhile with our neighbor Ann. 

I spotted her husband, Don, in the yard first, closer to the fence.  Based on two years of over-the-fence observation, I’ve reached the conclusion that Ann and Don’s yard is governed by a neat division of labor – Ann tends her teaming flowerbeds and Don putters in his vegetable garden.  Both the beds and the garden put ours to shame, but John and I comfort ourselves by remembering that the Ann and Don are retired and not raising four young children. 

I’ve noticed a similar division of labor in their approach to the neighborly business of fence-side small-talk – Ann engages freely in extended conversation over a wide range of topics, and Don does not.  Drawing Don to the fence to even ask a question is like pulling teeth.  Attempt more and he’s clearly uncomfortable.  

One day last summer, when we were integrating our second round of chicks into our well established flock, the twins discovered one of the chicks named America, trapped tight in the far corner of the run.  “She’s dead!  America’s dead!” they cried, running into the house and pulling me out into the yard.  Bending down to examine the chick I discovered a large bloody gash in her neck.  It looked, in fact, like she’d been decapitated.  I wasn’t sure what to do, and, more importantly, I didn’t want to deal with the dead bird alone while Isaiah and Levi ran enthusiastic circles around me. 

Standing up, I looked down toward Ann and Don’s yard hoping for help.  I caught a glimpse of Don and approached casually under the guise of commiserating but seriously hoping to convince him to take care of the dead bird.  Don, however, proved resilient in the face of my woman-in-distress ploy. 

“Oh,” he said, “that’s too bad.”  He didn’t offer to help, and, knowing it wasn’t his responsibility, I couldn’t bring myself to ask.  I would deal with the bird myself. 

When I got back to the chicken tractor I bent down again for a closer examination.  The twins, bored already with death, had wandered off and in their absence, I noticed the rise and fall the chick’s fluffy feathers.  She was still breathing, a clear sign she had not, in fact, been decapitated.  I walked into the run and reached into the far back corner where she was huddled.  Pulling her out and tucking her to my chest, I realized she was pecked up pretty badly but likely to survive.  After a few days of isolation and over-the-counter antibiotic ointment, she was on the mend, and I had learned not to expect Don to play the Knight in Shining Armor.   

So I wasn’t looking to talk to Don Saturday morning, I was looking for Ann.  I spotted her on the far side of their yard wearing shorts and tall black polka-dotted rain boots.  Easily forgetting she’s close to 70 years old, I watched as she pushed a wheelbarrow full of mulch around to her flower beds.  Seeing my approach, she made a bee-line to the fence, and we chatted about summer and the gigantic addition being added to a house on the hill behind our house.  While we talked, Isaiah and Levi ran over yelling, “Miss. Ann!  Miss. Ann!”  They climbed briefly up and down the fence, lapping up her attention, then trotted off to play again. 

The reason I walked down to the fence was that I needed someone to talk to.  The night before John and I had found out that dear friends of ours were separating, and our hearts were broken.  When our chit-chat wound down, I told Ann about it.  She affirmed the real pain of a marriage ending and how sad it is for everyone involved, sharing stories from her experience with the divorces of people she knows. 

So many of the married friends John and I share got married at the same time we did.  We knew, even then, that the odds were high that many of us would not stay married.  And yet now, some 15 years later, it still seemed impossible that some of our friends were entering into a post-marriage stage of life.

“Maybe we’re naïve,” I said, “I’m almost 40.  I don’t understand how these things still catch me by surprise.”  What I really couldn’t understand was why it hurt so badly – hurt to see our friends in such complete and utter pain, hurt to be unable to fix it for them, to only be able to stand by watching, listening, and praying. 

Turning back to face our yard, I noticed the Polish hens and asked Ann if she’d seen them.  She said she had but couldn’t really tell much about them since they were penned up in the run on the far side of our yard.   “Do you see the fluff-headed ones?” I asked, my eyes following the Polish hens as they pecked along the perimeter of the netting. 

“Yeah, kinda,” she said, “but not very well.” 

I described them for her in detail, painting a picture of their fluffy white pom-pom heads and lacy gray-black feathers.  As I talked, I felt love for them rise in my chest despite the distance between us. 

Later in the day, I told John about my conversation with Ann, about how I thought maybe we were just naive.  But I also told him something I had realized while standing at the fence watching those baby hens from a distance.  “I loved them,” I said, “even from all the way across the yard, and I guess if you’re the kind of person who can fall in love with a Polish hen, then life’s gonna hurt.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“There’s no separating the two,” I said.  “It’s like the words on that painting hanging in the upstairs hallway, “Love wide; make your way with an open heart.”  Loving a Polish hen is loving with an open heart, and an open heart’s gonna get hurt.  But an open heart also has access to the kind of joy that helps in the middle of the hurt.”

Some days, I think that’s the most we can hope for – enough joy to carry us through the hurt.  Maybe also, if we’re lucky, we might find a sturdy fence to lean on and a neighbor willing to listen for a few minutes or more.

(Like this story?  Want to read more?  Pop over now to order a copy!)

*   *   *

Today, I'm giving away two Prize Packages.  Two lucky winners will receive a signed copy of "Chicken Scratch" AND a "Chicken Poop" lip balm.  (For the record, the lip balm contains NO poop and only natural ingredients like avocado oil, beeswax and jojoba oil.)  Check out the Rafflecopter below to enter to win.  Winners will be announced next Sunday.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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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!  

The Power of Story (#SmallWonder Link-up)

This past weekend author and editor Andi Cumbo Floyd came and gave a reading of her new novel, Steele Secrets at our house.  You can learn more about Andi and her work here.  

Nine kids tromped up and down the stairs at random intervals, leaving a trail of fallen pretzels in their wake.  Adults sat in a circle of furniture listening politely and with interest to the author’s introduction. 

Someone fell on the stairs, someone else fed a handful of pretzels to the dog, and the kids continued to swirl as kids do, moving in clumps throughout the house.  Then the reading began.  The story slipped like spider silk from the author’s lips, spinning a web over the room as words danced from corner to corner. 

The children paused and grew still.  Drawn like magnets, their bottoms settled along the stairs, faces peeking through the railing.  As the story grew, my two oldest kids burst into the circle of adults.  First Solomon came and backed himself into my lap.  My arms settled around his middle like a seat belt.  How long has it been since he sat with me that way?  He stayed there through the whole chapter, tucked into me, even though his best friends from church and school were there too.  By the time we got to the part about the ghost, Sophia flew into the circle and belly flopped on the carpet.  

//

Story applies a centripetal force on its hearers, drawing us closer and closer to the source.  Even the most wily among us - children and adults - are not immune to its powers.  This is what I'm thinking of this week as we head into one of the Christian church's most storied times of the year - the power of story to draw us to the teller, to still our souls and bodies, to open doors we didn't know were closed.  

//

When the chapter ended, the reading ended, the spell broke and the kids scattered like dandelion fluff, consuming more pretzels, begging for another brownie and clamoring up and down the stairs again.  Almost as though they'd never stopped.   

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We finally have a #SmallWonder button!  If you want to use it, simply copy the image, then add it to your post or sidebar with a link to www.afieldofwildflowers.blogspot.com.  

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.  

Six Children's Books that Deepen My Faith

Sitting on the old leather couch or rocking slowly in a rickety glider, I’m surrounded by my children as we read together.  I feed my little ones on stories morning, noon and night.  Serving up Harry the Dirty Dog for breakfast, The Magic Tree House becomes an after nap snack, and the evening ends quite often with the quiet words of Goodnight Moon, lulling them off to sleep like sips of warm chamomile tea.  

Once children starting filling our house my own books – the ones from a bachelor’s degree in Biblical Studies and the others from a Master’s of Divinity – were packed away to make room for cribs and changing tables and piles upon piles of children’s clothes and books.  A voracious reader, my appetite was now sated by short stories set on colorful pages and, much to my surprise, those books began to speak to me in all kinds of surprising ways.    

The Carrot Seed taught me about simple faith and perseverance in the face of discouragement as I watched the little boy tend with care and conviction that which was being formed in places he could not see.  The Runaway Bunny gave me new images for and insight into the story of the prodigal son and God’s great mothering, fathering, loving pursuit of the ones who belong to him.  

When I’m tempted to trade the truth of who I am for something the world wants me to be, The Story of Ferdinand, that peaceful little bull who’s carted off to the bull fights in Madrid reminds me about the truth of identity.  Refusing to fight despite the expectations of the taunting and teasing crowd, Ferdinand helps me find the freedom and resolve to make my own quiet but firm stand rooted in the truth of my identity as a beloved daughter of God.  

Tempted to judge the wilderness within myself and my children, I remember the little wild thing Max from Where the Wild Things Are.  When the wildest parts of me “roar their terrible roars and gnash their terrible teeth” I’m learning to, on occasion at least, join in with the “wild rumpus.”  Then, when I’ve had enough I, like Max, return home tired and spent to the place of truth where I am loved just as I am.  

I Love You Just the Way You Are, the simple board book about the little bear Ba and his caretaker George, reminds of the truth that sometimes love is the only thing that can pull us out of a “grumpy, frumpy, stumpy” sort of day; love is the trump card that breaks through every time.

And The Lotus Seed, the story of a refugee from Vietnam who carried a lotus seed half way around the world, affirms for me the truth that beauty and life can come even from great darkness, 

                           It [the lotus] is the flower of life and hope, my grandmother said, 

                           no matter how ugly the mud or how long the seed lays dormant, 

                           the bloom will be beautiful . . . (Sherry Garland)

In times when I’ve been unable to search and study scripture as I once did, the themes of the gospel continue to find me as I sit reading with my children perhaps because my heart is open and listening like a little child.  Now, as time and space open up around me and I return to the ministry of spiritual direction, writing and preaching, it's no surprise that I carry these books with me, replacing my church's usual movie clip sermon intro with a reading of The Runaway Bunny or The Carrot Seed. These books, through the grace and mercy of God, have influenced my "business"  and faith as much or more than any others. 

Are there any children’s books that influence your faith? 

Curious about these books? Here are the full titles and authors:

The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown
The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
I Love You Just the Way You Are, by Virginia Miller
The Lotus Seed, by Sherry Garland
also check out The Curious Garden by Peter Brown which offers such a beautiful analogy for the way the kingdom of God can be tended and spread among us.  

This post is linked with the High Calling community linkup around the prompt Best Books for Business.  Click over to find more takes on the topic.

Let us Lay Aside Our Judgments (a Dare to Keep a Steady Gaze Upon that Which Disturbs Us this Holy Week)

My friend spoke at a retreat recently, teaching about the use of icons in prayer.  She explained that icons are painted with skewed perspective - limbs jut off at odd angels and the symmetry typically associated with beauty is often missing.  “The first thing we do when we see an icon is judge it,” she said.  

//

The quickest and simplest way to create distance between ourselves and that which discomforts us is to cast judgment. 

//

When I returned to complete my chaplaincy residency, just a few short weeks after my oldest child was born, a new crop of summer students had joined our small rotation.  Among them was a heavy-set woman with wild, frizzy hair and frumpy clothes.  She talked loudly and out of turn, taking up too much space both physically and verbally and worse yet, she seemed utterly and completely unrepentant about it. 

Oh, she made me bristle and cringe. 

I was quieter because of her, hoping my own silence inspire her to follow suit.  I was more restrained in an effort to somehow make up for her exuberance. 

I judged her quickly and harshly for all of the traits I found so disturbing and my judgment built a silent and sturdy wall between us.

In the program I was in, this kind of strong reaction was fodder for reflection.  So I thought about my reaction and talked about it with my supervisor.  Eventually I came to see that this woman seemed to somehow be a flesh and blood embodiment of my shadow-self.  She embodied the traits I feared most and in judging her I was judging the most unacceptable parts of myself. 

If I dared to welcome, accept and even love her, how would I keep myself in check?  If it was ok for her to be simply as she was, then maybe the same was true for me.  Wouldn’t that just be giving myself permission to be loud, large, and unkempt?

I wasn’t ready to let that happen, though, so I judged her and parts of myself with her. 

//

Icons are not pleasing because they often appear to be somehow broken.  To accept the image they bear may require the acceptance of our own broken image.  Perhaps icons disturb us in the same way our own deep brokenness does.  In rejecting icons and the images they bear, maybe we're also rejecting the most broken and fragile parts of ourselves.

In this way, icons are similar to the sacred stories of  Holy Week - stories filled with human sin, awash with that which we'd rather not see, hear, or touch.  Everywhere we look in this week's gospel readings, humans are found behaving badly.  They're out of focus, skewed, and jutting off at odd angles in relation to the One who walks quietly among them.  Maybe this is why it's so tempting for the reader to cast judgment or, better yet, look away. 

//

“Icons are quiet paintings,” my friend continues, “They're not art, they are not meant to be beautiful.  In their quietness, they invite us in.” 

Maybe this is how the stories of Holy Week are too.

//

May we lean in close this week, my friends.   

May we lift our faces, our eyes, our hearts to that which disturbs us most deeply.   

Let us withhold our judgment on the brokenness we see lest we also judge ourselves.  

Give us steady eyes, dear God, as we gaze at your image distilled across the shattered surface of humanity.  Grant us grace that we might learn to see and be seen through eyes of love.

Like the Rings of a Tree

"The Boys of Sayre" is written on the back of this photograph. 

My grandfather, Ralph Hausknecht, is in the front on the far right.

 



Our lives are made up of stories, like a tree is made up of rings.  The oldest stories circle us, hold us, growing and shifting as we grow, they wrap around our very lives, holding us to the past, shaping the way we face the future. 

*   *   *

My Grandfather was a veteran of the second World War.  I was a thin scrap of a girl with long brown hair and bangs, when he sat at the kitchen table with me.  His fingers held the worn black pages of photo albums, turning pages, touching and talking, but his stories ran past me like a stream in the woods, like the wind through leaves and I, being young and green, could not take them in. 

What I do remember is his presence, sweaty from working in the garden, his thinning hair combed-over, the way he simply was.  Watching an episode of Call the Midwives where Nurse Lee cares for an elderly veteran, I am swept through with a longing for that man who died some twenty years ago now. 

In the bathroom of my grandparents' house is a wooden drawer that holds the scarves and a beautiful comb and mirror set he mailed home during the war.  As a child, I would shut the door and stand behind it, fingering the silk and silver, those tokens of love that flew half-way across the world to the woman who refused to marry him before he left, to the woman who refrained for fear he would never return. 

Grown now, I gather these stories like sticks fallen to the forest floor, I search the stories of his life, counting and adding them like rings of a tree, carving out an image of who he was, who he is, as he lives still in the shape of his stories. 

Telling the stories of my ancestors, I imagine them growing as I speak, as I write, as though through my words I can conjure a mighty grove of trees; giant oaks and speckled sycamores, twisted and worn with age.  I gather my children there in their shadows, turning like he did, the worn, black pages of photo alums.  The stories run by my children's ears, like so many streams, but deep down, in a place I cannot see, they are drinking them in.

Talking of what was we grow together into what will be. 

This post is linked with Playdates with God.